34. CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 34
Noa
“It was right… here,” Levi said, scuffing his foot close to the crimson-stained snow. “They dragged him to his knees. Beat him while he fought. Gray got in some good hits like he meant it. Then she showed her face. Wanted to be sure it was him. Told them to cut…”
Levi tightened his voice, controlling the wobble. “Mace said Gray wanted to be taken. Planned it. So we had to stand and watch.”
Listen to him scream. Words Levi refused to say, but I’d heard the details from Pond earlier. The boy had been too upset not to blurt it out, his expression stark with his eyes wide.
My hands fisted in the pockets of my woolen tunic. Closing around Amal’s rune stone.
Levi turned his head and gestured. “We were hiding in those trees. The girls were hugging each other, crying, and Mace had his hands on our shoulders—Pond and me—sending fucking orders through the pack bond. Then that Pike guy came and they dragged us away, kept moving until we found the others. Sent us back to camp.”
Hours had passed since then and now. Time was precious. I stared at the blood frozen in the churned-up snow and mud. “You’re sure it was Brin?”
“I’m sure.” Levi wiped at his nose. The wind was cruel and cutting, whipping my hair across my face; the cruelty was nothing compared to what my mate had endured … for me. To lead me into the heart of Amal’s fortress, Mace had said. Some fucking thing about a straight line being…
My fingers ached, as if I was squeezing the life out of the rune stone.
“I’m going to kill her,” Levi said. “End Brin-the-fake.”
If I didn’t do it first. “She can syphon. Use energy as a weapon.”
“I can rip her throat out.” He’d grown up too fast. The reckless boy they called the Pied Piper was gone. I mourned the years he’d lost, when Levi might have laughed, lived like every other teenage boy coming of age. And Laura—I mourned for her, too, hiding in Anson’s archive. So many debts, building up. Debts Amal owed. Debts I’d collect before we reached the end.
Men shouted from across the clearing. Pike had opened the passage Brin used, held back the magic while the first team moved through—Cariboo fighters, some from Carmag. But Sentinel Falls wolves dominated. Their Alpha had been taken. There’d be no mercy for the enemy, or those who stood in the way.
“We’re not going,” Angel said as Mace approached.
His canines flashed. “You don’t give orders here.”
“I don’t follow yours.”
Mace had his claws around her throat, and just as fast, Angel had hers around his balls. “Care to test me, Alpha?”
“Gray wanted them to take him so we’d find the passage,” he ground out. “Follow his scent into her fortress. Get Noa close enough to destroy that fucking queen.”
“Amal’s not stupid. You know she’ll be waiting for anyone who follows. I know another way in.”
Mace tightened his claws. “I don’t trust you.”
“I’m her aunt. She’s my niece. You really think I’d hurt her?”
His upper lip drew back. “What happened when they killed your brother?”
“You’re a piece of shit,” Angel snarled. “I’m not a child pretending to be dead. I know the Cariboo. Years ago, I found a backdoor. We sneak in while you’re busy being the shiny object, diverting Amal’s attention. I’m talking about a small force—me, Noa, trusted Blackfish fighters. I’ll take Levi. He’s motivated, and you can communicate with us through Levi’s pack bond if you’re worried or if we need help.”
“Until you get too far away.”
“Better than doing what Amal expects. And right now,” she added, “you wish you’d come up with the plan yourself.”
“No chance in hell.”
“No shame in it, either. You’re a tactician. You see the beauty here. A plan within a plan. Exactly what she won’t expect. I’m offering my help.”
Mace flexed his hand. From the movement, I knew he was evaluating Angel’s solution, testing the benefits. She’d suggested it to me earlier, and I’d already agreed.
My jaw ached from waiting. Each minute we stood here arguing infuriated me, when all I wanted was to find Grayson. Find Amal.
“If I get to him,” I said, “I can be his weapon. I can syphon the way she can, drain her life force or overload every sense until she can’t fight him. One bite—that’s all it takes to kill a vampire. End her. But he can’t do it by himself. He needs me, and running in through the front door and trying to fight past all her creatures is a fool’s tactic.”
Mace’s eyes glittered as my chin lifted. “I promise you. I won’t fail. He gave me his sigil, and I gave him mine. This is our destiny…” I moistened my icy lips. “Isn’t that what the Gemini Witches told you years ago? You’d be faced with the choice that went against everything you are? Everything you fight for? But this, Mace… this is the moment. Make the choice to trust me. Trust him.”
His snarl was pure anger, throbbing frustration as he whipped his hand from Angel’s throat and leveled a finger at me.
“You.” His voice shook. “I believe in you.”
My smile grew sad. “That first day, in Hattie’s store. When you bought a bag of chips that you didn’t want so you could get close enough to scent me. You were dripping wet, Mace, from being out in the rain. You’d been watching me, stalking through the aisles. I knew then, you know.”
“Knew what?”
“The man you are. The warrior willing to lay down his life. I’m glad you’re my friend.”
“We…” His canines flashed with a tight smile. “We’ll drink together when this is done.”
“Yes. We will.”
Mace moved his fighters through the passage while we hiked overland, a small group, spread out in the packed snow. The sun was high overhead, bright even through the clouds. The frigid air nipped at my nose, my cheeks, but the constant movement kept my body warm beneath the thick wool. Natural lanolin meant the material remained dry. I wore boots. The bow and quiver were a comforting weight against my back.
When the Blackfish talked between themselves, they used a pack bond. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t sure how I felt about them, barging in with Angel, taking the lead. Her mercenary attitude hadn’t changed, the take-no-shit swagger. I’d broken my share of rules, but it was hard to wrap my head around who she was—my aunt. My father’s younger sister. Family I never knew existed. I wasn’t easy with throwing open my arms to her.
My family had always been Leo and my mom. Hattie and Oscar. Angel tipped the table in an unknown direction. Now, I was tied to the Blackfish pack, like it or not, when I didn’t want them risking their lives for me. Not even when they honored my father by doing it.
I’d been afraid to ask Angel about him. I blamed it on her pain when Fallon sang the lament. Why add to her suffering?
But what I feared was learning a truth about my father that I didn’t want to know. Facts that demolished the fantasy I’d built up around Bronson Dade and Andrea. How they’d been the star-crossed lovers. Torn apart by fate. He’d told my mother he was Alpha to a small pack back east. Hardly small, and not as far east as he’d implied. He kept secrets. And truth was a hard thing, at times. Maybe I wasn’t ready for it.
I chewed on my inner lip. Levi walked beside me. He'd reclaimed his spear, and when I stared at the shaft, the old bloodstains were visible on the wood, the smears made by my fingers when I’d gripped the weapon—and his wound—fighting to keep him from bleeding out.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Just angry.”
“Me, too.”
The Blackfish walked at a steady pace with distance between them. I skimmed their faces, read the concentration. The vigilance as they studied every rock and snowy hill.
Nothing but white, dazzlingly bright, and the sheer, glistening granite mountainside. Trees were nonexistent at this altitude. The land was barren, scoured by a wind stronger than the storm I’d fought against in the Alpen.
Overhead, the sky had cleared, leaving only the remnants of clouds, trailing like tattered prayer flags caught on the distant stony peaks. The girl I’d been would have thrilled at the black against white composition. She would have walked this landscape, too busy imagining the photographs to see the danger. Not today, though.
Imagination was not allowed today.
We hiked without stopping, pushed by the urgency of passing time. The sun was low in the sky when Angel held up a hand.
“That river in the distance,” she said when we’d all gathered around. “We either cross here, or go south, find a narrow point and lose two days.”
“Looks frozen.”
“On the surface. The current beneath is treacherous.”
“I say we cross,” Levi said before she’d finished.
Angel tipped her head. “Fall through that ice, pup, and you’re downstream with no chance of a rescue.”
Each man would cross on his own, since we’d not be roped together. No lifeline that might drown the entire team if one went down. Angel would be crossing. I’d be following. Those who wished to go around would have to catch up.
The group stood silent. Each man nodded his agreement when Angel asked. The Blackfish deserved their reputation. They were fearless and frightening, and maybe I was glad to have these fighters on my side after all.
I searched for Amal’s rune and found it zipped in an inner pocket. Barend’s blood bag was in the quiver on my back, away from the arrow tips, but where I’d have easy access and not worry that I’d forgotten it. Perhaps Barend did not deserve my cooperation, but the vampire hanging on Amal’s wall certainly did—another odd gesture of compassion others might say was unwarranted. Vampires were far from innocent.
Cresting the hill, we aimed for the glistening river. A jumble of granite blocks cluttered the way, with squared edges and charcoal stains, the remnants from a watchtower. Nothing but a relic, a casualty of ruthless fighting and the passing centuries.
“More like a bad memory,” Angel said as we climbed the steps carved into the mountainside.
From the higher vantage point, I studied the vast wilderness of the Cariboo, a snowy world devoid of life, other than the jagged peaks lined up like a dragon’s spine.
Levi leaned against a stone pillar, staring into the same distance. His brown hair fell across his forehead the way it always did, and he pushed it back, his fingers restless.
I waited, honoring the minutes he needed before he shoved away from the pillar. Together, we walked on, picking a way through the rubble and down the other side… while, in the distance, the sun glinted and pressed an orange and yellow kiss against the shadowed peaks.
“An hour left of daylight,” said Angel as she plowed along. “Don’t waste it.”
The frozen river was a sheet of white, other than the glassy areas not dusted with snow. The men had gathered along the bank. From their packs, they pulled spikes and bent to strap them to their boots.
“Here.” Angel held a set of spikes. “Strap as tight as you can. You’ll need the traction.”
I sat on a rock and worked to get the fit right. My fingers did not bend, and the tips were numb. I worked at thawing them while Angel scanned the far bank. One hand shaded her right eye, and she spoke in a low voice; a tall man had his hands on his hips as he listened. They were discussing two different exits, one that was steeper than the other and farther upstream. But needle-thin pine trees lined the frozen bank. After they tied a rope to the trees, Angel said, they’d throw one end to those crossing. Add to the stability.
From the way Angel was gesturing, she wanted the tall man’s rope. She’d go first because she was lighter in weight. He argued back. His experience was equal to hers. The bank was too steep beyond the trees, he said. Men would have to shift into wolves to manage the incline. She shook her head and pointed. I blurted out a question about those who were unable to shift, and she turned to look at me. The black patch covering her left eye was stark against her pale skin, but my gaze shifted to the tall man at her side. I shook my head, agreeing with him in their argument.
Angel snatched the rope, and there was no arguing with that twist to her mouth.
“Keep hold of that spear,” I warned Levi, my voice low and teasing. “She’s got a temper.”
“Like someone else I know.” He rolled his eyes. “That fling of her braid when she turns—that’s all you, Noa.”
“Any braid flings out like that when you turn.”
“It’s the determined little flip at the end. Like you’re flipping everyone off.”
I grinned. “Must be a girl thing.” I gestured to the spear. “Are you saving that for Brin?”
His canines flashed, and I added, “Hit hard, fast, and first.”
“I will.”
Levi balanced the weight and tightened his grip. Angel was out on the ice. The tall man was twenty feet behind her, moving cautiously. I joined the queue on the riverbank. The skeleton of a broken boat poked like ribs from the snow. Seeking a handhold against the slippery slope, I grabbed the closest rib, flinched when the rotted wood broke.
Then I slid onto the ice. My arms windmilled as I balanced. The spikes scraped on the surface and held, step after step—and each step brought me closer to Grayson.
My pulse pounded with anticipation. After all the nightmares, the worry over magic, I was finally doing something. Moving us closer to the goal. I would be what Grayson asked all those months ago, to be both a weapon and a savior.
Because that was how one lived with passion. With courage. To reach for a greater vision of what life could be.
I relaxed, until one Blackfish shouted, “Gods-damned pigs!”
My lungs froze at the growing thunder as hooves hit the frozen ground. The Blackfish swung around, shifting into a muscular black wolf, while two of his fellows did the same.
“Go!” I yelled at Levi as I reached for an arrow, nocked it into the bowstring.
“You first,” he yelled above the din.
But I was already stumbling back toward shore, following the wolves in an awkward run. From the high ground, I dug in with my spiked feet. Readied the bow, sighted down the arrow. Monstrous, hairy gray pigs with yellowed tusks were galloping like lemmings, flowing between rising stones and down the incline.
Red splats bloomed on the snow as the Blackfish attacked. Pig bodies sailed through the air with their legs still churning. The squealing was high-pitched, and the low, stuttering grunts reminded me of Azul. Of the battle after the vampire tunnels. The scent of carrion turned the air sweet and unnatural.
I shot and shot. Retreated when necessary and ran to a better vantage point. Three wolves worked as a unit to clear the field. They were a wondrous beauty to watch, mesmerizing until the pigs attacked from a secondary position. All my focus turned as I shot. Levi was behind me, using the spear on anything that got close.
But the monsters kept coming and he dragged me toward the river like I was potatoes. The Blackfish followed, their long, shaggy black legs taking great strides as we dashed onto the ice.
It annoyed me, how they used claws for traction. The spikes tied to my feet came close to skidding before jolting when the metal points gripped and held. Levi screamed instructions I didn’t hear over the noise of inarticulate growls and pig grunts. My heart drummed against my ribs. Every ounce of strength flowing through me went into crossing the ice without falling.
The Blackfish fanned out, but Levi remained at my side. Beneath my feet and through the glassy surface, I saw moving shadows—either debris, floating in the current, or the shadows were my imagination. When I tasted blood, I realized I’d bitten my cheek and smeared my hand across my lips to wipe the mess away.
Pigs followed us out onto the ice, along with the crab-like creatures, the corrupted nymphs. They’d swarmed along with the pigs, and it didn’t matter that I hadn’t seen them before because I saw them now. Too many, with bodies climbing over bodies in a frenzy to get to us.
The Blackfish swirled, jaws snapping. Pigs charged, heads low, cloven hooves chipping hard into the ice, refusing to stop even when the first ominous crack shattered the air.
“Run!” Levi screamed at me.
“There!” I pointed with the bow toward the distant bank where Angel was tying ropes and tossing the ends out onto the ice.
A crack opened near my feet, zigzagging between fallen pigs and racing wolves. Ice chunks tipped. The turbulent current sloshed upward as the separations widened. The chunk of ice I stood on tipped. I ran, jumped and landed hard. That ice dipped until frigid water washed over half the surface.
I froze with my arms out for balance and the bow gripped in my hand.
“Come straight at me,” Levi ordered in his calm Pied Piper voice, even though his face was pale and his arms wavered for balance. The slab of ice beneath his feet was no more stable than mine, but he rocked with the movement while I fought against it.
“Don’t think, Noa. Imagine a line you’re going to walk and just do it, no stopping, not until I’ve got you.”
“If I go down,” I warned. “I’m fucking not drowning you, Levi.”
“No, you are fucking not, Noa.”
Somehow, I managed a laugh. “Laura would wash your mouth if she heard you.”
“She’s worse than me and pretends to be nice.”
The ice shifted. I took Levi’s advice and refused to think. “She’s got the hots for Anson,” I said as I moved my feet, a rapid scramble with the ice wobbling and dipping and my arms spread for balance. “How about him for a brother-in-law?”
“Gods, just what I need, another bossy alpha in my business.” Levi wrapped his arms around me while moving with the momentum, one, two, three long strides and then a jump across another crack to solid ice. The spear he held whacked the side of my head. Three more jerky steps before he let me go. The spikes on my shoes held in the ice. I bent over to catch my breath when Levi shouted.
The charging pig hit him low in the side, knocking Levi off his feet and toward the rushing water surging between the separating slabs of ice. I screamed, lunging forward, my hands buried in the wiry pig pelt as I syphoned wildly, turning the creature into mush before throwing him in the water.
“Levi!” I was panting his name, crawling on all fours to where Levi struggled in the water. He’d braced the spear between two slabs of ice. Both hands gripped the shaft while his body twisted in the raging current.
Water gushed into his face, surging over his mouth, battering his face, while my throat felt shredded from screaming and my hands so numb that, when I reached toward Levi’s wrist, I didn’t feel him. Afraid that I’d loosen his hold with my aimless grasping, I gripped the spear shaft, rocked back.
But each time I put pressure on the shaft, the ice dipped and water lapped.
I pushed upright on my knees, waving at the closest wolves—too far away and battling pigs on the precarious ice. The crab-like creations scented the fear, or the blood. They turned as one and surged, translucent legs skittering on the glassy surfaces with an ominous clicking.
No time to think. Do it, Noa! I rose from a crouch and lunged across the widening gap, closer to where Levi struggled. If I could reach his arm…
Beneath my weight, the ice broke apart. The current churned in the gaps—white, ice-laced foam. The force drove us downstream to where the ice chunks jammed up. Razer-sharp edges cut my fingers. Levi’s wool tunic was a weight in the water, but I wound my fingers tight and dragged until his head was above the water.
He sputtered, coughed. I sat on the ice and threw my weight backward. “Help me,” I panted as Levi rolled to his side, both hands still around the spear.
I heaved. Levi yelped, thudding on the ice, grunting—while a feminine voice laughed and said, “You sound like a frozen fish.”
I gaped at her, and she added, “Metis sent us.”
A dark-haired river nymph bobbed in the frigid water. Ice crystals crusted her skin. In the river, I counted five more nymphs, darting upward between the ice floes, disappearing with the hairy pigs tight in their hands. Reappearing again, going after the scuttling crabs and tossing them through the air the way killer whales played with the seals.
“Tell Metis that…” My gaping mouth curved into a smile. “I appreciate the gift and owe a debt to her.”
“End Amal, and the debt is paid.”
The nymph disappeared in the river’s current, reappearing yards away, rising and wiping a dozen crab-things from the ice with one muscular sweep of an ultramarine blue tail.
“Friends in high places,” taunted Levi as he scrambled to his feet.
“Strip,” Angel ordered after she’d dragged us to the steep bank.
His mouth popped open.
She smacked his chest with her open palm. “Get naked and shift, pup.”
“I’m not… in front of…” Levi’s teeth chattered.
Angel’s huffed laugh reddened his cheeks. “You got some blue balls, pup? They’re tiny little marbles right now, along with your manly part. Nothing I care to see.” She turned her back. “Do it. Your wolf will keep you warm. We’ll dry your clothes when we get to the cave.”
“You have a cave?” My chatter was worse than Levi’s.
“Why I wanted to cross here,” she said, waiting while I stripped off the spikes from my wet boots. She stuffed them in her pack. I bundled Levi’s clothes and offered to carry them, along with his precious spear—the spear that saved his life this time.
Perhaps even weapons could atone for what they had to do… and find redemption.