by Karen Lynch
The male turned to run, but the wyvern snatched him up and tore him apart with his teeth and claws. Blood sprayed across the snow and hot drops splattered against my cold face.
Bloody pieces of vampire hit the ground as Alex circled the clearing. His crocodile eyes swept over the battle below as if he was choosing his next target. I looked at Nikolas who was in the thick of the fight with the two remaining vampires, and so vulnerable to an attack from above.
“Alex,” I shouted hoarsely, and his head swung in my direction. The last time I’d seen him he’d been chasing vampires away from Westhorne after he’d saved my life. I hoped he remembered that and wasn’t just out hunting anything that moved.
I didn’t sense the new vampire until he was only a few feet away. Alex dove toward us and I lunged to the side to give him a clear path to the vampire. A scream ripped from my lips when I felt clawed feet close around my waist instead. I struggled for several seconds until my feet left the ground. My stomach dropped as quickly as the ground as we rose into the air. I caught a glimpse of Nikolas swinging his sword and at least seven bodies on the ground before we flew over the tops of the trees and the clearing disappeared from sight.
Over the wind and the flapping of Alex’s wings, I heard Nikolas shout my name.
“Oh God!” My stomach churned as I stared at the snow-covered trees rushing by beneath me. I didn’t want to think about where Alex was taking me or what he would do when we got there. He’d saved my life before, but I didn’t know if that had been intentional or because he liked the taste of vampires more. The image of him ripping apart the vampire played over and over in my head. I had to fight the panic building inside me and the urge to struggle. If he dropped me from this height I was dead.
Miles of forest passed below us. Alex flew leisurely over rivers and around hills until I lost all sense of direction. I kept my chin tucked against my chest to try to protect my face from the stinging snow and wind, but my cheeks quickly grew numb from the cold. I tried to use my Mori’s power to warm me as Nikolas’s Mori did for him, but we’d never done that before and it lasted only a few minutes.
I wasn’t sure how long we were in the air – maybe twenty or thirty minutes – before we began to descend toward a river winding through the trees. Alex dipped until my feet were almost touching the rushing water, and I could feel the spray on my face. I held my breath, afraid he was going to drop me into the river. Without my power, the water would kill me. I was a good swimmer, but even if I made it to shore, I’d freeze to death.
He followed the river for a few minutes before he circled a large rock formation along one of the banks. I tried to brace myself for the landing, but my legs were cold and unsteady after being in the air. I stumbled and sank painfully to my knees on the icy rock.
Alex circled me and landed a few feet away, settling down into a watchful crouch. His breath sent huge puffs of steam into the frigid air and small tendrils of smoke curled from his nostrils. I huddled in a ball and watched him out of the corner of my eye, afraid to move. His flames had at least a three-foot reach, and I’d seen what they could do.
We sat like that for at least an hour. Every now and then Alex’s head swung in my direction, but he made no move toward me. With every minute that passed, my body got colder until I began to fear dying from exposure more than Alex. The sky began to darken and the snow thickened until I could barely see the other side of the river. I knew I had to move soon or I would die on this rock.
Something moved in the trees below us, and Alex’s head tilted as his slit eyes turned in that direction. A few seconds later, he lifted off and sped toward the trees. I watched breathlessly, terrified that a vampire had followed us. A small reddish shape darted across the snow then spun and fled when it saw the wyvern coming toward it. I released a slow breath when Alex began chasing the fox through the trees. I hoped the animal escaped, but at the same time, I was grateful Alex was hunting something besides me.
My body was cramped and my hands and feet were almost numb, making the climb down from the rock painful and difficult. It was almost dark by the time I reached the ground, and I rested for a minute in the shelter of the rock, stamping my feet and tucking my hands under my arms to warm them.
I searched my pockets for my phone and almost cried when I came up empty. It could be anywhere between here and the SUV. I wasn’t sure if I could even get a signal out here, but it would have been a small comfort to have a phone with me.
I quickly made a decision. It was a long shot that this was the same river that ran through Butler Falls, but it had to lead somewhere. I was in the middle of nowhere with no hope of finding my way back to the road. Nikolas would be looking for me – I refused to believe he was unable to – but if I stayed here until help came, I would die.
Trekking along the river in the dark was slow and treacherous. I had to feel my way around rocks and trees and be careful not to step too close to the edge of the bank. The snow changed to freezing rain and within an hour I was drenched to the skin. My body shivered so hard it hurt, and I grew tired and sluggish. I refused to stop. To stop moving meant death, and I would not die out here. I had survived too much to just lie down in the snow and give up.
I stopped to go around a boulder and heard the sound of wings above the roar of the river. Alex had been following me since I set out. He made no move to attack me, and I knew now that he was watching over me. I was comforted by his quiet presence and to know that I wasn’t alone out here.
But Alex’s presence could not protect me from the elements. It became increasingly difficult to lift my feet, and my whole body felt numb. A few times when I stopped to catch my breath, I found myself jerking awake a few minutes later. My body was shutting down, even if my mind refused to surrender.
I came to another bend in the river and my body sagged hopelessly at the sight of more trees, more water. “Stop that,” I scolded myself, but the words were slurred, almost unintelligible to my own ears.
Alex made a sound halfway between a growl and a snort, and I looked up, straining to see him through the darkness and sleet. As I scanned the area, my eyes moved over a dark shadow several hundred yards up the river. Just more rocks. A choked sob escaped me, and I fought down the tears that wanted to come. This place might break my body, but it would not break me.
I forced my feet to move, and I thought about Nikolas. In my mind I saw his face, his warm gray eyes and his beautiful smile as he told me he loved me. I imagined him beside me, ordering me to keep going like he did in training. My imaginings grew so vivid I felt the faint fluttering at the back of my mind that meant he was near. It felt so real that I called out his name. I even stopped and listened for him, but all I could hear was the river.
Alex growled again and flew in lower circles around me. Fear shot through my delirium. Without my power I had no way of knowing if a vampire was nearby. I tried to run, but my feet caught on a branch and I collapsed in the snow. Get up, my mind cried, but my body could no longer obey.
Hands grabbed me and rolled me over. “Sara, wake up,” a voice ordered harshly as the hands felt my face and throat. “Stay with me.”
“Nikolas.” His name came out as incoherent babble.
“Sara, oh God.” Nikolas gathered me in his arms and pressed his face to mine. I was too cold to feel his heat, and my arms couldn’t move to hug him back, but none of that mattered. He was here.
He pulled away. “Are you hurt?” When I didn’t respond fast enough he demanded, “Sara, talk to me.”
“C-cold.”
“Khristu, you’re soaked through.” He stood, lifting me effortlessly. “I’ve got you. You need to stay awake for me.”
The desperation in his voice frightened me, and all I wanted to do was make it go away. “Okay,” I mumbled.
I felt him moving swiftly over the ground. He stopped, and I heard the snap of metal, a clank, and a creaking sound. A door closed, and the wind and rain disappeared.
He set me down on somethi
ng soft. I opened my eyes but saw only darkness.
“Nikolas?”
“I’m here.”
A match flared. Seconds later, an oil lantern cast a soft glow across the room, dispelling the darkness. Nikolas left the lantern on the table and went to the stone fireplace on the far side of the small room. Within a minute, he had a small blaze going. He added some small logs and stoked the fire until the wood lit.
He came back to me. Without a word he unzipped my coat and removed it. I was too numb to care when he grasped the hem of my wet top and pulled it over my head. My boots came off next, followed by my jeans.
“Jesus, your skin is like ice.” Standing, he yanked off his coat and shirt then pulled me to my feet and pressed my cold body to his warmer one. He rubbed my arms and back vigorously for several minutes until my skin felt like it was thawing. He sat me on the bed again and opened a large wooden chest, pulling out a folded quilt, which he wrapped around me. Then he picked me up and carried me over to set me on the small rug in front of the fireplace.
“It will warm up in here soon,” he said, laying another log on the fire.
I watched quietly as he moved around the small cabin. He went outside and brought in several large armloads of wood. Then he locked the door. Based on the fishing gear and traps hanging on one wall, we were in a hunting cabin. There was a small table with two chairs, two single beds, and some cupboards. The cabin was small and sparse, but cared for.
Storm shutters covered the two windows, but the glass still rattled when the storm shook the small building. Sleet pelted the roof and the wind howled in the chimney, making the flames dance. The roof creaked ominously, and I stared at the beamed ceiling.
“It’s the wyvern.” Nikolas fed more wood into the fire and sat back on his heels, running a hand through his wet hair. “I think it’s guarding you.”
I shivered and pulled the quilt tighter around me. My hands and feet no longer felt numb and my face tingled from the heat of the fire, but my core was still cold. Why wasn’t he freezing wearing nothing but a pair of jeans?
Nikolas went to the cupboards and returned with a man’s flannel shirt and a towel. He didn’t say anything as he pushed the quilt off my shoulders and dressed me in the overlarge shirt. The sleeves swallowed my hands, and he smiled as he rolled the fabric up to my wrists. Then he secured the quilt around me again and moved behind me until I was sitting between his legs, facing the fire.
I closed my eyes when he began to gently dry my hair with the towel. Emotions crowded my chest as it finally hit me that he was here, that we were safe and together.
“When I saw the wyvern carry you away I thought I’d lost you,” he confessed hoarsely as he worked the towel through my hair. “And then I saw you lying in the snow.”
“How did you find me?” I asked in a choked voice.
“I killed the rest of the vampires and headed in the direction the wyvern went with you. I can cover a lot of ground on foot, but there are hundreds of square miles of forest out here, and he didn’t leave a trail. It was sheer luck that I found where he landed by the river. The broken branches and footprints in the snow told me what way you’d gone.”
I stared at the flames, trying not to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t found me when he did. “What about the others? Do you think they’re okay?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “Half the vampires went after you. Chris and the others would have been able to handle the rest. I’m sure Chris contacted Westhorne, and Tristan has half of the stronghold out there looking for us by now.”
I thought about Emma and the terror in her eyes when she’d asked me to not let the vampires take her again. “I promised Emma I would keep her safe, and I left her there.”
“You didn’t leave her; you were taken. Emma will understand.” He began to rub my scalp with the towel, and I sighed and leaned against him. A gust of wind shook the cabin, reminding me how remote and alone we were.
“Do you think we’ll be safe here?”
“I don’t think we have anything to worry about. If any vampires did survive and somehow manage to find us, they are not getting past the wyvern.” As if he’d heard us, Alex walked across the roof to let us know he was still there.
Nikolas tossed the towel on the floor. “How do you feel?”
I didn’t know if he was asking about my physical or emotional state, and I wasn’t sure how to answer for either of them. My body was warmer, but there was an emptiness inside of me that made my heart ache. My whole life my power had been a part of me, and I felt lost without it. “One of the vampires shot me with a dart and now I can’t use my power,” I said in a small voice.
His body tensed. “What do you mean? It’s gone?”
“It’s there but I can’t touch it or use it. What if...?”
He wrapped his arms around me. “We’ll contact Eldeorin when we get home. It’s obviously something that affects Fae magic, and he’ll know what to do.”
Hope flared in my chest. Nikolas was right. Eldeorin was old and a very powerful healer. If anyone could fix me, it was him. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“For you, I’ll tolerate him.” He pressed a kiss beneath my ear, and my stomach did a flip as a different kind of heat filled my body. I was suddenly very aware of the warm male body pressed against mine and my state of undress beneath the quilt.
Nikolas released me and stood, leaving me in a state of nervous confusion. He checked the fire and added more wood then went to one of the beds. When his gaze came back to me, my stomach dipped wildly, and my eyes were drawn to the firelight playing across his hard stomach and the thin line of hair running down his navel to disappear under the waistline of his jeans. I swallowed dryly and forgot to breathe.
He lifted the mattress from the bed and laid it on the floor beside me. Opening the chest, he removed more blankets and a pillow. “It’s warmer over here,” he said as he quickly made up a bed on the floor. When he was done, he pulled up one corner of the blankets for me in silent invitation.
I stared at the narrow mattress and thought about the two of us sharing it, and my pulse fluttered wildly. My hands trembled as I dropped the quilt and slid into the makeshift bed. I watched quietly as he went to the door and peered outside. Then he locked it again and doused the lantern before he came back to sit on the floor beside me. Disappointment pricked my chest.
“Aren’t you cold?” I asked him.
He smiled and tucked the blanket under my chin. “My Mori keeps me warm.”
“Oh. I was just...”
His hand stilled on my shoulder. “What?”
I bit my lip as I gathered my courage. “We can share.”
Heat flared in his eyes, making my heart lurch madly. “My jeans are wet.”
“You could” – I tried to swallow but my mouth was dry – “take them off.”
The words hung in the air between us, and heat crept into my face. Nikolas’s lips parted slightly as his eyes darkened. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” A small part of me was scared, but I was surer of this than I’d ever been of anything.
His gaze held mine for the longest seconds of my life before he slowly got to his feet and kicked off his boots. When his hands went to the button of his jeans, my heart leapt into my throat and I tore my eyes away to stare at the fire. Every sound in the room was suddenly amplified: a zipper lowering, the rustle of clothing, the soft thump of wet jeans hitting the floor.
Cool air touched my skin when he lifted the blankets and slid beneath them. Heat emanated from his body like a furnace as he lay on his side next to me. His bare leg touched mine, and a tingle shot straight to my belly.
“Sara,” he said softly.
“Yes.”
His hand cupped my chin and turned my face toward him. I saw the fire reflecting in his eyes before he lowered his head and kissed me with so much tenderness I thought my heart would burst. His lips were soft and worshipful as they left mine to explore m
y jaw and found a sensitive spot beneath my ear.
He lifted his head. “Being a warrior is all I’ve ever known, all I ever wanted. I thought I didn’t need anything else. And then I found you, and it was like finding the other half of me that I didn’t know was missing.” His fingers caressed my face as his gaze and words mesmerized me. “You make me whole, Sara.”
“My warrior.” I reached for the hand touching my face and laced my fingers with his. “I used to think the empty place in my heart was from losing my dad. But I was wrong. My heart was just waiting for you to come and fill it up.”
He kissed me again, gently at first and then with more hunger. His hand held mine against the pillow as his tongue traced the seam of my lips, coaxing them open to claim my mouth. My other hand tangled in his hair as the need to be closer to him grew stronger. When he pulled out of the kiss, I protested softly.
I looked up at him, and there was no mistaking the desire in his eyes. “Do you want this?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
His eyes searched mine. “We can wait until –”
“Nikolas.” I cupped his face with my hand. “I don’t want to wait. All I want is you.”
He rose up on one elbow and ran his fingers along my face, over my lips, and down the column of my throat. My heart thudded against my ribs when he pushed the blankets down and touched the collar of my borrowed shirt. He paused and his gaze burned into mine as he undid the top button. His fingers barely grazed my skin as his hand moved down, releasing each button, but every soft touch sent heat spiraling through me. I gasped when his warm hand splayed across my stomach.
He looked down at his hand as it moved slowly across my skin, over my ribs, and brushed the clasp of my bra. “God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered reverently. Fire filled my veins when he pressed his lips to the swell of my breast and blazed a trail of kisses to my mouth.
His eyes lifted to mine again and the emotions raging in them stole my breath. “Sara Grey, you’ve owned my heart from the moment I met you. My body and soul are yours if you’ll have them.”
