by Laken Cane
But while she could.
She was her monster, and her monster needed those men who were wrapped up in every single part of her being.
Wanted them.
But Owen…
He’d fucked up in the biggest way he could have fucked up, and she couldn’t need him anymore.
So she pulled away.
“God,” he said, his voice soft. “I knew you before I met you, Rune Alexander. And wanted you even then.” He wilted back against the cart wall. “I knew you.”
“Then you’ll know why you and I…” She shook her head. “I want to forget what you did. I want to understand.”
“But you can’t,” he murmured.
“Did you think there was ever a chance I would? Once you released that poison into the air, did you think for one moment that I would forgive you for that?”
“Maybe. Maybe I was fooling myself because it was the only way I could do what needed to be done.”
“You could have told me. You could have sat down with me and explained why I needed to come here.”
He may have smiled. “No. I couldn’t have done that. Words are just noises, Rune. You had to see for yourself. You had to come here yourself.”
“I would have.” She wondered if her face was as strained as her voice.
“You would not have.”
“Maybe you’re right. We’ll never know. But you should have fucking tried.”
He gave a hoarse cry and pressed his hand to his chest.
Her belly tightened with concern, despite the rage and blame waiting beneath the surface. Rage and blame she dared not release. Not then.
“Where is your pain?”
He laughed. “I am pain.”
“I’ll feed you.” She dropped her fangs and lifted her wrist to her mouth, but he stopped her.
“I’ll heal. Save your strength, Rune. You’re going to need it.”
“I’m going to feed you, because I’m going to leave you. I have to hope my blood will be enough to help you survive. I have to leave you because I can’t think while I’m looking at your condition, at your pain, at your…at your dear, familiar fucking face.” She sobbed, once.
He shuddered and she thought she saw uncertainty flitter across his face.
“Cowboy,” she whispered.
He smiled, and the doubt, if it was ever there, disappeared. It left something hot in its place. Something hot enough to burn her.
“I have to leave you,” she said. “Take my blood.”
“My monster,” he said.
“Is me,” she replied.
“Is mine,” he insisted.
“That can’t be, baby.”
He ignored her words. “With us, it would be different.”
“Already is. And someday, we might have to go ahead and finish this thing.” She moved into his arms, allowing herself to forget, for one long moment, that she should hate him. “We might have to finish it.”
His chest was warm—no, not warm. It was hot.
So much heat.
“We’ll never be finished. Never. I promise you that.”
“There’s always an end. And always a beginning.”
His lips were parted, just a little.
Tempting her.
“I’m so fucking obsessed with you, Rune. You, your monster…”
“No,” she said. “No more.”
Maybe someday…
Someday when she straightened shit out in her head.
But not then, with him shattered and hurting. Not then, with Z in the evil clutches of the witch and Strad Matheson screaming his own pain to the world she’d left.
With the knowledge in her heart that he’d killed Lex, and countless Others of her world.
“Rune.”
“What?”
“Do you…” He swallowed. Finally, he continued. “Did you care about me?”
She closed her eyes. She understood the importance of the question. And the answer. “You’re part of me. Yeah, I care.” She clenched her fists. “But you fucked that up.”
That was all she could say.
Some of the crows began cawing.
Back and forth, they had a conversation only they were privy too. At least, that’s what she thought until Ian spoke.
“Princess,” he said, materializing suddenly from the darkness. “Crawlers are in the area. We need to run.”
The crawlers had run from her once. She had no idea why. But if they’d feared her, they wouldn’t be coming back.
If they’d feared her crow, well, the sky was full of crows.
No. Something else had frightened them away when she’d fought side by side with Z. Something.
“With my crows and zombies,” she said to Ian, “you don’t think we can take the fucking crawlers?”
He cradled his shotgun. “I don’t think we can all escape. I think some of the crawlers will spirit at least one of us away while the others are fighting. And believe me. None of us wants to be captured by the crawlers.” His gaze slid to Owen.
Shit.
She would leave Owen, but she wouldn’t leave him to the crawlers. No matter what he’d done.
“I expect,” Ian continued, “that’s what happened to your people.”
“The witch has my people.”
He shrugged. “She could’ve sent the crawlers to pick them up.”
She climbed from the cart. “The crawlers obey Damascus?”
“Not always. They have allegiances with no one. But if the witch sends a direct command, they—like everyone else—know obeying is the wisest option.”
She found it difficult to draw a deep breath. “Then let’s get out of here. See if we can outrun them.”
“No shame in that.” Ian turned to the shadows. “We’re taking off.”
The zombies circled Rune and her little group as they rode on, and there was a quiet urgency in the unfeeling zombies.
Even they would rather not face the crawlers.
They needed to move on, anyway. Dawn was beginning to break and they had a long, hot day of travel ahead of them.
They’d ridden about five miles across mostly barren, scorched land and were beginning to relax when the crows broke apart, shrieking.
Rune hadn’t felt settled since their near run-in with the crawlers. Jumpy and spooked, she’d been waiting for something to happen.
“Crawlers?” she asked Ian.
He shook his head, slowly, and clutched his gun. “I don’t think so.”
She peered at the sky, at the moving black shadows of the crows. The sun peeked through the clouds, and shone with a weak, yellow light off the rocks and gnarled trees.
“What is it?” Owen asked. He grasped the side of the cart and pulled himself to a sitting position. His groans were almost too quiet to hear.
Almost.
Ian held up a hand for silence, and the air, thick and oppressive, seemed to grow hotter.
Rune could hear breathing, but was unsure who was making the noise.
Not the zombies, who stood like statues, unmoving in their complete silence.
Not her—she couldn’t breathe. Her skin became coated with a slick, sticky sweat, and the fine hairs on her arms stood at attention.
The silence was full of terror, just as the day was full of danger.
The world held its breath.
And finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She shot out her claws.
“Fuck you,” she screamed. “Come on, then. Come on!”
It came.
The thing was similar to the metal man she’d seen the crows attacking when she’d first entered Skyll—but the one stomping toward them right then was even larger.
Enormous.
It arose from the ground and loomed like a mountain before them, impossibly tall, incredibly loud.
“Oh shit,” she said. “Never mind.”
Ian laughed. “Princess, meet Oscar.”
“Oscar?” She glanced at him. “The hell kind of nam
e is Oscar for this mountain of metal?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t name him.”
“How do we kill it?”
“You don’t kill Oscar. You run like a motherfucker from Oscar. You wait for him to move out of the area and you come back when the chances of being flattened beneath his massive feet are a little slimmer.”
“I’ve about had enough of all this running shit,” she growled.
But then Oscar lifted a foot the size of a small house and stomped a dozen of the zombie Runes into the dirt.
“I changed my mind,” she said. “Let’s run.”
Ian nodded. “We’re right behind you.”
Oscar’s twisting metal sound hurt her ears. She urged her horse away from the hideous metal man, expecting every second that they were going to be smashed like ants beneath Oscar’s feet.
And as she kicked the horse into a fast trot away from the metal man, she got a very strong feeling that most of her guards were about to be finished before they’d even really gotten started.
And she could do nothing but run.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
In her world, she was almost invincible.
In Skyll, she was not.
And that was difficult to accept.
Gunnar had warned her, had tried to prepare her. But damn.
She twisted around to watch the crows attacking the newest threat, whose roars were metallic and excruciatingly loud.
The zombies ran at Oscar, but he appeared not to notice as they broke their claws against the metal of his body.
Rune flinched each time she saw one of the claws snap off, then turned back around and led her men the hell out of there.
“Why don’t the zombies leave him alone?” she shouted to Ian. “Can we make them run?”
“They perceive him as a threat to you,” he yelled. “They’re going to take him out or die trying.”
“Shit,” she muttered.
Then she concentrated on outrunning the enormous Oscar. The crows and zombies were slowing him down, but he walked on.
Rune could have outrun them all, but she wasn’t taking herself to safety and leaving the rest of them behind.
She knew the fast, bumpy ride was hurting Owen, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
And finally, Oscar swerved off and walked away from them, causing the ground to shake as he went. His roars faded, at last, and Rune could breathe again.
“Let’s make camp,” she said. “Get some dinner and rest for a while.”
“Oscar isn’t the worst of what we’ll face trying to get to the witch,” Jim said. He rolled a cigarette, lit it, then blew fragrant blue smoke toward the sky. “There are many, many worse things in Skyll. Poor Oscar kills by accident.”
Rune snorted. “Yeah. Poor Oscar. What is he? Where does he…live?”
The crows had gathered once more overhead, their strident caws finally easing, but the zombies didn’t fare quite as well.
They stumbled into camp a couple at a time, taking up their posts around Rune and the others as though nothing had happened.
There were fewer of them, and some of them looked like they’d been hit hard, but they were there.
“What the fuck,” Rune murmured, “can they do against the witch?”
What could she do against the witch?
“It isn’t just the zombies,” Owen said. “It’s the zombies and the rebels and every enemy she ever made who dares to stand up and fight.” His smile was slight beneath the brim of his hat. “And there’s you.”
She shook her head and drank the coffee Ian handed her. “I don’t seem to be much of a savior here, cowboy.”
“It’s your destiny,” Ian said. “The killing of the witch is your destiny.”
“I’m a lucky girl.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “You are.”
“Strangers approaching,” one of the men called. Mel, she thought, though neither he nor Olson talked enough for her to differentiate between their voices.
She and Ian strode toward the guards who had left earlier to check out the area. The uneven circle of zombies never moved.
“Must be okay,” Rune guessed. “If they sensed danger, they’d attack the strangers.”
“Probably,” Ian said. “But let’s be careful just in case.”
She frowned. “I’m not a careless person, Ian.”
“I’m sorry. I never meant—”
She waved impatiently. “Not important. I’m in a bitchy mood.”
“There they are,” Mel said, pointing.
A small, ragged group of people stood just beyond the line of zombies, waiting. They didn’t seem terrified of the strange lookalikes, but neither did they seem overly calm.
“They want food,” Jim said, appearing suddenly beside Rune.
“Shit!” She put a hand to her chest. “Don’t fucking sneak up on me.” She took a breath. “How do you know what they want?”
“Nomadic, shimmerless bands always want food,” Ian explained. “Some of them survive by hunting what they can, but mostly they just travel around, trying to avoid the lords’ attention, and beg for food, clothing, whatever they can get.”
“Are they criminals?” she asked. “Wanted?”
Ian gave her an odd look. “Everyone here is a criminal in some way, Princess. And the only time a person is wanted is if a shimmer lord thinks it will gain him something to retrieve them.”
“Skyll is a fucked up place,” she said.
“Yeah. But it doesn’t have to be. Peace, equality, the rights of the shimmer subjects…all those are things Skyll once possessed.”
“But over time, the lords got greedy and the people grew weak,” Jim said. “And Damascus…she spends her days thinking up ways to make everything just a little bit worse.”
“That’s what all the shimmer lords do,” Ian said. “Fight and plot and attempt to destroy each other. And all they will succeed in doing is destroying the people who must live here.”
They approached the band of people cautiously. Ian, Jim, and Mel had their weapons out, but Rune kept her claws sheathed.
She counted six people, and she could tell from the way their torn, ragged clothes hung on their extremely thin frames that not one of them was healthy. They were starving.
“Hello,” she said. “Can we help you?”
There were four women and two men. The women had their hair and faces covered, with only their eyes showing. They were dressed in identical, threadbare skirts that reached their knees, worn brown leather boots, and gray, shapeless tops.
The men wore loose pants and the same shapeless gray tops as the women. Their faces were half covered by scruffy beards and mustaches.
One of the women stepped forward. “Would you share some scraps of food? Leftovers, garbage, we’re not picky. Anything you don’t want, we’ll take, and gladly.”
They were all too skinny, with lackluster hair, pale, waxy skin, and sunken eyes.
One of them sniffed the air like a wolf, and the woman who’d spoken closed her fist and hit him in the temple, sending him reeling. “We’re not wild animals,” she snarled.
Ian had cut thick slices of pork to fry for their breakfast, and the scent still lingered in the air.
Rune’s stomach tightened with pity. “Follow me. We’ll feed you.”
The strangers vibrated with eagerness.
“Feed us?” the woman asked. “You want us to come into your camp?”
“Yes,” Rune said, ignoring Ian’s sharp look of disapproval. “That’s exactly what I want. Follow us.”
The strangers exchanged quick looks.
“We thank you,” the woman said.
Rune turned around, motioned to her men, and began to walk back to camp. After a few seconds, she threw a glance over her shoulder. The shimmerless were creeping along behind her, silent and still a little disbelieving.
“What makes people shimmerless?” Rune asked Ian, her voice quiet.
He shrugged. “Lots of
reasons. Some of them refuse to align themselves with a lord. Some of them were exiled. No other shimmer will take exiles. Some are in hiding. Some of them arrived…” he paused and threw a look behind him. “Not quite all there.” He tapped his head.
“Or if they were mentally stable once,” Jim offered, “The harshness of their arrival kicked it out of them.”
He grinned at Rune’s look of surprise. “I’m not just a clown, Princess.”
Once in camp, the woman who seemed to be the leader of the little group pointed to the ground and her people didn’t hesitate to sit.
“May we help with anything?” she asked Rune.
Rune pointed her chin at Ian and Jim. “Ask them. They’re doing the cooking.”
“Nothing,” Ian said. “Just sit with your friends and I’ll get something ready.” He didn’t sound happy about it.
The woman crouched beside her people. “Those guards,” she said, motioning at the zombies. “They look like you. Which shimmer lord do they belong to?”
“That doesn’t concern you,” Ian growled. “Don’t be getting nosy.”
Rune lifted an eyebrow. “The fuck’s wrong with you?”
“You can’t trust the shimmerless, Princess. You—”
“Princess,” the woman screamed. “Princess?”
Ian slapped his forehead. “Oh hell.”
“Calm down,” Jim said. “Just everybody calm down.”
“Princess?”
The entire group of shimmerless began yelling, disbelief, anger, and hope all mixed together in their screams.
They stumbled to Rune, who drew back in alarm, and then dropped to their knees before her, sobbing, begging, reaching.
She stared over their heads at Ian and Jim, dismayed. “What the fuck?”
“Every single person in Skyll has hope, Princess,” Ian said. “And they believe you are going to give them lives worth living.”
“You can free my sister,” one of the men cried. “You can free her from the witch.”
“You can free the world,” their leader said, her eyes shining. “You will.”
The group of shimmerless changed before her eyes.
With bright eyes, they became the light of Skyll as she watched.
One of the women grabbed Rune’s hand and kissed it, then rubbed her covered face against it, over and over. “It was all worth it.”
The man who’d had his head punched raised his arms to the sky and waved his hands wildly. “We are no longer shimmerless,” he said. “We belong to the princess and to the shimmers she will take! To the new reign,” he yelled.
