Chapter fifty-five Fallyn
Chapter fifty-five
Fallyn
The thud from one body wasn’t finished sounding when another was quick to join it, dispatched quickly by Ash’s blade.
The fray was a continuously moving beast of its own, morphing and changing.
The stench of copper reached into my throat trying to gag me, but for once I wasn’t afraid.
It smelled of safety. Of rescue. Of hope.
Ash made battle look beautiful, the way he carved and danced his way through each opponent.
Each scream from the damned, each felled enemy, made Rylon grip the chain more, made him shout orders more.
I couldn’t see him, but I felt the tension in the chain as he white-knuckled it as if grasping for control with a runaway horse.
Control Ash had command of. My lungs screamed for air, burning for it.
My head became light, fuzzy, and full of pressure behind my eyes.
My lungs burned as if I'd inhaled smoke instead of air, my parted lips desperate for oxygen.
When the last of the twelve fell in a pile of desiccation and blood, Ash’s only injury was a cut above his left eye, and a shallow scratch that bled along his sword-bearing hand.
All he had to do was look to Rylon before the cowardly prince stood, bringing me flush against him by way of the chain with a flinch.
It was only then that I was allowed my first breath in many long seconds, at last bringing reprieve to the burning in my chest. A weak cough fell from me in time with the tears that fell from my eyes.
“You wouldn’t want anything to happen to your little pet, would you?” Rylon asked, a knife appearing at my neck as well. “Stay back, or she’ll be dead.”
Ash didn’t move, carefully considering. The stalemate threatened the hope that had taken root, turning it all the more bitter.
“He doesn’t want me dead!” My voice was breathy with oxygen deprivation, and I didn’t look forward to the headache I knew I would have when the adrenaline left my body. “He needs me for something.”
“You need to control your mouth.” Rylon’s hot breath was sickening as it grazed my neck. “Something I greatly look forward to breaking in.” Ash’s eyes flashed with fury as he lunged forward—
—right into Rylon’s blade, gut first.
There was a moment where my mind struggled to comprehend the turn of events.
Ash’s blood was warm and sickeningly sticky as it poured over me.
Rylon’s bitter laugh was the backdrop of my destruction.
Hope that had bloomed in my chest turned black in a sudden, violent death.
I screamed, wordlessly, manically. I’d never get to apologize.
To tell him I should never have run. That I wasn’t afraid of him. That I cared—
“It’ll take more than the hands of a mortal to slay me,” Ash whispered almost coyly. My eyes widened, my heart thundering in my chest.
There wasn’t even time to scream. The rustle of fabric and clang of steel—
—The wet plop of Rylon’s head hit the ground a moment later.
How was this possible? Ash let the prince’s body thud to the ground to join his guards, already set to the task of unchaining me. I could see the knife still sticking out his chest, still see the blood leaking from around the wound.
“How?” My voice was a croak. “How are you alive?”
Ash gave me a strange look. Not anger, nor sadness. It took me a moment to place it. Distrust.
Ash didn’t trust me. The pang hit harder than I anticipated, though I couldn’t say I blamed him. It was my own fault.
“It’s not the first time someone’s tried to stab me.
” His hands that had just carved the life out of thirteen men gently evaluated what must be my very crushed and bruised throat, softly whispering over the skin there, frowning when even his feather light touch made me flinch.
“And I assure you it won’t be the last. Just know this, Fallyn, no mortal can succeed. ”
He ripped the dagger from his chest. The irony of that motion being so like how we met wasn’t lost on me. Ash grunted once, the wound leaking blood before I watched in rapt, wide-eyed fascination as it knit itself closed. “What are you?”
His face morphed from distrust, something strange. Cryptic. “I am that which remains unseen, even in death.”
Unseen? Like the—
“Your magic. Your strength. Your invincibility to mortal made weapons. You’re touched by Hades,” I whispered. “The god of the dead.”
I'd never even heard of another Hades blessed mortal. And with the potency of his abilities, with how many years he’d been enchanted under the dagger, his line may have been blessed recently in his lineage.
Or, the thought was as ominous as it was fascinating, even him directly. That could explain his abilities.
But the healing. That I'd never seen from a god blessed.
Ash didn’t respond. He just looked at me woefully. “Are you going to run again?”
I took his hand in mine, softly, the way you might a terrified child.
With a certain gravity I answered, “I’m so sorry, Ash.
I realize now that I was a coward. I told myself I was terrified of you, but the truth is,” I paused, trembling through this admission.
I owed him this. "The truth is I was terrified of needing you.
I won't run from you again, you have my word. "
He looked stricken, hiding his expression by pulling me close. His hand tangled in my hair. “Don’t say that, little shadow.” His tone didn’t hold any of the heat it normally does, the words falling bluntly between us. “Sometimes that’s where the fun is.”
The encampment I’d been held in was smaller than I’d expected.
It was also almost entirely silent. Any left alive had apparently fled.
No insects buzzed yet despite the cacophony of death, no birds lazed in the air waiting for us to leave.
Even the wind was silent. Puddles and spatters of blood still marred the ground and the sterile white of the tents that made up a large portion of the camp.
A few fixed structures, like the one we’d been housed in, made up most of the perimeter we were now leaving behind.
“Fallyn!”
My name ricocheted off every wall of the outpost, relief flooding my body in time with each ricochet at the sound of Dess’s voice. That same bone-deep relief welled up in Dess’s eyes as she surged towards me in a mass of dirt, blood, and tears. She fell on me, clinging to me as she sobbed.
“Dess!” I clung to her in turn. “Where’s Rowena?”
Dess’s cries turned rougher, stretching into wailing sobs as she glanced behind her to the bushes. Following her gaze, I saw the silhouette of someone laying motionless.
Rowena.
“I’m here,” a faint voice said from behind Dess in the shade of the bushes.
“My mate is a bit upset at me.” Once again, my relief was both instant and fleeting, flooding in from hearing Rowena’s voice, however weak, but rushing over and seeing the blood underneath her stole the warmth of my body. “It’s a flesh wound.”
“Ash—”
But he was already hurrying to her, hands already checking her color, her eye movement, her still leaking abdominal wound.
Dess eyed him as he approached her mate. I squeezed her hand, hoping to ease her concern about the blood-covered male dressed entirely in black with the otherworldly eyes and a deep-set frown. “Is he—”
“He’s a friend. Ash. I’ll explain later.” I rubbed her arm.
“That’s far from a flesh wound.” Ash’s low timbre caught my attention, making every nerve stand on ceremony. Dess shuddered, as if her body rejected the thoughts going through her mind. “You need a healer,” he said to his patient, who didn’t look concerned. “Now.”
“We’re miles from anything,” Dess whispered through fresh tears. Rowena offered her as great a smile as she could manage for her mate. She hid her pain behind a curtain of quiet acceptance.
“It’s okay, Dess,” she whispered, tugging her hand to bring Odessa back down to her and pulling her close.
Dess kissed Ro’s hand as she cuddled in, facing away from her so she couldn’t see the steady stream of tears down her face.
Rowena traced the ring on her beloved’s left hand, one that mirrored her own.
“I love you. My only regret is not marrying you sooner.”
Dess’s body racked with sobs. “Don’t go somewhere I can’t follow you, Ro. I don’t want this life we built if you’re not in it. I vowed I’d go anywhere with you. Please don’t make me break that vow.”
Ash calmly caught my eye, a silent reassurance as I stood there, as useless as a square wheel. He had a plan.
“Where do you feel the most at home?” he asked Rowena, and then again to Dess. “Is it somewhere near civilization?”
“Yes, we made a home base at my uncle’s home at Greylark’s Rest,” Dess said slowly, trying to riddle out what his plan was.
“It’s home for now.” I had forgotten about her uncle’s estate on the edge of the city.
A place we’d gone once before as children.
How had I forgotten so entirely? My heart twisted, tangling itself into painful knots in my chest at the memory, causing my vision to blur and mist over.
“It’ll have to do.” Ash beckoned Dess over to him.
“Take my place. Hold onto Rowena and don’t let go.
” Ash’s low timbre shifted, allowing Dess to shift over and take Rowena into her lap, her gaze glazing over with deepening concern when Rowena flinched.
Ash handed her his black ring with the strange insignia on it.
The same ring he’d shown me before. The one that brought us to his estate from the cave.
“This ring will take you to the place you feel the most at home. Can you think hard of it?”
Dess nodded. “But I know the healer near my uncle’s. I can visualize that! Can the ring portal us there?” Dess said.
Ash shook his head. “This ring will only take you to where you feel the most at home. The safest. It’s not an instant portal. It’s not a get-out-of-trouble-immediately thing. It only takes you home. Understand that it will take payment by taking a small piece of your soul.”
“It can have my whole soul,” Dess whispered. “As long as it saves her.”
Ash smiled grimly. “Thankfully, that’s not necessary. Now think of home. Hard. And put the ring on.”
“What about you both?” Dess asked, hesitating with the ring for a moment with an uncertain glance to me.
“It only takes two.” Ash said. “We’ll be fine. Go.”
If I’d blinked, I’d have missed it. One moment, Dess was donning the ring, Rowena flowing in and out of consciousness, the next there was empty space where they were.
“They’re where they feel the safest,” Ash answered before I asked the question aloud. “If that’s near Greylark Rest, they’ll be able to find a healer.”
“Rowena is really going to be okay?” I couldn’t help but ask. Ro’s blood still soaked the ground where my two friends had just laid together. As if on cue, with a shimmer of magic and shadow, the ring appeared on his right hand again, glinting in the sun. “The ring is back? Without them?”
Ash’s shoulders dropped. “It means they’re safe. They’ll be in the city, where they’ll be able to find a healer.”
I nearly broke with the force of my sob, throwing my arms around him in gratitude.
“I can’t believe you came. You saved all of us.” Words failed me, thoughts strolled by, but nothing seemed appropriate. Thank you didn’t cover how it felt by a longshot. Ash followed me into certain death and dragged us out, and saved my friends.
How do you thank someone for that?
“I didn’t save Thaddeus for you,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around me in turn and pulling me close. “I didn’t want you to be alone should anything happen to me.”
There was the deep well of sadness when he spoke now, like his essence was drenched in it, compelling me to crush him into me. The first glimpse he’d given me at his jagged pieces, and there were so many more of them that littered his soul than I could ever have imagined.
“You’ve been alone a long time, haven’t you?” I asked. Ash said nothing, only shifting his weight and tightening his embrace. “It’s because you’re insufferable, you know that right?”
A choked gasp that sounded suspiciously like a laugh tore from him. His face grazed the sensitive skin of my neck, but he didn’t pull away. “Only you would take a nice moment like this one and ruin it with that godsdamn mouth of yours.”
“Only you would think a nice moment includes being surrounded by blood and corpses.”
His mood was infectious, and perhaps the relief and victory of the day was getting to me, but my smile echoed his.
“Red is the color of love, is it not? I think I just painted you a canvas.”
I didn’t have a moment to process what he’d said, what I wasn’t ready to acknowledge out loud. Within me, my heart stopped before picking up in a frenzy, my mind blanked, and outwardly his lips crushed to mine in a tangle.
Mine melded to his, kiss for kiss, pouring everything I couldn’t say yet. That he soothed every ache in my soul, that he made me feel something I’d never felt before. Safe. If this heat between us incinerated me, I’d gladly die that way.
In that moment I knew why I’d run. I’d never trusted this feeling before, this level of safety with anyone. But how could I deny anything with the canvas around me he’d painted? He’s levelled the outpost for me. He came to my rescue.
My heart slammed against my ribs hard enough to bruise, each beat a violent song in its own right, drowning out anything that wasn't him.
And at least in the quiet of my mind, I could admit what he'd been saying all along, that I belonged to him. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.