I continued to search for what I’d marked. What had I touched, damn it?
It would have been something durable—should have just burned the house. Burn.
The fireplace.
I found the mark there, carved into the stone. Just a crude wing, but that it was the intent to protect that mattered. The blood that had been shed, and there had been that. My very blood had watered this ground centuries ago. It probably still remembered me, but I’d bled over it again the night I came for Despoina. I hadn’t brought my staff and none of my blades would work. I needed more leverage. “Do you have a longer blade? I need one. Or your staff.”
He nodded, still clutching Despoina’s struggling body. She struck back with her head, but Luc evaded easily.
“Short sword,” he said. “Sheath along my back.”
I fetched it and went back to the fireplace. “This place no longer needs me.”
Crow felt it.
The moment her power faded.
With a satisfied smile, he wrapped his wings around himself and hurtled through the night to the house.
Luc tensed.
That cold.
“Sina?”
She grimaced. He could feel it, an echo as he rode inside her mind, sharing her sight. “It’s okay, Luc. It’s one of the wraiths.”
One of the wraiths—
Swearing, he shoved the puzzle of the animated dead woman to the floor and jerked the bladed staff from inside his jacket.
“You can’t say it’s one of the wraiths and okay in the same sentence.” Wraiths were dangerous.
They were rare creations, things that existed between worlds, caught between the mortal plain and the netherplains, where the demons dwelled. Luc had never dealt with one, but he knew they were bad news.
“Oh, put it away,” Sina said, shoving at his hands. “He won’t be here for you. They come for the resistant souls. Hers.”
Luc spun around. “I will not put it away—”
The door blew open.
What came through looked more like a black cloud than anything else. Krell moaned low in his throat and Luc whispered into his mind. The mortal on the floor went to jump up but then she froze. It was like the very air froze her. Krell wrapped his big body around her, his pale blue eyes glittering.
Luc palmed his staff, still riding in Sina’s mind, and cursing the fact that he had to do so. If she went down—no. That wouldn’t happen.
The boiling black mass slowed and as they watched, it took form, the tendrils of blackness shaping into what looked like…
Feathers?
Luc scowled as more and more feathers appeared.
Wings.
He was staring at wings.
Massive wings, wrapped around a massive body—oddly batlike, he thought.
But it was no bat standing before him, massive or otherwise.
As they stared, the dark creature lifted his head and Luc found himself staring at a man.
It was a man.
Or at least he resembled one.
Gold skin, black eyes. Black eyes that reflected no light and spoke of death.
And the cold coming from him was enough to chill Luc to the bone. He hadn’t felt that sort of chill in his mortal life, not even during those long, endless nights when he’d slept in a tent on a wintry battlefield, uncertain if he’d ever return home to his wife, to his family.
It wasn’t just the cold of death. It wasn’t just the ice of fear. It was more, and he couldn’t even begin to describe it.
But he didn’t have to describe it to face it, to fight it.
Twirling his staff, he moved to keep his body between Krell and the mortal. Poor, idiotic little fool. He didn’t know what going to come of her, but his duty was clear—he was here to protect the human race, and she was human.
“Luc.”
Sina’s voice was a distraction he didn’t need as the wraith came forward.
Wraith—
A damn poor word for this big bastard, Luc thought. The man moved and the very ground seemed to shudder under his footsteps.
“Damn it, Luc, put the staff away. He’s not here for us,” Sina said.
The words penetrated, somewhat, but Luc knew a threat when he faced one and this man had threat written all over him.
The man slanted a look his way. Although Luc couldn’t see him, he thought maybe the man smiled. Sina could see him and through her eyes, he saw the way the man’s profile changed.
“You’re not teaching your new ones well, Grimm.”
Luc curled his lip. “New?”
“Wraith, your kind rarely come here,” Sina said, her voice flat. “All of us are taught of you, but no more than a handful of us have ever seen any of you. And none of us ever have to deal with you.”
“True.”
I studied the wraith, fought the urge to shiver. It had been so long since I’d felt the cold, I barely recognized the sensation at first.
He wasn’t particularly wraith-like. I’d met one other wraith. She’d been more in keeping with what I’d imagined a wraith to be. Wispy and thin and all tremulous death sighs and moans.
This one was walking death. Personified.
With rather lovely wings.
“Why are you here now?” I asked him even as he continued to move forward.
Stalking his prey. A woman who couldn’t run.
Despoina.
Held frozen in place.
It seemed Luc, Krell and I weren’t affected by his presence the way mortals were. Despoina couldn’t seem to control the dead now, even though I could feel her struggling to do so. It was like a moth beating against the glass—a struggle I felt in my mind all too clearly.
The wraith stopped in his tracks and looked at me. “Would you rather I left her here? So she continues doing what she has done for the past…” His eyes went vague and time ticked away endlessly.
Minutes passed. I sighed and said, “The past what?”
He blinked and shook his head. “The past…decades. Centuries? How long since you killed her, Grimm? You trapped her soul here, then marked this damnable ground. You did this.”
I flinched under those hard, uncompromising words.
“I killed her,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. “That means she shouldn’t have been an issue. I marked the damned ground to keep anybody else from being drawn in the way she was.”
“Then you walked away from the mess you made.”
You walked away… His words hit me hard. Yes, I marked the land, hoping that I’d keep anybody and everybody except for mortals away from this place. Hoping it would keep me from never having to return. But somehow, I’d done the unthinkable, I realized. I’d trapped her here. I’d locked her to this place, and because I’d marked the land, I’d kept the wraith from coming to claim her as well. She should have just died, but sometimes the soul could cling to a place. Despoina had clung rather tenaciously.
I’d cursed her to this place. I’d cursed the very ground. I’d made things so much worse.
I was so fucking stupid.
“I did this,” I whispered, feeling sick inside.
“Yes.” The wraith glared at me, the cold edge of his fury only adding to the sickness I felt. “You are responsible, you little fool. For their misery, for their suffering. You—”
“Hey, featherhead.”
The wraith whipped his head around, his black gaze zeroing in on Luc.
“You said something about leaving her here. Does that mean you came to get her?”
The challenge in Luc’s voice was enough to cut through my own self-flagellation. I needed to be kicked, and hard, but if he wasn’t careful, we would have problems. Luc wasn’t familiar with wraiths—none of us were, really. They weren’t exactly common. They only emerged when there were…recalcitrant souls. Most mortals weren’t strong enough to cling to this world once their bodies died, no matter what humans might think.
But some could. If they were the kind of soul who could caus
e problems, a wraith would come for them and force them over.
We were on the same side, really. But wraiths were a little more…crazed, a little darker, a little odder, stranger, than even we were. And Luc was goading this one.
“Fetching her is my duty,” the wraith said, his voice a low, rough grumble that came from deep inside his chest. “One I’ve been unable to do for hundreds of years, thanks to this inept fool.”
I sneered at him and went to say…something.
But Luc, ever the knight gallant, gave the wraith a mocking look. “If you waited all that long, why aren’t you doing it now, instead of being an asshat?”
The wraith’s eyes narrowed and his mouth went tight in a scowl. He was thinking. I could see that well enough.
He was ancient. I could feel the age on him and knew he was easily as old as I was. Probably older. But unlike me, he didn’t live in this world. He drifted in and out, pulled in only when he was called. Unsocialized to the max, this one.
So it’s understandable that it took him a moment or two to realize he’d just been insulted.
And being an ancient one, the slice to his honor, his pride had the kind of result I would have expected. Swearing, I went to jump between them, but they had already launched themselves at each other.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
This was going to get ugly.
Krell snarled and growled, barking low in his throat as the two men tumbled far too close to him. I watched as he sank his teeth into the woman’s shirt and started to drag her away, trying to get her to safety.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Just as I reached her, the pendant that lay under my tank top, trapped between my breasts, heated.
As the portal flared and burst into being, quicker than normal, I hauled the woman’s stiff, frozen body into my arms. “It’s about damn time,” I snapped at Will as he strode through.
Two seconds later, Luc’s body went flying through the air.
Blood arced in splattering trail all around us, and I shrieked as I saw something bloody and wet in the wraith’s hand. He flung it on the ground and went to lunge.
I shoved the girl into Will’s arms, trying hard not to look at the pulpy mass on the ground.
Luc pulled his bladed staff free, ignoring the gaping hole in his side, ignoring the pain. Okay, so the fucker had just ripped out his kidney. He could think through that pain, long enough to do—
But the giant was on him again, almost instantly. Relying on Sina’s sight was almost impossible and he couldn’t call Krell to him with the girl there, either.
He settled on the second sight that guided him most often, something he didn’t always trust in battle. To that second sight, this man’s presence was a gaping, empty void and Luc struck out at the winged appendages just as the man came down on him.
“You fight well,” the wraith said. “Especially for a fool. I will kill you quickly, despite the insult—”
“Crow.”
“Go away, traitor of old,” the wraith said.
Yes…talk, fucker. That makes it easier to track you… Luc jerked up with his blade, and had the satisfaction of hearing a roar of pain.
Then, the massive weight pinning him to the ground was gone. Gentle hands touched him and he found that path that led him to Sina’s mind, opening to him. “You stupid bastard,” she muttered. “There was no reason to fight him.”
Coughing hurt like hell, but he couldn’t stop it. As she pressed down on the gaping hole in his side, he tried to look around.
Will.
He’d heard Will…
Crow stared at the oldest of the Grimm. Old for a Grimm. But not old for an angel. There were some far older than this one. And many of them hated this new breed.
Crow was one of them.
Dismissing the pale creature, he said, “Go away. I have a mission to see to, a man to kill. Do not worry, I will not kill the female Grimm or the mortal.”
“You’re not killing any of my Grimm,” Will said.
Baring his teeth, Crow took a step forward. “You could not stop me on your best day.”
“Perhaps not. But on my worst day? Yes. And those are about all I have.” Will cocked his head and lowered his gaze to the lifeless body that held a soul inside it. “Isn’t she who you came for?”
“My mission is my own concern. I’ll see to it when I choose, traitor of old.”
“You should see to it now, before she finds a way to break free of that mortal shell and find another host,” Will said. Then he shrugged. “But that is your concern, as you say. The lost souls are your area. Demons, naturally, are mine. I sent Sina here to break her hold on this place so you could see to your job.”
“Her blindness left this place in hell,” Crow said, shooting the female Grimm a dark look. “She all but cursed this land with her negligence. You should discipline her.”
Will lifted a brow. “How I manage my people is my concern, Crow. Not yours. And had you bothered to let me know there was a problem, it could have been done ages ago. Perhaps word should be sent up the line about your negligence.”
Crow curled a hand into a fist. “I am not responsible for the ineptness of your warriors, traitor.”
“And I’m not responsible for your stupidity.”
Just one strike, Crow thought. That was all he desired. One strike to that bastard’s face. But it was forbidden. He couldn’t break the law—and he’d tried, more than once. He was physically incapable of striking the one who called himself Will.
Lifting a hand, Crow held it, palm down over the ground. A black maw opened. Shadows danced and flickered within and the screams, the wails of the souls within were an eerie song that flooded the night.
Smiling, Crow called to Despoina.
She fought.
But he had done this for too long and none were able to resist him. Within seconds, she was cast out of the body she’d stolen and her soul, a black, sticky thing was winding toward the void in a recalcitrant curl. “In you go,” Crow murmured.
She gave one final jerk, tried to wrap around Will’s ankle.
But that touch made her shriek, almost in pain, and Crow used it to his advantage, hurtling her into the blackness of eternity. As her soul faded away, he felt the tugging of his own void pulling at him, but he ignored it.
He still had a fight to finish.
Will stared at him.
“She is gone,” Crow said quietly. “Now…”
He turned and slanted a look at the other man.
“Don’t,” Will warned.
Crow opened his mouth, then stopped, thinking a moment. There was something he wanted to say—oh, yes. There it was. “Fuck you, Will.”
As he took a step, one of his wings dragged the ground. The black-haired Grimm had cut his wing. Had insulted him. He’d suffer for it.
A sword jerked up, short and sturdy, as Crow moved closer. “Unable to fight me with just your own hands, Grimm?” he taunted.
“I’m pretty good at using whatever weapons I’ve got at my disposal, featherhead,” the Grimm said, his eyes a little off center.
Crow frowned.
Shifted a step to the left.
A few seconds later, the Grimm’s eyes tracked him.
But not immediately.
An uncomfortable thought settled in the back of his mind, but he brushed it off. “If you hadn’t insulted me, you could have left here alive,” Crow said.
“Well, if you hadn’t insulted my woman, I wouldn’t have felt the need to insult you, fuckhead. So let’s do this.”
Light burst between them.
Crow, though, was the only affected.
As he went flying back, Will moved between them. “Crow. Enough.”
“Damn it, Will, get out of my way,” Luc snapped.
“No.” It was flatly, coldly said. “Sina, do not let him use your eyes.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. If I feel it, I’ll block it.”
Luc snarled and went to reach for Krell, but that was blocked. Then Krell whimpered—an odd, strangled little sound that went abruptly silent. “Damn it, Will if you’ve hurt my dog, I’m gutting you.”
“I wouldn’t hurt your dog. He’s sleeping.” A hand slammed against his chest. Luc sensed it coming, but it was a few seconds delayed, just like everything was with the second sight and he couldn’t evade.
A rush of sound came at them, but Will just sighed. Luc felt the electricity charge the air and then there was another crash. “Crow, the more you throw yourself at us, the more I’ll throw you around,” Will said.
“I do not see how you can trust your warriors if you must battle for them,” the wraith said.
“This isn’t a battle,” Will snapped, and his voice was about as close to anger as Luc ever heard it. “You insulted a woman he has feelings for. You’re so worked about your honor—have you forgotten your mortal years? What would you do if a man had insulted a woman you cared for? Ignore it? Yank your head out of your ass. You fought. You bloodied each other. Enough.”
“Fuck off,” Luc said, twirling his staff and readying himself. The man wanted a fight? That was just fine with Luc.
He moved—and a hand yanked him back.
But it wasn’t Will’s.
“No,” Sina said softly. “Enough. Crow fights to the death…and we aren’t doing this just because the two of you feel insulted or whatever foolishness this is.”
“Is she your woman?”
The man was blind.
Crow moved closer, painfully aware of his dragging wing, of the bruises all along his body and the myriad wounds that were slowly healing along his mortal form. He only took to this form when in this realm, and only then if he had to. The longer he wore it, the quicker he could control the healing, but conversely, the more acutely he was aware of the mortal failings. Like pain. Hunger. Exhaustion.
And now, there was a great deal of pain.
Done to him by a warrior who couldn’t even see him.
By a man who had been defending his woman.
Blind Destiny: Grimm's Circle, Book 7 [retail mobi] Page 12
