Marked

by Dean Murray

  I took in all of those smaller, unimportant details in bits and pieces. I noticed that the creeping vines were blood-red in the firelight, and that the altar was nearly as tall as I was before my mind finally relented and let me register the most important part of the scene.

  Alec was on the altar, nailed to it with metal spikes through his arms and legs along with a single larger spike that went through the right side of his chest. The spikes had been shoved straight into the stone of the altar and they widened at the top such that the only way Alec would be able to free himself would be to lift himself up off of the stone slab, ripping the thicker ends through his flesh in the process.

  There was so much blood pooled on the stones around the altar that for a second I thought Alec might really be dead despite his assertion that he couldn't be killed inside of his own dream. I rushed forward and used my sword to slice through the spike that was pinning his right arm to the stone, cutting through it down next to the altar.

  Alec screamed as the spike shifted. It was a terrible sound, but it was the first evidence that he was still alive—I hadn't even been able to see his chest moving before then.

  I grabbed hold of the spike and pulled it out of his arm. "Hold on, Alec. I just need a few seconds and I can cut them all."

  He weakly shook his head. "Just my arms and legs. I'll pull the one in my chest out."

  I worked carefully, not wanting to accidentally cut Alec with my sword, but even so it only took another twenty seconds for me to slice through the remaining three spikes in his appendages. Once that was done Alec didn't move for several seconds as though marshalling his strength.

  "Alec?"

  His only answer was to reach up to the last spike and rip it out of the stone with a single herculean effort. He rolled off of the altar and collapsed to the ground next to it, breathing heavily as though he'd just finished a marathon. I made as if to go to him, but he stopped me with a gesture and I was left to watch from several feet away as he began pulling himself back together, bit by bit.

  I'd known that the physical torture was carried out solely as a way of breaking Alec mentally and spiritually, but somehow I'd forgotten that when faced with the sheer scope of his injuries. It wasn't until I tried to take another step closer to him and he opened his eyes to glare at me that what he'd been through really started to sink in.

  It wasn't Alec looking out at me through those eyes, it was someone else—something else, something that had more in common with his beast than the man that I'd grown to love. The thing that looked up at me didn't view me as a friend, it viewed me as yet one more thing that was going to try and hurt it.

  I watched as whatever was left of Alec tried to master the thing that he'd turned to for strength when the torture had grown to be too much, and I realized that there was no guarantee that Alec was going to come out on top in this particular fight.

  "I'm so sorry that I didn't come sooner, Alec. Was it like that every time? Did you have to tear yourself off the spikes each and every time Dream Stealer left?"

  He nodded shakily as though just now remembering how to execute that particular motion. I longed to run to him, to take him in my arms, but I knew that now wasn't the right time, that I would be risking pushing him further away if I did that.

  I watched as he closed his eyes and began shaking with the fine tremors of a shape shifter trying not to transform. I needed something that would remind him who he was…and then suddenly I had it.

  "I talked to Isaac. I think it was last night. It was probably a mistake—that's how the Coun'hij was able to track us down to a small enough area that they decided it would be worth it to throw up road blocks on the interstate. I took his call though because I know how much he means to you."

  Alec's eyes had popped back open and he was looking at me, but his eyes were too pale. They were the eyes of his beast and he was looking at me like I was going to be his next meal.

  "I told him that you'd gotten his message, that you accepted his apology, that anything that needed to be forgiven was long since buried, and that you were sorry you couldn't take his call yourself. He's in trouble, Alec. He's in New Orleans and he called to see if you would come down and depose the head of Ash's old pack. I told him I could probably get some more hybrids and wolves down there to help out, but he said this other guy—Onyx is his name—is just too powerful for that."

  I could feel the tears starting to trickle down my cheeks, but I didn't try and wipe them away. They were long past overdue.

  "I told him that we couldn't help him even though we could have. I lied to him because I was scared of what would happen if Lori got her hands on someone like Onyx without you being around to slap her down. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, Alec, and I'm still not sure I did the right thing. The whole time I just kept wishing that you were around to tell me what to do, that you were there for me to lean on.

  "I didn't even ask about Kristin and Ash. For all I know they're both dead—Jasmin too. Jaclyn hasn't been picking up her phone and Grayson is refusing to help me—I've basically single-handedly destroyed everything you've built in just the last week or two."

  The tears were streaming down my face now, leaving warm, salty tracks, that were for Alec and Isaac as much as they were for Jasmin and me.

  "I'm so sorry, Alec. I did the best I could. I promised Isaac that I would avenge him, that I would put a bullet in Onyx, but it looks like I'm not even going to manage that. I told Donovan though. He'll probably make sure it happens just so he can keep Onyx out of Lori's hands. There's that at least."

  "How long has it been?"

  Alec's voice still sounded rusty, like it hadn't been used for anything other than screaming for many days, but he wasn't shaking anymore and his eyes were back to the same clear blue that I'd fallen in love with months ago.

  "I'm not sure. I didn't retreat inside of myself this time, but there was just so much going on. A week maybe—not more than a week and a half."

  "It's funny, but it feels like a lot longer than that to me. You said you wouldn't come in here unless you didn't have any other choice, Adri."

  "I don't have any other choice, Alec. Your body is starting to shut down. I figured that you only had another few days at most, so James and I took you away from the convoy. I was hoping I could take you some place quiet and then arrange things so that even if I failed there would be some doubt as to what had really happened to you. I thought maybe it would be enough to convince everyone that you were still out there fighting for them."

  Alec's smile was only a shadow of his normal grin, but he was still smiling and that, more than anything else, told me that he hadn't broken under Dream Stealer's torture. It had obviously been a near thing and he might bear the scars of what he'd been through for the rest of his life, but he'd refused to give in. In the end, even Dream Stealer hadn't been able to break Alec's indomitable will.

  "I'll bet Donovan wasn't happy about that."

  "He wasn't, but Rachel and I convinced James to back me, so there wasn't anything Donovan or Addison could do about it. It was a good plan, but a police officer recognized me when we stopped for gas and we had to make a run for it."

  "What happened, Adri?"

  The concern in his voice told me that he already had a pretty good idea, but I forced an answer out anyway. "I'm dying, Alec. You and I are lying in the bed of an old pickup truck. I have broken ribs, a punctured lung, and I've lost a dangerous amount of blood. Even if the Coun'hij doesn't find us I'm still not going to make it. You see, I had to try again—I'm not going to get another chance."

  Alec pulled me down into his arms and for the first time since he'd been shot I felt well and truly safe. Being with Alec didn't change any of the hard realities of life—I was still going to die, he was still trapped inside Dream Stealer's nightmare—but being inside the circle of his arms helped me see that there was more to life than just living and dying.

  'Until death do us part' was never going to be enough for
me—not when it came to Alec. I didn't know what I believed when it came to the afterlife, but Alec made me want to be more than I was, made me want to be better than I would have been on my own. I wanted to be as good as I could possibly be just so I would have a chance of being with Alec if there really was some kind of afterlife.

  If for no other reason, Alec deserved to be king simply because he was so good at getting the best out of people. I wanted to stay there in his arms, but I didn't know how much time I had left.

  I pushed back from Alec and picked up my sword. "Come on, we need to find Dream Stealer—I'm going to kill him before I run out of time. Can you feel him? Is he here?"

  Alec shrugged uncertainly. "Things have changed since you were here last. He's gotten stronger since then, better at masking his presence, and this place is always more his now than it is mine. He might be here right now, or we might have hours still before he comes back."

  The tentative response made me angry, not at Alec, but at Dream Stealer for having robbed Alec—even temporarily—of his normal, effortless control in almost any circumstance. Alec stared at me blankly for several seconds before shaking himself as though surfacing from a long dive.

  "There is so much that I need to tell you, Adri. I'm so sorry to have pulled you into my world. If not for me you could have lived a long, full life somewhere safe."

  I shook my head. "I'm not sorry that I fell in love with you, Alec. I don't even wish that I was sorry. I'm not excited about the fact that I'm going to die, but everything that has happened has been because I love you. It's okay—you don't need to say anything. If we end up having time after Dream Stealer is dead then we can talk, but I want my last moments to be dedicated to giving you that gift."

  Alec closed his eyes for several seconds, visibly forcing his emotions back into a tiny corner of his mind, and then he opened his eyes and gave me a crooked smile. "What's your plan?"

  "The only thing I can think of is for us to go back to the bars that lead outside. Since we don't know how to find Dream Stealer we might as well hack them to pieces so that you'll still be able to get out even if I fail. More importantly though, last time when I touched them something happened to me. I could see everything, including the golden threads that Dream Stealer is using to steal power from you so that he can create this place. If my vision changes again when I touch the bars then I'll be able to find Dream Stealer, if he's here."

  "If that's what you want to do then we should get started—I'm pretty sure Dream Stealer isn't here though, he's not the type…"

  Whatever Alec had been about to say was interrupted by an earthshaking impact as a figure made out of black fire dropped down from the top of the pyramid.

  "Please don't go—I'd really like to know more about these visions that you're having."

  My blood turned to ice water inside of my veins. I would have said that nothing could have been more terrifying than Dream Stealer had been when I'd last faced off against him, but apparently I would have been wrong.

  He was bigger now than he'd been before, and he gave off a sense of wrongness that spoke to the primitive part of my brain that wanted to run screaming out of the room anytime I saw a spider. I could have sworn that he was getting bigger as he slowly moved towards us too—even the massive stones that made up the foundation of the pyramid seemed to groan and crack as he moved across them, but I couldn't tell whether that was a function of his size or if it was because he was too much of an abomination for even this place to bear.

  Dream Stealer looked like some kind of evil pagan god and a tiny part of me was screaming that I should be bowing down before him and begging for mercy. His presence was so overwhelming that I might have even done it if not for the fact that I could feel Alec at my side and see the pure white light radiating out of him. If Dream Stealer was a dark, unholy demigod then Alec was an angel made out of an unquenchable fire.

  Alec shifted to his hybrid form and was suddenly a hundred times more impressive, but he was still such a small, frail figure to match itself against the four-armed monstrosity that was nearly close enough now to attack us.

  "Spread out, Adri. We're going to have to come at him from opposite sides if we're going to have any kind of chance of beating him now."

  I nodded without taking my eyes off of Dream Stealer, and then held my sword out to Alec. "Take this. Don't let it get in your way or anything, but it's sharper than your claws."

  "It may be sharper than my claws in the real world, but it's not sharper than my claws in this place, Adri."

  There was a hint of laughter in Alec's tone that was almost enough to convince me that we might have a chance. Then again, even if we didn't have a chance there was still something about fighting with Alec at my side. This was something that could never happen in the real world—I was simply too outclassed there—but I found that I was looking forward to it now that it was about to happen.

  I expected some kind of threat out of Dream Stealer before he attacked, but he simply waited for us to circle around so that we were on opposite sides of him and then threw himself at Alec with such blinding speed that I almost wasn't able to follow their exchanges.

  Alec threw himself to the side, ducking the longer upper arm on Dream Stealer's right side, and then knocking the smaller arm to one side as he sliced long gouges into Dream Stealer's side. My heart felt like it was going to burst with pride at the fact that Alec had managed to draw first blood against such a terrifying foe, but I didn't let that slow me down as I darted in and took a slash at Dream Stealer's upper left arm.

  I expected Dream Stealer to yank his arm out of the way, but he simply turned my attack to one side with his claws. Not only did my blade not cut through his claws, the force of his block nearly ripped my sword free.

  I'd been expecting to primarily be serving as a distraction, something to give Alec a fighting chance, but Dream Stealer reversed direction and slashed at me almost faster than I could compensate for. I threw myself backwards with all my might, but he still managed to nick my left shoulder. I didn't feel any pain from the wound, but he started a steady trickle of red working its way down my arm.

  Dream Stealer would have killed me then—before I had a chance to roll back to my feet, but Alec dove forward and slashed the side of Dream Stealer's leg. It was a clean, deep cut, one that would have completely severed Dream Stealer's leg if not for how massive the limb was. I'd been hoping to see the spray of crimson that would have indicated that Alec had opened up a major artery, but instead all he was rewarded with was a steady drip of what looked like liquid black fire.

  The fluid didn't seem to be harming Dream Stealer's flesh, but I could see where it was eating into the stone, leaving small, star-shaped cracks in the rock wherever it splattered. Several drops landed on Alec and he hissed in pain as he tried to get back out of range of Dream Stealer's counterattack.

  Alec would have failed if he'd done even the slightest bit less damage to Dream Stealer's leg. Instead Dream Stealer was forced to pull up short as his leg threatened to buckle underneath him, but even so the tips of his claws drew thin lines of crimson across Alec's back. It wasn't a killing blow—he hadn't even managed to bleed Alec very badly—but it was proof of just how closely the three of us were matched.

  All of that flashed through my mind as I stepped forward and to the side, trying to get in behind Dream Stealer where his arms would have a harder time reaching me. I felt like I was moving with glacial slowness in comparison to the sharp, violent motions of the other two, but I'd picked my time with a perfection I never could have matched in the real world.

  Dream Stealer spun back towards me, rotating on his undamaged leg, but my sword was already up in the perfect position. The slender length of white light sheared through Dream Stealer's upper arm just above the elbow with only the faintest tug of resistance.

  I had a split second to glory in the strike, in my accomplishment, and then the rush of flaming black blood splashed onto me.

  The pain was b
eyond anything I'd ever felt before. I tried to scream, but my skin seemed to have pulled tight against my jaw, restricting my ability to open my mouth. The entire front half of my body from my waist up seemed to be one large mass of burning agony. It should have shorted out my nervous system and left me unable to feel anything, but I was still able to feel the impact as Dream Stealer's lower arm slammed into me with enough force to launch me more than thirty feet.

  I couldn't hear anything out of my right ear and I was almost positive that my eyes had been destroyed, but in the instant of impact I felt something change inside of me. The darkness was suddenly replaced with an infinite number of glowing gold threads.

  I was still sailing through the air when Alec threw himself forward and drove the claws on his right hand into Dream Stealer's back. Alec pulled down as though planning on pulling himself up higher on Dream Stealer's back, but the unnatural sharpness of his claws worked against him now—his claws sheared through bone and muscle without encountering any resistance and Alec stumbled as Dream Stealer spun and slammed an elbow into the side of Alec's head.

  I collided with a tree at the precise instant that Alec's feet left the ground, and not even the pain as dozens of thorns pierced my flesh was enough to distract me from my fear that Alec's neck had just been snapped. Alec sailed backwards, and for the first time I noticed that this time the threads of light running from Alec off to the bars in the distance were matched by an almost equal number of thick threads that ran back from the bars to Dream Stealer.

  It all suddenly made perfect sense. Dream Stealer had become stronger since the last time I'd seen him because he was draining Alec like some kind of metaphysical parasite. Dream Stealer was even moving better than he had a few seconds before as stolen energies supercharged his healing process.

  Alec's flight was interrupted as he collided with the stone blocks of the temple. He dropped to the ground, landing in a three-point stance, and then charged back toward Dream Stealer. I wanted to yell to Alec, to tell him what was going on, but my mouth still wasn't working.