A Dawn Of Blood (The Originals of Grimm Academy: The Chronicles #3)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I fly through the portal and fall straight to all fours, the dead leaves softening the blow of the hard forest ground. I waste no time. I jump to my feet and spin around, my breath catching when I see he’s really not following.

“Orpheus,” I cry out.

Then, right in front of my eyes, the portal starts closing.

“Easy,” a voice I haven’t heard in so long booms inside my head.

It’s my wolf, but I can’t bring myself to care about what she’s trying to tell me. I lunge forward to try to jump back in, only to fall to my face.

“Anna,” I hear Raven call out, concern in her voice.

For a moment, I just keep lying on the forest floor, unable to form words. There’s this urge to yell at her to let me go, to scream at someone or something. Gritting my teeth so as to suppress all that, I finally ask, “What?”

Then it hits me. It’s her actual voice I’ve just heard, not an echo of it in my mind.

I spring to my feet and spin around, my gaze darting over Lorcan and straight to her human form, the one I haven’t seen since we traveled back in time. The sight makes my eyebrows shoot up in silent wonder.

We throw ourselves into each other’s arms, my eyes welling with tears. “Raven,” I whisper.

The smile she gives me when she pulls away is sad, tentative, but…

The facts that I can sense my wolf’s presence again and that Raven’s curse is back to being broken…

“I think it’s safe to say we’re back,” Lorcan gives voice to what all three of us seem to be thinking.

I give an absent-minded nod. “Yeah, I guess it is,” I reply, my voice sounding distant and hollow. I put in the effort to really look at them. I smile, however sadly. “I’m so happy for you, Raven, and you, Lorcan.”

They exchange a glance, not seeming too happy themselves. Motioning at the now closed portal, Raven asks, “What do you want us to do?”

There’s such determination to be of help in her voice, it breaks my heart.

My features twisting in anguish, I vigorously shake my head. “Nothing, Raven. I want you to go back to your lives. You’ve sacrificed enough for me already.”

“What about you?” she insists in a near whisper.

“I…” I find a stump to slump onto, then turn to angrily stare at the spot where there’s no more shimmering, just the trees and the leaves and the bits of darkening sky behind them.

I can’t lose him, not again. I just can’t.

I swallow around a lump in my throat. “I need to think.”

“What is there to think about?” Lorcan demands.

I look up at him, my eyebrows pulling down. “ Everything , Lorcan. In case you haven’t noticed, this hasn’t exactly gone the way it was supposed to.” The flood of emotions renders me speechless for a moment again. “We were supposed to arrive together , Orpheus and I.”

“We’re finally back where we belong, Anna,” he insists, “despite everything. And didn’t Orpheus tell you why this has happened — simply because it’s not even possible for him to follow you?”

“Lorcan,” Raven warns him.

But my mind is already buzzing. What are my options here? “Maybe the portal will open again,” I say, “maybe I’ll prove him wrong.”

They both remain silent.

“I’ll prove him wrong,” I ask my wolf, desperation in my voice, “won’t I?”

But she’s silent as well.

I get this urge to either cry or laugh. I look up at Lorcan and Raven instead. “Please,” I urge, “don’t stay on my account. Lorcan, you have your daughter to think about. Raven, it’s been a whole year since the last time Alaric saw you.”

Raven frowns. “We’re not leaving you all alone in these woods, Anna,” she says scoldingly. “We’re not in the nineteenth century anymore. You’re probably the most wanted person in the world at this point in time, and besides, you’re family as well. Isn’t that right, Lorcan?” she turns to him to demand with this warning in her voice.

But Lorcan is not looking at either her or me. It’s some spot behind our backs he’s staring at. “That’s all true, Raven, but…”

I follow his gaze, my wolf starting to sniff at the air as soon as I spot them — the fumes coming off the nearby trees.

What the…

“Those are not harmless,” my wolf states with concern.

At that exact same moment, I see the fumes make the leaves above rot to the point of falling down in the form of blackened mush.

“This looks too much like what Baldur’s reign is doing to Nature Magic,” I hear Lorcan say.

I turn to him and Raven just as she whispers, “That’s odd. France is supposed to be safe, isn’t it?”

I come to stand next to them, watching more trees start giving the fumes off.

And there’s this urge in me to say to hell with it, to hell with everything but finding some hole to crawl in and die.

“I know it’s hard, Anna” my wolf says gently, quietly. “After all, you’ve just had your entire world shattered, all over again. But I need you to get it together. We all do.”

Just as she says that, the trees closer to us start getting affected, making more blackened mush drop to the ground.

My mind flashes with an image of what the fumes would do with flesh.

“Alright,” I hear Lorcan command, “we need to get out of the woods, fast.”

Gritting my teeth, I make myself snap out of it and give a sharp nod.

We all shift, turn around and run until we’re out of the cover of the trees.

It’s on the edge of a hill that we stop, looking over our shoulders to make sure we’re safe from the trees. When I look ahead again, despite the dusk that’s quickly gathering, I make out a valley with a town nestled by a river.

My wolf zooms in on the town gate. My eyebrows pull down. “Could this be Troyes?”

“It should be,” Lorcan says, though there is a touch of hesitance in his voice.

“Why do they have guards posted at the entrance?” I ask.

He doesn’t get a chance to reply. This sound makes us all look over our shoulders, where we see the fumes starting to come off the grass as well.

“I think we better find shelter for the night,” Lorcan grits out.

My gaze darts to the darkness between the trees where I know the portal was. There’s such hesitance in me to move any farther away from it, feeling as if I’d forever be leaving him, which in turn makes me feel such abysmal sadness, I think I’m going to be sick.

“To the ends of the universe, that’s how much I love you, Anyi,” his words ring in my head. “Like I found you in your original timeline, like I found you in this one, I will always find you.”

Gritting my teeth so as not to start crying, I first take a deep breath to calm my nerves, then force myself to tear my eyes away from the spot where the portal was and turn them back onto Troyes.

It doesn’t matter how much I don’t like it. I know exactly what I need to do.

I need to keep going. I need to keep believing and one day, I’ll find him again, hopefully once and for all.

“That’s right,” my wolf says, obviously sad but pleased with my decision.

“Thank you for not pushing anything on me,” I whisper to her. “Thank you for always being on my side. I’m so happy to be reunited with you.”

She doesn’t say anything, she just lets out a disgruntled yet endeared grunt.

I take another deep breath and turn back to Lorcan and Raven, my eyes scanning their clothes. Raven is back in the one she wore before we landed in the nineteenth century, and myself and Lorcan are wearing the clothes I had the royal tailor make for us before we left for the twenty-first century.

Content with how well we’ll fit in, I summon all my determination and pull my hood on. “We’d have to sneak in, you know, for obvious reasons. But once we’re inside,” I say as I pat the inside pocket on my jacket, “I’m sure I could trade some of the gold for a motel room or something.”

They both nod. For a moment, I turn to stare at the darkening clouds looming over Troyes, then start leading the trek down. I’m still devastated, but I’m holding onto that flicker of hope in me, tightly, and I’m starting work on growing it into a flame.