Stitched

by Shannon Mayer

  “Peta, get off me.” He tried to push her, but she dug her claws in. “Ack, get off, cat!”

  She let out a low growl and shifted into her leopard form, right on top of him. I watched with amusement as he yelped and hollered, twisted and tried to shove her off. Finally, he succeeded and sat up, sand falling from his back. “Damn cat. Familiars think so highly of themselves, if I can give you a piece of advice, avoid them.”

  I thought about Alex. “I already have a cling-on. I don’t think I have room in my life for a familiar.”

  Grunting, he stood, then looked at me. I mean, really looked at me. “Elle?”

  A cold shiver swept through me, that single word hitting me hard. “That was my mom. Did you know her?”

  His eyes widened and his mouth flapped several times before he managed to say anything coherent. “You look just like her. Talk about family resemblance.”

  I licked my lips. “Look, I’d love to talk to you about her, really I would, but I need your help. I’m prepping a spell and I need a fire elemental to help me. Are you . . . are you an elemental?” The thing was, he didn’t look like an elemental, he looked like a hippy dug up from the sixties, his long red hair a tangled mess, lean body dressed in a Jesus robe, bare feet. Yeah, not someone who would inspire confidence.

  He yawned and stretched. “Yeah, I am. Kinda. Name’s Cactus.”

  “Rylee. And kinda, what the hell does that mean?” I stepped into the room, the heat in the sand seeming to reach me even through my boots.

  “Means I’m a half breed. Fire on one side, earth on the other. But if you just need me to heat something—” He held his left hand out, palm up, and swept his right hand, palm down, over it. A flame opened up across his left hand, dancing along his skin.

  “Impressive. And yes, I think that’s all we need.” I stepped back and he shook his head.

  “If you have a spell of some sort, I say we do it here. I have a closer connection to the mother goddess and she can help if things go sideways.”

  “Nothing should go sideways,” I said.

  “Yeah, but if you’re anything like your mom, things go sideways whether you want them to or not.”

  A smile twitched his lips and I so badly wanted to pick his brain, to find out what he knew about her. The journal from my mom had been burnt to ash in the fire that took out my house in North Dakota. Written words were one thing, but the ability to hear stories about her from someone who wasn’t in love with her—as in, not my uncle—that was pretty cool.

  “Maybe later we can discuss my mom, but right now I need to do this. If you’re willing to help.”

  “Anything for Elle’s little girl.”

  I pulled the flask and the crystal vial out from under my coat. I unstopped them and mixed them back and forth. The blood was red, the venom a dark blue and the resulting mix was a deep purple. I held the crystal vial out to Cactus. He took it and I called on Ophelia since Blaz had left.

  “I need the words, now, Ophelia, if you don’t mind.”

  From dawn until dawn, from night to night, from wing to wing. Let the blood heat and hearts kindle in the fire that is life, may that which would steal our life become our sustenance, and let our breath give our love wings to fly through the darkest night and the worst storms.

  I repeated it softly to myself, several times with Ophelia correcting me here and there until I had it right. I nodded at Cactus. “Okay, light it up, slow and then bring it to a boil, then I’ll say the words.”

  “You sure that’s how it needs to be done?”

  I pinched my lips together, thinking before I answered. “Yes. This is it.” He held the vial and slowly began to heat it, just by holding it as I whispered the words. Then Cactus switched hands.

  “I’ll let it cool, and when it’s cool enough but still hot, that’s when I would drink it.”

  I nodded my agreement nerves getting the better of me. “I’m scared.” The words escaped me, but Cactus didn’t know me and somehow that made it safe to speak the truth.

  He gave me a smile. “I remember your mom. She was scared when she found out she was pregnant with you. Your dad, Bram, he was ecstatic, unable to believe he was going to be a father. They came here, you know. To hide until you were born.”

  “Who were they hiding from?”

  “From me. And the demons even then,” Erik said, coming into the room. “They hid from me because I was pissed she chose him over me. And that was when the first prophecies came to light that a Tracker would be the one to stop Orion’s plans. He’s been hunting you a long time.”

  Cactus handed me the vial. “Bottoms up.”

  I took it, the glass still uncomfortably warm. I pressed it to my lips, took a deep breath and gulped down the contents.

  Fire and blood was my first thought, the coppery tang hot on my tongue and then . . . it hit my bloodstream. An explosion along my nerve endings and I was falling, someone caught me and that was the last I remembered.

  The next thing I knew, cold cloths were placed on my forehead and Catya was inside my head.

  These pains will ease soon. She’s growing quickly.

  I didn’t answer her, just let the contortions my body was doing wash through me. I could feel the baby growing, and I knew she wasn’t exactly having a good time of things, either. “I’m sorry, sweet one. It will be done soon,” I whispered and put a hand over my already substantially larger belly.

  At some point, the pain eased off and I fell asleep.

  And Liam was there waiting for me.

  Dark hair and golden eyes, a body made hard by all the years of working out, and then the rigors of becoming a werewolf. I ran my hands up his arms and over his biceps to rest on his shoulders. He placed his hands on my hips.

  “I don’t want to speak about our last visit. I don’t know how much time I have.”

  “Sounds good to me.” I laid my head on his chest and breathed in his smell. None of it was real, but I didn’t care. I just needed to feel him for that moment.

  “You always have things to do, trouble to find.”

  I tightened my grip on him as the dream tried to slip away from me and I swallowed hard, knowing what I had to do. “I have to focus, Liam, on what’s in front of me.”

  He stroked my hair with one hand and rubbed my back with the other. “I know. I’m just surprised you figured it out already.”

  “I didn’t. Not really. I saw Cactus, letting the world pass him by for the bliss of oblivion, I see Erik grieving still the loss of my mother, all these people, living in the past. They missed out on the world, and more than that, they miss out on what they could be.” I lifted my head to look into his face. “Kiss me goodbye, Liam. I have to face what I was born to do. When I’m done”—I reached up and touched his jaw—“then we can be together.”

  His eyes were sad, but he smiled. “I will be there, even if you can’t see me, love. Know that.” He pressed his lips to mine, parted them with his tongue, and I kissed him back. Emotions flowed between us, love, sorrow, lust, and an unbreakable bond. Underneath it all was something I needed more than anything else.

  Hope.

  That this wasn’t the end. That my words would prove to be prophetic and I would be with him, that maybe we could even be a family. I didn’t know how it would happen, I only knew that as long as I believed, there was a chance.

  Hope. A word I barely knew anymore, yet I clung to it, and all it represented for me.

  A world with Liam in it was worth hoping for, worth believing.

  Worth fighting for.

  And that, more than anything else, was something I understood. If nothing else, I would never stop fighting, no matter how much pain and loss was slung my way.

  I broke away from Liam and smiled up at him, my heart feeling lighter than it had in longer than I could remember.

  “Don’t forget me, Wolf.”

  He gave me a half bow. “Blood of the Lost, I would sooner forget everything in my life, and forsake my soul.”
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  Still smiling, I let go of that dream and slid into sleep, a smile on my lips.

  In the distance I heard him, as if he stood beside me and held my hand.

  “I will always love you, Rylee, you and our wolf cub. Always.”

  Chapter 11

  So it turned out that something about the spell I whipped together was the extra strength prescription. Never mind a month, two weeks later I was in labor. Yeah, not my idea of a fun time. The only upside was the whole pushing-a-baby-out-an-opening-that-didn’t-seem-big- enough-thing was over in less than a day.

  Daisy helped, and the details, well, some things are better left to the imagination. But after that—pain as if I were being ripped apart—feeling like it would never end, after all that shit was done, none of it mattered once I had her in my arms.

  The little one cradled in my arms was . . . mine. I stared into her tiny face, astounded that I was a mom. Jet black hair like Liam, but her eyes were closer to mine, only two colors instead of three. A deep chocolate brown flecked with gold. She blinked sleepily at me, then smiled and I was gone—my heart was no longer my own.

  I stroked her cheek with a finger. “What are we going to name you, little one?”

  Daisy laughed, her mirth shaking the bed. “Oh, her name will come to you when she is ready. For now, just love her.” She patted my shoulder, leaned over, and kissed my forehead. As if we were family. And considering what we’d just been through together, I would say she was family indeed.

  I let out a sigh, rolled over, and tucked my girl against me, a sense of contentment I’d never expected to feel washing over me. This was what Doran had said when he’d told me I would love another. Not another man, no, Liam held that spot in my heart. But this love, for this tiny little one was so intense, so pure, and I would do anything to keep her safe, to help her grow strong and true. Anything.

  “Marcella,” I whispered her name as I fell asleep, knowing in my heart Liam would approve. A bit of my mother, Elle, and the rest . . . the god of war . . . it was a strong name, one I hoped would serve her well.

  The first few months flew by, filled with learning how to bathe, feed, and change diapers of two fast growing babies. Zane took to Marcella as if they had known each other for years. They would lay side by side, holding tiny fingers as they stared up at the sky in the central garden, warm breezes blowing over them.

  They would lay and laugh at each other, and I would do my workouts beside them. Sometimes Bao would help, teaching me a more relaxed fighting style that meant I would wait for an attacker to come to me and deflect, turning their blows away and allowing them to tire themselves out. I wasn’t sure it would work on the kind of asshats I encountered, but it was worth learning. And it pushed me, forced me to keep my focus, something I was having a hard time with, now that Marcella, or Mars as she was quickly becoming, was in my life.

  But for her, I forced myself through, and slowly my body came back together. The two weeks of baby growing in triple time had pulled muscles, torn ligaments and stretched me without mercy. The only good thing was I had the time to rebuild myself.

  Erik and I trained with weapons, swords, crossbows, knives, and of course, dealing with demons. For that, we made forays into the world with Blaz, pinpointed a demon and went after it, or them as the case sometimes was. Once a week until killing demons was as easy as using one of my blades. And in some ways it was easier. Because to kill a demon took love, you had to do it with love, not anger or hate or fear because all those did was feed the demon and make it stronger. With Marcella in my life, it was easy to fight for love. Easy to hold onto the emotions she built in me.

  And I wondered if that was why I needed to be a mother. I wondered if I would have been able to face Orion without that love in my life. I questioned Erik and he had given me a smile that was sad and full of regret.

  “I think you’re right. A mother’s love is like nothing else, there is nothing stronger in the world than a love between a parent and child. Orion can’t face that, he has no concept of that power.”

  I hoped he was right. I doubted Orion would be easy to kill, him or his four generals. But for that moment, I knew I was doing everything I could.

  Blaz and I flew with Ophelia, working out strategies for fighting in the air, every day we worked and I grew more and more comfortable with being on Blaz without being tied to his back.

  Coyote helped me increase my speed, learning how to anticipate the attacks of a supernatural who outranked in me in that department. Every person I had around me helped me to train, to strengthen and prepare for the coming battles. Because I was sure there would be more than one.

  And every spare moment I had, I played with Mars, held her close, kissed her nose, and promised her I would come back for her. Begged her to understand how much she meant to me. That I would leave because I had to, not because I wanted to.

  She just cooed and smiled up at me, which only made what was coming that much harder.

  Because the six months was swiftly coming to an end. Six months of peace, of being safe and finding my center, of getting stronger and prepping.

  Liam had given me the three things I needed more than anything else.

  The time to prep myself, the people who could help me, and a love I would fight for to the ends of the world and back.

  I held the violet-skinned book in my hands, open to the page I’d been reading. Marcella was sleeping softly in my bed, her tiny hands curled up under her chin. I reached over and brushed my fingers across her forehead.

  “Don’t wake her, she just got quiet,” Erik said from the doorway, and I gave him a wry grin.

  “I know. But there isn’t much time left,” I whispered.

  “No, there’s not. You finally break down and decided to read the book?”

  I let out a sigh and nodded. I held it out to him, knowing the page he would read was one I had memorized. It was the only page that mattered to me. The rest were vague. This one was to the point.

  “And when the darkness comes, and a plague sweeps the world, the Blood of the Lost shall be the one to save us. Two things must she do. Find the Destroyer so they may bring their blood together, and bind herself to the darkness.”

  Erik’s eyes were on my face. “Find the Destroyer?”

  “Peta’s elemental. At this point, that is all I know. I don’t even have a name. Cactus just shakes his head when I ask. He doesn’t know, or maybe he doesn’t remember.”

  “And the other part?”

  I stood and shooed him out of the room, shutting the door behind us as we stood in the hallway. “You bound Bert to you, didn’t you?”

  Erik stiffened. “You can’t mean to bind Orion to you.”

  “Yes, I think that’s what it’s asking me to do. He can’t kill me then.”

  My uncle let out a tired breath. “That is true. Are you sure, though? You can pick up on their thoughts when you bind yourself to them.”

  I shrugged. “It will keep me safe longer, and keep Orion on his toes then. It may even give us the edge we need to keep ahead of him and his generals if I’m picking up on his thoughts.”

  “But first you have to find him and then bind him to you.”

  I nodded and Erik put his hands on my shoulders. “I’ll show you again how to do it.”

  He did, and it was simple. Blood on blood, and one phrase. “To thee, I bind my blood and thoughts, to me I bind your life.”

  Easy peasy.

  Right.

  And then the day to leave was there, sneaking up on me like a thief in the night, there to steal my most precious of precious things.

  I held Marcella in my arms and she cried softly, sensing something was wrong. I didn’t fight the tears that streaked my face. “I’ll come back for you, little love. I’ll come back.”

  I was leaving most of my friends behind. Erik, Coyote, Cactus, and of course, Catya, those four were staying to act as guardians for Marcella and Zane. Daisy would be her surrogate once I was gone. Blaz, of cou
rse, was coming with me, as was Peta.

  And of all the people I didn’t expect to show, a tall blond figure stepped out of the shadows.

  Faris. I glared at Blaz. “What did you do, go back and get him?”

  And left him in a local village, not far from here. I knew you wouldn’t want him around Marcella, but he can help. You know that.

  My anger slipped away. Because all that meant nothing as I breathed in the smell of my little girl, a hint of sunshine and baby powder, and a scent so indefinable, I could only call it ‘baby.’ My baby.

  And I was leaving her.

  Erik took her from me. “She’ll be safe here, you know that. You know Orion has marked her as the one to claim now. And he will find a way if she isn’t in the monastery.”

  Of course, I knew all that, but it was good to hear again, to help me make my feet walk away from the piece of my heart that now beats outside my chest. I climbed up Blaz, my body stronger than it had ever been, my mind clear and my heart full of love.

  The three hags were there, watching, swooning with desire for the emotions I was giving off. I did my best to ignore them. To remember that was another price I had paid.

  Bao slipped up beside me. “And now the last piece. I will take your memories of this place, to give us safety.”

  I bowed my head, as did Blaz, Peta, and a reluctant Faris.

  “I can still recall this place,” I said, but the name had already slipped from my mind. Bao smiled.

  “It will go as you fly away, piece by piece until all you love will be safe again.”

  I thanked him, bowing at the waist.

  The things I needed to make the last stand against Orion were here, and even though I was leaving them behind, I knew that their love went with me. From Blaz’s back, my loved ones ranged out. Erik holding Marcella, Daisy holding Zane. Ophelia, Coyote, and Cactus waving at us. Faris leapt behind me and strapped himself in, Peta curled up in front of me, which I knew I would be grateful for once we were in the cold night sky.