Renegade Kings (Nymerian Rebels #2)

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Alyssa

T he sunlight burned across my retinas as I burst through the surface of the water, gasping for a breath that felt like it would never be enough. Coughing violently, I was pulled back beneath the surface as I thrashed in the rampaging water, fighting to reach the surface once more.

Fuck.

I could feel the current wrapping around me, grasping at my legs as it tried to tow me back into the depths. Even as the rest of us had followed Tank and Dean into the river, I’d known it would be bad. This part of the river always thrashed and fought as the water disappeared into the Wildling Forest. Some said it was the water spirits fighting not to become lost amongst the trees that no one else dared to tread. Personally, I always thought it was rushing to get there quicker rather than fighting to stay away.

Whatever it was, we were powerless to its will and along for the ride. Hopefully, a ride that wouldn’t end in a watery grave.

There had been little choice left to us. We couldn’t outrun The Endless. They were already upon us. It was the river or the forest, and at the time, I didn’t even think we’d make it that far.

It was the only way.

Maybe .

Now that I was fighting for my life, I was seeing all the downsides of this hastily constructed plan. Mainly the ones that ended with all of us dead.

I pushed the negative thoughts aside, trying not to think about how impossible it would have been for Tank to keep Dean afloat in this powerful current. About the impossible choice I’d thrust at him. If that wasn’t the theme of my life, I didn’t know what was. One impossible choice after another and every single one ending in someone dead or dying.

The water rushed over my head again as I was pulled down into the depths. My shoulder colliding with a rock had the breath I’d only just drawn rushing from my lungs. My back dragged along the rough stones of the riverbed as my hands scrambled through the water, searching for anything to hold on to, anything to stop the chaotic death ride I was currently on.

My fingertips clawed through the riverbed and the stones cut through my skin as the panic set in. My lungs ached for a breath, and I screwed my eyes closed, willing myself back to a place of calm.

I refused to die this way.

Not here.

Not now .

The others were relying on me. We still hadn’t done what we’d come here to do, and I wouldn’t leave them alone in Nymeria. They’d never survive alone. I had to find them somewhere safe. Anywhere.

Strangely, it was the thought of leaving the others that had my mind calming. It should have sent me into a tailspin but, instead, as their faces flashed through my mind, a sense of calm followed with it. The fragile bond that had only just begun to blossom between Tank and I thrummed inside my chest and I let myself sink into the feeling for a moment. Then, with what felt like a renewed sense of strength, I reached for my magic and felt through the water for the men that meant so much to me.

I let my consciousness flow through the ripples of violent currents, into the crashing water that slammed into the riverbank. Reaching for that sense of home that came with the four men I’d brought to this place with me. The four men that I needed at my side.

Tank and Dean were the first my consciousness found. I tried not to let my thoughts linger on the stillness of Dean’s body or how Tank held onto him so tightly. Instead, I wrapped my will around the water that surrounded them, pushing them to the surface even as my own lungs burned with the need for air.

I couldn’t last much longer. I needed oxygen, and I needed it now, but Maddox and Ryder both registered in my mind, pushing aside thoughts of myself, even if just for a moment. They weren’t too far behind me. A minute at most. Both of them were doing much better than I was. On their backs, they rode the current, staying near the surface as they surrendered to the flow of the river.

Using the last of my strength, I pushed them closer together. Maddox’s whisper of my name brushed against my mind, and then I pulled back.

Knowing where the guys were gave me a sense of purpose, a reason to keep pushing, and with the sense of calm still wrapped around me, I braced my feet on the river bed and pushed off, heading for the surface.

I broke free of the water, feeling a stillness that hadn’t been there before. Taking advantage of being in a slower patch of the river, I heaved in lungfuls of air as I spun in the water, searching for any sign of the others. I spotted Tank and Dean at the same time as I saw the shore. A sandy patch of white that lay starkly against the water, like a beacon calling us in.

Tank had seen it too, and he was already swimming to the shore, one arm wrapped around Dean as he pulled him along.

I was exhausted. A part of me just wanted to stop. Why were we always fighting? Always pushing for something as simple as survival. It should have been the bare minimum in life, not something you had to dedicate every moment to achieve. Why couldn’t we just have some form of peace?

There was a glimmer of surrender that danced across my consciousness. The taunting thought that I could just stop fighting, sink back below the surface and give myself over to the quiet darkness. I pushed it aside and swam instead. My shoulders screamed in protest as I forced my exhausted muscles to move. The shore was so close. I could rest as soon as I reached the shore. Or at least that was the lie I told myself. In reality, The Endless could emerge from the river right behind us and the fight we’d tried to avoid would be right in front of us once again. But for now, the lie was all I could take. I held onto it nearly as tightly as the need to ensure Dean had survived the water I’d thrown him into, even knowing his injury was far worse than he wanted us to believe.

My gaze locked on Tank dragging Dean from the water, and the way he pulled his limp body across the sand as Tank moved him to drier land. I couldn’t stop looking at his hands, almost begging for a twitch of fingers, anything, as I cut through the water as fast as I could.

But there was nothing.

Even as Tank felt for his pulse before dipping his head down to listen for a breath, he was as still as the dead.

This wasn’t happening. I wouldn’t let this man die because of me. And I wasn’t just talking about shoving him into a violent river. His brother stabbed him because he was saving me.

As soon as my hands reached the sand, I clawed my way up the shore. My muscles screamed at me for not just flopping on my back and giving into the exhaustion screaming through my body. Instead, I pushed to my feet, knowing that just because I’d made it to shore didn’t mean it was over yet.

I staggered forward as my gaze latched onto Tank and the way he tilted Dean’s head back before he breathed into his mouth. I knew what it meant, but my mind wouldn’t let me consider the thought. It wouldn’t let me accept that he was gone.

This wasn’t the end.

This place didn’t get to take someone else from me.

Not now, not ever. I was so fucking done with running away and accepting the horror of it all.

Not when there was a chance still left, when there was a chance to fight.

“Alyssa, I need you,” Tank barked without even looking up. Instead, his hands came to Dean’s chest as he started compressions, concentrating on the task at hand.

I dropped to my knees beside them. My magic simmered just underneath my skin like it was searching for a way to reach out and help. Except, I didn’t know if it could. I’d ignored everything about it for decades. Even when I had the chance to train, I’d been hidden away for fear of what would happen if anyone else in Nymeria had discovered the truth.

Tank’s muttered counting pierced the self-hatred threatening to fog my mind, and I concentrated, waiting for when it was my turn.

“Now.”

Pinching Dean’s nose and making sure I tipped his head to the right angle, I sealed my lips to his and pushed two breaths into his lungs. This wasn’t how I envisioned the next time I pressed my lips to Dean’s, but it would be the most important kiss we ever had.

Tank listened quickly at Dean’s chest again before, with a quiet snarl, he returned to the compressions, refusing to give up.

“The others…” I started, my gaze flicking to the river as I did.

“Don’t matter right now,” Tank told me gently. “They can look after themselves. If they come out further downstream, we’ll regroup with them after.”

It helped that Tank had complete faith in the others. That he seemed so confident that we hadn’t lost Dean.

“Again,” Tank ordered.

I dipped my head without question, closing my eyes as I concentrated on the magic that ran through me, through this land. There had to be a way to use it in this situation, and as I breathed the precious oxygen into Dean’s lungs that he couldn’t draw himself, I forced myself back to that place of calm I’d found before.

There was an answer here. I knew there was. We just had to find it.

I could see that calm reflected back at me in Tank’s serious eyes. Determination flared to life inside me. He moved without question as he continued his attempts to resuscitate Dean. He was so sure of the men who had strolled into our lives and changed the course of everything that I knew he wouldn’t accept this as an ending, either.

They were meant to be in the bond with us. It wasn’t complete yet. There was still an empty place where the others were supposed to be, and I knew Tank felt it, too.

For a moment, I considered trying to force it. Perhaps that was the answer. If we could bind Dean to us, perhaps we could use the bond to hold him in this world where he was supposed to be. My magic would tether us together and maybe it could be enough to bring him back to me.

But even as I thought about it, I knew it wasn’t possible. The bond wasn’t made for something like that, and you sure as hell shouldn’t force it on someone.

Then as I listened to Tank’s rhythmic, muttered counting, waiting for when it was my turn to try to bring back the man lying too still in front of us, the magic inside me rolled and pushed against me. It heard my desperate plea to save the man in front of me and it was answering.

Hope surged with a wave of power that I didn’t understand. I’d never felt it before, and I didn’t even dare to dream that it could actually do what I needed it to.

As I dipped my head once more to breathe for the man in front of me, I felt the magic move. It withdrew back inside me as I pushed out the first breath, and then it reached deep inside me, cracking open a well of power I didn’t even know existed.

I felt the rush, the hum of magic as it filled every cell in my body, and when I released the second breath into Dean, it rushed forth, invading him as well.

But this magic was different. It took a part of me with it and I could feel the way it twisted and turned, filling Dean’s body and brushing against a power that was buried deep inside of him. A power that lay dormant, fading, just the glimmer of a flame about to extinguish.

Tears touched my cheeks as I realised how close we were to losing him, how close he stood to the edge of life.

Tank’s hands moved back to Dean’s chest, but I grabbed them with my own. He looked at me confused, but I couldn’t explain to him what was happening when I didn’t understand it myself.

I could feel the power I’d fed into Dean brushing up against whatever magic lay inside him, and I felt the moment it surged in response. I could almost see the way they twined around each other, coating that precious fading light and coaxing it back into existence.

“Alyssa?” Tank’s voice broke with emotion as he tried to pull his hands away from mine, thinking I was giving up on the man in front of us when it couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I think I fell in love with him a little more at the realisation that he genuinely cared for Dean and the others.

And then Dean’s eyes surged open, and he took a deep breath, coughing as he pushed the water from his lungs.

Tank’s eyes widened in surprise, and we rolled Dean to his side as he coughed again, gagging as he expelled as much water as he could. I rubbed his back softly, wanting to wrap him in my arms and cry from the relief of seeing him awake. But we didn’t have the luxury of relief yet because we were still far from safety.

“Can you stay with him?” I asked, looking up at Tank. “I need to see if the others are still close by. I felt them in the water. They should have been here by now.”

Tank nodded, and Dean quickly grabbed my hand, squeezing my fingers before he gently pushed me away—always thinking about his brothers before himself.

Standing was harder than I could have imagined. The muscles in my legs screamed as I tried to stand, and I stumbled, dropping back to the sand at Dean’s side before taking a steadying breath.

Tank’s hand came to my shoulder before I could try again. “Alyssa?”

“I know. I’m okay. We can’t stop yet, not until everyone is safe.” I cringed as I said it because not only were we in Nymeria, where safety wasn’t really a concept you could rely on, but we’d failed in the one mission we had when we came here.

Damon wasn’t safe. He was fully in the grip of Arik and I had no idea how we’d break him free. Because there was no doubt in my mind that the Damon we’d encountered at the Winter Palace wasn’t the one the men around me knew.

Arik had done something to him.

He had to have.

The question was, what? How did Arik have the power to control not only people but the creatures of Nymeria as well? I had a feeling that if we could solve that one mystery, we’d find the key to how to bring down the pretender king.

“Rest.” Dean’s voice croaked as he spoke, and I knew it had to be hurting him. Then he tried to push himself up to sit like he’d jump back into action. Instead, he groaned, clutching his chest as he sank back to the ground.

“Yeah, dying and having a bear bring you back with chest compressions is probably going to leave you a bit bruised. You’re the one that needs to rest right now, Dean. What you’ve just been through is no joke. You need time to heal. We need you to heal. I can do this.”

I knew he was going to argue, so I forced my legs to cooperate and surged to my feet, staggering back down towards the shoreline before he could stop me.

And I knew he would.

Dean was turning into an alpha wolf. His first instinct would always be to protect those he cared about. Unfortunately for him, he had me to contend with and I was too used to standing up and protecting myself.

As my gaze moved to the water, searching for any sign that Maddox and Ryder were close by, I suddenly realised nothing was where it should have been. I looked around in confusion. This was definitely the riverbank I’d seen from the water, and I could even see the tracks in the sand where I’d dragged myself ashore. Only now did I realise the trees were wrong, the water was too still and there wasn’t the sound of the rushing river in the background.

I could hear the birds singing the same song that haunted my dreams some nights. The dreams that swiftly turned into nightmares, and a shudder rushed down my spine.

The woolly effect of shock entered my mind as I crouched and ran my fingers through the sand, grasping a handful and letting the grains run through my fingers as I stood.

I knew this place.

I’d been here so many times before that I’d never be able to forget it, no matter how hard I tried.

The realisation hit me like a physical blow in the chest, and I clutched at my wet tunic, feeling like it was constricting around me.

“This isn’t the river,” I muttered, my eyes searching from left to right as all I saw were the edges of a great lake. My gaze whipped to the rest of the area and a feeling of dread formed in the pit of my stomach. “This isn’t the Wildling Forest.”

But I didn’t have time to panic, because before I could let reality push me to the edge of sanity, Maddox, closely followed by Ryder, broke through the surface of the water, gasping for breath as they did.

Maddox’s eyes locked with mine before I even took a breath to call out to them. The relief of seeing them here with us was enough for me to ignore the reality of our situation right now. I watched as he said something to Ryder that I couldn’t hear and then they both swam towards me as I waited in silence on the sandy shore. It was hard to accept the possibility of safety in a place like this, but at least we were all together again.

As Maddox and Ryder pulled themselves up onto the soft sand, a soggy grey bundle launched from Ryder’s grip. Fizzle hissed and spat as he tried to pull himself away from Ryder’s arms. I’d never seen the little owl gryphon wet before but it had the effect of making the fur on his body cling to him, shrinking him down to a twiggy little figure with waterlogged wings dragging on the ground at his side.

Maddox rolled to his back as he tried to catch his breath, staring at the blue sky like it had the answers that would save us.

“That… that… human tried to murder me!” Fizzle yelled, spinning back to Ryder but tripping over his wing instead.

The irate owl gryphon quickly shook out his fur as best as he could, but from the pissed off expression on his face, there was no way Ryder could escape this unscathed.

“I didn’t try to murder you! I saved you !” Ryder indignantly crossed his arms over his chest, a look of outrage crossed his face. “I wasn’t going to abandon you to The Endless.”

“I can fly, you imbecile!”

“Yeah, well… I didn’t think of that.”

I didn’t want to be the one to point out that Ryder had done the right thing, mainly because I’d faced Fizzle’s wrath before, and I wasn’t exactly keen to experience it again.

“Fizzle… Fizzle…” The two of them were locked in a stare off, and I knew things were about to get bloody. “ FIZZLE !”

“ What ! Can’t you see that I’m about to flay the human?”

Ryder reeled back in shock, perhaps not realising how close he was to actual bodily harm right now. I could have sworn I’d already warned him about this, but maybe it was a lesson he needed to learn in person.

“I need you…” My voice broke, and it was all the evidence that Fizzle needed to break away from his vengeance and come to my side. “I need you to look around and tell me if we’re where I think we are.”

Maddox and Ryder hauled their exhausted bodies off the sand and staggered closer. Exhaustion was practically rolling off them in waves, and now that the adrenaline surge of nearly losing Dean was fading, I was feeling it, too.

I felt Maddox’s fingers brush against mine as he passed, going to check on his friend. Ryder stopped at my side, looking at me with concern, even if he did make sure to keep me between him and Fizzle.

My old friend glanced at the lake, the trees, and then up at the sun before he tilted his head to the side and scented the air.

“Nymeria gives what you need when you least expect it,” he told us cryptically, and my stomach soured.

I didn’t need this.

I didn’t need to be back in this place so soon.

“I need you to say it, Fizzle. I don’t think I can accept that it’s real until you do.”

Ryder looked around like he was searching for something to fight. His arm came around my waist and he pulled me protectively into his embrace. Sound behind us had me glancing over his shoulder, and I saw Tank and Maddox trying to keep Dean down on the ground.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” he growled. “Can’t you see she needs me?”

“You’re on the verge of collapsing from blood loss, and minutes ago, you were actually dead. You need to stay down and stop fucking about,” Tank snapped. “She’s not alone. Trust us to have this,” he added more quietly, even if I could still make out the words.

I wanted to go to them. I wanted to drop to my knees and lose myself in the men that meant so much to me. To distract myself by fussing around Dean until I annoyed him so much that he did that sexy frustrated growl like he couldn’t contain the annoyance inside him any longer.

Instead, Fizzle’s words breached that illusion of peace, forcing me to face the one truth I desperately didn’t want to admit.

“You’re home, Alyssa. You’re back at the Spring Court.”