Chapter 30 #2
“Between teleportation fatigue and us not seeing a giant black dragon closing in on us, he shouldn’t have found us before we set sail.”
Mack considered my words for a moment. “Could have tracked us by scent. We got a ride from the portal station in the back of a truck. Our scent trail wouldn’t have been impossible to pick up.”
“Tracking takes time. He would have had to come directly to the pier.”
“Not…” Mack fisted his hands, as if he couldn’t remember the signs to make. “You told him where we were in the middle of the night. If he flew to the portal station right after your conversation.” He shrugged.
Mack had a point, and he clearly didn’t think it was worth mentioning to the alpha. And after that conversation, neither did I, so I let the matter drop.
The canyon bent to the right, and we followed it in silence until the walls fell away and the gorge opened into a wide, circular clearing.
I forgot about Jillian.
I forgot about the dragon, the bloodstone, the betrayal I was plotting, and the monster caged inside me. For one stupid, glorious moment, I forgot everything but the sight before me.
The most magnificent tree I had ever laid eyes on rose from the center of the clearing like a queen upon her throne, far above her lowly subjects.
The base of the trunk alone had to be at least thirty feet off the ground, elevated by dozens of enormous, exposed roots that fanned out like the buttresses of a cathedral before plunging into the earth at the clearing’s edges.
I instinctively knew that this was why we’d crossed an ocean. Why I’d bled for a trickster, stolen from a dragon, and lied to every person I loved. This was the reason. Not the bloodstone, not the war, not the alpha’s mission.
The Ancient wanted me here.
I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I was absolutely certain that tug I felt was her beckoning me forward.
“The mother of trees,” Rust said, his voice so low and full of awe, I half expected him to kneel in reverence. “I thought she was only a myth.”
“She’s real, all right,” the alpha said, his voice heavy with apprehension even as determination glowed in his eyes. “And she’s gonna lead us to the next artifact we need to help our pack.”
My brain stuttered. There was a ‘next artifact’ after this?
But I wouldn’t be with them.
Who would provide the demon-wolf’s blood they’d need? Witches and werewolves weren’t exactly out there getting freaky to produce an influx of hell spawns like me.
But that wasn’t my problem to figure out.
At the base of a root, Dad gestured for us to hold back. He tentatively stepped onto it. When nothing happened, he strode forward with more confidence, signaling for us to follow. I went next, with Rust on my heels and Mackiel watching our six.
The root served as a ramp and was wide enough to walk on comfortably. The bark surface was rough enough to provide solid footing. As we climbed, the air grew warmer. Magic thickened until I could taste it at the back of my throat. Sweet to the point of intoxicating, each breath made my head swim.
A gust of wind blew through the canyon, stirring the canopy of the majestic tree.
Leaves shuddered, and then, one by one, they turned.
Not with the wind, but against it. Toward us with a sound that started as a rustling noise but evolved into the whispers of thousands of voices, some high and shaky with age, others deep enough to vibrate in my molars.
They passed from leaf to leaf like a wave, building in volume until the entire canopy hissed with the same two words.
“She’s here.”
Fear danced up my spine, sprouting goosebumps across my flesh that only seemed to multiply when the whispers abruptly cut off, leaving us in unnatural silence.
A glance over my shoulder at Mack’s expression confirmed everything I felt.
“That was fucking disturbing,” he signed.
I nodded, because yes. Yes, it was.
The chattering leaves didn’t slow the alpha down, though. He led on, trudging up the ramp-like root as if the leaves hadn’t just announced my arrival in the eeriest way possible.
As we neared the trunk, crimson dripped in front of me, splattering the root at my feet.
Confused, I looked up at the dense green canopy, beautiful until I caught sight of the flowers.
Deep crimson, they hung in clusters that looked less like blossoms and more like the tree was hemorrhaging.
Blood-red sap dripped down the leaves and trunk, staining everything it touched.
Cheery.
The alpha summoned me forward. I went with my head down, and when his hand found my shoulder, it didn’t carry the firm grip of the alpha I’d come to recognize.
Dad’s hand trembled. His eyes held the uncertainty of a man about to shove his daughter off a cliff, hoping she’d forgive him on the way down.
“Ziara, the pack needs you to—”
That was as far as he got.
Something wrapped around my ankles.
With my head bowed, I caught a glimpse of baby roots, thin as whips, as they tightened around me with a speed that made my stomach lurch. My brain screamed move, but I failed to process what the hell I was witnessing before the roots jerked tight and launched me toward the tree.
The tree reeled me in as if I were some little forage fish caught on its line. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact of slamming into the trunk.
Behind me, Mack screamed. Rust’s rifle clicked.
Impact never came. The bark parted like a mouth opening wide, and the tree swallowed me whole.
Sunlight blinded me when I flew inside the tree, which made no sense whatsoever.
The air thickened, slowing my ascent and enabling me to get my feet beneath me.
I landed on soft sand in a crouch, hands hovering above my daggers as I took in the scene.
Beach on my left, dragon blood trees on the ledge to my right, same honey-sweet smell.
But I was just standing on the root of a giant tree.
The Ancient was now nowhere in sight.
A group of children laughed as they played tag on the beach, circling a girl with bark-textured skin and leafy hair.
She was building a sandcastle with a boy whose eyes glowed like embers.
A pair of centaur foals splashed in the tide pools while a green-skinned couple watched from the shade of a tree, fingers intertwined, expressions content.
A half-goat man threw a ball to a young boy with donkey ears. The boy caught it, laughed, and chucked it back with the easy joy of someone who had nothing to fear.
No one wore weapons or seemed the least bit threatening, so I eased my hands away from my daggers and straightened.
A child approached. She was maybe six, with violet eyes and a crown of tiny white flowers braided into her dark hair.
“Play with me?” she asked, completely unafraid of my weapons.
Hadn’t anyone taught her not to approach strangers? Especially those who were armed? I glanced around for her guardians, but nobody appeared interested in our conversation.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“Socotra,” replied a deep voice behind me.
I turned to find a creature made entirely of stone.
He watched me with onyx eyes so full of unearned affection that my throat tightened.
Nobody but Mack ever looked at me like that.
Not without wanting something. But his expression was full of the same impossible warmth that saturated this place, folding my defenses like wet paper.
“Nobody here will hurt you,” he said, as if reading my mind.
“Are we inside the tree?” I asked.
“We are in paradise as it was meant to be,” he said.
I spun around, taking in the same bizarre vegetation and birds I’d seen on the island. “So, what? Like a different plane of existence? Some kind of pocket universe?”
He slowly shook his head, which made a faint grinding sound, but didn’t seem to hurt him. “Does it matter? Here, we want for nothing. We are happy and at peace. A pack that embraces all who are honored enough to enter. Here, everyone belongs.”
The beast within me stirred, but for once, she didn’t thrash or fight. I got the crazy visual of her stretching and looking around before relaxing. A sound rose from deep in my chest, but it wasn’t a growl or even a whine. She let out a sigh of contentment.
My wolf had never once been at peace. The binding kept her caged, and the cage kept her savage, but here, in this impossible place, she rested, content to simply exist.
For now.
Something tugged on my pants. I looked down to find a pair of violet eyes staring up at me.
“Will you join us?” the dark-haired girl asked.
The air shifted. Everyone in the vicinity turned to watch me, and the eagerness in their eyes was slightly unsettling. Even more so because it seemed genuine. Her offer was legitimate, and they were all anticipating my answer.
“You’re asking me to join your pack?” I looked from the girl to the stone creature to the dozens of faces now angled toward me like flowers tracking the sun. Every single one of them waited for my answer.
Enthusiastic nods all around.
I took a step back because that was weird.
Surely there had to be some skeptics in the bunch.
If not, these people were out of their minds.
I wasn’t like everyone else. I was dangerous.
My wolf might be content for the moment, but what happened when she snapped her leash?
Would their perfect, peaceful society be so accepting of me then?
“You don’t know what you’re inviting into your home,” I said.
“Or perhaps you do not know what she offers. No more binding. No more cold tables and sharpened spikes. Here, your beast would need no cage.”
They knew. Everything. These people who lived in a tree on Socotra knew what I’d gone through and were offering me everything I’d ever wanted.
No Sereana. No monthly torture. No side-eyes from packmates who wrinkled their noses. No swallowing my pride and baring my throat to an alpha who used my blood like currency while keeping me in the dark about why.