The ogres swung around and half of them were gone in a flash, chasing down the bastard of a Guardian. Maybe that wasn’t a complete win, but that shit wasn’t going to offer help and then just fuck off on us. My mind fuzzed over in a haze of blood and wounds as I was pulled from protecting Levi.
Pic gestured to the kid. “Drop him in the pool, let Bly’s magic take him.”
Levi didn’t struggle as an ogre grabbed him by a foot and dragged him across the clearing to the mirrored pool. Maybe this would be good. Levi had water magic, he couldn’t drown. Right? Gods, I hoped not. Otherwise, the kid was done and I couldn’t save him. Fuck, I couldn’t save him.
“I see the hope in your eyes, Wolf. The thing you don’t understand about Bly is she loves blood and death more than she gives a shit about even her own kind. He won’t survive, no matter what kind of silly, piss-poor magic he can stir up.”
“Levi.” I said his name and his eyes rolled so he was looking at me. Upside down and being dragged to his death, but looking at me. “Believe.” I said the word, but didn’t really put any stock into it. Belief was Rylee’s realm, not mine. But I’d seen her go through things that would have killed, destroyed, and torn apart anyone else. Belief had been her mantra, from the moment I met her until the moment I thought I’d lost her forever. If it was good enough for her, it could be good enough for us.
Levi’s mouth tightened and a tear fell from one eye. I had no idea if that meant he trusted me or was terrified and thought he was going to die. I was betting on a bit of both. Hell, I didn’t know how the hell we were going to get out of this. We had no backup coming, Ophelia had left, we were surrounded by a mob of psychotic ogres. There really wasn’t much I had left in me to fight them.
Pic made an upward gesture with one hand and I was yanked to a standing position. The arrows dug in farther as if actively seeking internal organs.
The ogres’ leader clasped his hands at chest height, like some sort of politician speaking at a rally. “Shall we watch your young friend get destroyed?”
I was turned, and my head held so I had no choice but to see Levi dragged the last few feet to the mirrored pool. I could have closed my eyes, but I wasn’t going to be a coward. If this truly was his death, he deserved to have someone witness it. Even if I shortly followed him. I couldn’t even drum up the concern with my own death. I’d come so close before; hell, I’d died before and I remembered the process clearly. Levi wasn’t tossed into the water. Instead, he was laid at the water’s edge like an offering to the old gods. He lay there and nothing happened. I rolled my head to the side and lifted an eyebrow at Pic.
“That, is truly terrifying.” Well, shit, I’d officially been with Rylee long enough that her knack for making a situation worse had rubbed off on me. The thought made me smile.
A few ogres snickered and Pic sent a glare out that stilled any mirth.
Then Pic shrugged. “She will come for him when she is ready. I think it’s time we take this wolf to task for fucking with us, yes? For crossing into our territory and pissing on what is ours!”
The ogres roared together, the sound like that of a train tearing up a track, its brakes pulled off so it could thunder out of control.
I was dragged backward until I was pinned against a tree once more with Lion right back where he started to one side of me.
“You know, you could have let me get away,” he said, without a hint of malice.
I looked at him. “Would you have let me get away?”
A laugh burst out of him, and his chains rattled. “Hell no.” He calmed himself, but didn’t stop smiling. “You realize we’re probably going to die here?”
A sudden and complete certainty rolled over me that I wasn’t. I’d faced worse than Pic, hell, I’d faced demons that would have eaten him up like a midnight snack without an effort.
“You might, Lion, but that’s because you’re an oversized pussy.”
The ogres ooohed, but Lion just laughed. “Rich, coming from the martyr of our kind. You, Wolf, have never realized your own strength. You always let yourself die because you think the world needs your death. Did it never occur to you that maybe, just maybe, this world would be better with your life in it?”
His words were sincere and I stared at him, knowing that what I was about to say completely contradicted the situation we were in. But . . . that didn’t change the truth. “I don’t plan on dying.”
Pic laughed. “You might not be planning on it, boys, but I surely am. Time for a little target practice. Have at ‘em. No head shots. I want them to see this happen, and I want it to last as long as we can.”
The mob whooped in their excitement with only a few groans at the head shot bit. They split into two sets of double lines. The lines in front of Lion went first, giving me a front-row seat at what was about to be dished out to me. An ogre from each line threw weapons of their choice at the Guardian chained to the tree. One hit in the center of his belly with a curved axe, the other missed with a straight-edged knife. They went and pulled their weapons—Lion grunted as the axe was yanked out—and weapons in hand, they went to the back of the line.
Then the next two ogres were up—one with a bow and arrow, the other with a crossbow. I didn’t watch any more. I didn’t need to. I had my own line that drew my attention with a morbid fascination. Not like I could stop it from happening, so there wasn’t as much fear as I’d thought.
I locked eyes with the ogre in the left line. He grinned. “I’m going to eat you when we’re done.” He drew his arm back and let something fly. It spun through the air, catching the light here and there.
A throwing star thudded into my right thigh. The pain wasn’t immediate, so I just stared at the edges that stuck out of me as the blood pooled up around the wound. The bolt from a crossbow slammed into my right shoulder, pinning me to the tree. The ogres hurried forward to retrieve their weapons, making sure to yank them hard. The ogre with the throwing star licked my face. “Ooh, you are going to taste so damn good.”
I was no longer sure he was speaking in a purely knife and fork kind of way.
Knives, arrows, axes, bladed and curved weapons of every kind came at me. They hit more often, far more often, than they missed. At the end, they started to throw rocks, the stones digging into the opened wounds on my chest and belly, some stuck in the slow-closing wounds.
“Having fun yet, Wolf?” Lion croaked out. “Are you done being a martyr? Ready to be the Wolf?”
I closed my eyes and did the only thing I could. I brought up Rylee’s image behind my closed lids. The thick curtain of dark auburn hair, the eyes that had been tricolored for so long, now a steady green edged in gold. Her smile lighting up her face, the feel of her skin under mine . . . the pain in my body receded as I lost myself in her, as I lost myself in her love, and all I knew that was good and true in my life.
She was the place I belonged. She was the home I’d craved my entire life.
“You know, I hate to agree with the Lion, because he is an ass. But you’re being an idiot, grandson. Yeah?”
I blinked, losing the image of Rylee, seeing it replaced with my grandfather. He strode between the ogres as they took their turns at Lion and me. They didn’t look at him, didn’t even pause in their practice. As if he wasn’t there.
“Griffin, help us,” I whispered. He shook his head, his eyes sad.
“I’m not really here. Not in body, just in spirit, yeah?”
That wasn’t going to do me much good.
The ogres’ laughter flowed around me as the blood ran down my body.
“Pity, he’d make a handsome rug. You sure you want to mess it up? We could just take his head and be done with it,” one of the ogres spoke, didn’t matter which one.
I had to fight not to physically react to them; the one injury that would end my life, and Lion’s to be fair. Decapitation. The rest . . . the rest I was pretty sure I could heal, thanks to the Guardian blood. Of course, that was assuming I’d be alive at the end o
f this to be able to even think about healing. I didn’t know if numerous blows to the heart, or enough blood loss would do me in.
I didn’t know if had enough of a Guardian left to me to overcome the odds.
I stared at my grandfather, blinking to try and clear the blood that flowed from a glancing blow to my forehead. We could have been brothers, at least, back when I’d had my body. Not now, though. Now we were night and day, him with his dark hair and eyes, and me with Faris’s blond hair and silvery blue eyes.
“See, that’s your problem, yeah?” Griffin leaned against my tree and tapped a finger against my shoulder. “You still think of this body you’re in as not yours. Wolf picks up on that, says, well shit on a prickle bush, I ain’t giving my strength to a character who doesn’t even believe he’s really who he is, yeah?”
I frowned at him, a spark of pain pulling me away from the vision for a moment. I forced it away and focused on him once more. “I don’t understand.” My words were slurred, pain filled.
“You could break those chains if you really wanted to. Lion can’t, he’s not meant for that kind of power. He’s got other abilities. You’re about as strong as any Guardian can be thanks to your connection to me. But you don’t believe it, yeah? You don’t believe you’re a Guardian anymore, so you aren’t, yeah?”
“I can’t even shift. How can I be a Guardian?” The words dribbled from my mouth along with a wash of blood that trickled over my lips.
“Tie his head up. Let’s aim for that windpipe of his. I’m tired of listening to him mumble,” Pic yelled.
They used some sort of woven leather to bind my head to the tree so I stared at the underside of the leaves. The twang of a bow and the sharp pierce of an arrow was first, straight through my throat. I garbled as I struggled to breathe around it.
Over and over, they shot me in the neck, and I waited for the heart shot, but it never came. And I finally understood, that even now, this wasn’t so much an execution as torture. They were going to push my body to its limits over and over until they grew tired. I kept my teeth clamped shut, the only rebellion I could give as the space I could draw breath through narrowed with each arrow twang and thud into my flesh.
Lion let out a cry and it was cut off mid-sound. I couldn’t move, couldn’t see if he’d had his head taken. Was I alone? Panic curled up through me as I struggled to breathe.
My grandfather leaned in, his mouth next to my ear. “I’ll only say this once, grandson. When the darkness takes you, you might want to listen to the vampire. He’s got a truth for you that you need to hear.”
I couldn’t breathe, my heart hammered in desperation as I fought vainly against the chains, unable to do more than clink them together. The leaves above my head seemed to grow larger, darkening from green to black as they fluttered down and covered my face, stealing away the last of my breath.
“Rylee.” Her name was the last silent word on my lips. I was wrong. I wasn’t a Guardian. I knew death. I’d seen it before.
And it had come for me a second time.
CHAPTER 10
A LAUGH I KNEW all too well rumbled through the air. I blinked and looked around me. I stood in front of the tree my body was still chained to, head tied back, neck full of at least two quivers of arrows. A sense of unreality flowed over me.
“Pride, it will get you every time.” Faris’s voice wasn’t really his voice. I knew he’d moved on and crossed the Veil, but could still hear him as clear as if he stood next to me.
There was movement on my right side and I spun, and found myself staring at Faris, like a mirror reflection. Blond hair, bright blue eyes, I knew his face almost as well as I knew my own. Hell, I’d been trapped in his body for almost a year now between the time I’d shared it with him and the time since he’d been burned out.
“What do you mean? How the fuck am I being prideful?” I asked, not angry, just confused.
He shook his head with an exaggerated slowness, walked over to the tree where his body, his real body, slumped. Blue eyes lifted to mine. “I told you once that you were wrong. That dying for love wasn’t the true sacrifice. I would have lived for her, if I could have. But you, you love to throw it all away, like dying shows how much you care.” He snorted and patted the top of his head. The slumped one.
My jaw ticked, and somehow I knew that wherever we were, I had my body back. I could feel it in the movement of the muscles, the way my hands clenched into fists. Small differences, but they were there. And every day they reminded me that I was not in my own body.
“You think I don’t want to live?”
Faris laughed and shook his head. “Yes and no. You were a cop for a long time. Trained to take a bullet for someone else, trained to give until it hurt, to sacrifice yourself for the higher good. But there comes a point where you have to know that being a martyr won’t work any longer.”
I wanted to snap at him that I wasn’t a martyr. But he was the second person to use that word and I wondered if it had some merit. The wolf in me rumbled, almost as if he were laughing at me too. Fine then, three people thought I was being a martyr.
I struggled to push the anger down, and I managed. Barely. “I’m listening,” I said.
“Well, shit, that’s a first.” Faris grinned and made a waving motion with his hand as if to encompass all the trees. “You know where you are right now?”
I shook my head. “No. Should I?”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really, you don’t even have a suspicion?”
If I was seeing Faris . . . did that mean I was dead? If that was the case, why the hell would he care to give me a lecture. But then, if that was true, where was Alex? And Erik, Blaz, all those we’d lost along the way? Why just Faris?
“You’re currently mostly dead, Liam. While not fully decapitated, they punched you full of enough arrows to take you right to the brink.” He touched one of the arrows, brushing his hand over the brightly colored feathers in the fletch.
“So what, then? You’re just here to gloat?” I raised both eyebrows. Griffin had said to listen to the vampire, and I was trying. But Faris made things difficult on a good day, and it hadn’t been even close to a good day so far.
He laughed. “I’m not the one who gets to hold her every night, Liam. You are the one who should be gloating.”
I took three strides so we were nose to nose. “I thought we were past this, blood sucker.”
He shrugged, but there was laughter in his eyes. This was just another one of his damn games. I backed up. “If I die, then I’m stuck here with you, and I will make your afterlife less than pleasant.”
“Oh, well, we wouldn’t want that then, would we?” He rolled his eyes.
I realized we were talking in circles. And that I was being an ass as much as he was. I closed my eyes and drew in a slow breath. “If you can help me, then help me.”
“Ah, well, seeing as I liked my body when it was mine, I think I will help you.”
I opened my eyes and he was no longer laughing.
“It’s your body, Liam. Not mine. Your voice, your power, your soul . . . all of those are what animate it. Not mine. A body is just a shell, does it really matter that it was mine before? That’s your problem. You got a second chance, something most people don’t get when it comes to life and death. And you can’t embrace it because you hated me so much, you pull away from the body?”
Fuck, I hated it when he was right. I didn’t have time for this shit, I had to get back. I had to get Mai the help she needed and get her to Rylee.
“Oh no, you don’t get to skip out on this conversation. That’s the thing about dying—or in your case—almost dying. We can stand here all day and until we hash this out, you’re in limbo.”
But to admit it to Faris that he was right? Gods, it was like swallowing gravel and then trying to speak around the rocks. “I hated you for so long. Sharing your body was easier than having it to myself; sharing your body meant it wasn’t fully mine. I could still pretend I was me and not
you.”
His eyes lit up and a grin slipped over his lips. “You want to share again?”
I stared at him, knowing a part of Rylee loved him, that he connected with her on a different level than I had. Insecurities I’d been ignoring roared to the front of my brain. On a visceral level, I knew I was being a fool. But apparently Rylee wasn’t the only one who couldn’t figure out her new life.
My jaw flexed and ticked as I struggled to work through the multitude of thoughts rushing through me.
“Say it, Wolf. Say the words.”
I gritted my teeth, holding my mouth against the traitorous syllables. In a blink, Faris was beside me, whispering the thoughts that chased me out of my dreams.
“What if she’s happy she has my body to fuck now? That secretly, she wanted me more all along? That you were always second to my first?” He said the exact things I could not.
I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t hide the truth from Faris. He slapped a hand on my shoulder, steadying me as my guts rolled with horror that he said it out loud, the secrets I kept even from myself. Men didn’t talk about shit like this. They did not talk emotions and fears.
“Here’s the deal, you idiot.” He shook me lightly. “She could have lived a life with me, but she wouldn’t have remained the vibrant woman she is. You are, no matter what body you are currently residing in, her heart. Even I know that. I might hate it, but it’s the truth. And because I love her, I want her to be happy.”
I was on my knees, not remembering when I’d gone down. Faris was crouched in front of me. “I find it amusing this has you so torn up,” he said.
“Of course, you do, you’re a fucking bastard.”
He laughed. “I knew both my parents, thank you very much.”
I snorted. “Fine, so I’m an insecure idiot. That doesn’t help me with my current situation.” I waved at the body pinned to the tree.
“Really, I have to spell it out for you?” He quirked an eyebrow. “Here it is. Your wolf is a Guardian. And you . . . are being a pussy.”
LIAM (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 2) Page 11
