Chapter Twenty-Four
Walker
T he most beautiful music played. I had never cared about music beyond enjoying a catchy tune, but this was heavenly. Chords swelled, and basses boomed, and I had to get closer.
If only I could get off this damn rock.
I hated the women who strapped me to it. I spat curses at them, but my mouth wouldn’t comply with my mind and only gibberish came out. It didn’t matter. I could barely hear myself past the glorious music.
It buzzed against my skin like the most potent magic. I reached for my power to help get me out of my binds, but it too floated away, out of my control. The music reached a crescendo—it was so loud and so beautiful, it hurt.
I dug my fingernails into my palms to try to distract myself from the pain, but nothing helped.
The music eclipsed everything.
???
Freya
“I’m serious,” I insisted. “Talk to him. Take his hand—touch is important for wolves.”
Every instruction was acid on my tongue, but Elle’s effect on Ryder was undeniable, though she no longer appeared intent on saving her mate. As she considered the affection required of her, her face crumpled. For the first time, I wondered if she felt the same longing toward him that he did for her. Getting closer might be more painful than keeping her distance.
As I realized how similar the chimera and I were, I choked down bile.
“I know he took you from your family,” I said softly, “but he did it to save you. Think of this as returning that favor, not agreeing to marry the guy.”
I stole your chance at marrying him anyway.
Elle swallowed and approached Ryder. With shaking hands, she cupped his face.
“Ryder,” she said his name, and his eyes glowed like a wolf’s. “Come back. Come back to us now.”
As Ryder broke free from the sirens’ song, Walker groaned once more in pain. Blood leaked from his palms.
“Oh, Goddess,” I murmured and returned to him. “We have to pull him out of this, Cady.”
As she tried to unclench her brother’s fists, Cady’s eyes brimmed with tears.
“How?” she whispered then gasped. “Wait—didn’t Marie Laveau call you his Anchor?”
I had worked hard at forgetting that tidbit of information, but staring at Walker now, I considered it.
“Freya,” Cady said, “you can’t deny you two share some weird bond.”
“Bonded by blood,” I recalled the troll’s similar words, “and stronger than ore.”
Had I forsaken Ryder’s bond only to end up with one of my own?
My blood and my magic had been crucial in giving Walker his second chance at life. My power had called him back to me, but did any of that linger now?
“Your magic,” Cady said and gestured between the two of us, “it sings to each other. When one of you walks into a room, the other’s magic answers. It’s subtle, but I always thought it was cute.”
Cute. My mother would roll over in her grave to learn I had somehow bonded myself to a man. Josephine would’ve laughed in my face.
I took a sharp breath.
They weren’t here anymore.
There was only me.
I had screwed up enough already trying to be like my mother. Trying to do everything for everyone else was exhausting.
As I cupped Walker’s face and willed his electric blue eyes to meet mine, I admitted to myself that saving him time and time again was selfish.
Saving him was like saving myself.
Over the last few months, he had become a part of me.
Walker’s gaze met mine, and I marveled at the magic in its depths, powerful even when dimmed by the sirens’ song. It was magic that called to my very soul. It was a call I had spent months trying to ignore.
Now, I answered it.
???
Walker
The woman in front of me was beautiful.
It was the only thing I knew, aside from the sweeping melodies of the music, but even that drifted as a more familiar song filled my ears. No, it wasn’t quite a song, but a heartfelt hum that moved my very soul. It tasted like cinnamon and smelled like cedar after fresh rain.
It felt like home.
My own magic answered in return. Lightning danced on my skin, but I imbued it not to hurt her.
I would never hurt her.
Her achingly familiar magic called to mine and roared in my ears, fierce as a lion. As her copper eyes bored into mine, I realized I knew this witch like I knew myself. I spoke her name, and everything else quieted.
“Freya.”
She smiled, and it was like sunshine after a thunderstorm. I reached for her, but something held me back. I glanced down and found myself strapped to a giant rock.
“Walker?” Cady said and came to Freya’s side.
Fear marred her tiny face, and my heart squeezed.
“It’s me, Cady-Cat,” I promised. “I’m okay.”
My sister grinned, and the vines released me. I stumbled forward, but Cady and Freya were there to help me right myself. Cady reached behind her and lifted my familiar brown hat. I crouched so she could put it back on my head then lifted my sister in my arms and swung her around. She was heavier than the last time I had done it, but I didn’t mind, not when she squealed in delight as she always had.
Once I set her down, my gaze returned to Freya.
Freya, who feels like home.
I wanted to hug her. No, I wanted to send everyone away for the next hour, the next year, and kiss her senseless. I wanted to touch her creamy skin and pay homage to every freckle and feel the softness she hid under that hard shell—
Freya inhaled sharply and turned away.
“Try to eye-bang her with less of a crowd, maybe?” Cady whispered.
Heat crawled up my neck, and Freya coughed. Her ears were tipped pink. I elbowed my sister and mouthed, what the hell?
Cady merely giggled and focused on where Ryder and Elle stood a foot apart from each other, awkwardly staring into each other’s eyes. Surprisingly, Ryder was the first one to pull away. He scratched the back of his neck and cleared his throat.
“Um, thanks,” he said, “for…bringing me back.”
Below us, something hissed and splashed. We walked to the edge of the cliff, and I caught a glimpse of a glimmering black tail.
“So,” I said, “what exactly just happened?”
Freya opened her mouth to explain, and I noticed her face was paler than normal. I wanted to ask her if she was okay, but something shifted beneath our feet. Not something, I realized, but the island itself. Instinctively, I guided Freya and Cady away from the cliff’s edge.
As adrenaline sped up my heart, my magic flared through my veins. In answer, Freya’s power thrummed in the air. The ground shook harder, and we locked eyes.
“We need to take cover,” Ryder said.
The ground shook more violently, and a limb fell from a tree. It crashed toward us, and I reached a hand to block it. Lightning stretched from my palm and struck the falling limb. For a moment, I stared at my hand in wonder.
“Get down!” Freya ordered.
We crouched, and she created a forcefield of wind that surrounded us. Cady reinforced it with towering, thick vines. As the ground continued to shake, I tucked my sister beneath me. Birds screeched, and the earth itself rumbled.
“Not yet,” Freya whispered. “It’s not time.”
“What?” I whispered but Freya didn’t answer. She didn’t even meet my gaze.
Eventually, the shaking turned into a mere rattling, which died down until everything was eerily still. No one moved.
“Do you think it’s over?” Elle asked.
I sighed. “Only one way to find out.”
Cady’s vines retreated, but Freya’s wind continued to whirl around us. I brushed my hand against hers.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s over.”
“It is,” Freya agreed, but she sounded sad.
As Freya’s wind stilled, we rose from our crouches to find fallen trees all around us.
“Stay back,” I said.
For once, Cady listened, but Freya trailed close to my side.
“Something feels,” Cady mused, “weird. Something in the ground isn’t right.”
As the words left her mouth, the jungle floor buckled. Freya and I tumbled into a pit of darkness. As we fell, blue light flared around us, but we dropped down, down, down too fast to make sense of it.
In breathless whispers, Freya chanted a spell. Her magic mingled with the strange space that swallowed us whole. Air enveloped us and slowed our fall. As I took a breath of relief, we finally hit a hard floor. My shoulder took the brunt of the contact, and I groaned.
“At least,” Freya panted, “we didn’t break our necks.”
“True,” I said. “Nice work.”
I rolled onto my back and took in our surroundings. Total darkness surrounded us, except for the speck of light far above. I reached blindly for Freya. When my hand brushed against her skin, our magic sparked. Energy like static electricity flared between us, and I winced at the zap of pain.
Blue light trickled from where my fingers touched hers and traveled like a river across the floor. Swirling shapes and glyphs took shape.
Our magic, in the shape of dancing blue light, journeyed in rivulets up a tall ceiling and flared anew in looming stalactites. Again and again, our magic separated into different pathways around the room, until we were surrounded by glowing carvings. Magic trailed down from the walls and swirled around the floor, until it traveled up a stone dais. Atop the dais sat a simple, metal bowl.
Freya pushed herself to her feet. In the blue light, she bore no obvious injuries, much to my relief. With magic humming in my ears, I rose.
“We’re in some kind of cave,” Freya said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
She looked nervously up to the hole we had fallen through and shuddered. “We need to get out of here.”
I didn’t disagree, but as I studied the cavern, I couldn’t deny I was curious.
“Why do you think it opened?” I asked.
“Something must have triggered it,” Freya said. She studied the carvings. “Maybe the sirens?”
“That’s what that…” I shivered. “ Sound was?”
Freya nodded and whispered a spell. Her magic swelled, but it only caused the glowing light to burn more brightly. I hissed and closed my eyes against the blinding light. Freya cursed under her breath, and it dimmed back to its gentle glow.
“How are we going to get out if I can’t summon a bit of wind?” she muttered and chewed her lip.
She was uncharacteristically panicked. Remembering how she had been trapped by those ghost-witches, I ran a hand down her arm in comfort.
“It’ll be okay,” I said. “We will get out.”
“We have to,” she pleaded. Fear rounded her eyes. “We have to, Walker. Quickly.”
“We will,” I promised and gently squeezed her arm. “Maybe it’ll help us figure a way out if we understand where we are.”
“And why,” Freya added. She nodded to herself and paced. “This place is ancient. I don’t have your sister’s affinity for earth magic, but the magic of this place feels…untouched. Undisturbed. I think we’re the first beings to come here in a long time.”
“Ancient,” I repeated.
A thought niggled in my brain, just out of reach. When it struck me, I gasped.
“The cave of the ancients will tell you all,” I said. “Freya, this is what those crazy-ass trolls were talking about!”
Frey jerked her head up in down. “Right. This wasn’t triggered by the sirens’ song…”
“It was triggered by our connection,” I said, “The cave pulled us in after your magic called me back from the sirens’ enthrallment.”
“Our magic worked together,” she agreed, “and the cave appeared.”
Freya studied me with wild eyes.
“Marie called you something,” she said. “When she heard our magic interacted, she called me your—"
“Anchor,” I finished.
The light that swirled around us flared in response to the title.
“We’re here because you’re my Anchor.” I took a deep breath. “Whatever the hell that means.”