by Donna Grant
“That’s Coven business.”
“It ends now.”
Eleanor laughed as she walked to Leoma. “I might be tempted to find a use for you, Hunter. Lay down your sword, and I’ll allow you to live.”
“I’d rather die than serve you and the Coven in any capacity.”
“That’s a mistake you will regret.”
Leoma dove at an angle to the right before Eleanor finished speaking. As Leoma got to her feet, she shoved her sword up into the stomach of the nearest witch.
There was an instant of shock from all around her, and then pandemonium ensued. Witches shrieked in outrage, magic came at Leoma from everywhere. She used her sword to block as much as she could, but it helped little.
The power weakened her so that she was soon on the ground, holding herself up with one hand. A witch leaned close, smiling in triumph. Leoma wanted to lift her sword, but it felt as if an entire mountain were pushing her down into the earth.
Then, above it all, she heard the cry of the falcon.
There was a blast that sent the witches tumbling backward. Leoma ducked her head to avoid the worst of the reverberation. When she looked up, Eleanor still stood before her.
Jarin jumped from the boulders to land between her and Eleanor. His arrival halted the magic being forced on her, which allowed her to jump to her feet and take out two more witches who were still trying to get up from the blast of Jarin’s magic.
The wolf came from out of nowhere and latched on to a woman’s throat, tearing her to shreds. Leoma quickly stepped between Valdr and another witch. With one thrust of her sword, Leoma ended the witch’s life and turned to the wolf. Only to find him gone and the witch dead.
That barely registered in Leoma’s mind before the falcon swooped in and clawed out another witch’s eyes. Leoma glanced over to find Eleanor and Jarin staring at each other, neither making a move.
Leoma heard a growl and turned in time to see a witch coming at her. Valdr took down the witch with one pounce. Leoma quickly turned her attention to the last witch.
“Brigitta was my friend,” the woman said.
Leoma shrugged indifferently. “She chose the wrong side. Just as you have.”
“I’m going to make you scream in agony.”
As soon as the witch came for her, Leoma ran towards the boulders. She put one foot on the rock and jumped off it, turning as she did with her sword pointed downward. She watched the witch’s eyes bulge right before the sword came down.
Leoma landed on the ground and pulled out her blade. Valdr came up beside her as Andi flew overhead. During all of this, Eleanor and Jarin had yet to move.
There was movement behind Leoma. She turned to find Walter cowering and sweating profusely. Leoma ignored him and turned her attention back to Eleanor.
“Warlock,” the elder said, disgust dripping from that one word.
Jarin’s pale eyes were alight with a fire that gave Leoma pause. He raised his staff as the tip began to glow white.
Suddenly, an intense crimson light filled the area. It was so vivid, Leoma had to shield her eyes. As she looked for the source, she noted that it was affecting Eleanor and Jarin, as well.
The first thing Leoma saw was boots. She blinked, trying to keep her eyes open long enough to see who would appear. Oddly, the light was warm as it washed over her.
“Leoma.”
She turned towards the sound of Braith’s voice. The crimson glow dimmed enough that she was able to see. Only to find him walking from an entry in the boulder she hadn’t noticed before. He held something in his hands.
Braith continued in her direction, stepping over bodies without a glance at them. She straightened in confusion as she looked around at the others—even the wolf—who averted their gazes.
Her sword lowered when Braith stopped before her and slid his hand around the back of her neck. When his head lowered, her eyes slid shut as their lips met.
The taste of his kiss made her melt against him. After such worry, he was now back with her. Whatever the Coven wanted was out of their hands. Against all odds, they had won the day. The only thing that could top it was Eleanor’s death.
Braith ended the kiss and looked down at her. “Trust me.”
“I do,” she said with a frown.
“Trust me,” he repeated.
Her frown deepened when he released her and stepped back. Then he turned toward Eleanor. Leoma could only watch in horror as Braith made his way to the Coven elder and grasped her arm.
He looked back at her and mouthed, “Trust me,” again.
And then they were gone.
When the red light faded, Jarin straightened and turned in a circle, scanning the area for Eleanor. “Where is she?”
“G-g-gone,” came a voice behind her.
Leoma turned to Eleanor’s husband. “Where did they go?”
Walter shrugged and wiped at the sweat on his brow. “I-I don’t know.”
“You need to try harder than that,” Jarin said as he stalked toward the rotund man.
While Jarin questioned him, Leoma made her way to where she had seen Braith exit the boulder. She stepped inside, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.
The sound of water dripping could be heard. She walked down the few curving steps until she was surrounded by the dark. Leoma continued on until she stood on a wide circle of rock. A narrow path with water on each side led out to something far ahead, where two torches burned.
She didn’t turn around when she felt someone behind her. Jarin came up on her left, and the wolf moved to stand between them.
“Braith found the Blood Skull,” Jarin said.
She inhaled, shock still weaving through her. “He didn’t just find it. He gave it to Eleanor.”
“He spoke with you.”
Leoma knelt and peered into the water. “He kissed me.”
“And?”
She dipped her hand into the liquid and held it up to see something dark slide from her fingers. Jarin moved his staff toward her, the end lighting up to reveal blood on her hand.
“Born of blood,” she murmured.
Jarin held the staff out, the light revealing that it was blood on either side.
Leoma straightened and looked toward the torches. As she and Jarin stood there, the blood began to recede, being sucked in somewhere else until there was nothing left. Not even the dripping she’d heard upon entering.
She looked down at her hand. “Braith told me to trust him.”
Chapter 28
There was blood everywhere. As soon as Braith lifted the skull, the world was drenched in crimson. Yet, he no longer found it distasteful or repulsive.
It was calming, comforting. As he carried the relic, he heard a single drum beating a steady cadence in time with his steps. And while he couldn’t explain it, if anyone had asked, he would have said it felt as if an army were at his back, waiting for his command.
The darkness around him was no more. He was bathed in light. A red light that cocooned him. Protected him.
Then he strode from the cavern and saw Leoma. His joy at discovering she was alive made his knees weak. Until he recalled what was in his hands. He wanted her with him, but he couldn’t chance her life where he was going. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much he needed to share. But there was only time for a kiss.
“Trust me,” he told her.
She searched his face, her brow furrowed in confusion when she saw the skull. There was no time for him to tell her that he fought for her, for everything she stood for. For their love.
The skull pulled him toward their destination, an endpoint he couldn’t ignore. Braith reluctantly walked away from Leoma and made his way to Eleanor.
As soon as he touched the old witch, the scarlet light dimmed enough for her to see what he held. Eleanor’s smile was joyous, her gray eyes glittering with success.
But Braith hesitated. He was meant to be with Leoma. Of that he was certain. Without her, he was nothing. She was the o
nly one who could get him through what he had to do. He met her dark gaze and urged her once more to trust him.
Then he let the skull take him where it would.
The moment he left Leoma behind, a piece of him died. Despite all the men he’d faced in battle, his beautiful warrior had the power to destroy him like no one else.
As soon as their destination was reached, Braith dropped his hand from the Coven elder. Eleanor repulsed him, and even being so near to her made him want to skewer her with his blade. But he held to the course that the skull had shown him after he took it in hand.
The old, gnarled trees that made a wide circle around them grew so close together that it was impossible to tell where one ended and another began. Their thick branches were laden with leaves as the tops curved away from the circle as if trying to look away.
In fact, the more Braith stared at the trees, the more it appeared as if they had linked branches to shield the rest of the world from what the Coven did there.
“I knew you wouldn’t fail me,” Eleanor said as she faced him.
She reached out a hand and placed it on the skull to try and take it from him. Instantly, she jerked back with a hiss, her face contorted with pain.
Braith smiled when he saw the smoke wafting up from her burned hand. The witch would soon discover that no magic could heal the injury. Ever. He somehow knew this as fact.
“What just happened?” Eleanor demanded.
He tilted his head. “Should you not ask after your husband?”
“I’ve more important matters to deal with.”
“You mean you brought him along, as you always do, in the hopes that he’d get killed.”
Eleanor raised a gray brow and shrugged, nonchalantly, refusing to admit anything as she held her injured hand against her.
“Why not just kill him?” Braith asked.
Eleanor lifted her chin and glared at him. “It was part of our marriage bargain. If he swore never to come to me for sex, I vowed to never kill him. If either of us broke our pact, we would both die.”
“I take it Walter added that condition to ensure you held up your end.”
The witch cut her eyes away. “Aye.”
“He was smart. Too bad he wasn’t smart enough to stay away from you.”
Her head swiveled back to him. “Give me the skull.”
Braith smiled and held it out. “You think there will be a different outcome than when you first touched it?”
“Why are you not hurt?”
“I was born in blood, remember?” he told her and brought the skull back against him.
Her gaze narrowed dangerously. “You act as if you have control of the Blood Skull. That’s not possible.”
“Then why didn’t you get it yourself?” he asked, even as he knew the answer. But he wanted her to admit it.
Eleanor’s lips pinched, showing lines of age around her mouth. “Because only a direct descendant of the one who placed the skull in the cavern could retrieve it.”
Braith looked down at the skull. The voice had told him as much once he touched it—as it had imparted so many other things.
“The Blood Skull is meant to be mine.”
He raised his gaze to the witch. “The skull belongs to no one. You would know that if you listened to the warnings given to you by other witches.”
“I need the relic.”
“I know.”
Braith held back his smile when shock fell over Eleanor’s face. It was likely the first time in a very long while that anyone had surprised the witch. And he was just getting started.
“How do you know?” Eleanor asked in a hushed tone as she turned slightly away from him.
“You, who sought the Blood Skull of the first witch, ask me this?”
Eleanor stared at the relic, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “It couldn’t know.
“She knows.”
Aging gray eyes snapped back to his face. “I brought us here.”
He let her believe the lie. The skull had known the witch’s destination from the beginning. It was what brought them to the wood.
Eleanor pointed to the middle of the area. “Set down the skull.”
“You think you’ll be able to touch it if I’m not holding it?” he said as he walked to the spot she’d indicated and lowered the relic to the ground.
The moment he released it, blood began to trickle from the eyes again.
Eleanor kept her gaze on him as she walked around the skull to put him at a distance. She then knelt before it and reached out her uninjured hand. Just before she put her fingers on the skull, she pulled back.
“I, too, am bathed in blood,” she said to Braith.
He clenched his hands into fists. “You were not born of it.”
“Of course, I was.”
“I would advise against touching it,” he warned.
Eleanor sneered and grasped the skull. For a moment, there was nothing, and then spirals of smoke rose from her hands. The witch began screaming, yet she couldn’t release the skull.
Braith took a step back when blood gushed from the skull to pool thickly on the ground. Eleanor was so focused on her hands burning that she didn’t realize she was sinking into the dirt.
“Blood is how you’ve lived. Blood is how you will die,” Braith told her as the ground sucked her in deeper and deeper until nothing but her head and hands remained.
Soon her face—and her screams—were gone. Her fingers peeled away from the skull as if grasping for something. A moment later, her hands curled into themselves and were taken by the earth.
Once Eleanor was gone, the blood stopped pouring from the skull. Braith then unsheathed his sword and walked to stand before it.
He knelt and brought the flat side of his blade to his forehead and then turned the sword tip down to thrust it into the ground.
“What the bloody hell just happened?” Jarin demanded after the blood drained.
Leoma looked at him. “You’re the warlock, and you’re asking me?”
His nostrils flared as he looked around the cavern. But she had seen enough. She strode outside and saw the faint marks from where the dead witches had burned.
“Did he tell you where they were going?” Jarin asked as he came to stand beside her.
“I told you all that he said.”
The warlock slammed his staff into the ground. “We’ve no idea where they could’ve gone. I had Eleanor. I could’ve killed her.”
“Braith didn’t betray me,” she stated and faced Jarin.
“How can you say that when he has the skull and went with Eleanor?”
She shrugged and turned away. “I don’t kn—”
Her words halted when she saw the crimson beam shining straight up to the heavens. Somehow, she knew that was Braith.
“Jarin, do you see it?” she asked, pointing to the light and glancing back at him.
He looked to where she indicated and shook his head. “I see nothing but clouds.”
She whirled around to face him. “You don’t see the red light?”
“Red?” he repeated with a frown. Then his brow smoothed as he looked at her anew. “You see red?”
“Aye. Just like the light that blinded us.”
“Blinded me. It didn’t hurt you.”
She thought back. “It did at first. Then Braith came to me.”
“And kissed you,” Jarin said with a grin.
“Why is that important?”
The warlock smiled and whistled to the wolf and falcon. “Find your horse, Hunter. With a kiss, Braith allowed you to find him. You and only you.”
Leoma didn’t have to be told twice. She ran to the stallion, who was munching on a shrub. Once mounted, she turned the horse around and headed toward the light, ignoring Walter as he shouted for them not to leave him.
Why hadn’t Braith told her what he planned? Why hadn’t he said more? She intended to ask him that as soon as she found him.
“How far is the light?” Jarin as
ked as he ran beside her.
She kept the horse at a slow gallop. “Farther than I’d like.”
The wolf suddenly darted out in front of the stallion, causing the animal to rear as she yanked back on the reins not to cause a collision.
The horse danced around in a circle, agitated. After she’d gotten him calmed, she turned her head to Jarin. “What was that?”
“I had to get your attention.”
“You have it. What was so important that you couldn’t just tell me to stop?”
He stalked to her. Everything moved in slow motion as she was pulled from the horse. She saw Jarin’s staff fall against his chest while his arms lifted. She met his pale eyes right before his hands cupped either side of her face.
Her head exploded with agony as she felt someone—Jarin—inside her mind. She was powerless to get him out. Her body was frozen, gripped with pain and magic.
He finally released her. Leoma fell to her knees, gagging at the nauseating throbbing of her head. She heard retching behind her and turned to see Jarin bent over with his hands on his knees.
“I should...kill you...for that,” she said between gags.
He wiped his mouth and turned to her. His face was as pale as death, his eyes more white than blue. “I apologize. I didn’t want to give you a chance to refuse.”
She batted away the hand he held out to her and climbed to her feet. Her legs were wobbly, and she hastily grabbed hold of the horse for balance. “What did you do?”
“I got into your mind to see the red light.”
“Did you not believe me?”
He turned his head, a sheen of sweat covering his skin. After a moment, he looked at her. “I needed to know how far. It’s days away. Days we don’t have.”
“Unless you can fly, we don’t have another choice.”
His face was grim. “Actually, we do.”
Her stomach rolled so that she put a hand to her mouth. “Why do I get the idea that the process is as painful as what just happened?”
“Because it is. But we’ll be there in moments instead of days.”
A lot could happen in the span of an hour. She had to get to Braith. And soon.
Leoma nodded reluctantly. “All right.”
