by Laken Cane
But there would be more.
Always, there would be more.
“Princess,” Jim said, breathing hard, his hand to his shoulder, “you are a freak.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “Back atcha.”
He grinned.
Then she remembered that Jim was supposed to be guarding Owen. She turned in a frantic circle, but couldn’t see the cart. “Where the fuck is Owen?”
“Come with me,” Jim said. “We stashed him. He’s safe.”
“You disobeyed me,” she said, jogging beside him. “I gave you an order to protect him.”
“We left Mel and Olson,” he told her. “We made sure he would be protected before we joined the fight.”
“I really don’t give a fuck for your excuses. You were supposed to—”
“Rune,” Ian said, running on her other side, “forgive us. It’s difficult to stand back and watch a fight happen. Besides, the legislators were too occupied to go searching out an injured man in a wagon.”
That was the truth.
“And it’s hard for us to resist fighting beside the princess,” Jim added.
She sighed. “Owen had better be okay.”
Yeah, she was getting soft.
Owen was fine. The two men Jim had left to guard him were standing stiff and ready, shotguns up, eyes full of resentment. But they’d done their jobs—even if Ian and Jim hadn’t.
After she checked on the sleeping Owen, she strode to the two soldiers guarding him. She held out her hand. “You have my thanks. Guarding Owen is more important than you realize, and I won’t forget that you kept him safe.”
They dropped their stares to her outstretched hand, confusion on their faces. “Shake,” she prompted.
They shifted their guns to their left hands and shook her hand, redness climbing their throats to land with splotching sweetness in their cheeks.
She smiled, her heart lighter.
Brasque Dray might have been a sadistic asshole, but his men were…
They were good men.
“Next time,” she told the four men watching her, “switch off. I’m sure there’ll be enough fights for you all to get a taste.”
Then she pulled a handful of grass and wiped as much blood as she could off her hands. “Let’s find some water and get cleaned up. Any of you guys know how to cook?”
“Of course,” Ian answered, sounding almost offended. “All soldiers can cook.”
“We’ll find a place to camp, have some dinner, and move on after a couple hours sleep.”
“Yes,” Ian said. “Damascus awaits.”
“Her death awaits. And I aim to take it to her.” Rune grinned. “I’m nice that way.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
She closed her eyes, trying to sleep, but images of Z and what the witch might have been putting him through were more vivid than the streaks of lightning zigzagging across the night sky.
Damascus would use him as a bargaining chip.
And Rune would do whatever the bitch wanted to protect him.
Damascus knew that.
She only hoped Z knew that.
Hold on, baby.
The zombies surrounded the camp. They were an eerily silent, blank-faced group of women, and made Rune realize one important thing.
She’d rather feel pain and fear than fucking…nothing.
And who would have thought she’d ever say that?
She sighed and closed her eyes. She could tune out the thunder, the quiet and distant booms and screams and explosions, the strange moans and sounds of running footsteps in the forest.
Skyll never slept.
There were many noises, but they weren’t the problem.
The problem was the fucking worry.
God, Z.
One moment at a time, sweet thing.
I’m coming for you.
I know.
“Rune.”
Her eyes shot open and she jumped to her feet, glad of the voice interrupting her dark thoughts.
Owen was sitting up in the cart, his hat pulled low over his forehead, hiding his empty eye sockets.
“You okay?” she asked him.
“Yeah. Wouldn’t mind your company.”
She climbed into the cart and sat beside him, her arms circling her knees, her gaze on the bright moon. “I can’t sleep either.”
They were silent for a long moment.
“Did I hear you say you found Z here, or was I dreaming?”
“He’s here.” She reached over and grabbed the canteen of water beside him, untwisted the lid, and took a long drink.
He was able to hold it when she offered it to him, already so much better than he’d been even a few hours earlier.
“How’s your pain?” she asked. “I can give you more blood.”
“Better than it was.” He pushed his hat back with fingers still gnarled and twisted from the breaks, and turned his face toward her. “I need my fucking eyes, Rune.”
She opened her mouth but said nothing. Pity squeezed her heart.
“Rune,” he insisted, as though she wasn’t listening. “I need my eyes.”
“I know,” she said, and punched her thigh. “I feel so helpless right now.”
He smiled, just a little.
“I’d be stark raving if I were you.” She shook her head. “How the fuck do you go through everything that’s been done to you and come back smiling?”
He took her fingers in his. “How do you?”
She caressed the bruised flesh of his hand with her thumb. “I saw what they did to you.”
He drew back. “What?”
“Brasque took my hand and I was in his memories. I was there.”
“I heard you,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I knew I fucking heard you.”
She cut off a sob before it escaped. “I couldn’t do anything. Just watch.”
“I imagine that watching was our shimmer lord’s way of punishing you. Even if he didn’t realize it at the time.”
“Not my shimmer lord,” she growled, then calmed herself. “He’s as bad as Damascus.”
“Don’t ever think that, Rune. No one is or ever will be as bad as Damascus.”
“I saw what he did to you,” she said, stubbornly.
“He believed he had a reason. The witch needs the suffering of others to thrive. She eats souls, Rune.”
She shuddered. She’d seen those souls when she’d fought Damascus in Rock County.
“You had your own agenda,” she said, needing to change the subject.
“Yes.” He turned his face away.
“Is it true, what Dray said?”
He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Yes.”
“Elizabeth,” she said, and the pain from that particular death stabbed her heart. “Did you kill her?”
He was silent for a long moment. “No. Just listen,” he said, when she started to interrupt. “When we die in another world, we’re brought back to Skyll to heal and…reanimate. If things had gone as planned, Elizabeth would have died, slipped into Skyll, then would have hidden until she was reunited with Fie.”
“What happened?”
“Her lord Rand betrayed her. He never meant for her to come home. He’d already discovered that she had attached to Fie and wasn’t going to hand the child over to him, so he made other arrangements. He sent assassins to kill Elizabeth and take Fie.”
Rune frowned. “But Fie belongs to Death, not Blood.”
“Exactly. Blood is a secretive, strange shimmer. I don’t know what Rand planned to do with little Fie, and neither did Elizabeth. But she didn’t trust him with the girl. She wanted Fie to get to Death where she belonged.” He hesitated. “She knew if something went wrong, you would end up taking Fie to Skyll and all would be well.”
“Everyone seems to find me so predictable,” she grumbled.
Owen smiled.
She hesitated. “Are you positive that Elizabeth is really dead? Maybe she’s—”
He d
ashed her hopes quickly and brutally. “She’s dead, Rune, and her body remains in your world. We thought her lord had sent the men to steal Fie. She wanted me to get Fie to you. To protect the kid.” He paused to take a breath. “I was going to fight them. I told Fie to turn away and while I was still talking to her they killed Elizabeth. I knew right then Rand wasn’t allowing her to return to Skyll. He was finished with her. She’s truly dead.”
She nodded and let go of his hand.
He’d betrayed her and her crew, that wasn’t even a question.
And Elizabeth…
Her death had fucked with all of them, but Jack…Jack had been devastated. “Elizabeth belonged to Blood Shimmer. She belonged to Skyll.” She shook her head. “I don’t know anybody, not really. And trust? That’s a laugh.”
His sorrow came off his mangled body in waves. “I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I wanted to possess you, to rule by your side, but I never wanted to hurt you.”
“You got the berserker to kill you,” she said, and she could feel the anger began a slow boil inside her as she remembered the awfulness of seeing Strad beat and shoot the cowboy. “Why not just let Rand’s assassins kill you when they killed Elizabeth?”
“Little Fie decimated them after they killed Elizabeth. Even so, I couldn’t have let them have control of my body. If they’d have brought me back, I‘d have been hidden in Rand’s shimmer. You’d never have found me.”
“I found you because you have the scent of the princess all over your body. You reek of her.”
She said nothing. Maybe he didn’t even remember the conversation he’d had with Brasque. Surely it’d been tortured away.
“Now I understand how you could take so much damage. When Strad pummeled you, you took what would have killed a human. And healed like you were guzzling my blood in secret.”
“When I regain my power, I’ll be stronger than five berserkers.” There was pride and anger in his smile. “If he were here—”
“But he’s not,” she said, cutting him off.
He opened his mouth, then hesitated. “Strad is not completely human either. But you knew that, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t fucking know anything.”
“You do,” he disagreed. “You also know I wasn’t the only one who deceived you. I didn’t tell you everything, but neither did he.”
“His secrets are his own. And maybe he doesn’t even know what he is or where he comes from.”
“Is that why you don’t hate me? Because you believe I’m entitled to my secrets?”
“You used your secrets to manipulate me. Strad didn’t.”
“Maybe.”
She had to change the subject. The berserker’s very name brought her pain. “How did you know I’d come here?”
“I had faith. You were meant for this world and it was time. You were coming.”
She rubbed her temples.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “The one thing you can believe in all of this is that I fell for you. If you believe nothing else, believe that.”
She did. She really did.
But still…
“You don’t even know what love is. You just needed me to help you rule Skyll.”
“I’m tired of being a slave, Rune. I want to be a fucking king.”
She said nothing.
“What is this, then, this thing I feel?” He slid his hand toward her and once more gripped her fingers.
“Need, desire, obsession, addiction?”
“That about covers it.”
“Someone once told me that is love.”
“Then I love you, Rune Alexander.”
She squeezed his fingers, trying to reconcile the pitiful, blind, beaten man with the Owen she’d known. “Dammit, Owen.”
“I don’t deserve your help, but I need it, Rune. I need you to do something for me.”
“Kill the shimmer lords, become queen, and ask you to rule Skyll with me?” Her sarcasm might have been more effective had her voice not wobbled.
“That would be worth every pain I’ve ever suffered,” he admitted. “But that’s not what I want to ask of you.”
She took a deep breath, inhaling the freshness left by the cleansing rain and the quick storm.
She was pretty sure she didn’t want to know his request. “Ask.”
“I need my eyes. You’re the only person who can get them back.”
She opened her mouth, stunned. “You mean…the fuck do you mean?”
“Brasque took my eyes. He’ll keep them somewhere secure. I don’t know where.” He turned toward her and squeezed her wrist. “Get them back for me, Rune. If I stay blind, I’ll lose my fucking mind.”
“Owen, what the hell are you?”
He grinned, sort of. “You’ve been asked that a time or two, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. And I hated it.”
“Because you didn’t know what the hell you were. Not exactly.”
“And you don’t know what you are?”
“Not exactly.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
“What’s your answer?”
She was silent for a long, long moment. “I have to kill Damascus before I do anything else. After that…I have to get this fucking cure to my people. And the only way to do that is by going back. Lex is dying, Owen, and that’s…”
She widened her eyes as it hit her, suddenly and violently. “That’s because of you. You murdered so many Others. You…you did that. You’ve killed Lex.” She put her fist to her mouth. “My God. You killed Lex.”
He said nothing but put his hat back on, hiding his eyeless sockets beneath its low brim.
She could feel his devastation.
There wasn’t anything he could say to justify his horrific actions.
But he tried. “If you hadn’t come here, Damascus would have won. Even you can’t imagine the hell existence would have become. Worse than this. Worse than anything.” He turned to her then, and she could see no lies on his face or in his voice. “There would have been no hope, Rune. I knew you would succeed. Some people have died and that was a sacrifice that had to be made. Defeating Damascus will be worth those deaths.” And finally, his voice broke. “I’m sorry. I love Lex.”
“Loved,” she snarled.
“You don’t know if she’s dead.”
“I can’t imagine she isn’t.”
He flinched.
“I have to go home before I do anything else. After the witch, I have to go home. I don’t want to.” She slapped her thigh. “I don’t fucking want to leave Z. But I have to get the cure to the Others. I’ll see that someone gets your eyes from Brasque Dray.”
“Rune.” His voice was soft, so soft. “No one can get anything from Brasque Dray but you. Even you might not succeed. But if you leave here, you can’t come back.”
She frowned. “Of course I can. All I have to do is listen for the echoes and I’m here.”
But he started shaking his head before she was finished speaking. “Once you leave, you leave forever.”
“What makes you think that?”
“When you walk the path, it takes part of you. Keeps it. Maybe that’s what makes up its power—keeps it alive and open. It’s made up of parts of every soul that ever crossed it. I don’t know. Don’t care.”
“So I can come back. You just don’t think I will.”
“If you leave here, you’ll not be the same when the path throws you off.”
“But I—”
“Don’t say you’ll come back. Wait and see how you feel when you return there and part of you is gone. When you realize that walking the path one more time might take it all. When you…” He paused and ran his fingers lightly up her arm, over her chest, and to her face. “When you are alone in there.” He tapped her forehead gently.
“Hey,” she said, trying for nonchalant but failing miserably. “I’ve been trying to lose my monster forever.”
But gooseflesh erupt
ed on her arms and dread, heavy and harsh, settled in the pit of her stomach. Lose her monster?
Oh hell no.
No.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said. “If you leave, you won’t come back, Rune Alexander. So that means one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t leave.”
And before she could halt him, he grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her to him. He kissed her, his lips cracked, swollen, and feverish, but that didn’t matter at all.
Because when he kissed her, when she closed her eyes and let him kiss her, he was once again the cowboy, and she was back home and there were no witches to face and no heads resting on poles. There were no shimmers and no lords and no echoes.
There was the Annex.
There was her crew, their bodies covered with weapons and silver, waiting somewhere in the shadows.
There were Others—normal, ordinary Others—walking the streets.
There was the cowboy.
The fucking traitorous cowboy.
And fuck if she hadn’t missed him something awful.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
But she pulled away.
She could not forget that he’d murdered so many—and it didn’t matter why he’d done it. Just that he had.
“No,” she said. “I rescued you and I fed you. I cared about the man I thought you were. But the things you did, Owen. I can’t get past the things you did.”
And there was Z. Nothing she’d ever felt for anyone compared with how she felt about her Z.
She didn’t know how she could feel so strongly about Owen when she felt so strongly about the berserker.
She didn’t know.
Maybe it was because she was in a strange fucking world and might never get Z back. Might never see Strad again.
Maybe it was because Owen was so familiar and she needed him.
Or because he was a battered, broken mess who loved her.
Or because Damascus might…
Damascus might win.
Who cared, really?
It just was.
It just fucking was.
Wanting one of them didn’t mean she somehow stopped wanting the others. Stopped loving the others.
No.
She would have what she needed, what she wanted.
Not forever. There was no forever—not for them.
