Chapter Nine
Annika
I stood at the edge of the hole, peering down into the darkness below. The wind carried the faintest scent of Lucas. Smoke, blood, and something wild. It was him. I knew it. He was down there, somewhere, trapped in that hellish cellar.
Beside me, Kael moved quickly, tying our shirts and pants together. It was the only thing we could come up with to lower into the hole and help Lucas out.
“Do you think he’ll be able to climb up this?” Kael asked.
I didn’t look at him as I nodded my head. “He has to.”
The rope was crude, the fabric fraying in places, but it was the only thing we had. Kael finished the knot and held it tight, testing its strength. I looked down, touching the makeshift rope. For a moment, Kael’s doubts overtook me. What if we weren’t able to pull Lucas up?
The thought of losing him again… it made my heart ache, a sharp, burning feeling that threatened to tear me apart.
“Annika,” Kael’s voice pulled me back to the present moment. “It’s time.”
I nodded, biting my lip to keep the tremor out of my voice. There was no more waiting. No more hesitation. I didn’t care about the risks, the dangers. Lucas was down there, and I wasn’t going to lose him.
“Lucas!” I shouted into the hole, my voice echoing in the cavernous space. My heart thudded in my chest, pounding in my ears. “Lucas, can you hear me?”
I waited, holding my breath, but only silence answered back.
I glanced at Kael, and without another word, he threw the rope into the hole. The fabric disappeared into the dark abyss, swallowed up by the shadows. I gripped the rope tight, pulling, hoping that there would actually be something to pull.
“Lucas?” Kael called out again.
Suddenly, there was a rustle down in the darkness.
“Lucas?” I breathed his name like a prayer.
“I’m here!” Finally, we heard him.
“Grab on,” Kael instructed. “Can you reach the rope?”
“I think so,” Lucas spoke from the darkness.
A moment later, the rope tightened.
“Pull,” Kael instructed, although he was doing most of the pulling, as I couldn’t stop the tremor in my hands.
Finally, Lucas’ face emerged from the shadows. As we were pulling him, he was also climbing up, desperately, using every bit of strength he had left. His hair, matted with dirt, hung loose around his face. His clothes were torn, but there was no mistaking the look in his eyes.
A deep, guttural sound escaped his throat as he made his way up the rope. His muscles straining with the effort. The sight of him, so raw, so alive, made everything else fade away.
When his hands reached the top, Kael reached down, pulling him the rest of the way, and I nearly fell forward, throwing myself at him.
“Lucas…” I whispered, relief flooding through me like a storm.
I didn’t care about the dirt or the blood. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him tight.
His arms circled around me, pulling me closer, but there was a tension in his touch. I pulled back slightly, meeting his gaze. His eyes were darker than usual, something stormy behind them.
“What happened?” I asked, trying to read him.
He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he just stared at me, as if seeing me for the first time. His jaw clenched, and for a moment, I thought he might push me away. But then, he exhaled slowly, and his hand came to rest gently on my cheek.
“I thought I lost you,” he managed to muster. His thumb brushed over my skin like he couldn’t believe I was real. “I thought I was... I was gone.”
We quickly left the place, with Lucas somehow seeming to lag behind. Once we were finally out and back in the forest, Kael suggested we stop for a moment. I welcomed the idea.
Lucas sat on the ground, with his back resting against a broken tree stump. The moonlight carved sharp angles into his face, highlighting the tension in his jaw. Something had happened. But what?
I knelt beside him, touching his shoulder. He didn’t react at first. He just stared at the dirt beneath his boots, as if lost in something I couldn’t see.
“Lucas,” I said softly, squeezing his arm. “Talk to me.”
Kael was close by, and he could overhear us easily, but I didn’t mind that.
Lucas exhaled loudly. “I saw something down there.”
Kael stepped closer upon those words, barely able to hide the concern he was feeling.“What do you mean? Saw what?”
Lucas ran a hand through his hair, pulling at the strands in frustration. “I don’t know if it was real,” he admitted. “Magic, a hallucination… but she was there.”
I stiffened, my fingers tightening on his arm. “She?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “A woman. She formed from dust. Smoke. Whatever the hell it was. She claimed—” He hesitated, his mouth twisting like the words tasted like poison. “She claimed to be my true mate.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Fortunately, Kael did. “That’s impossible.”
Lucas finally looked at me then. “I know.” His voice was raw. “I know it’s a lie. I told her she was lying.” He reached for me, his fingers brushing over my wrist, an unspoken believe me in the gesture.
The bond between us thrummed. I felt as if someone bore a hole in my skin and was now pulling my veins out, one by one.
“She said she could offer salvation,” he went on, his fingers curling against his knee like he was trying to suppress the fury in him. “That to save them, something had to be exchanged. One thing for another.” His voice deepened into a growl. “Like she was playing god. Like she had the right.”
A chill slid down my spine. Magic. Some twisted, ancient magic. It had to be.
Kael shifted uneasily. “And you’re sure she wasn’t just—”
Lucas shot him a glare. “I don’t know, Kael. I don’t even know if it was real.” His hands clenched. “But it felt real. I could hear her, smell her. I tried to grab her, but she was just smoke.”
I sucked in a slow breath, forcing myself to think. If it was magic, if something powerful enough had reached into that cellar and shown itself to him, then we were dealing with something far more dangerous than we had anticipated.
I touched his face gently, brushing away a streak of dirt on his cheek. He leaned into my touch, if only just for a second.
I didn’t like the way he looked, so haunted by what had happened. Lucas never second-guessed himself. He simply knew things, he trusted his instincts and followed them like an unshakable force. But now? He looked… unsettled.
Kael thought about it for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. “It has to be a witch,” he said firmly. “Something ancient. Something with enough power to force visions like that.”
Lucas’s expression darkened. “She didn’t feel like a witch. She felt like something… I don’t know…”
Kael shrugged. “Powerful beings can feel like anything, depending on what magic they wield.” His argument was logical, but still lacked conviction. “Regardless, if she could get inside your head like that, you need to be cautious.”
Lucas let out a low, humorless laugh. “Cautious? She knew about my son, Kael. She knew about the town.” He paused for a moment. “What good is caution against something that already has the upper hand?”
Kael didn’t back down. “You don’t let it have the upper hand. You fight it. You don’t play into whatever game it’s setting up.”
Lucas just shook his head slightly, staring into the distance, his thoughts somewhere far away.
I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to shake the unease settling in my stomach. This wasn’t just a trick of the mind. This was something real. Something that had touched Lucas in a way nothing else had before. And I hated it.
I hated that some thing had gotten to him when I wasn’t there. I hated that it had whispered to him, played with his mind, tried to make him question himself. And, if I was being honest with myself, I hated that it had come to him in the form of a beautiful woman.
I clenched my jaw against the sharp pang in my chest. I trusted Lucas. I knew who he was, what we were to each other. But jealousy was a strange thing, creeping in even when it wasn’t wanted.
I pushed it down as hard as I could.
“It was nothing,” he murmured, only for me to hear. “She was nothing.”
I nodded, exhaling slowly, pressing my fingers into my arms. “I know.”
But unfortunately, that didn’t mean she was gone.
“We need to go to Rowena,” Kael voiced his idea.
Lucas didn’t like it one bit. “No.”
Kael sighed, rubbing his temples. “We don’t have the shifters’ scent, Lucas. We don’t know which way to go. Unless you suddenly developed a sixth sense for tracking through magic, we’re wasting time wandering in the dark.”
I knew that Lucas didn’t want to turn back, and going to Rowena was exactly that. Instead of going forward to find our boy, we were turning back. I knew he saw it like that.
I tenderly placed a hand on his arm. “She might be our only chance,” I said softly. “If this woman, whoever or whatever she was, really is as powerful as you think, then we need answers. We need someone who understands magic. We need to see if she managed to find out about that rune.”
Lucas still didn’t say anything, so Kael pushed. “Rowena has dealt with things like this before and you know it.”
She had a way of seeing past what was in front of her, understanding things in a way most others couldn’t. If anyone could make sense of what Lucas had seen, it was her.
“Lucas,” I said gently. “We don’t have anything. No scent. No trail. Nothing.” I swallowed, keeping my voice steady. “Rowena is already helping us. She’s waiting for us. We should go back.”
His eyes flared at me. “And do what?” His voice was rough and bitter with disappointment. “Sit around and hope she finds something? Waste more time?”
“She’s the only one who might have answers,” Kael pressed. “Unless you suddenly have a better idea.”
Lucas stayed silent.
I knew what was happening. He didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to admit that he felt powerless. That something had shaken him so deeply, he couldn’t even trust his own instincts right now.
“This isn’t giving up,” I whispered. “This is being smart.”
Then, finally, he exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “Fine,” he muttered. “We’ll go back.”
Relief washed through me, but I didn’t let it show. I just gave his hand a small squeeze before letting go.
Kael grinned, clapping Lucas on the shoulder. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
Lucas shot him a glare, but I caught the way his shoulders relaxed, if only just a little.
We turned back to our horses, retracing our steps toward Rowena.
Because, whether Lucas liked it or not, we had nowhere else to go.