Chapter 33 Dimitri #3
“I’m kidding. It’s obvious you’ll be her mate, too. Take advantage as long as she’s willing,” he teased again.
“Slater,” she hissed as her eyes found mine. “Sorry, Dimitri.”
Our breaths mixed, warm against the knife-cold around us that I couldn’t even feel thanks to the warmth of her venom.
“Your heartbeat’s too loud,” I growled, mouth barely moving.
It wasn’t just hers, though.
“Tell yours to shush too, then,” she whispered, a traitor of a smile flickering at the corner of her mouth.
“I can’t do this. They are all around us.” Aura jumped out of cover.
“Aura!” Eleanor whisper-shouted, catching Lorian’s hand. Her knuckles went white.
“What is she doing?” I snarled, already shifting my weight to go. I had to ignore how Rune’s body felt against mine as I did.
Aura didn’t look back at us. She moved in the mountains’ shadow like a ghost, a skill I hadn’t known any imp of being capable of.
Fear bled off her in tremors she couldn’t fully hide.
The shake in her fingers, the constant catch in her breath.
But her path was clear. She headed straight into the middle of the vampires, toward the pedestal holding the relic.
The relic’s light brightened.
The hum in my bones rose from the proximity of that damned thing.
“Not good,” Hawk breathed.
“No kidding,” Raze muttered, yanking out a blade low at his thigh. I hadn’t even known he had one.
A cultist sniffed the air again, head snapping toward our pillar. Two more pivoted with precision at the sounds we were making.
Aura reached the center.
“Aura, get back!” I bit out.
She shot us a look over her shoulder with wide blue eyes, pupils blown, throat bobbing, and shook her head once. “They’re going to catch us if we hide. Cover me,” she whispered, voice barely audible, but the enchantment echoed her words around the clearing.
Then, she stretched for the obsidian. Her fingers grazed it, and the relic detonated in a red and black glow.
Sound punched the air with a crack like a skull splitting against stone. Snow fell from the mountain peaks as runes flared from the snow.
Everything stopped.
Ten, twenty, thirty heads turned in the same second with predator-like stillness. The chant ceased, and the silence was a blade.
“Move!” I shouted, but Aura was already ripping the relic free and running back toward us. It burned her fingers, her flesh seared, and the smell hit me a half-second before her scream.
She flung it toward us as we all jumped out of cover.
Rune pushed off the pillar and spun with her foot to the stone, pushing off it and snatching the relic out of the air. The sound it made against her fingers sizzled, and I knew it hurt.
“Fuck,” I muttered, eyes widening.
The relic lit her fingertips like molten wire, and the veins in her neck and face lit up black and red from her touching it. The artifact sang a wrong, hungry sound, and the ground tilted sideways.
“What is it doing?” Zuko reached instinctively for Rune. “Give it to me. It’s hurting yo—”
“Don’t touch me,” Rune snapped, and her golden eyes went dark in a way I did not like.
“That’s new,” Zuko said, stumbling back like she’d hit him.
“She doesn’t mean it! It’s the relic, remember?” Slater barked, head on a swivel. “We’ve gotta bolt, now.”
“Run!” Aura’s voice cracked as she yelled.
She planted herself between us and the nearest cultists; her left hand lifted, trembling from the burn in her fingers. Her bones were showing.
“Shit,” Koa cursed, raising his hand and calling his blue healing flames over her bone-showing fingertips until it healed.
The sucked-in gasp was instant as Aura blinked tears away. “Thank you.”
“We need to go now,” I snapped at everyone. I didn’t know why the cult wasn’t descending on us immediately, but I didn’t care to find out.
“No shit,” Rune bit out, face twisting in pain.
“Rune, hold it together or drop it,” Aura told her. “I know it hurts.”
“I’m not dropping it,” Rune grated. “I can handle it.”
Hisses came from every cultist in the area, and we bolted.
We ran for the cliff we’d come down and climbed faster than we’d ever climbed before.
The cultists didn’t chase us at their vampire speed. They walked. Not dramatically slow or fast. Just inevitability, and their feet struck in unison as they formed an intimidating group.
The rune-light in the clearing stuttered in time with the relic’s pulse, and every throb slapped the inner part of my ear and stole a fraction of balance.
Koa’s hand missed the rock. “Shit.”
“Got you.” Raze grabbed him, yanking him upright by the back of his collar before tossing him up on the cliff.
“Left!” Hawk called, throwing a punch at a random arctic wolf that was literally just walking by.
It whimpered before running away.
“It wasn’t attacking,” Eleanor scolded him.
“Not the time,” Lorian told her calmly.
That narrow bridge of ice waited ahead, made of rib-like planks of old ice spanning a black crack. We hit it single file, feet drumming over them as we rushed across.
Rune skidded to a stop after us, Koa being the only one behind her. One hand cradled the relic, and the other smeared venom along the ice with two fingers. The ice sheened over, hissed, and the bridge spidered with fractures.
“Rune!” I barked in shock.
“It’s for the cultists,” she snapped, pivoting on her heel as the bridge shuddered.
Somehow, the walking cultists caught up. I had no fucking clue how since they were just walking, but they had.
One of them stepped onto an ice plank before the whole bridge collapsed in a roaring cataract of broken ice and snow.
The cultist vanished into the dark crack as the three behind him just stepped into the void after him. The rest of the group just stared ahead at us.
The collapse almost took Koa.
He swore and burst into his phoenix form with a wave of heat that slapped us. He flew over the gap, dropping into a run beside us a second later with steam evaporating off his hair.
Another pulse hit from the relic as it fed on us.
My feelings and emotions were fucking everywhere. My chest pounded as the pulse from the relic hit harder; my vision ghosted.
I knew I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.
We stumbled as one.
Eleanor slammed a shoulder into a nearby boulder, and Lorian hauled her back by her shoulder.
Slater’s chaos manifestation slithered ahead of us, showing us the way to go as the snow came down harder, whiting out the area ahead. He led us into the crevasse.
“Get in!” Slater shouted over the roar of the wind. “Now!”
We ran inside, and the howling of the wind seemed louder in here. We didn’t stop running deeper into it until the only sound was our gasps shredding the cold that was biting back.
Rune slid down the blue ice wall in a heap. The relic sat in her lap, glow dimmed but still pulsing. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
The burns on her fingertips had already healed, thankfully.
I crouched across from her. “It’s feeding on you.”
“No kidding.” She threw me a look. “Next insight? Or are you planning to tell me the snow is cold, too?”
“Give it to me, Rune,” I compelled her, my magic spiking through my eyes.
She placed the relic in my palm without another argument.
The instant I broke eye contact, she snatched it back. I shouldn’t have broken eye contact.
“What the fuck, Dimitri? You used your special power on me?” The glow of the relic in her hands brightened. “It’ll crawl into your head, too. We need to be focused, and you’re good at being focused when you’re not being an ass.”
The artifact surged.
The warmth from her venom drained out of my chest as cold replaced it. I couldn’t tell if it was the relic’s effect or if her venom had worn off.
“Rune.” I forced my voice to be soft. “You don’t have to shoulder this damn relic for us. We’re a squad.”
“We’re a squad if we complete this mission,” Aura cut in, kneeling next to Rune.
“And we don’t complete it if any of us lose our shit because of that thing.
” She plucked the artifact out of Rune’s hands, careful not to let her fingertips come in contact with it so it only rested on the academy-issued suit’s fabric.
“Careful,” Eleanor murmured. “Don’t let it burn you like last time.”
“I won’t.” Aura didn’t let her skin touch the relic this time. She cradled it in the fold of the academy-issued suit and backed away at least ten feet.
With each step she took, the pressure eased from my ribs like a fist unclenching.
“I—” Rune gasped. “I shouldn’t have grabbed it.”
I exhaled, hating the way my heart twisted at her thinking she had done something wrong. “I shouldn’t have compelled you.”
“You did the right thing,” she assured me. “That relic is fucking potent.”
Zuko bumped his shoulder into Rune’s as he sat next to her. “Can I touch you now?”
“You can always touch me,” she murmured, guilt shining in her eyes. “Sorry, toxin.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Zuko’s hand slid to her thigh and squeezed.
“You can touch me, too,” Slater whispered in her ear after he plopped down on her other side.
Koa pulled his hair up into a bun. “Sorry for almost dying there.”
“Sorry for almost making you die,” Rune grumbled before horror twisted her expression. “Fuck. I’m really sorry, Koa.”
“It’s okay,” he assured her. “I promise.”
Aura’s mouth quirked. “I love the love here, but we need to get this relic back.”
Everyone got back on their feet, and we walked out of the crevasse with Aura ten steps ahead of us.
I wasn’t sure why the relic didn’t fuck with her emotions the way it did with ours, but I wasn’t complaining.
She probably had a complicated relationship with the Fates. She wouldn’t be the first supernatural who had.
The moment we reached the spot we’d come in at, the mountain dissolved. White peaks turned into pale shards of light, and the bitter cold dissipated.
Everything around us smoothed into the featureless wall of the simulator.
“That was terrifying.” Aura sagged, the relic fading from her grasp.
Professor Bloodwyne stood next to the controls, his gaze burning into us.
“You pass,” he said, narrowing his gaze at Aura, “but you nearly didn’t. The only reason you passed after rushing into the thick of things without consulting your squad is because you severed the relic’s feeding on Rune and Dimitri.”
Aura nodded, relief clear in her expression. “I let fear override my logic. It won’t happen again.”
Bloodwyne’s gaze flicked to me for a moment. “Good leadership skills. You could take action and help the squad communicate. Rune, I need to speak to you.”
Zuko and Slater kissed each of her cheeks before walking outside. I knew they’d be waiting outside for her, and somehow, that comforted me.
“Dimitri, you as well. I’d like a word,” Professor Bloodwyne told me as I went to walk out.
My stomach went hollow. “Now?”
“Now.”
Rune stopped in front of her dad, and I lingered beside her.
“I received an encrypted email today that I can’t trace. About what apparently happened this morning. Darian is still harassing you?” Professor Bloodwyne was pissed.
Rune sucked on her fangs before sighing. “He’s trying to get back with me.”
A muscle ticked in her dad’s jaw. “Do you—”
“I won’t,” she said, sharper than I’d ever heard her. “I hate him, Pops. I deserve way better than Darian. I’m already dating someone else. Two someones.”
“I’ve noticed,” he said with a wince. “But Rune, please be careful with your heart.”
“Darian never had my heart,” she said automatically, and relief spread through my chest at that. “But…I appreciate your concern, Pops. I understand.”
Silence stretched between them.
He glanced at me. “I heard that Dimitri intervened.”
Her lips twitched into a bemused smile. “Dimitri slammed his face into the stairs.”
Professor Bloodwyne’s lips curved into a deadly smile. “I know. Well done, Dimitri.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I take care of my squad.”
He glanced between Rune and I, then back to Rune. “I’m comforted knowing you’ve made friends this year.”
I knew deep down the reason I’d smashed that prick’s head into the stairs wasn’t because Rune was on my squad. It wasn’t because she was my friend. It was because she…meant something to me. But I couldn’t have feelings for anyone who wasn’t my mate.
I wouldn’t survive something like that again.