by Kresley Cole
"Look on the bright side, peekon." He stared out into the night. "You probably woan get a choice about that either."
25
The Hunter
Day 553 A.F.
I'd just opened a gas can when Joules climbed down from the truck to join me. "This rig's a right beauty, huh?" he said.
"That she is." Though the extended-range tank held thousands of miles' worth of fuel, we'd hit empty. Luckily, Kentarch had spare cans in the back. Time to feed the Beast.
For the last two days, we'd been making slow progress, catching naps in the cab.
I'd left Evie asleep in the front seat. She'd looked exhausted, her lashes fanning out against the purple smudges under her eyes. I'd brushed her hair from her forehead and murmured, "A moi." But she wasn't mine. Not anymore.
"Sooo," Joules began, "your girl's up the duff with the Reaper's spawn. How're you taking that news?"
Conflicted as ever. Evie was going to be a mother, would soon have another man's son.
I told myself this over and over. Still, I needed to draw her to me every time I caught a thread of her honeysuckle scent. And that kiss at the lake? She'd been telling me something with that kiss, something I was desperate to hear.
She loved me just as much as she ever had, maybe even more. But knowing that only made this situation harder. "I've heard better news." Elle me hante. She haunts me.
"What's your play now, hunter?"
The last thing she needed after all she'd been through--and in her condition--was me putting pressure on her. The weird part about it: I got the feeling she expected me to. "Stay the course," I said, no matter how badly I wanted to tell her that we'd run away together.
My old issues remained. I had nothing to give her. She needed food and safety more than ever. She needed to be back in Death's castle.
Our dream of Haven would never have worked without food and supplies.
"You really believe Circe's goin' to save the day with some kind of weapon?"
I emptied one can, then grabbed another. "Got to."
"Then let's think about how we'll use it. Instead of a Reaper rescue mission, let's plan a hostile takeover. We sack the castle, you and the Empress set up house, and we all ride out the apocalypse."
So unbelievably tempting. But . . . "A kid belongs with his father."
And damn it, I owed Dominija for Evie's life. For mine as well.
Joules leaned against the side of the truck. "Evie can make promises for him all she wants to, but we both know Death'll never share his resources with us. Especially now that there's a little Reaper on the way."
"I'm not eager to sing the praises of the man who married the only woman I'll ever love--"
"And knocked her up."
"--but Dominija's honorable. You help reunite him with his wife and kid, then he's goan to reward you."
I had to admit that I'd actually liked the man. Take away the drama around us, and I could almost imagine us being podnas. We'd emptied more than one bottle of whiskey together, and I'd found him to be honest, smart, and brave as the night is long.
Evie might think that her and Dominija's baby would be a mix of the worst in the world; I didn't see that at all.
In fact, I probably cared more about the kid than she seemed to. Mixed up with all my jealousy and confusion, I felt a strange sense of protectiveness.
If I was this conflicted, I couldn't imagine how she must feel.
She'd admitted that the kid could've shielded her from the Hanged Man, but in the same breath, she'd blamed the baby for draining her . . . .
"Just think about my idea," Joules said. "Goin' to take a slash." He ambled off.
A what? And folks thought I talked funny?
Kentarch exited the truck, looking damned hale for a man who'd lost a body part just days ago.
Cauterizing was a great way to stop blood loss, but it left the door wide open to infection--especially since he'd stopped eating. Evie's plant-based drugs must be helping him out, because he hadn't developed a fever, and his wrist was healing without issue.
When I'd seared his skin, the smell had reminded me of branding myself to get rid of the Lovers' mark on my chest. And then when I'd done it for Selena.
I rubbed my scar. Burning off that hateful mark had been Death's idea. Another thing I owed him for.
I told Kentarch, "You need to eat something." We still had some lion left. I'd been hoarding my share for Evie and the baby. Apparently she'd thrown up everything before this meat. She hadn't lost her stomach since.
Kentarch blinked at me, as if I'd just uttered nonsense. "Taking from our supply when I can no longer contribute?"
"Contribute?"
"I can deploy no offensive weaponry, and my teleportation power is nonfunctioning." He'd strained it so bad against Richter that he still couldn't manage so much as waver. He hadn't been able to return to Death's to check on that sphere.
Okay by me. I'd rather Kentarch not know if that alliance located his wife. Evie was safer that way.
He continued, "My father taught me that there is power in excellence. Does the opposite not follow then? That without excellence, there is only weakness? What use will I be to Issa like this?" He held up his stump.
"Well, ole Jack Deveaux is here to teach you something too: anything is better than nothing. If you ate, you'd replenish your power faster. As for shooting, can't you aim with your left hand?"
He raised his chin, bitterness in his eyes. "No. Not at all."
"Then learn the hell how to." I tossed the empty gas can into the truck bed. "I taught myself to shoot with either hand in no time." I patted the trusty bow over my shoulder. First thing I'd done was restring it.
"You did?"
"Ouais. You can too." I saw a spark in his gaze battling that bitterness. "Look, Kentarch, your wife might be alive. She might not be. But if she is, she's goan to need whatever you can bring to the table." I clamped his shoulder. "It's mind over matter, podna."
Accent thick, he said, "I believe very much in the strength of the mind."
"Bien. You got work to do. We'll train every day."
He nodded, his posture straighter than before.
Evie opened the cab door then and hopped down before I could help her. She ambled over to sit on a nearby rock. Looking lost in thought, she began braiding her hair.
My fingers itched to thread through that silken length. Her sweater rode up, revealing her barely rounded belly. On her steady diet of lion, she was putting on flesh, looking as curvy as when I'd first met her.
Lust was a punch to my gut. Fantasies ran riot in my head. I shouldn't crave her this way. But God, I did.
Kentarch must've read my thoughts. In a lower voice, he said, "You want her that badly, and yet you'll fight to get her back into the arms of your rival?"
Inner shake. "I'll fight to get her to safety. She needs inside that castle. If that means back with him . . ."
Kentarch seemed to be considering this. "I could find myself in the same situation as you. What if Issa is carrying another man's child?"
"What would you do?" I respected Kentarch's opinions.
"Celebrate that she was alive. I hold so much love for her that it would spill over to any babe she bore. Our connection is so strong that I would become a father--just by virtue of her becoming a mother."
Is that what's happening to me?
"The longer you provide for and protect the one you love and her babe, the more you'll think of both as your own."
"That so?" Then how would I take losing them when Dominija went back to normal and wanted them back?
"Hunter, whatever we're going to do with this mission, we need to be quick about it."
I gazed at Evie's belly. Blasting past all my reservations was that strange protectiveness--a feeling so strong it scared me. "Ouais," I told Kentarch. "We got to move damned fast."
26
The EmpressDay
556 A.F.
"I've never been on dunes this high," I
told Jack as we climbed a mound of blackened sand under a lightning-streaked sky. He'd insisted on going before me, making me follow in his tracks.
"Me neither." He paused, and I caught up with him. Gazing down at me, he said, "This is just like we planned all those months ago."
"Yeah." Somehow we'd made it to the Outer Banks. Together. It'd been our mission, the reason we'd banded together in the beginning.
Back then I'd had no idea what Aric would come to mean to me--or how strong my feelings for Jack would become.
For the last few days, I'd felt his eyes on me constantly. I'd see him reach for me, only to lower his hand, as if he no longer had the right to touch me. Or maybe he was trying to keep his distance. To protect his heart.
But whenever he finally pulled over to sleep, I'd curl up next to him, yearning for the physical contact, the comfort of his strength.
After a hesitation, he'd always pull me close. He'd needed the contact too.
"Let's take a breather." He opened his canteen and handed it over. All we had left was water, a few rations of lion, and Kentarch's sacred bottle of Tusker beer.
I accepted the canteen, but said, "I'm fine."
"Not stopping for you." He jerked his chin at my midriff.
Jack had shown more concern for my kid than I'd managed to. His loyalty was so strong, he would even protect another man's child.
As I took a drink, I gazed down at the truck. Joules and Kentarch had stayed with the Beast. Joules laughed as he balanced a sparking javelin on his forefinger, while Kentarch practiced throwing his blade. He now holstered his pistol and knives in reach of his left hand.
We were fortunate that the Chariot was healing up well; the one place we could get help wasn't an option.
We'd started picking up a recorded radio message from the very place Hal and Stache had spoken of--the Sick House: "Do you or a loved one need medical assistance? At the Sick House, we can help. Our doctors are on standby to save lives. Come to us with goods to trade and get treated today!" The spokesman had sounded like a smarmy lawyer: Have you been in an accident?
Jack had heard on the road that the Sick House was a military base commandeered by a gang that traded drugs, medical care, and women.
His pensive gaze took in our surroundings. Here on the coast, the snow had dissipated. We'd gone from pristine blankets of white to the ash we all hated--like ripping off a clean bandage to reveal a festering wound. "I always thought it was my job to get you here. Non. My job was to get you to safety, to a place you could call home. I haven't succeeded yet."
"We'll find that place, Jack. Somehow." Would it be the castle? Everything depended on Circe.
"So this is where your grand-mere rode out the end of the world?"
"Yep." I surveyed the coastal town. Apocalypse: Beach-Style! How had she survived here for so long? The towns we'd driven through had once been filled with seashells, sun umbrellas, and beach towels--not canned goods.
"How'd Dominija find her?"
"Like you, there's little he can't find." Both men had an innate talent for sourcing.
"He'd had her at the castle the whole time the three of us were on the road together?" I nodded. "Why didn't he play that card when you were about to make your decision between us? Seems that would've made him a shoo-in."
"He realized how much I would resent the coercion." I admitted, "He said he'd felt so strongly about me that he believed I must have felt the same." At Jack's troubled expression, I changed the subject. "I told Gran about you. She said she would've liked to see me with a bayou boy."
That muscle ticked in his jaw. "Why you tell me something like that?" he grated. "You've never been more out of my reach."
"Jack?" He looked exasperated with me, like I'd forgotten my bug-out bag or something.
"Sorry." He ran his fingers through his hair. "I told you how the future would play out, and I'm not liking my odds."
"You said you had to be convinced that Aric would return to normal and keep his rage in check. I've been replaying my escape from him, and maybe I'm not liking his odds." If the trust Aric and I shared had vanished like a desert mirage, I wasn't eager to trudge across scorching sand in that direction again. "And don't forget, when I accepted him as my own, I believed you were dead. It's like I explained to Joules--you and I didn't break up. We were planning a future together. Now . . ." I bit my lip.
"Now we doan have enough information to make a decision. So we live in limbo."
Which wasn't fair to Jack. "I don't know what else to do." At present, my missions were to meet up with Circe, plan a takedown, and rescue Aric.
After that? Beats me.
"Your kid's goan to need his father."
"I didn't have mine for long. And look how mentally well-adjusted I turned out."
"I'm serious, I know this better than anyone." Being abandoned by his father had shaped Jackson. But I'd come to realize that all his hardships before the Flash had strengthened him, preparing him for ever more challenging trials.
He and I were alive because of his hardships.
He studied my face. "What you thinking about, ma belle?"
"Remember how much envy there was in high school? I envied Mel because she had two parents. Grace Anne envied me because I lived in a big house. I wish I could go back and tell everyone: the more perfect your life is, the less prepared you'll be for the future. If you don't have bullshit to deal with, you're about to get hosed."
"You believe that?"
I held his gaze. "My mother once told me that diamonds were born of pressure, but I never understood what she meant until I met you."
His brows drew together, and his voice roughened. "For true?"
"Jack, your past--and how you handled it--is why we're both still breathing."
A flush tinged his broad cheekbones. Uncomfortable with the praise, he coughed into his fist, then said, "Let's get goan. Like a shadow, you." He pointed to the sand. "Doan want you to step on a surprise."
"Bagmines," I muttered, and we began to climb.
When we crested the dune to take in the lightning-lit view, my heart sank. There was nothing. Not a drop of water. "Jack?"
"It's okay. I didn't figure the ocean had risen to its normal levels yet."
"Circe told me to go to the coast and then keep going. But I'd assumed there'd be another target to shoot for. Not this"--I waved at the horizon--"nothingness."
"Guess the question is: how much do you trust her?"
"With my life, now that I'm pregnant. But she's been unwell." Who hadn't been? Hello, bottomless pit. "Maybe she got things confused."
"One of Kentarch's maps showed a shelf of land that used to be under the sea, dozens of miles wide. It drops off into a trench. My bet? We got ourselves a new coastline."
I tried to wrap my head around that.
"The Beast has enough gas to get us to the edge of that shelf, but not back. So do we try to scare up some more fuel and food?" We'd found nothing on the way here. "Or do we take our chances out there?"
I thought of Aric, pacing his lonely castle. I pictured Finn's grin on his last night alive. I thought of how vulnerable Lark was under Paul's rule.
I might not blindly trust that Aric and I could regain what we'd lost, but I would still fight to free him. "Let's take the leap."
27
Day 557 A.F.
"Would you look at that?" Jack murmured at our surroundings.
We'd driven miles and miles past the last of the burned-out high-rise condos into an undersea landscape that was no longer under the sea.
The going was slow, the shelf teeming with debris--anchors, traps, sunken wrecks, and even crashed planes. Enormous whale skeletons stood as big as houses. Every now and then we would pass a Bagger, emerging from the sand, scrambling to catch us.
According to Kentarch's elevation gauge, we should've been well beneath the surface. I wished Aric could witness this surreal scene with me. How would I ever describe it to him?
The fog thickened
the further we descended, slowing us even more. Lightning illuminated the gray cloud deck. I rotated the spotlight, picking out wrecks through the eerie mist.
From the back, Joules said, "This place makes me bollocks shrivel."
Kentarch made a sound of agreement, his gaze alert.
Jack tapped the fuel gauge. "We just passed the point of no return."
I swallowed. "Are you sure we're going the right way?"
He pointed to the map screen. "Due east."
We continued on in anxious silence, descending another hill, chugging around a pair of whale skeletons . . . .
Suddenly a flare lit up the sky over the horizon.
"Who could've shot that?" And why? Matthew had warned me to beware of lures, like a light in darkness.
"It's coming from the direction of the trench." Jack rolled down his window and slowed the Beast to a stop. An engine revved somewhere in the night. Another followed, and another. He killed the headlights. "Company from the northwest." For my benefit, he added, "North of where we first hit the shelf."
The darkened mist grew brighter. Bouncing beams of light shot into the sky. "Are those headlights?"
"No way," Joules said. "There's too many of 'em."
Jack eased the Beast over a rise of sand. Stunned quiet reigned.
Finally I said, "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"
Jack nodded. "Traffic."
Not far in the distance, dozens of trucks and dune buggies hauled ass past us on what looked like a cleared sand road. Whereas we'd spent a day inching our way around debris, they were charging across the shelf. "Why are they racing?"
"No idea, me. They're heading toward that light."
Joules slapped Jack's shoulder. "Back in Oirland, me ole mam said, 'Whenever you see a mysterious line, Patty, you best hie your arse into it.'"
"Even with what you guys are packing, that many survivors could pose a threat to Evie and Tee." His new nickname for my kid, short for p'tee garcon. Baby boy.
"No choice but to push on," Joules said. "We're skint--out of grub and running on fumes."
What else could we do? Despite the lure, my instinct told me to head toward the light. "Jack, that must be where Circe wanted us to go." And she was our only lead to save Aric.
Jack read me so well. "So to spring Dominija, I'm supposed to risk you and Tee? No way."
