Shiv rolled her eyes, half her body out of the suv. “Your silence today was your choice, Skye. I was with you all day. Evan’s not in there. Now, are you coming in? I need you in there with me.”
Skye glanced at her husband. “Aiden?”
Aiden didn’t try to hide his animosity as he scowled at Shiv. His eyes softened when he looked at Skye. “Go on in. It’ll be fine. I’ll be right here. Right outside the door.”
Skye’s eyes narrowed at him. “Do you know what’s in there?”
“No.”
“Why do you want me to go in?”
“I don’t.”
“Really, Skye.” Shiv interrupted. “Are you coming in or not? If you’d rather abandon me—”
Shiv was cut off by Skye’s door abruptly opening at her last words.
Shiv’s face half curled into a smile as she stepped next to Skye. “Good. Let’s go. Aiden, you stay in the car until we’re in.”
They walked up to the weather beaten door. Shiv knocked once.
A man, mid-forties, with a short ponytail, cracked the door. His face stretched to a patronizing smile when he saw Shiv. He opened the door wide, voice syrupy, “Shiv. You came. I was surprised to get your call. But I am game. I got our old room—” he caught sight of Skye, “wait, who’s this?”
Shiv stepped in through the door, moving the man backward into the room. Skye stepped in hesitantly behind her. Shiv closed the door and locked both the deadbolt and chain before she looked at the man. “Charles, this is my sister, Skye.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“Wait a second, Shiv.” Skye grabbed Shiv’s arm. “This is the guy who beat you? Killed your baby?”
Shiv looked at her sharply, shaking her arm free from Skye’s grip. “I never told you that.”
Skye shook her head—this was getting to be too much. “You did. It was a different timeline. I didn’t have time to explain.”
“A different timeline—what are you talking about?” Shiv’s eyes creased in confusion. “Is that what Evan said you could do?”
“We can’t talk about it here.” Skye’s eyes shifted to Charles. “I’ll explain everything after we leave. But what are we doing here, Shiv? What do you need to do so we can go?”
“Yes, Shiv. What the fuck is going on here?” Charles watched the sisters in annoyed confusion. “And what the fuck is a timeline?”
Shiv’s eyes whipped to Charles. “No. You do not get to talk to me like that. Not now.”
“Really, Shiv?” He sneered at her. “I thought we were here for a fuck. And now you’re screwing with me?”
“Shiv. We should go.” Skye’s hand locked onto Shiv’s wrist.
Shiv ripped her arm away, pointing behind her, but not looking back at Skye. Her eyes were trained on Charles. “In the corner, Skye.”
Skye didn’t move.
“In the corner, Skye. Now.” Her voice wasn’t about to allow Skye to disobey.
Against her instincts, Skye shuffled to the corner behind the door. “Shiv, whatever you’re thinking, you need to think again.”
Shiv advanced across the floor at Charles. Her voice was low as she answered Skye, but she didn’t take her eyes off Charles. “I have thought about this a long time, Skye. And I’m set. I’ve been screwed over my whole life. That’s done. It’s my turn to do the screwing. And this pathetic excuse for a man is where I’m going to start.”
Charles backed away from her, hands up, posture scared, but voice vicious. “Shiv. I don’t know what you think you’re going to do with me, but I can guarantee you, it’s not going to work. I beat the shit out of you once, and I’ll do it again without blinking.”
Shiv didn’t stop her advance. “I don’t think so Charles.” Toe to toe with him, her hand came up, and she poked him in the chest. “It’s my turn.”
The slap across her face was immediate, and sent her sprawling halfway to the floor.
In the silent seconds that followed, Shiv caught her balance, and with a wicked grin, raised a finger to the instant blood across her cheek. She looked at her red finger, then at Charles, taunting. “You always were weak. That was the best you got?”
“Shiv. No. Don’t do it.” Skye was frozen in the corner. And it was becoming increasingly clear what Shiv’s end game was here in this wretched motel room.
“You never knew how to satisfy me, Charles,” Shiv stood tall, “and now you can’t even properly beat me. I think it’s time I ruined your life like you ruined mine, you small-dicked shit-head.”
Charles’ face turned purple as Shiv’s words came at him. And then he attacked. He grabbed her by the shoulders and rammed his knee up into her, bending her over in pain. He held her shoulders in place and slugged her over and over with his knee.
The battle in Skye’s mind lasted only seconds. She knew Shiv wanted her to attack. She knew she needed to resist. But then Shiv’s cries came as her body went limp on the floor. Charles kicked her. Kicked her again and again. Vicious, his hair flew wide out of his ponytail. Her little sister whimpered.
Skye lost all thought. All rationale. All control.
She flew, tackling Charles, flinging both of their bodies across the room. His spine crunched into the far wall, buckling him. Skye bounced off his body, and ripped a lamp from a table, bringing it down on his head before he could get his footing. It sent him to his knees, half sprawled over Shiv.
His hands were touching her sister again.
Without thought, Skye grabbed the cord of the lamp and stepped behind him, wrapping the wire around his neck. She shoved her knee into his back and yanked up, ignoring his gasps and flailing arms as she pulled the cord hard against his windpipe. A blur of red, objects and shapes, blinded her. Sound couldn’t break through the pounding blood in her ears.
It was fast, and dirty, and effective. He didn’t stand a chance.
His body went limp.
Skye dropped the cord, and his torso thudded to the floor. Stumbling backward, Skye’s head tilted upward, eyes closed, as the hot hell of bliss began to run through her veins again. Her back hit the wall to the bathroom, and she slid down it, her toes curling in ecstasy.
She didn’t see Shiv kick her leg out from under Charles, and then get up, going to the door.
Just outside the entrance, Aiden braced against himself. He knew Skye was in no mortal danger. She would have yelled—and he would have heard through the thin wall—if it was a Malefic or Evan inside. But that knowledge only barely stopped him from kicking down the door once he heard the crashing and yelling.
Shiv out of their lives, he kept repeating to himself, forcing his feet to stay still and his fists to remain digging into his sides.
When the chain on the door slid, and the doorknob opened, he jumped to the opening.
Shiv stepped out, face cool detachment, pushing past him.
“She’s all yours,” she said to Aiden, not pausing in her stride.
Gut plummeting, Aiden stepped into the dark room. He instinctively knew what had happened in there. So it was no surprise to see Skye in a heap across the room, her body vibrating in rapture. His stomach churned.
He moved across the room, stopping at the body between him and Skye. He pushed two fingers into the neck of the lifeless body. No pulse, but that didn’t mean no hope. He went to Skye, kneeling in front of her.
His hand slid along her neck, slipping into her hair and gently tilting her head toward him. His voice was a whisper. “Skye, turn it back. You can change this decision.”
Her glazed eyes slipped across his features, finally finding focus when she met his look. He could see she warred with herself. Warred with what she had done, with what she was feeling.
“It was Charles, Aiden.” She tried to reason it out. “He was the bastard that killed her baby.”
Aiden took a deep breath, and his grip tightened on her neck. “You can’t play judge and jury, Skye.” His voice was insistent. “You can’t play god like this. Whatever this man did. It’s not f
or you to decide.”
Her eyes narrowed. “It isn’t? Who else is going to do it Aiden? Who else is going to hold him accountable? He does what he did, and then he attacks her right in front of me. Why shouldn’t it be me who gets to decide to rid the earth of his filth?”
“Skye, this isn’t you talking. This is whatever is in your veins right now. You need to send time back. Send it back and make a different decision.”
“No.”
“Don’t you see this is exactly what Shiv wanted? She wanted you to do this.”
“I’m not sending it back.”
“You need to.”
“No. I’m not going to. It won’t change anything, Aiden. I would do it all again. Just the same. I want this.”
“To get back at him?”
Her words were low, ashamed, but not apologizing. “To feel this.”
Aiden’s tongue curdled. “Skye, no. You’re letting this beat you. Don’t let it do this to you.”
“Aiden, shut up.” Skye closed her eyes.
“Skye, listen to me—”
His words were cut off as Skye sent time back. Back to the moment, just minutes past, when Aiden knelt in front of her.
Shock flooded Aiden’s face as he realized what she had just done. She had just cut off any possibility of going further back in time. Of correcting what she had just done to this man. She couldn’t re-loop past a point in time she had already altered. And now they were stuck.
With a growl, Aiden stood, throwing an arm around Skye and flinging her over his shoulder. She didn’t fight him.
He turned and stalked out of the room, stepping over the body. He threw her into the suv, as gently as his anger allowed, and went back in the room, grabbing a towel, and wiping down every surface he could guess that Skye would have touched.
He picked up the motel room’s phone with the towel. The best he could do now was call 911 and hope they could revive Charles.
Call done, he went out and got into the suv. He tore out of the parking lot, heavy wet snow splotching the windshield.
Shiv was nowhere to be seen.
{ Chapter 3 }
Seventeen hours passed in oppressive silence. Seventeen hours that Aiden churned what Skye had done over and over in his mind. Seventeen hours that saw Skye ride through the rapture of her kill and then crash hard, sleeping the last nine hours.
They drove through the snowstorm, through the night, until they were chased by a blinding sunrise. The rays of light set forth an ethereal palette of shimmering whites on the virgin snow, swallowing the viewpoint in every direction, until meeting a blue sky that didn’t end.
Massive, unmarred, empty sight lines surrounded them, as far as the eye could see, save for a large cabin, and six smaller cabins that soon came into view. Little dots of brown in the white that grew larger and larger as they drove along. After a turn onto an unplowed lane off the main road, they eventually stopped in front of the main log cabin.
Skye opened her eyes at the stop of the motion, blinking, bleary-eyed at the sun. Her gaze settled on the wide log cabin. It was rustic, with fat, knobby logs—not the smooth sleekness of the logs at the ranch in Brigton. Snow buried the porch, and was a quarter of the way up the front door.
“Where are we?”
“Old training ground.”
“Training ground where?”
“Montana.”
Skye nodded slowly, trying to get her head in place. “That’s a whole lot of snow and sky.”
“It is.” Aiden was looking at the door of the cabin, and didn’t bother to glance around.
“Aiden, what are we doing here? And where is Shiv?”
“It was the only place I could think of.” Aiden looked at her. “And Shiv left on her own accord back at the motel.”
“What about home?”
“The mountain is not the place for us right now, Skye.”
“But home…”
Aiden stifled a sigh. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this. With you.”
“You don’t trust me.” She didn’t bother to make it a question. She already knew it was fact. But that didn’t stop the hurt of the knowledge.
Aiden shook his head. “What do you want me to say, Skye? You just killed a man and were instrumental in killing another. You snuck away from me. I didn’t think you were capable of anything you just did.”
He cut the rise in his voice and rubbed his forehead. “I didn’t want to believe you would actually do something like this. That you wouldn’t be able to control yourself. Whatever is in you right now. So no, I don’t trust you. It’s clear I have no idea where your head is at. Do you really think I would bring you back to the mountain like this?”
“You’re afraid of what I would do.” Her eyes were in her lap. “Of who I would hurt.”
“Yes. But I’m more afraid of what the elders would do to you. We were walking a fine line before with them. But the Malefic in you…it’s showing itself, and the elders have just been biding their time, waiting for an excuse, waiting to pounce…”
Silent tears streamed in crooked lines down Skye’s cheeks. She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry.”
“But are you sorry for what you did, or are you sorry that we’re in the position we’re in right now? There’s a difference, Skye.”
Seconds ticked by as the question hung in the air. Eventually, Skye shrugged. She honestly didn’t know the answer.
“And that’s what scares me half-to-grave,” Aiden said, his voice rough. “You don’t know. You lost your center, Skye. You lost your moral compass in that fire. So no, you’re not going to be around people right now.”
“Are you leaving me here?” The question was small, half-whispered.
Aiden grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Skye, god no. I’m not leaving you here. I would never. I love you. All of you. And I’m not going to abandon you. But we need to figure this out. Figure out what the Malefic in you means before you’re with others.”
He dropped her chin and pointed out the window past her. “There is no one. No one out here for miles. So it’s the safest place for us right now. For you. Can you understand that?”
Skye closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When her eyes opened, resolve had replaced self-pity. “Yes. Okay. We need to figure this out.”
“Good. Then let’s go inside.”
Aiden dug in the snow for a hidden key wedged between fat logs by the base of the door. Standing in Aiden’s tracks, Skye hugged herself against the cold. Aiden had to kick the door to nudge it open, and once inside, years of dust greeted them.
The common area was vaulted and spacious, and most of the sparse furniture in it was covered with large white cloths. Skye set to removing the dust covers while Aiden went to the back of the cabin to get the generator going.
Both were hauling in wood from behind the cabin, Skye huddled under a found blanket, when a knock came on the door. Aiden set the hefty load he had been balancing in his arms next to the mammoth stone fireplace. He motioned for Skye to get to the back of the cabin, then cautiously approached the door, leaning to peak out one of the front windows.
“It’s okay,” he said to Skye, once he saw who it was.
He opened the door, shaking the hand of the heavily bearded, burly man that stepped into the cabin.
Walking toward Aiden, Skye stopped at the sight of the man. Skins from all manners of animals were hung and strapped across his body. He looked like he was straight out of the 1800s fur trapping industry. Except for the black face mask he had pushed up over his forehead.
Aiden looked over his shoulder at his wife, and didn’t bother to hide a scolding smirk that said, yes, she was gawking. He nodded her to join him.
Fur-man closed the door behind him and stomped his long-haired boots on the wood floor, snow splattering in wet clumps.
“Rudy, I’d like to introduce my wife, Skye,” Aiden said and glanced down at Skye. “Rudy takes care of the place, stops by
on occasion just to make sure all is well.”
Skye stepped up to the man, only a half-inch shorter than Aiden and just as wide, at least with all the layers of furs on. It was quite possible he was a skinny stick under the piles of hides. She extended her hand and a wary smile.
“Good to meet you, doll. Aiden’s one of the best we’ve ever seen in these parts, so I take it you’re one of the best as well?” Despite his rough appearance, his voice was warm honey, low and soothing.
Skye couldn’t take her eyes off his fascinating half-grey, half-red beard. Icicles hung randomly from the long coarse hairs.
Aiden nudged her in the middle of her back.
She blinked, shaking her head in slight embarrassment. Even if she had gone half-crazy, she still recognized when she was being rude. And she most certainly could still give the veneer of normalcy.
She gave Rudy an apologetic smile as she pulled her hand from his. “Yes, Aiden is the best, but I’m married to him, so my opinion may be skewed a touch.”
They stepped further into the room, and Aiden started stacking the logs in the fireplace while talking to Rudy.
“Are the solar panels still operational?”
“Yep, should be.” Rudy took one of the furs, a dark chocolate brown, off his shoulders. “Tested them this summer, repaired one, then shut the grid down. Just needs to be turned back on. You remember how?”
“Yes. And our fuel supply?”
“Good. Depending on how long you’ll be here.” Rudy started pulling logs from the pile and handing them to Aiden.
Aiden shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Few weeks, month, maybe more.”
“Well, just let me know if anything needs to be delivered. The food I brought should last a few weeks. Got it on back of the sled. Need anything else right away?”
Aiden stood and went to the side of the fireplace for matches and kindling. “Are there still clothes here?”
Flux Flame (A Flame Moon Novel Page 3
