Chapter 11
Cat
The horses didn’t need to be rested or watered. They were immortal, beings of magic and pure power, hence the dark magic that wafted from them with every step they took.
They were also beings of unmatched stubbornness, and as our path led us through the hills above Death’s castle and down into a winding valley road where pale flowers poked through grasses still vibrant green despite the mist weaving through it, all six steeds stopped, helped themselves to the living banquet, and refused to budge.
I dismounted Fuzzball with a sigh. We’d only been riding for two hours and something, some inner pull, told me it would take far longer to reach our destination.
To find the scales of Judgement. My instrument, I knew, because that man had told me.
The one I couldn’t remember, whose name refused to bubble up in my mind despite every attempt to summon it.
“Your greed is a thing of nightmares,” I told Fuzzball, who didn’t even lift her head from where she’d buried it in the flower-laden grass, happily gorging herself.
“Should they even be eating flowers?” I asked Tor when he dismounted in a swoop of powerful muscle and masculine competency. I fought the urge to fan myself. But he was my husband, after all… “Are these even safe for horses?”
“I doubt anything could kill these guys,” Tor replied, digging around in his saddlebags and handing over a metal water bottle with cute cartoon animals all over it.
Prairie dogs, a hidden knowledge whispered as I accepted it and drank heavily.
It occurred to me only after I’d guzzled down mouthfuls of water that he could easily have drugged me.
Then these men could have done anything to me while I was unconscious.
I could have woken up tied to a chair, in a dimly lit room.
Alone, but watched. Unable to escape, to work even a centimetre of space into the rope bound around my wrists.
My imagination was so sharp, I could feel the bite of the rope.
I could feel the cool metal of the chair, a prison caging me in place while fists assaulted my ribs, making bones bow and break, making space for so much pain that I couldn’t stand it.
And all the while that scent invaded all my senses. Sharp lemon and sickly mint.
“Cat. Beautiful?”
I jumped hard when someone grasped my shoulders, and it was instinct to throw my hands up, letting loose a slingshot of magic, the wild beast that lived within me churning, snarling for blood.
It went deadly still, almost flinching at the sight of Tor stumbling back, clutching his shoulder.
“Damn,” he murmured, and then against all odds—he grinned. “Look at you, deadly already.” He paused. “Not that you weren’t deadly before, but this? This is a whole new level.”
“Stop gawking at me,” I said roughly, turning away from him to drag my hands over my face.
That was my first mistake; it gave him the perfect opportunity to wrangle me into a hug, my face pressed to his chest, his scent drowning out the lemon-mint nightmare.
My second mistake was melting into the embrace, swaddling myself in the comfort of it to chase off the dark memory.
“What did you remember?” he asked, lips moving against the shell of my ear.
“Nothing,” I answered too quickly.
The others were probably looking at us, watching me fall prey to this all-encompassing sense of safety yet again. But I couldn’t pull away. Not yet.
Tor stayed quiet, long enough that I gathered he was trying to draw an answer out of me.
I extricated myself from him and raised an eyebrow. “Is that one of your torment techniques? Silence as interrogation?”
His mouth quirked into a smile. I shouldn’t have been looking at his lips. But I was like a moth, and Tor was the flame I couldn’t look away from. “It usually works.”
I patted his bicep, and swallowed at the hard muscle. “Better luck next time.”
His laugh was abrupt and loud, but it only lasted a moment before his smile faded, and the way he looked at me… tender, painful, longing. I glanced away, unable to forget that he’d held my lifeless body only hours ago.
“What, uh,” I began, chewing my lip and aware of everyone scattered around the valley, conspicuously busy with their horses or bags but listening. “What happened to my body?”
When Tor was quiet again, I turned to look at him, something in my chest lurching at the devastation in his expression, at the way he buried his face in his hands, the strong line of his shoulders caving in.
“Sorry,” I breathed, massaging a knot in my chest. “That was insensitive.”
“It’s fine,” he replied, hoarse, still not looking at me. “You’re here, you’re fine. Better than fine. Stronger than ever. Damn near impossible to kill.” The smile he gave me when he dropped his hands hurt. There was nothing true about it. Pure suffering given a form.
I didn’t know how to comfort this man I hadn’t known three hours ago, but the compulsion was too strong to ignore. So, I blurted out, “You asked what I remembered. It wasn’t really a memory, more an image. I was tied up in a room and someone was hurting me. Him. The one I came here to kill.”
Tor’s laugh was a rasp. “You came back to kill Violence?”
My voice was cold, my body colder. “I did.”
“Of course you did. You’re a force to be reckoned with, beautiful.”
I frowned. “You give pretty compliments.”
His grin was wider this time, genuine. “Why, thank you. I give prettier gifts, though,” he said, and pulled something from his pocket.
“I don’t want a gift,” I protested immediately. It was strange enough having this instant connection, let alone accepting presents from them.
“Good, because this was yours in the first place.” Tor pressed a golden pen into my hand, wrought with filigree details all over, familiar enough to gnaw at the back of my head but not to spark a true memory. “This helped us take down Cruelty. Maybe it’ll help you assure Violence’s demise, too.”
Violence’s demise. That sounded good. The thirst for justice within me almost purred.
“This was mine?” I murmured, turning the pen over in my hands.
“It was. You found it in a desk drawer at Ford. Do you remember Ford?”
I shook my head, wishing I had a pocket to tuck the pen into. I glanced down at the loose swath of darkness robing me. “Um. We’re married, right?”
“We are,” he confirmed vehemently. Or maybe just possessively judging by the fierce light in his brown eyes. They were the exact shade of milky coffee, and stunning when the light rose above the valley’s tall hills, setting them aglow.
“Then, ah, do you have something I could wear that’s not…” I gestured at myself.
“Insubstantial enough to make you feel like you’re walking around, flashing your goods to the whole world?”
I frowned. “Yeah. Exactly that. How did you know?”
“I know you, beautiful.” He snuck close enough to kiss me, the briefest brush of his mouth to mine.
Only long enough to invoke a feeling of deja vu.
I’d kissed him before, had been kissed by him before.
“But unfortunately, I have no clothes for you. I bet Miz has something you can borrow; you should go talk to him.”
I narrowed my eyes, getting the distinct feeling I was being managed. “I can cope with airing out my bits a little longer,” I grudgingly admitted.
“Cat.” Tor caught my hand, his voice raw. “Please.”
I groaned in the back of my throat. “I don’t even know you; why should I do what you ask, just because you ask it?” But I wanted to. The desperation in his expression, the naked plea in his eyes tugged at my heartstrings until my feet itched to cross the grass and find Misery.
“Because I’m pretty?” he suggested, making me laugh.
Pretty and handsome and masculine and striking, all at once. I glared. “That’s not enough motivation.”
Oh. Oh, no. His eyes darkened, churning with something that made me suddenly hot.
“I can give you plenty of motivation, beautiful.”
“No,” I squeaked, walking backwards. “I’m good. I’ll go.”
I turned and fled before he could make good on all those carnal promises in his stare, not even sure why I was so spooked.