by Nova Nelson
Don’t be silly. Of course he’s still there.
I don’t know why I worried, but suddenly he was squeezing my hands so tightly I felt my bones grind against each other and I suspected he’d had the same impulse.
A force rose from the flames. It strained against the small circle of our arms as it clawed its way free. My mind told me to let go of Donovan, to stop this madness, but my gut, my Insight, told me it was too late, that I had to see this thing through.
The three of us were no longer alone. The same presence I’d felt in Ruby’s parlor was with us now. The chanting died in my throat and I didn’t think twice before opening my eyes. A moment after I did, so did Donovan. We stared into each other’s face, two people waking from a shared dream. An understanding passed between us that I couldn’t put words to.
Then his gaze jumped to the side, staring past my shoulder, and he shouted, “Grim!”
Dropping one of my hands, Donovan broke the circle to grab his wand. I ducked and turned as Donovan aimed it right at me, though I wasn’t worried about him harming me.
Grim was no longer resting atop the rock but rather floated over it. And above him, Ba in her terrifying dark form. This close, I could finally see her waving strands of tentacle-like hair, the dark robes that flowed around her, disappearing into a sooty, amorphous fog below her waist. It wasn’t her shape that terrified me; it was the fact that the same mist we’d seen rising up from the plants in our visions was now rising from my familiar, being sucked into the black abyss of Ba.
A ball of silver light shot toward her but passed straight through. She didn’t even notice it.
Donovan charged forward, sending another blast, this time orange, at the drought god.
This one hit and sent her barrel rolling to the side just enough for Grim to drop like a sack of wet blankets to the boulder. “I’m so thirsty …” he moaned.
“Not now. Get out of the way before she comes back!”
He slid off the rock and stumbled to stand behind me. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I knew this was no good, though. Our circle had been broken. I didn’t know much about the incantation, but Donovan had informed me that it was our connection that would muster the strength to banish the entity from Eastwind for good. But now he was facing off with Ba all by himself.
She hovered in midair, staring him down, and I held my breath. Then she turned and darted toward the tunnel.
“Stop her!” I shouted, though admittedly, I didn’t have any helpful advice regarding the “how” of it.
He shot another orange ball of light at her. Then another and another. Unfortunately, his attempt to get her attention worked, and before she made it to the tunnel, she whipped around, heading straight for the dark-haired East Wind witch making an annoyance out of himself.
He struggled against her pull, but when his feet lifted off the ground and the first bit of vapor rose from his open mouth, I knew I was out of time. I didn’t have a wand, but that didn’t mean I was out of options.
I grabbed the amulet and slid the chain over my head, turning and slipping it onto Grim before he could resist.
Then I closed my eyes and called out to her, offering up my corporeal form.
Chapter Fourteen
My invitation to Ba was eagerly received, and I was no longer on the edge of the cliff overlooking a strange ocean.
The crashing waves had disappeared, replaced by birds chirping. Where the rock circle had been were the thin walls of a tall canvas tent, at the center of which smoldered the remains of a fire. In place of the darkness, midday heat and orange light glowing through the fabric surrounding me.
I looked around and realized I was alone.
Something was burning. Not inside the tent, but outside. Or at least it smelled that way. Meat roasting on a spit? No, that wasn’t right. This smell didn’t stir my appetite but repulsed it. I crept toward the heavy canvas flap wavering sluggishly in the breeze. My walking felt impaired, stunted in some way and when I looked down to check my feet, I got a bit of a shock.
They weren’t my feet. The skin showing through the sandals was the color of the outside of an almond, a few shades darker than I’d managed at my tannest. I checked my palms and the gashes were gone. This wasn’t my body. I suspected I knew whose it was, though.
I pushed forward through the tent flap, and pain, suffering, loss, and loneliness formed a toxic cocktail of grief in my stomach and a knot like a fist in my throat as I gazed out at the field ahead of me where many of the tents similar to mine were bathed in thick flames, billowing smoke so dark and thick, I thought it might block out the sun forever before long.
The bodies on the ground had met a similar fate, and I ran back into the tent to escape the brunt of the smell.
Family, friends, neighbors—all dead.
I didn’t know who did it, but it didn’t matter.
“Was this what happened to you?” I asked.
Yes replied a voice in my head.
“And then what?”
I blinked and suddenly my wrists and ankles were in shackles, and I was hurrying across sand, struggling to keep up with a cart while trying not to over extend my steps and trip on the chains. Whoever was driving this cart wouldn’t stop, I knew that, and I would end up dragged behind, unable to right myself again.
I tried to speak, but my mouth was too dry, and the sharp inhalation caused my arid throat to seize, sending me into a coughing fit that had no foreseeable end.
“Keep up!” Shouted a voice behind me, I turned to see a soldier in a red uniform behind me, snarling like he was just waiting for an excuse to thrash me.
I quickened my pace, taking tiny rapid steps, sharp pain radiating from my ankles through my calves with each step. How much longer could I go?
Wind kicked sand into my face and I began coughing again. I’d never been so thirsty in my life. The sensation was maddening.
I’m so sorry, I thought. I’m so sorry this happened to you.
The moment the thought took shape, I felt a separation inside me, a loosening.
And then I got angry. No, not angry, enraged. She’d already been enslaved in her lifetime, and if that weren’t enough, she had two little twerps conjuring her from the afterlife to do their bidding. That made her a slave in the afterlife as well. Couldn’t a girl get a break?
Tell me how to help.
“Nora!” shouted a voice.
Who was Nora? I struggled to turn my head to look around, but saw no one out of place when I did, just the caravan of other people like me, chained and transported behind carts, soldiers in red following closely behind, whips at the ready.
“Nora! Push her out!” That voice again.
Was this Nora person in labor? Why would she—
Oh. That’s me.
I shut my eyes—Ba’s eyes—and felt warm hands on my shoulders. I needed to separate myself from her.
Though part of me felt guilty for leaving her, I knew it was necessary if I were ever going to give her the peace she had more than earned.
When I opened my eyes again, the world was a mix of two realities overlaid. I could still see the desert sand, the prisoners, the soldiers, but I could also see the dark tunnel of trees.
And Donovan.
I’d never thought I’d be so happy to see him.
He lifted me to standing and guided me back to the fire, where he took my hands, completing the circle again. I couldn’t help him with the chant this time, but I didn’t need to. I could feel it working through me, prying apart the hairline fracture between Ba and me until firelight could flow from it. I did what I could to force her out and into the flames. This was what Ruby had warned me about, that one day there might be a spirit I let in that I couldn’t get out, that would try to take me over.
I peeled her spirit away from mine, and the pain was excruciating. And it only got worse when Grim pressed the staurolite amulet against my side. The stone felt like a branding iron on my bare flesh.
Ocean spray burst over the edge of the cliff as Ba reached out her shadowy arms for anything she could grab. Part of me wanted to take her hands, to pull her out, but I knew this was the only way she could finally rest.
Then I saw what specifically she was grabbing for in her last desperate attempt. Or rather, who.
“Donovan, get back from there!” He stared hypnotized at the flames and didn’t respond. The tips of her fingers curled around the hem of his shirt, and soon he would end up in the fire if I didn’t intervene.
Two quick steps, then I tackled him away from the flames, wresting him from her grasp and pushing him out of the stone circle.
I landed on top of him dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. A yard farther, and we might’ve toppled over.
Donovan pushed himself to his elbows as I rolled to the side of him, both of us staring transfixed at the fire, which crackled, erupted, then disappeared, and with it, Ba.
She was gone, I knew that much. I hoped she’d moved on to a plane where she could find peace and never be summoned again. She had earned that much through her unnecessary suffering.
With the orange glow gone, the realm around us lit only by moonlight, I knew we were finally safe.
But my heart still raced. I rolled flat on my back to catch my breath and count the stars. As Donovan’s wand slid down each of my palms, closing the wounds, I shut my eyes against the stinging pain that came with it. Once it was over, I inhaled deeply and opened my eyes again. But I could no longer see the stars because Donovan blocked my view as he leaned over me.
I knew what was coming, and I did nothing to stop it. I met his gaze, and I wanted it. So help me, I wanted it.
“You almost got yourself killed,” he breathed.
“So did you, genius.”
His eyes flicked down to my lips. “I wasn’t sure if you’d make it back.”
My breath hitched in my throat. “Me neither.”
When he leaned forward, I met him halfway. Donovan was the only thing on my mind, and in that moment, it felt right. No, more than that. It felt inevitable.
Urgency pulsed through me as we kissed. His hand cupped the side of my face only a moment before sliding upward so that his fingers tangled in my hair. He tightened his grip, pinning me to the ground with his body as he tilted my chin up so his kisses could travel lower, down to my neck.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this wanted, this craved. Tanner’s kisses were sweet, passionate, but nowhere near this hungry.
Tanner.
Sweet baby jackalope! What was I doing?
Thinking about ending this before it even got to the good part made me want to cry, but I had to. I’d lost myself temporarily after all that had happened. We weren’t even in the same world as Tanner anymore, for fang’s sake.
But that didn’t matter.
“Donovan—”
“I knew you wanted this, too,” he breathed in my ear.
I wedged my hands between us and pressed firmly on his chest until his fingers slipped from my hair. “We have to stop,” I said.
He moved away hesitantly, staring down at me, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows. “We don’t. Look around you, Nora. There’s no one here. Well, except Grim, but he’s at the tree line marking everything he can. It’s just you and me.”
Ugh. Why was he making it so hard to do the right thing? “But we can’t. I can’t.”
He listened intently. “Tanner? That’s fine. He doesn’t have to know.”
“Donovan,” I said sharply.
“You’re not officially together. And this is exactly why. You may have built up your walls, Nora Ashcroft, but you built a door, too, and you left it wide open for someone like me to walk right through.”
When I didn’t respond, he finally moved off of me with a heavy sigh. I stood immediately, trying to shake off whatever had come over me.
Donovan stood too, blocking my path away from the cliff’s edge. “You think I want to hurt Tanner? He’s my best friend. But, god, Nora, I want you so bad, and I have for so long, and I know that, deep down, you’ve felt the same. I know that because I actually understand you. Tanner doesn’t. He sees you as this incredible mystery to be solved, and once he solves it, you know what will happen.”
“Shut up,” I said, pushing past him. I stopped by the remains of the fire to gather the supplies into the canvas bag. I slipped it over my shoulder, and when I stood again, Donovan was there in front of me.
“You know I’m right. But I’ve already solved the mystery. I know you. I understand you.” He ran his hands up my arms. “And I’m still here.”
Gaia help me, what he was saying resonated.
Tanner always stared at me like I was a puzzle to be solved, and while that made me feel incredible, it also left me terrified. One day, Tanner would discover I wasn’t all that complicated, and he would stop looking at me that way. And then what?
While Tanner’s kisses were sweet and curious, Donovan’s were something else entirely. He knew what he was doing and where he was going. He had nothing to solve.
I could no longer meet his eyes. “Donovan, I know you’re right.”
I shrugged his hands off my arms and hurried toward the gateway back to Eastwind. “Grim, let’s go. You can’t possibly have any more left in you. Not after your stunt in the Deadwoods and Ba sucking all moisture from your body.”
He lowered his hind leg a few yards off from the tunnel. “Don’t tell me what I can’t have, Nora. That tree just got the most memorable drop of urine in the history of this realm. Not a single thing had marked it ahead of me. Not one! Ha!”
At least one of us was in a good mood. He trotted past me, disappearing into the darkness of the bent trees, and I followed slowly afterward. Donovan would come when he was ready. I didn’t have the right to hurry him. Not now.
He was ready sooner than I expected, and my lungs felt like they were filled with lead when I heard his footsteps behind me in the darkness.
I kept my distance through the quiet space, though not so much that I could no longer hear him behind me, hear his breathing, the crunch of sticks underneath his feet. I didn’t realize until later that it was Donovan and only Donovan who occupied my thoughts during that trek back to the Deadwoods.
When I spied the opening of the tunnel up ahead, a fog of bad judgment overtook me in that impenetrable gloom, and I planted my feet, listening to each of Donovan’s footfalls as they drew nearer. I turned and waited.
He didn’t seem surprised when my outstretched hand found his arm, he simply slowed to a stop. Neither of us said a word. Though I couldn’t see his features, I didn’t need to. His body drew me to him. There was no resistance between us, whether because our connection spells had removed it or something more was at play, I couldn’t tell, but I didn’t care. I had to do this.
One last time.
He pulled me tight against him, and I worried I might lose myself in this tunnel, that even if I left, part of me would always remain behind here.
I won’t lie, the thought of taking his hand and dragging him back the way we came into that moonlit clearing, only reemerging in Eastwind once neither of us could walk, crossed my mind.
Over and over again.
But I’d already made a decision. This was the last time. Maybe it wasn’t fair to him to do this. Maybe it would give him hope he couldn’t use.
Old Nora didn’t care. And after all, it was her who wanted Donovan more than air.
I pulled back from the kiss when his roaming hands hinted he was about to take it to the next level.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I backed away and took a step toward the end of the tunnel before his hand gripped my wrist and whirled me back around.
“If it weren’t for Tanner, you would, though,
right?”
I think it was the long-simmering rage, the years of hurt I heard in that single question that made me lie.
If I hadn’t met Tanner and was single and looking, Donovan and I wouldn’t be having this conversation. Our mouths would be preoccupied in other ways back on the edge of that cliff. And maybe in the woods. And maybe back at his place.
But honesty was not the best policy here. Honesty would put a strain on his and Tanner’s relationship that might be the last straw. I couldn’t take myself and Tanner from him. What I was about to do felt cruel, but I knew it was the best of two terrible options. “No,” I said. “Even if I’d never met Tanner, the answer to this would be no.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said quickly. “I know exactly what you’re doing, and I don’t buy it.”
“Maybe you should, Donovan,” I replied firmly, pulling my wrist free. “For everyone’s sake.”
As I emerged from the tunnel, Grim was waiting for me. Something large and dark stirred in the bushes to our right, and when Grim’s hackles didn’t immediately rise, I surmised that our agreement with the hellhounds was still in good standing.
“Wasn’t sure if you’d died in there,” Grim said, “or if Mr. Cheerful mauled you again.”
“He didn’t maul me.”
“Then what was happening out on that cliff?”
“You know what was happening. Don’t make me spell it out. Speaking of cliffs, how much steak do I owe you to keep you from telling Clifford about what happened? And Monster, I suppose. If Tanner ever found out—”
“None,” said Grim. “The beauty of the Deadwoods is that it’s full of secrets. You can create all the new ones you want while you’re in here and then leave them behind when you go.”
I stared dubiously at my familiar where he padded along next to me with a slight pep in his step, undoubtedly a few pounds lighter than when we entered the woods hours before. “You’re kidding. You aren’t going to leverage this?”
“Leverage what? The fact that the appallingly palpable sexual tension between you and Donovan finally came to a boil after a near-death experience? Nah. Not today. Frankly, I’m glad you got it out of your system so I don’t have to watch it anymore. And so that I don’t have to spend any more time around his pretentious familiar.”
