TravelersKiss

by Sherri L. King

  Grimm held his silence though he hated the idea of accepting any power from Daemon.

  You will become stronger than ever, strong enough to protect her, stronger than you could ever imagine. With the knowledge that accompanies this inheritance, you will know how to make Raine’s mind whole, ease her heartache and guilt. Grimm…you can heal her lingering wounds. You can undo the damage my creatures did to her. What I did to her. This is my gift to you both and a payment for some of the debts I owe you.

  Grimm was confused—was this truly his nemesis speaking? Daemon, who had never once shown true remorse for his actions? Was it possible that the Lord of the Horde had known a change of heart or was this some kind of elaborate trick?

  Get ready. This won’t be pleasant. No birth ever is…

  There was no time for Grimm to ponder the warning before the world bled to white and a searing heat burned the flesh from his bones. He didn’t let himself think too hard, or else he might not have been able to do it, he simply opened himself, relenting to the inevitable—for hadn’t this always been the way it would eventually play out between them?—and accepted the power that spilled from Daemon’s form as the Lord of the Earth exploded into light.

  * * * * *

  The Shikar army held its breath. There was a spark and a blinding flash, the detonation not unlike that of an atomic bomb as Daemon used every last ounce of his energy—stolen, borrowed and stockpiled over eons of time—to go supernova in the arms of his once beloved Litha.

  The light dimmed and collapsed into itself like a dying star.

  There was an unexpected beat of stillness as the Leviathan froze in its headlong charge. Its body immediately began to quiver and shake, to shrink in on itself. It changed colors, darkening like a bruise, its stench growing unbelievably worse like a festering wound—as if Daemon had infected it.

  A vacuum robbed the onlookers of breath and popped their ears.

  An unseen force began pulling everything inward, the Leviathan having become the center of this universe with a gravitational pull as strong as that of any black hole. At first only the ash and soot in the air siphoned away, then the detritus and debris scattered across the ground followed; inches of what looked like volcanic ash and mud was swallowed too. All those foreign elements that the Leviathan had brought to this world, even the Cankor Worms—those that still lived screaming in rage—were sucked backward into the writhing form of the behemoth.

  Raine heard the cacophony of a hundred thousand amplifiers bursting their tubes all at once—foomf!—followed by the eerily haunting sound of Jupiter. It was a sound she knew well—she had sampled sound bites of NASA recordings of Jupiter’s soundscapes in her music before. To encounter such lonesome and empty vibrations here, now, reminded her just how far from home she truly was. How alone she was without Grimm, whom she had not sensed or seen since coming here.

  The sound grew louder, stronger. It rose to a deafening crescendo.

  Then came the explosion of light and heat that blinded the world, swallowing reason, devouring hope, the Leviathan erupting in a roar so loud it mutated from sound into physical force, punishing skin and bone, bleaching the land of all impurity. The eruption was everlasting, yet no one could move or flee. They were captive to it, forced to witness this purge, this final end. This was the death of Daemon and his concubine, the destruction of the source of the Horde army, the last vestiges of the plague against the Shikar Alliance and the human race. It was a glorious death that would be recounted for generations.

  The last battle of the Horde War and the redemption of Lord Daemon, who gave his life so that Raine and her child might be saved from the monster he had created.

  The eruption ended, leaving stark emptiness behind. The Gray Land breathed a sigh and it was over. The Leviathan was vanquished.

  Now, in its place stood Grimm.

  Only it wasn’t Grimm.

  It was Grimm reborn.

  Grimm the Legend returned from the land of the Gray, returned from death in tattered robes that had been beaten by time immeasurable and elements unnamed by any world ever seen by living eyes.

  His cloak billowed riotously around his shoulders, the black so black it was a color that could never exist in nature, anathema to the eyes. His hair was longer, shattered and uneven at the ends, whipping back from his sharp cheekbones—sharp enough to cut and draw blood—in an invisible gale-force wind that touched no one save him. His skin was paler than before, as if death had sapped his warmth. His form was leaner, as if dying had been a wasting disease. There was such violent, repressed action coiled in his muscled frame that those who looked upon him now looked with fear when their eyes dared rest on him too long, their very sanity threatened by such an endeavor.

  And his eyes…

  His eyes were no longer twinkling jet orbs beneath his flaring brows.

  They were bright centers of alien suns. They shone so brightly that they bled white like beacons in the darkness, his gaze filled to the brim with glittering stars uncountable, a universe held captive and alive in the borders of his eyes.

  Every Shikar present gasped or cried aloud, stepping back from him and from the danger that surged from his pores like radioactive poison. A palpable force pressing against them, it even stained the air with a scent like the deep ocean and a flavor akin to that expelled by the gasses released during the big bang. This being that stood so erect and still before them was Grimm amplified a thousand, no, a million times—he had died and suffered oblivion, but he had returned to them, come back as something else, something more. Something altogether new and frightening.

  He turned his head, scanning the crowd. He searched each face until his terrifying gaze fell on Raine and lingered. His lips softened around something that might in another world, another dimension, be called a smile.

  Raine felt her strength return tenfold. With a cry of triumph that declared she didn’t care how different he appeared, so long as he gazed on her with love in his heart, Raine ran into his open arms, into her Traveler’s embrace, and all was right in their world at last.

  His lips descended on hers…a Traveler’s kiss.

  …some tomb from out whose sounding door

  She ne’er shall force an echo more…

  —Edgar Allen Poe, The Sleeper

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Gray Land trembled and shook around the great Shikar army. Before any of them could interpret what that might mean, the realm of the newly dead spat them all out, back into the land of the living. Back to where they had come from. None were harmed, but it was clear to everyone that they were no longer welcome within the borders of that forbidden realm—at least not while they were alive—and that was all right. No one wished to be there. Some places were meant to remain mysteries.

  Grimm and Raine were not purged. They had always been the exception to the governing rules of the Gray Land, and they remained behind to ensure the walls separating the worlds were strong and buttressed. It was a relief to find the wounds sustained by the Leviathan’s rage were completely healed—it was as if no war had happened here. Spirits already passed through the spaces peacefully, heading toward their next great adventure beyond this world.

  “I can hardly believe this.” Raine watched them come and go through the soft, natural mists and felt the peace that had always been a part of this place before the Leviathan had come to corrupt it. “It’s the same as it was before.”

  “This is a world upon which every other balances. If it had fallen, all worlds would have toppled. There is no life without death and all death must pass through these halls. One little skirmish could not set it back for long. By nature this world has to be resilient—it heals faster than imagination itself, because it must.”

  Raine started. These were the first words Grimm had spoken since they had reunited. His voice, like his appearance, had changed. The tone was the same, but it now echoed—no, it reverberated, like someone had put an effects pedal on his vocals so when he spoke, there was
a second’s delay after the first note began, and then another layer chimed in and another after that, so that it sounded like he had several voices in his throat. It was beyond beautiful, but she didn’t understand why it should be so. She supposed she wouldn’t understand a lot of things about what he had been through—no one could—but she would love him always and nothing else mattered but that.

  And she’d never said so, not outright. What an effing idiot she was!

  She stood before him and suddenly took both his hands in hers.

  It was hard to meet his gaze, but she did. It was as if a hundred-million stars converged within them, shining so bright they were blinding. Universes swam together, nebulae collided, galaxies were born and died in the depths of his gaze. It frightened her to the core of her being and a scream danced behind her lips. Madness was a razor blade that cut into her mind, drawing blood…

  But then she focused on one single star. One lone, fixed red supergiant. As she concentrated she noted more details about it, how it swam in a pocket of darkness, separate from the rest, unique. How it burned like a flame within a cold hearth. The madness faded and she felt peace overtake her, comfort like she’d never known before. Here was the soul of her Traveler, this warm star, forever alight, a beacon calling her home.

  “There you are,” she sighed in relief. “I see you. I could find you anywhere.”

  His brow furrowed slightly. He was clearly puzzled. Raine realized he must not know yet just how much he’d changed. Her heart swelled anew and she vowed to be his strength in the days ahead, should he need it. Not many would be able to meet his gaze so easily as she.

  “I love you, Grimm. I always have. Ever since the first moment I bumped into you here—you remember that—I was mad for you.” She swung his hands, fretting a little. “I-I should have told you that sooner. I should have told you every single day since I met you.” Her voice broke as tears threatened to choke her. She’d come so close to losing him forever—the thought was enough to send her into a panic. “I’ve been a fool.”

  Grimm blinked, his bright eyes so strange and so hard for her to read. “No. No, never,” he said, clutching her hands tight and holding them still over his heart, bringing her in closer to him. “You may guard your heart like the treasure it is, but though you have not spoken the words aloud, you have never been anything but loving, Raine. I have never, in all my long life, known a woman of such warmth and light as you. Even after all the pain and hardship you have been through, you smile and you laugh, you kiss and you hug freely. You cling to hope, you fight for the good and righteous no matter that it might be the hardest battle, and you would rather die on the side of light than take the easy path through the dark. You are the bravest person I have ever known.”

  “Shut up.” She blushed hot, ducking her head. “I’m just an ordinary person.”

  “You have never been ‘just’ anything, and never, ever ordinary.” He bent to catch her gaze. “After our first encounter, I couldn’t get you out of my head. Every time I touched myself, every time I came in my hand, I imagined it was your body that took my seed. No ordinary girl could ever obsess me so effortlessly.”

  Raine’s head whipped up and a gasp burned out of her lungs. She recalled their fight before she gave in to her desire and made love with him for what she believed was the first time…she’d had that strange vision of him masturbating in a room while two other people made love.

  Grimm admitted to her some time ago the arrangement he, Obsidian and Cady had once shared—he could watch while they mated. It had hurt her heart to know he’d been that lonely. Now she understood the vision. She’d been inside his head. Read his memories. Seen him imagining her as he pleasured himself. That’s why the encounter had seemed so real—for him it had been as real as he could make it.

  His mind was almost powerful enough to call her into existence. She wished desperately she could have been there with him, even if for just a moment, to touch him and love him as fiercely as he’d longed for. The very thought set her mind on fire.

  Grimm’s eyes brightened as if he could read her thoughts through the touch of their skin. “I loved you when I thought you were a ghost.” He stroked a finger down her cheek. “I loved you when I thought you were the Queen of the Horde, when you might be working against us, creating an army.” He lightly touched her trembling lip. “I scoured the underbelly of the world searching for you, my Nightingale, determined to either kidnap or rescue you—whichever was necessary.” He leaned in closer and breathed his words over her face. “I would have searched for you until time ceased to be and never regretted a single second. You are worth every lonely moment I ever had. Every doubt, every fear. I have loved you more than any woman has ever been loved in the history of the universe, and I love you more still each day.”

  He drew her into his arms, his cloak moving and draping around her legs like the shadow of an eclipse. When he kissed her, Raine tasted the salt of tears and realized they were hers. His words had reached down into her and pulled out her beating heart, leaving it vulnerable and naked. How could she not weep? Was she even worthy of such devotion after all that she had seen and done?

  Of course you are, Nightingale. His words inside her head. He lived inside her thoughts like a cool, autumn breeze, imparting to her senses all the spicy scents of a land bidding farewell to the sun. You are worthy of all I have to give and so much more. I only hope I am enough.

  Raine gripped his head in a fever, pulling him closer to kiss him deeper than she’d ever kissed another—even him—suddenly afraid he’d disappear. You’re enough, Traveler. You’re so much more than enough it’s complete bullshit for you to doubt it even a second!

  You swore. There was amusement in his voice but he gripped her tighter, his hands splayed on her back and buttocks. The span of his palms and fingers were such that they left not one inch of her uncovered, leaving her feeling small and slight in his embrace, fragile and breakable. His touch, however, was gentle enough to preserve even the smallest moth’s ability to fly. I suppose I’ll have to believe you since you used a curse word.

  And since you just used a contraction, I’ll view that as a promise. She would have smiled if his tongue hadn’t slipped into her mouth, to lave hers and fill her with the thrilling magic of his unique flavor.

  The scent of his skin flooded through her, strongest at the small, delicious space above his mouth and just below his nose. Lust-inducing pheromones were, at this point, superfluous, but here they wafted freely and the longer she kissed him, the more they heightened her need for him as she breathed them in, bathing her senses in his masculine redolence. Seconds or days may have passed—she didn’t care a whit—all she knew was that she wanted to crawl inside his kiss and live there forever.

  Suddenly it was as if her wish had come true. She was bound head to toe, wrapped so tightly she couldn’t move—trapped, cocooned, swallowed up by darkness.

  Was she indeed somehow inside him?

  Hold tight, Nightingale.

  What else was there for her to do? She wasn’t able to move a single limb and her hands were still gripping his head, her mouth trapped in his kiss, his arms…she wasn’t sure where his arms were anymore because she could only feel the sensation of a cocoon and pressing blackness binding her tight. Her ability to speak to him mind to mind had been silenced, but it didn’t matter.

  Something else came and took its place.

  A drumming rhythm, primal and compelling.

  Followed by a quickening harmony, beautiful noises like those of falling rain, distant thunder, singing voices, cries of lust and love, children’s laughter and the calls of exotic birds.

  This crescendo rose, swelled into a symphony of music that expanded and grew. It mushroomed into a storm head that swept into and through her mind, wiping it clear of all cohesive thought.

  Bound physically in the folds of Grimm’s arms and cloak, her mind filled with the deafening music he had composed especially for this purpose, Raine didn’
t notice when the Gray Land folded away from them and another world folded in like the pages of a book being turned.

  She didn’t witness their arrival upon the shores of the great ocean in the Wastes. Didn’t feel it when Grimm lifted her, still wrapped in the threads of his cloak, and carried her out into the eerily still water.

  Something had happened to his cloak during his exile in the Gray Land—it was now a truly sentient thing, with an independent will all its own, imbued by some unknown spirit or entity Grimm couldn’t name—and it was not the only thing that had changed.

  Just as Daemon had warned him, he was not the same Traveler he had been. He felt the differences in himself lurking beneath his skin. He didn’t know if he was as strong as Daemon predicted, but the subtle nuances were there to warn him he might just be. His kinsmen had feared him at a glance—he’d smelled their fear in the air like oxidized metal. Raine had hesitated upon meeting his gaze, but only for a second.

  Then she had looked into him. If she had turned from him then he would have died instantly—he wouldn’t have survived her rejection—but her kaleidoscope eyes had dilated until only the blue of her irises showed and all the love in her heart bled through, saving him. I could find you anywhere, she’d said.

  Her love saved him again and again. And now, he vowed, his love would save her.

  Grimm was very careful to keep Raine’s consciousness dampened, subdued. He fully mesmerized her with his music until he felt certain it was too late for her to stop him, too late for any fear she might feel to sway him from what must be done. It took every ounce of his courage not to turn back from the course he’d set for himself…but this was the only way he knew to mend her broken mind. In these poisoned waters, Raine could finally be cured of the madness that plagued her.

  If Daemon’s magic and knowledge could be trusted…

  Grimm prayed he’d not been played for a fool by the trickster—and resolutely carried Raine farther out into deeper waters.