Chapter 44
Beckett
Astrid leapt at me, ready to scratch my eyes out. I dropped the pole and held my arm out, blocking her. She tore through my shirt with her nails. Her magic seeped from her and covered the top of the raft.
“Astrid, you don’t want to do this.”
She shook her head and her hair fell into her face. She hunched over and swiped out at me again. “You’re only using me for my power.”
“What?” The raft dipped as we slid into a set of rapidly moving water. I held my arms out the way I did anytime I surfed. It jostled up and down, bouncing us. Though I held my balance, Astrid dropped to her knees. She pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “Make them stop talking or I will kill you!”
What the hell was happening? And then it hit me. I dropped down to my knees beside her. I placed my hands on her cheeks. “Look at me.”
She wound her hand back and let it crack across my cheek. “Hate you!”
My head snapped back and splitting pain shot up the side of my face. Ouch! I shook my head. “We’re on the Styx! The river of hate.”
“No! You’re evil!” She shot her magic right at my face. I held my hand up and let my magic take most of the hit. I ducked to the side and some of her smoke streaked across my cheek. I pressed my hand over the stinging cut. The warmth of trickling blood coated my fingers.
My heart went into overdrive as she struggled toward me with murder in her eyes. “Hate you so much.”
“Yeah, I got that.” I gritted my teeth and used the bottom of my shirt to wipe my face. I grabbed her wrists and tossed her down onto the raft. Then held her there through every bump in the river.
She screamed in my face, “Using me!” She kicked out with her legs and tried to squirm away.
“Am not! Just rein it in until we get to the next river, Astrid. Come on! Control yourself!”
“Beckett?” She blinked up at me. “What happened? Why are you on top of me?”
“Is this really you or are you going to claw my eyes out?” I kept her pinned down.
“Scratch your eyes out?” When a drop of blood fell from my cheek, her eyes widened. “Did I . . . did I do that to you?”
I eased off her wrists and she sat up and pressed her hand to her head. “The voices, Beckett, they’re telling me to do such bad things. Awful things.”
“It’ll be over soon.” I hope. “Do you still hear them?”
She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. “Yeah.”
“But you’re not acting on them, you’ve got control.”
“Don’t sound so pleased. They’re screaming for me kill you.” She pressed her hands to the sides of her head and rocked back and forth.
“You’ve got this.” This had to end soon. I looked out over the river and just as I thought things couldn’t get worse. “Oh shit.”
“What?” Her head snapped up. “Oh shit.”
Mist covered the river where it fell off into a freaking waterfall. I grabbed at the flowers, searching for anything to hold on too. Astrid scrambled to her knees and held her hands over the flowers. Vine loops shot up from the raft like handles.
I pulled Astrid closer to me and we grabbed the handles. “Don’t fall in the water.”
“That’s the plan.” The raft shot off the waterfall and my stomach rose up into my throat. We were airborne and the front flipped down. We dangled from the handles in midair with nothing but a flower parachute to hold on to.
A scream ripped from her mouth and I had to do something. I dropped my right hand and let my magic shoot from me. The raft snapped back around and I lost my grip. My body launched straight up into the air and I flipped over. My arms pinwheeled and I kicked my legs out. Dizziness overcame me as I spun.
“Beckett!”
I twisted in midair and fired my magic to propel myself down toward her. I dropped onto it just as the raft slammed onto the river. Water splashed up all around us and I fell onto my back, sucking in deep breaths.
My chest heaved as I tried to slow my racing pulse. “That was—”
“Beckett.” She interrupted.
“Ye—” I glanced down at her and sucked in a sharp breath. No! No! My mind couldn’t comprehend what my eyes were seeing. My hands shook so hard I couldn’t control them. “Astrid. Oh God.”
“It’s not as bad as it feels, is it?” She swallowed hard and a tear leaked back from the corner of her eye.
“No, it’s not.” I lied. Two jagged thorns jutted from the raft and right through each of her shoulders. Blood coated the white flowers beneath her. I swallowed around the ball in my throat. “You’re going to be just fine.”
“Liar.” She coughed and a mist of blood shot up from her lips. “On the plus side, we stopped moving.”
I looked at the river and we hadn’t stopped moving. The river went from white water rapids to smooth as glass. “No, we just smoothed out.”
“What?” Her face was sickly pale and more blood seeped from her. “Where are we?”
I brushed my thumb over her cheek to smooth away the tears. She had to be okay. She was my love, my soulmate. If I lost her. Oh god, I couldn’t even think about losing her. “Don’t worry about it. We will get you out of here and back to Warwick. I’ll call Niche. She will heal you just like she did before.”
She shook her head. “No, Beck, what part of the river are we on?”
“Has to be . . .” My eyes widened. “The Acheron. The river of pain.”
“Really lives up to the name.” She gave me a weak smile.
“I can get us to the edge, get us home.” I opened my hand, ready to use my magic to move us off the river.
“No, don’t you see? This is a test.” She struggled with every word. “I can’t give up now. We have to continue on.”
I shook my head. “How can this be . . . it?”
“Help me up.” She reached for my hand.
“What? Are you crazy?” I wound my fingers with hers.
“Not crazy, I’m right.” She started to pull herself up off the thorns. The raft rocked with her movements. The blood drained from her face and she turned a shade of green I didn’t ever want to see on her.
I wanted to tell her to lie still, yet I found myself pulling her up off those thorns. The wet sticky sound of the thorns sliding out filled my ears. I wanted to trade places with her, to take that pain from her. As the last little bit slid free, she cried out and fell onto my lap. I pressed my hands over the gaping holes in her back. Her blood seeped between my fingers and dripped onto the raft. “Why did you do that?”
“Pain.” She huffed and ran her finger over the blood coating her shirt, gathering it on her fingertips. She held it over the edge of the raft. “The river demands it and I refuse to give up.”
Had the shock of her wounds gotten to her head? Was she delirious like she was only moments ago? “I don’t understand.”
“Each one is a lesson, hate, pain. I needed to learn to control my temper and not give up when things get painful or hurt me.” She let a drop of her blood hit the water and the raft surged forward as if I dropped an engine onto it.
She lay back and closed her eyes. Little by little the wounds on her shoulders knitted closed. Though her blood still stood stark against the white flower petals and her skin had only turned from green to ghostly white. I wrapped my arms around her and held her for long moments while we drifted. Music from Elysium mixed with the cries from Tartarus and the sound of trickling water, but all I could focus on was her even breaths.
“If I could take this for you, I would.”
“I know.” She sighed. “We’re getting closer to the next one.”
“How do you know?” Dread sat in the pit of my stomach. How much more could she take?
“I’m not sure, but you know what?” She sat up and cupped my cheek.
“Um, what?” I glanced down at her doe-eyed smile and knew something was up. The river changed from glassy clear to foggy mist. Just like Astrid had gone from wri
thing in pain to…this.
“You’re right. Let’s just go.”
“Why would you want to go now? I think we’ve gotten past the worst of it . . .” Then it dawned on me. “Right, okay, so I think we’re on the Lethe.”
“What’s a Lethe?” She smiled up at me with not a care in the world.
I met her eye and spoke slowly, “The river of forgetfulness.”
“Riiiiggghhhtttt.” She opened her palm and summoned the fog off the top of the river and made a little cloud shaped like a cat. “I’m sorry, were you talking?”
“The river of forgetfulness.” I sat back and spread my arms out behind me. Something told me we were going to be here for a while.
“Right, okay, yeah.” She poked her cloud cat in the nose and sent it drifting back onto the river. “Where are we again?”
“The Lethe.” Her brows furrowed in confusion and I sighed. “The river of forgetfulness.”
Chapter 45
Beckett
An hour later
“Okay, Astrid, say it with me.” I was on my knees before her. The twigs from the raft dug into my skin and my patience was slowly slipping away. “The Lethe.”
“The lethe . . . which issssssssss . . .” She trailed off, waiting for me to finish.
“The river of . . .” I placed my hands on her cheeks, pulling her in. I pressed my lips against hers and let the heat between us take me. My hands drifted down her arms and around her back. I dragged her closer to me and opened my mouth to hers.
She yanked away from me. “Forgetfulness!”
Now of all times . . . now? “Finally.”
The raft shot forward and I fell back on the flowers. Astrid looked ahead of us then back at me. “What happened?”
“No, not again.” I groaned and threw my arm over my face.
She gave it a little tug. “Not what again?”
Her eyes were lucid this time, not that ditzy doe-eyed look she’d given me only moments ago. “Oh thank God it’s over.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but we’re moving again, so that’s a good thing.” She rubbed at her shoulders.
“I have no idea what lesson was learned with that one, but it was a pain in the ass.” The longer we were down here, the more I doubted what these rivers could teach us.
“Patience.” She grabbed a flower and tossed it into my face. “Seems that one needs a bit more work on your part.”
Sweat rolled down the sides of my face as I grabbed my own set of flowers and threw them back at her. For the first time there was a peace between us. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad that Maze spilled the beans on our dream walking abilities. Perhaps things would get better between us. Maybe having the two of us aligned would be accepted by the warlock world. Hope sprang in my chest and this time I didn’t want to put it out.
“Beckett!” Astrid jumped to her feet. “I’m not sure what kind of flowers these are, but fire doesn’t seem like something they can withstand.”
I jumped up next to her. “The Phlegethon! Astrid, wall, we need a wall of magic.”
She threw her hands up and golden smoke exploded out of her, rising up in front of us like a brick wall. I turned and threw my magic out behind us. My blue smoke connected with her gold to form a barrier around the raft. Flames licked up the side of the dome and flew over our heads. She pressed her back to mine and we both held back the fire trying to consume us. Her body quaked against my back and I could feel her power fighting to hold against the magic of the river.
Flames exploded through our dome like a tube of death. I ducked down and dragged Astrid with me. All the while I held one side up while she held the other. The dome continued to weaken and I felt Astrid growing tired.
Sweat ran down my cheeks as the heat filled the dome. “This isn’t working.”
“Tell me about it. We need something more.” I could feel the press of her shoulder into my lower back and I wanted to shield her from this, from being burned alive. She ducked under my arm and spun around to face me. “Change of plans.”
“What?”
“We need to combine out powers!” She held her arms up and wrapped her hands with mine. “Three, two, one . . . now!”
Power exploded out of us at the same time, her gold mixed with my blue. The dome pulsed outward, forcing the dancing flames back. The moment they hit the shoreline the flames extinguished.
“More, Astrid, more!”
Our eyes locked and I felt her power as if it were my own, washing over me. The flames slunk back toward the shore and I could see up ahead an end in sight. “Just a little bit longer.”
The raft flowed forward and our dome held as if we were coming out of a tunnel. The flames peeled back over the dome until we shot out the other end. Astrid dropped my hands and fell into my chest. “Did you feel . . .”
“I felt you.” I kissed the top of her head. “We’ve only got one more to go.”
She fell back. Her hair fanned out around her in an array of deep burgundy that stood out among the white petals. Her chest rose and fell with each heaving breath she took. Her emerald eyes sparked, and she shook her head. “I don’t think I have it in me to do another one. I’m exhausted.”
I knew what she meant. I felt the exhaustion down to my bones. My eyelids dipped, and I dropped down next to her. We lay shoulder to shoulder, drifting along in a quiet sort of peace. “You know what comes next?”
She nodded. “Yeah, Cocytus, river of wailing.”
“Yep.” I curled on my side to face her.
“Yep.” She mirrored my position and scooted in closer. “Will we hear all the cries of the damned?”
“Or the cries of people whose loved ones are down here.” I reached out and drew her into my chest as the first faint scream broke the air.
“So far, we’ve learned anger management, determination, patience, teamwork. What could those cries possibly have to teach us?”
If there was one thing that I knew Matteaus wanted above all else, it was for us to be ready for the trouble to come. If the Fallen were worried, then I was too. Because there was only one thing I could think of that would force them to get all the races to work together . . . a worlds war. But with who or what I didn’t know.
I’d lied to her about so many things, but this I wouldn’t hide from her. And in time I would tell her the truth about everything. Even our shared soul mate connection. “What will happen to the world if the warlocks don’t align with the witches.”
“Oh god, the end of the world?” Her eye widened.
“I don’t know, just hold on.”
The cries grew louder as we drifted farther. I pressed her head to my chest and held my hands over her ears. I’d already been through enough of the bad in life that I could take this. I didn’t want her to have to. I pressed my hands harder over hers to hold them tighter to her. The screams grew louder. Mothers wailing for their children, people crying out for spouses, screams of torture, all of it assailed me. It was deafening. I lost myself, forgot where I was and who I was with.
The raft jostled and bumped in all different directions, yet I didn’t open my eyes. I just held on, listening to every voice. The raft hit a big bump and I curled my arms around Astrid tighter. “Hold on, just keep holding on.” I didn’t know if I was telling that to her or myself.
Chapter 46
Astrid
The raft slammed into the shore and I flew up into a sitting position. Every muscle in my body ached. My shoulders still felt torn open even though they’d healed after we left that part of the river. Beckett lay in a heap beside me with his eyes squeezed shut while he rocked and mumbled to himself. The water lapped at the side of the raft and drifted over the riverbed. We were at the end of where we could travel. Beyond the small patch of land where we stopped there was nothing but water flowing out into a starry abyss. It was beautiful and mesmerizing as the water ran off into liquefied droplets.
I rested my hand on Beckett’s shoulder and gave him a little shake
. “Beckett.”
He didn’t move, just kept his eyes shut tight. I leaned in closer and ran my hand over his shoulder and upper arm. A heavy presence sat in the air. I felt it seeping toward us like a storm rolling across a field. The darkness of the underworld receded, and a bright ray of sunshine moved over the horizon. Light so bright it was nearly blinding. With one hand I shielded my eyes and with the other I began hitting Beckett harder.
“Beck, come on. You gotta wake up.”
He rolled to his back and groaned. “Shut the light off.”
“That’s not a light.”
He shot straight up. His eyes flashed wide. “The raft?”
“No more it’s a small underworld ride for us. I think we reached the end.” I rose to my feet as the ray of sun approached. No, not a ray, a woman. So beautiful, so bright in this world of darkness. She was only a shadow in the light, but I could tell she was statuesque. With curves for days and a saunter that rivaled supermodels on the runway during New York Fashion Week.
Beckett rose to stand beside me. A smile played on his lips like he was starstruck. His tongue darted over his bottom lip, wetting it. “Persephone.”
I threw my elbow into his side. “You got a little bit of drool right here.” I pointed to the corner of his lip.
“Never figured you for the jealous type.” He chuckled.
“Oh yeah?”
He lowered his lips so close to my ear I could feel his breath against my skin. “I like it.”
Heat flooded my cheeks and I turned my attention away from him and back on the task at hand. She was only ten feet away and I could make out her features. Long wavy chocolate locks fell from the top of her head all the way down to her knees. Flowers were wound in among the wild braids. A circular crown of Narcissus flowers, the same ones the raft was made of, sat perched on her head. Her face reminded me of one of those beautiful anime characters. Thick black eyelashes lined her huge seas of amber eyes that reminded me of golden fields of wheat. She had a small pert nose, heart-shaped face, and full light pink glossy lips. Her bohemian flowing white dress fell all the way down to the ground. The neck was a deep V cut that stopped below her belly button and tied on the back of her neck. The dress exposed her entire back and shoulders.
Wicked Wish (The Royals: Warlock Court Book 2) Page 22
