NEVER GOING TO GET AWAY #3
I’m so focused on moving one foot in front of the other and being brave in the face of my executioner that the sounds I’m hearing don’t register at first.
The crunching of leaves in the forest. The breaking of branches. A feline’s cry.
I am halfway across the clearing when an anguished roar breaks through my concentration. It twists my heart and makes everything hurt.
No. Oh, suns, no.
I wasn’t fast enough.
“Birdie! No! Fuck!” Gabriel’s voice is getting louder, and my eyes sting at the sound of his panic. “Don’t do this! Don’t fucking do this!”
He is somewhere on my left, judging by the sound of his voice, and I’m sure Mist is close behind. The symbol of our connection is on fire, devouring me from the inside out, but I don’t stop.
I can’t.
I can feel Gabriel’s presence, but I’m not ready to see the anguish I’m sure is on his face. I need to be strong and do this because I’m out of options. I am doomed to die, but my sisters aren’t, and neither is my Hunter. They deserve to live. To be free of the curse I carry on my forehead.
“Wren!” My name has never sounded more broken as it does coming from his lips. “Stop!”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, moving steadily towards the king.
He bellows a curse, then adds, “No!”
There is a flicker of movement in the corner of my eye, and suns fucking help me, I am drawn to it. I know it’s Gabriel even before my head turns in his direction.
I try not to look at him head-on, try to keep my resolve strong, but what little I see of the man I love has my heart breaking. Sword in hand and covered in blood that I hope isn’t his own, Gabriel has never looked more like a warrior.
“This is the only way,” I say brokenly.
“Don’t, Wren,” the Hunter says. “Do not take another gods-damned step.”
I wish I didn’t have to.
The king grins, a horrible sight. “She’s coming with me, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’ve always been a failure, Gabriel. From the moment you were born without a Mark, I knew you’d never be a true son of mine.”
There’s more crashing in the woods. More people are coming.
Our friends’ faces flash through my mind, and I know this needs to end. I must get the king away from here before he can hurt anyone else.
Wings flap nearby, and somehow I know it’s my raven. Our connection is so new, I never even named my familiar. Now, I will never get the chance.
Hopefully, Gabriel will take care of it when I’m gone.
Hot, salty tears streak down my cheeks as I turn and fully look at the Hunter. Our newly sealed Mark thrums on my palm, a reminder of the words we spoke only yesterday.
“I’m sorry, Gabe.” The way he’s looking at me, the sorrow in his eyes, is enough to cleave my heart in two. “I love you, and I’m so sorry.”
Words have never hurt so much. It feels like I’m slicing open my skin, ripping out my own heart, and stomping all over it.
“Come along, Given. It’s time.” The king extends his hand towards me, and I am repulsed as I close the distance between us, lifting my fingers to place them in his.
Gabriel is moving, too.
“No!” The word is a lion’s roar as it tears out of him, and he reaches beneath his tunic, ripping off his amulet.
Too late, I realize what he’s about to do.
You know I’ll protect you, right?
His voice slides through my mind as I watch him shove my sisters aside.
They stumble towards me, eyes wide, as Gabriel lifts the amulet.
Marie and Violet collide with me, and the king shouts.
I can’t hear his words, though—everything I have is focused on the amulet Gabriel is slamming into the ground at my feet.
“Gabe!” I scream, horror filling me as blue light erupts. It washes over me and my sisters, shoving us backwards. “No!”
No, no, no.
This is not right. This is not how things were meant to be. This is not how it was supposed to end.
But I can already feel the change in the air, the magic working as I’d intended it to. To protect.
A cry wrenches from my throat, raw and horrified and utterly too loud, as silence surrounds us. Panic squeezes me as the light falls away, and I’m sitting in a crater with my sisters.
“No!” I sob. “How could you do this?”
Everything hurts. My body, my mind, and my heart most of all. I am pain, and pain is me. There is no distinction.
A low, keening wail rolls through my chest as I raise my head and take in our surroundings.
The king is gone—but so is Gabriel. The stream, the forest, the clearing—they’ve all vanished.
Because the amulet didn’t shield the Hunter or save him from the king’s wrath. It didn’t protect him at all, because he took that magic, and he used it on me. He sent me and the twins away. To where, I’m not sure.
Does it even matter?
My chest constricts, my skin feels too tight, and every part of me feels like it’s burning. I look down, and blue flames have engulfed my body.
It doesn’t matter. The flames could consume me, devour me, eat me apart from the inside out and I wouldn’t care.
Because Gabriel—my Hunter, my partner, my mate—is gone.
I raise my head to the heavens, and then I scream.