Breaking Free

by Layla Nash

  I screamed. Even in hyena form, I screamed. The beast lifted Nick up with both his mangled paw-hands, tearing great rips in Nick’s skin until his blood mixed with the beast’s and the dirt.

  No. No. Not yet. I couldn’t lose Nick. I couldn’t. Not yet.

  Ray had used his wish. He’d used his wish. Which meant Iskander was free. Iskander was free and if I could wish...

  With every cell in my body I screamed, “Djinn!” into the universe and prayed that he heard me. That Iskander was still close enough that—

  “At your command,” the smooth, accented voice said, right next to me, and the hyena snarled in warning. But it was him. It was Iskander. I almost sobbed in relief.

  The wolf-beast held Smith in his claws and started to break him, to tear him apart, and I slid back into my human body amid the unbearable pain and screaming to whisper, “Kill the wolf-beast that is trying to harm the old man.”

  “As you wish,” he said, and the djinn smiled with a savage joy that made my skin crawl.

  The blue-green man drifted up to the wolf-beast and passed his hands over him, and the wolf-beast collapsed. He died without more than a whisper, and all the noise stopped. Smith made ragged, pained noises in his chest, and I staggered to my feet so I could go to him, to try to fix him. Someone had to fix him.

  Iskander waited patiently, watching me, and I gestured at Smith. “Heal him. Make him whole.”

  “As you wish,” the djinn said, and held his glowing hands over the ErlKing’s body.

  I held my side, ignoring the warm slippery blood running down my hip and leg, and went to my knees. Please. It had to work. Nick dragged himself through the mulch to reach me, his palm rough but warm and whole against my leg. I stared as Smith’s breathing eased and the blue spread through him. Please. It had to work.

  Eloise skidded up next to me, though Benedict remained close, and immediately put pressure on the wound in my side. “What the fuck is that?”

  “The djinn,” I said. Talking hurt. Breathing hurt. Everything fucking hurt. I blinked as my vision doubled and tripled, and I wondered if maybe the head wound was worse than I’d thought. My presto-change-o healing wasn’t doing its job. I ignored Eloise’s efforts at playing doctor while I watched the djinn. It should have worked already. Smith should have been fine.

  Iskander didn’t look nearly so serene or self-assured as he had after killing Ray, but he still faced me. “He will live.”

  “You’re sure.”

  The djinn inclined his head. “For at least twenty-four hours, yes. That is the truth.”

  At least twenty-four hours. Well, I supposed I hadn’t been specific enough. My gaze fell to Smith, wondering if he looked better underneath the blood and dirt and antlers, or if it was just my imagination and wishful thinking. Breathing felt like too much effort and sounded too loud in my ears.

  Iskander’s expression darkened. “And now for the small matter of our deal.”

  I looked at him. Our deal. I had one wish left. There were so many things I could do with that wish. I could destroy BadCreek in one fell swoop. I could find Markus Keller and make him pay for all the lives he’d destroyed. I could wish everything back to normal, or as normal as I could handle. I could maybe even wish Cal back to life. I could fix my life, with that wish.

  He must have seen it in my eyes, the djinn, because his shoulders bulged as he tensed. “You gave your word.”

  Had I? None of my thoughts let me remember much except that backyard. Eloise tried to press something against my forehead to stem the blood that dripped down my face, and she whispered, “What’s going on, Lacey?”

  I shook my head, not wanting to tell her. I flinched and looked down at myself, at the cuts and scrapes and wounds that weren’t healing. And I looked at Nick, who’d been far quieter than I’d ever seen.

  He lay gray and still, and Carter made a sudden, mournful lion noise as he looked down at the lone wolf. I sucked in a breath and fell to my knees next to him. He’d been fine, a moment ago. Just fine. And…I scrambled to search for the wound and found the massive rents down his back from where the wolf-beast threw him aside. A denial choked me as I stared at him and faced another eternity of grief.

  I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t face a world that didn’t have him in it. I needed him.

  “Nick,” I whispered, holding his face. Carter shifted back to human and started trying to bind up his wounds, calling for Ruby to get the pack to help or get an ambulance or something.

  I stared at Iskander, wishing he would understand. He had to understand.

  What could he really do to me, if I used my last wish to save Nick instead of freeing the djinn?

  Iskander must have seen that thought in my eyes as well, because he went distant and cold. Resigned to another betrayal. Fury lurked there, and suddenly I knew that he wouldn’t hurt me if I failed to free him—he could hurt the others. He could take from me my mate and my best friend and a whole circle of friends. He could tear the fabric of my life apart and leave me among the broken strands, alone.

  A cry tore free in my throat and I pounded my fist on Nick’s chest. “Please. Don’t do this to me. Please don’t do this to me. I can’t…I have to—“

  “Give me room,” Carter said, trying to nudge me back. “Eloise, get more towels and water from the house. Quickly.”

  I gripped Nick’s hand and tried to feed him my strength. I’d give my own life, if it meant he’d live. I dashed tears and blood from my eyes and glared at the damn djinn, hating him. “I wish you freedom, djinn. Be free.”

  The whole earth trembled and the djinn gave a triumphant cry that deafened me for a second time. He swirled into the air and more lightning tore through the night sky. But I watched Nick and not the fireworks, clinging to him as he clung to life.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Lacey

  Eloise disappeared into the house to retrieve the supplies Carter asked for, Ruby helping, and I shoved to my feet to search for the witch. Surely her magic would be able to put Nick back together. She could at least keep him alive long enough for the ambulance to get there or maybe Owen the medic. Owen could save almost anyone. I screamed my rage into the night when I found the witch conscious but so weak she couldn’t move; she couldn’t do more than whisper a denial when I asked if she could save Nick.

  I slipped in the mud made from dirt and spilled blood, and nearly collided with Carter. I shivered as I caught Nick’s limp hand. “He’s got to make it, lion. He has to.”

  “I’m doing my best,” he said under his breath, not looking at me. “But I’m not trained for this, I don’t know—”

  “My blood,” Eloise said abruptly, arriving to dump an armful of towels on Carter and the ground. She slapped the crook of her right elbow. “Take it from here. It’ll save him. Do it.”

  “We don’t have any needles or tubes,” Carter said. “And I’m not trained in how to—”

  Eloise glared at him and stalked back into the house at a half-run, returning with a large kitchen knife. I stared at her, too stunned to move, and tried to process what I was seeing as Eloise pointed the knife at me. “I love you, you stupid cow, and you better fix this with him. Be happy. You deserve it.”

  Then she set the knife blade against her right wrist and gouged it in. I screamed and Benedict shouted and Eloise cursed and shook and then threw up as she held her arm over Nick’s back and the open wounds, so her blood dripped right into them to mix with his.

  Carter tried to wrap a towel around her wrist to stem the flow of blood, his own face white as he stared at her. “You can’t do that, Eloise, you’ll die if—”

  “It’s not enough yet,” she said, pushing him away. She wobbled and avoided looking at her wrist as more of her blood ran into Nick’s wounds. Benedict snarled and grabbed her shoulders, trying to haul her away. “Not just yet. Almost.”

  I grabbed hold of her to steady her, resting my forehead against hers as we sank to sit on the ground next to Nick. “You unbeli
evable idiot,” I whispered. “Benedict is going to kill you.”

  “I know,” she whispered back.

  Carter grumbled and caught her wrist to clamp the towel around it. “That has to be enough, Eloise; you’re turning blue.” He even took the belt out of his discarded pants to secure pressure around the wound, and retrieved the kitchen knife so she wouldn’t do it again.

  Benedict pulled on his pants and grabbed Eloise around the waist, hauling her up the stairs and into the house while he snarled and bitched about her taking unnecessary risks with her life. She tried to get a word in edgewise but didn’t succeed.

  Nick didn’t move, and I kept one palm flat on his shoulder as Eloise leaned against me and I tried to breathe with Nick. I needed him to live. I needed it with every breath I drew.

  Of course, I’d needed Cal, too. I’d screamed at the injustice of not having Cal. I thought my world ended with Cal. And yet... the crushing feeling of a world without Nick left me empty and aching and hollow.

  The air moved around us and I didn’t have even the energy to look up, too lost in whether I would lose Nick to care if it was another enemy. Another beast to defeat. But the scent of anise and cardamom filled the backyard and then Iskander crouched on the other side of Nick’s unmoving body. He looked at me. “This is the one you wanted to use your wish on? Your last wish?”

  I couldn’t muster the energy to care. “Yes.”

  “Would he have been worth it? Another thousand years of slavery for me? Violating your word?”

  “Him?” I sighed, closing my eyes. I didn’t want to see Nick’s last breath. I couldn’t live with it, having that in my mind to play over and over and over on those dark nights when I couldn’t sleep. “Yes. He would have been worth it.”

  Iskander folded his arms over his bare chest, looking somehow both larger and smaller than I remembered from the weird in-between place. “Fine.”

  “Fine what?”

  “Make your wish.”

  I refused to hope. I dragged my gaze to him, unwilling to let my heart start beating or my lungs to move. “I wish for him to be healed.”

  “As my gift to you, so shall it be done.” Iskander inclined his head into something like a bow, and held his hands out. More blue-green mist sifted down and covered Nick’s prone body.

  Carter glanced at the djinn and then held Eloise’s injured wrist into the ripples of blue-green, ignoring her grumbles as he did so. The djinn eyed him but didn’t say anything, and then the sparks faded and Iskander stepped back.

  Nick coughed and rolled to his side, groaning, and the massive wounds had already turned to pale scars as he forced his eyes open and looked around. I clutched his hand and looked up at the djinn. “Where will you go? How can we reach you?”

  “Reach me?” The dark eyebrows rose. “Why would you want to reach me?”

  “To have you over for dinner?” Eloise tore the towels off her wrist, grinning at the healed skin, and moved her wrist back and forth to test the fresh scars. “To send you a thank you card and cookie bouquet?”

  The djinn’s head tilted. I wondered if they had cookie bouquets in the in-between place. Probably not. I sighed and wondered where my clothes ended up, since from the sounds of the screeching tires and shouts and growls in the house, we were about to be inundated with shifters and God only knew what else. “To thank you, Iskander. To offer you our help, or ask for yours, or I don’t know.”

  He blinked, then looked up at the stars and the suddenly-brighter moon. “I will find you in a month’s time. I do not know where I will be. I have never had…this choice. I think I will see everything.”

  “Everything?” Carter asked, sounding a little dubious.

  “Everything,” Iskander said with a sigh. It sounded reverent. I had no doubts that the djinn would see everything.

  I squeezed Nick’s hand when he tried to rise, and helped Carter keep him pinned to the ground so we could make sure he was healed and it wasn’t just a surface fix. “Thank you, Iskander. I look forward to seeing you again. Enjoy your freedom.”

  He smiled and held his arms up, almost twirling with excitement, then he winked out of existence like he’d never been there.

  “Who the fuck was that?” Nick asked, his pain-fogged eyes on me. “And why are you naked?”

  A laugh worked its way up in my chest and I leaned forward so I could rest my face against his shoulder, inhaling the scent of his bare skin and even the traces of his blood that remained. “Shut up, wolf. We’ll discuss it in a bit. Just…breathe. Live. That’s enough for now.”

  “For now,” he said. His hand rested on my hip and I squeezed my eyes shut so no one would see the tears that crept out from between my lashes.

  For now, it was definitely enough.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Nick

  Nick felt fine. Better than fine, really, although no one believed him. From the little he remembered, he benefited from some of those green-blue sparkles that fell out of the sky, while there were others far worse off. Like Eloise and the cut in her wrist, or the witch who still didn’t move from where Lacey dumped her behind a bush, or Carter limping along as he tried to help Smith get up from the stone patio.

  Sirens rose in the distance, and Nick squinted as he looked around the backyard and the several yards they’d destroyed with the oak tree and magical shrapnel. He leaned against Lacey as someone from Rafe’s pack called back that the SUVs were there to take everyone to the hospital. Nick walked on his own, holding Lacey’s hand, even though he didn’t need the hospital. The way she looked at him, though, he knew she was worried. And he didn’t want her to worry.

  So sitting around in a hospital gown for a little while would be worth it, if it meant Lacey didn’t worry.

  They piled into the SUV with the semi-conscious witch and Eloise as she told Benedict to knock it off as he muttered about her taking stupid risks, and Nick leaned his head back against the window as a smile played across his lips. Lacey nudged closer against his side, poking a bruised spot on his ribs. “Stay awake. You might have a concussion.”

  “I’m fine,” he said. He moved to drape his arm over her shoulders and pull her closer, giving himself a deep inhalation from her hair to reassure the wolf. “You’re the one who looks pretty rough.”

  “I had a lot on my plate for a little while there,” she said, giving him a narrow-eyed look. “Keeping your ass alive, for one. Did they get Smith in the other SUV?”

  “Yeah,” Carter said from the driver’s seat. “He didn’t want to go but Meadow is with him. He’s physically fine but his mind is still a little... wild.”

  Nick snorted; that was a fucking understatement if he’d ever heard it. He’d never thought to see Smith in full antlers again. He looked like a pagan god. Hell, he probably was a pagan god, come to think of it.

  Lacey craned her next to see the witch’s limp form in the seat behind them, checking her pulse and frowning at Benedict as he focused on his mate. “We wouldn’t be here if not for the witch. She needs to make it.”

  “She’ll make it,” Nick said. He wasn’t terribly concerned about Deirdre; she knew her limits, chances were, which was why she’d been clear about not helping them once she freed Smith and Ray. Nick reached back to jostle Deirdre’s ankle, raising his voice so she could hear. “I can call Estelle to come and pick you up, witch. If you want.”

  “Fuck. Off,” she wheezed, barely audible. Nothing but her lips moved.

  Nick smiled and faced forward, riding a wave of euphoria from the miraculous healing. He felt like he could do anything. And with Lacey beside him...

  He blinked and looked at her. “You’re not pissed at me anymore?”

  Her lips thinned and she sat facing forward, a hint of color rising in her cheeks. “Maybe we should wait to talk about this until we don’t have an audience.”

  “So you pulled your head out of your ass,” he said cheerfully, putting her in a headlock so he could kiss the top of her head. “And finally a
dmitted that you love me. Finally. It only took near-death to do it, huh? I’ll have to remember that.”

  It was lucky they were close to a hospital, because Lacey would have ripped him limb from limb from the look she gave him. Carter coughed, a sound suspiciously close to a laugh, and pulled the SUV up to the shifter hospital that his brother bankrolled. “Lacey, just let me get the bystanders out of the way before you deal with him. I’d rather not have blood all over the inside of this car.”

  “Sure,” she said, gritting it between her teeth.

  Nick smiled winningly at her and leaned in for a kiss, and it was a testament to how worried she was about him that she didn’t pull away.

  A team of nurses and doctors swarmed around the SUV and the one that rolled up right behind them, and Nick stood aside as they put the witch on a gurney and rolled her inside, as Benedict carried a loudly-objecting Eloise through the sliding automatic doors, and as the nurses brought a wheelchair and looked at him like he’d sit in it. Nick laughed, shaking his head. “I can walk.”

  “He’ll sit,” Lacey said, and dug her nails into his arm so he knew she was serious.

  Nick sighed and flopped into the chair, holding his legs out of the way so they could put the foot rests down, and held Lacey’s hand as the nurse wheeled him into the hospital.

  He really hated hospitals. It was a small comfort that Smith hated them more.

  He ended up in a double room with the ErlKing, even though Meadow didn’t want to be in the same room as Nick, and it wasn’t until far later that night — closer to morning, technically — that he and Lacey were alone. From what Rafe and Ruby said, and the bears when Kaiser finally arrived, they’d gotten everyone out of the BadCreek compound who wanted to go. There were a lot of injuries but none killed, and the BadCreek enforcers had been informed of Ray’s death, the freeing of the djinn, and the ErlKing’s delayed but impending fury.

  Kaiser had apparently offered them a chance to leave BadCreek and start over elsewhere, although there would be ways that the shifters would track them to make sure they didn’t start the same shit under a different name. Nick drifted in and out as he watched people come and go, though the only time he tensed was when Lacey got up to investigate why Eloise was screaming at Benedict for being an overbearing asshole.