by Leigh Evans
Can’t breathe.
And then, inexplicably, between one heartbeat and another, it all changed. The sticky stuff dissolved around us and my trusty mount’s front hooves broke through the thinning veil of blue.
Immediately the laws of gravity and principles of physics resumed.
Mouse, still grimly hanging on to Seabiscuit’s bridle, broke through first, shouting a blue streak. Then the pommel gave my lady parts a farewell bruise, and then—oh sweet heavens—I was Supergirl, except she flew with her hands out and I was flying nose first over my pony’s ears, trawling a tether of magic and one irate Gatekeeper. My arm was pulled up and backward as the full weight of the diminutive Fae made itself known.
My landing was predictably nasty and, as per usual, done headfirst. My teeth snapped together, my jaw tested the concept of dislocation, my boobs flattened, and my knee lost an inch or two of skin.
A pause, then it was the bungee cord all over again: another wince of hot flared in my shoulder sockets as she was sling-shot past me.
She landed with a thud-thump and a grunt.
In the moments following land ho, I listened to Mouse hacking up a lungful of magic, and the Gatekeeper’s wet wheeze, and the sounds of Seabiscuit presumably heading hell-for-leather for the winner’s tape.
“I hate wards,” coughed Mouse.
“I think I love them,” I replied.
Before we’d been outside of the bowl; now we were inside it. And now I understood why the ward had turned blue. Not only was the interior of the ward’s walls tinted blue, so was the late-morning light within it. It was alive, this light, and it carried the lingering heat of an Alpha’s open-throttle flare; it goosed my flesh and sent my heart into a thump of joy.
Trowbridge.
Blue light everywhere. My man was flaring.
* * *
Daniel’s Rock was a twenty-foot misshapen hump of pale gray, textured with fissures and stained with vertical streaks of dark charcoal. My mate had been facing a slit carved into the rock when I tore through the ward, but as Seabiscuit cantered past him he spun around with a warrior’s coiled grace, the blade he held balanced and ready to swing. His mouth was set in an ugly clenched-tooth grimace, his body language primed for battle.
I love this man—the knowledge was a fist bump to my solar plexus.
Even if dirt was caked on either side of his mouth and his expression was more furious than loving. Angry, half-naked, dirty. Less than pretty what with his warrior’s leer beginning to sag in relief …
I didn’t care.
I love this man.
I will always love this man.
He looked like he’d seen hell, left a memo on how to improve it, and then done a tour in purgatory. Since we’d parted ways, his clothing had been edited down to his jeans and those had seen a rough and drastic revision, the legs of which having been hacked off at mid-thigh. His custom-made cutoffs rode low on his narrow hips. But more significantly, he carried a sword.
My soldier of impossible causes had found himself some weaponry.
“Whose sword?” I asked in a voice that barely trembled.
His flare blazed, then blinded.
“That’s all you say? ‘Whose sword?’” His voice rose. “What the fuck took you so long?” He was a tall shadow on the other side of a field of fierce blue. “You should have been here! When I came here and only found him…”
Him? As quickly as the question formed, I tossed it aside, for I heard him take another ragged breath, this time through his nose. Trowbridge finished hoarsely with a “Jesus, Hedi.”
“I had to take a couple of pee breaks.”
And with that, the scorching heat of his Alpha flare eased, the fire licking away until his light felt like a warm caress. And as the light around me went from cobalt blue to the hue of the Mediterranean, I heard him huff.
It was tiny, but it was a huff.
“May the Gods preserve us,” said Mouse in awe. “It’s the Son of Lukynae himself.”
I hoisted myself to one bruised elbow, a motion that elicited a squawk from the Gatekeeper. “Donut time again,” I murmured to my magic. The weight on the end of my fingers disappeared. I sensed, rather than saw, both of my charges move to the side.
Trowbridge slowly lowered his sword.
My anxious gaze flitted over him, taking in his strung-bow tension, searching for injury. A liberal coating of mud that was half-dry and half-wet, leaving the overall impression of mottled crocodile skin, questionably enhanced his near nudity.
No wound on his heaving chest. No blood on his taunt thighs.
Unharmed.
My lip trembled, partly from the knee-dissolving sweep of relief but mostly because the instant he’d turned to face me and he’d sucked in a hard breath I’d known.
We were equal in this love business.
From this point on, they’d be no security locks on my heart. No distance allowed between us, no regrets given leave to grow. Screw all the other shit that kept stepping in between us and trying to trip us.
I knew.
Once you took away the magic and the fangs and erased the backstories and unfathomable histories … after you reduced the noise, the conflicts, and the confusion … it all came down to what was at core real and what was not.
It was so damn simple.
Here it was: I could believe in a man who swung me off a waterfall. I could pin my faith in a guy who sucked in his gut and followed me back to his own personal hell. I could pour my trust into a guy who feared water but liked showers and who would always be ever more pretty than me. When everything else was shifting, when nothing else made sense …
I could believe in him and me.
Because he loved me as much as I loved him—I was his.
And it wasn’t because I’d tricked him into saying the vows that bound us together. And it wasn’t because he was at heart an honorable man who’d decided to make the best of a less than optimal situation.
I saw it in his eyes. I was no step-down. I was no compromise.
I was his One True Thing.
There was only one response to such a declaration. I flared. I let my green light find his in the middle of that clearing because it was the fastest way of touching the essence of him—my Trowbridge, my love, my mate, my heartache and joy. Our flares touched, a prelude to a heated kiss; then at the intersection of his light and mine our colors merged. My green and his blue made turquoise, the same shade as the shoals of the Mediterranean, where the water is warm and the currents are hidden.
Love traveled in the light, the pure summation of all the good things and the bad things in both worlds.
“They’re mates,” I heard Mouse say in awe.
* * *
Our flares eased, then blinked out. Trowbridge heaved a sigh and with it, shook off that tension that had held him fast. He gave a hard glance at the wall of rock—almost as if he was telling it to stay—then covered the ground separating us in long strides.
He’s been running. His shins were heavily coated in mud splatter.
My mate dropped to his knees before me, his legs, as is their habit, splaying to surround mine. Two large hands cupped my jaw. His palms were damp from sweat.
“You’re so late,” he growled. “You should have made it here hours ago. I thought—”
“I got sidetracked.” My nostrils quivered as the smell of him—mud, woods, wolf, and stress—enveloped me. “But in the good news category, I got here in the end. Step one accomplished in our epic—”
He put two fingers to my mouth. “Shh.” Either his digits trembled or my mouth did, because I felt a tremor between us. He’s haggard. His chest heaved, up and down, down and up. Mud cracked with each labored breath. His kissed me, a fleeting brush of hard lips.
“You ran all night,” I whispered, my bravado slipping.
“My mate needed me,” he said quietly, and hell lived in those tired blue eyes. “I was crazy worried about you last night. Tink, I didn’t know it was going to be a full moo
n.”
I studied the harsh lines bracketing his mouth. “Yeah. That was a surprise.”
“You got to believe me,” he started. “I would never have…”
He stalled, his face reddening.
“Time moves so fast here.” He shook his head in self-disgust. “Eighteen hours to one Earth hour. Shit, I lost half a day in my kitchen back home while I listened to Harry argue with Cordelia about who was going to pick up the Swiss Chalet chicken.” He blew some air through his teeth. “My clock was set on Creemore time when I followed you through the passage. If I’d known, Hedi, I would never have left you to face your first change alone…”
His words trailed off, a question in his eyes.
My gaze dropped to focus on a flake of dried mud that had spiraled to the ground by his knee. I stared at it, thinking about running and traps, and then I raised my eyes to meet his again.
I saw the fear. The fatigue and the hope.
I looked away.
Then, I laid the truth out, but I did it the way I wanted to. I focused on the good. “I climbed a tree before nightfall to get a sense of where I was and how far I had to go. So I was forewarned—I saw the moon when it was still low in the sky and I knew what was coming. I had time to find a safe place to ride it out.”
“That’s good,” he said. “This isn’t the place I’d have chosen for you to face your wolf.”
I heard relief in his tone.
“I didn’t say that.” I touched his jaw lightly, finding the hard muscle clenched above it. “When I heard the moon sing last night, I decided it was time to let my wolf meet her.” Without looking into his eyes, I said, “I know. It would have been way easier to go through my first transformation in the safety of Creemore with you by my side, but…”
“Tell me.”
“You weren’t with me and I knew that you might never come.”
“I’ll always find you.”
“I know that now.” Beneath the pads of my fingers, his jaw was slick with sweat, stippled with stubble, tense with strong emotion kept barely in check. “But last night, when I saw that thundercloud following you and I knew he was tracking you…” My nostrils stung. “You’d told me that Qae never gave up. And that he was the one that ran you to the ground.”
His eyes hardened. “Sweetheart—”
“If it was my last night of life, I wanted to understand what it felt like to be a wolf before I died. I needed to feel that connection with myself, and with you. And if you survived, I wanted you to be able to track my scent, if I had one. So, I stripped down, and I hid Ralph. Then Merry and I waited for the moon to sing.” I licked my lip, remembering. “I didn’t hear her sing until she was high in sky. How could I have not heard her, all these years? Her song is so sweet, so seductive. It leads you where you need to go, if you only stop fighting it, and just … listen.” My eyes caught his. “So, I let go and I changed into my wolf.”
He cocked his head and did something I’ll always love him for. He didn’t ask if I liked it or not. He waited like a man watching as the jury takes their seats. He didn’t rush me. He didn’t try to put words in my mouth.
He waited.
“Being a wolf was the best thing I ever felt,” I told him with utter sincerity. “I didn’t run—I flew. I have never felt so free in my life. So joyous. So focused on one thing—”
I broke off as he jerked me to him. His fingers slid through my hair, cupping the back of my head. The other hand held my jaw as his hard mouth slanted over mine.
He kissed me.
And I forgot about the rock, and the pony that still cantered around the ward’s ring, and even about the Gatekeeper and Mouse. I even pushed aside the mystery of the ward that enclosed us. Right now, it was him, and me, and two hearts, and his lips and my lips, and our breath combining, and his scent weaving a bracket of love around me.
Eventually, we both had to breathe.
He broke away to lean his temple against mine. “When I got here and found that you hadn’t made it here yet…” I felt his head move against mine and heard him swear under his breath. “Qae and the rider split up at the falls, sweetheart. You had a tracker on your trail. I kept thinking of what he’d do to you when he caught you.”
We killed him.
I didn’t want to think of the tracker or his body. “I thought I’d never see you again,” I told my mate. “When I saw the lightning—” My voice crumbled. I leaned my cheek against his brow and covered my mouth with my palm.
I wanted to cry.
I needed to cry.
I hyperventilated into his ear, fighting hard not to crumble.
“Easy, Tink,” he soothed. “You know I’m bulletproof. I’m here now. We’re good. We’re together again.”
I pulled back, hand fisted, to thump him on the chest. “Don’t ever play Frisbee with me again.” Thud. “Ever. And from now on we meet danger side by side. You do not—”
He caught my fist before it could dent him again, pulling me tightly to him. Lips warm against my skin, he murmured, “You said, ‘Swing me, big boy.’”
“What?”
“At the waterfall,” he said. “That’s what you said before I gave you the push. “‘Swing me, big boy.’ I watched you swing out and let go. You were so fucking beautiful and brave. I’ll never forget it. That will always stay with me.”
I wiped my nose with my forearm. “What happened to Qae? Did you kill him? Make him hurt?”
“My bloodthirsty mate.” A faint grin flitted at the corners of his mouth, then left, leaving him grim faced. “Once I was high enough on the mountain, the chase turned into my game, not his. I knew every path that led to nothing, every ridge that led to something. I found a good place for an ambush. All I had to do was wait for him to find me.”
“He had a weapon,” I said, remembering the mixed-wood forest and the rider with the bottle blue jacket. “You didn’t.”
“Qae made me push you off a fucking waterfall,” said Trowbridge flatly. “All I needed was surprise and my hands. Then the moon rose, and I was transitioning. His horse caught scent of my wolf. I damaged his horse and got one of his weapons, but not Qae. He was able to catch his horse before it bolted again and took off.” His fingers raked my tangled hair. “We’re going to have to leave this place soon. I made some significant trails last night, covering my tracks, but Qae might have found them, and you’ve definitely left traces that won’t be too hard to follow.”
“No one is following me,” I said quietly.
“What?”
“The rider won’t be coming after us. We only have to worry about Qae.”
“How can you be sure?”
“The Fae with the blue jacket found me this morning. He attacked. I used my magic and she—”
“She?”
“Not she—we. I killed him with my Fae. We broke a bone in his neck, then we listened to him wheeze through his mouth, and then we broke another bone. And after that, he died.”
And with that, I lost the war against the tears.
As I sobbed, he rocked me on his lap, his hand moving up and down my back in wordless comfort. I cried until I had no tears left; then I rested, face pressed to his neck. His skin was aromatic with mud and the lingering traces of his wolf.
I thought of my own blood and wondered why his nostrils hadn’t caught its sweetness, then realized that I couldn’t smell it either—the Fae scent of me was a floral undertone in sweet magic fragrance permeating the dome.
I moved my bandaged ankle out of his line of vision, knowing I needed to tell him about the trap and about the mother jinx over the Spectacle grounds and how four babies went out every day for a spot of Raha’ell hunting. But I couldn’t. Not while he was holding me like I was the present he’d longed for and finally unwrapped, and not while his sour mud and wolf scent was twined around me like another pair of arms.
“Why are you covered in mud?” I asked instead. The crust of dried sludge under my cheek itched.
“Cloud cam
ouflage. I tried everything to shake the thing off my tail, but that bastard followed me like I was leaving a trail of blood. Wherever I went, whatever I hid under, it found me. Nothing I did worked, until I remembered that movie you talked about yesterday. I found some mud, and took a bath Schwarzenegger-style. Then I left the cloud by the creek.”
Tell him, Hedi.
“Tink,” he said quietly. “We got some new shit to deal with.”
Past Trowbridge’s shoulder, I saw that the ward’s walls had lost their blue tint. Which stood to reason—my man was no longer flaring. I could see the dark forest behind us, though this close to the barrier the objects on the other side were faintly blurred.
We’re inside a ward. That can’t be good.
“I’m not ready.” I listened to his heart thud in his chest. I needed this. I wanted to feel safe and loved, if only for the count of forty.
Seabiscuit cantered by, searching in vain for an exit. Mouse was in pursuit. Trowbridge’s chin snagged my hair as he turned to watch. “Who’s the kid chasing the pony?”
“That’s Mouse.”
“Mouse,” he repeated with a nod. “Is he a Fae? I can’t smell shit over the ward’s magic.”
“He’s a mutt.”
“You don’t see many mutts outside the castle,” Trowbridge observed. “I see you found the Gatekeeper. How’d that happen?”
“The Mystwalker sent her to me.”
“You’re going to need to explain that statement to me.”
I’d rather not. I changed the subject. “Why did you turn your jeans into cutoffs?”
“The pant legs kept dragging. It was pissing me off.”
I smiled into his chest. “Maybe I should get the League of Extraordinary Bitches to make all your jeans into stripper pants. Velco sides. Snaps instead of zippers—”
“Just as an FYI, when we get back to Creemore, I plan to spend most of my time buck naked.”
“There are laws against that.”
“Then we’re both going to be felons, because we’re going to be naked a lot.” Trowbridge nuzzled my neck for another few seconds, then spoke, his lips moving against my nape. “Sweetheart,” he said reluctantly. “I gave you a minute, but time’s up.”
