by S. D. Grimm
When he straightened, Madison was right behind him. “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
“Not really.”
Her eyes didn’t leave the firelight as he touched the wicks together.
“Connor, you need my help.”
“It’s a headache. I think I’ll live.”
“You won’t.”
His eyes met hers. She could be putting herself in danger. Or both of them. Or she could be exaggerating. Maybe she had a message from Thea. It was possible.
He studied her face. “Why are you really here?” The candlelight revealed a shiny coating glazing Madison’s eyes. Why was she crying? Connor’s heart thrummed. Heat flushed through every vein. “Do you think—am I really dying?”
A tear dripped down her cheek. “Yes.”
He set the candles on the table, his mind reeling. “How—how long do I have?”
“I can heal you.” She reached for his head.
He stepped back from her and grabbed her wrist. “No.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Why not?”
“Franco. You’re bound to him. Won’t he feel it? Last time, he came right after you healed me.”
“You saved me from his wrath once.” She touched his arm.
“I won’t be able to do it again.”
“It’s a chance I’ll take. You have days maybe.”
Days? His heart sank. That wasn’t enough time. “How sure are you?”
Another pulse of pain exploded in his head. He buckled over.
A soft touch rubbed his back. “You believe me now?” Chair legs scraped against the floor. “Sit.”
Not heeding her advice, Connor stood. He needed more than a few days.
“Madison, I need to ask you a favor.”
She pressed her palm against his forehead and cupped her other hand around the back of his head. Heat coursed through him, consuming the ache. Then it cooled, leaving him headache free. Madison’s hands slipped from his head and she fell against him. Catching her, he guided her to the ground as dizziness begged him to.
She gripped his hand. “I had to use a lot of energy from both of us.”
He leaned against the table leg. “Since when does a headache cause this much trouble?”
She laughed. “I don’t know.”
“So you don’t know what was wrong with me?”
She shook her head. “Just that I needed to help you.”
“Why risk Franco’s wrath? We don’t even know each other.”
“It’s hard to know who to trust here.” Madison pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. “But my sister warned me that I’d meet a young man with golden eyes and that I should not anger him.” She smiled. “And that I’d know something was wrong with him and if I didn’t help him, he’d die. Then she told me that you couldn’t die. Something about the fate of the world or something.”
Connor unrolled the parchment. “You have a picture of me.”
“I just saved your life, you know.”
He shot her a grin. “Thank you.”
Now he needed to find out why the bracer had nearly killed him, and if it was doing the same thing to his mother.
Chapter 61
Storm within
a Storm
Jayden opened her eyes as the thunder pealed. The storm traveled closer. Her heart beat to it.
The yellow-green glow of Westwind’s eyes stared back at her. Her head still lay comfortably on Ethan’s chest, but he slept, Scout curled up beside him.
“It’s my watch?”
Westwind nodded.
Rain fell steadily and thunder erupted, preceded by lightning. Ethan looked peaceful, though. Perhaps she’d been able to ward off his bad dreams for a change.
The electricity in the air shifted, almost as if the storm warred within itself. Some of it wanted to form into a wild, raging monster with whirling clouds and impetuous lightning, and the other half wanted to bask in a moment of contentment with a drenching rain.
Jayden sat up. The wild part of the storm pulled at her until the skin behind her ears tingled. An overwhelming need to follow the source of the static in the air flooded her. She stood and crept out from beneath the tall pine.
Westwind rose with her, emitting a soft rumble from his throat.
“I feel something . . . pulling me.”
He followed her as she walked into the dripping rain. The pull led her to a place overgrown with vines. She moved a vine and crept past it.
Westwind hunched forward, tail tucked beneath him. A whine escaped his throat. A deep, thunderous growl responded. Westwind bristled.
“What is it?” Jayden’s breath caught.
Westwind jumped in front of her and stood growling. A deafening roar, like thunder, returned from the other creature’s throat. Jayden’s feet became like iron. She shivered. She tried to leave, but she couldn’t. The beautiful horse had captivated her.
Not again. Her heart melted.
The horse tried to move toward her, but it shook its head wildly and reared back as if dragged. Its reckless movements matched the part of the coming storm that wanted to break free. But this creature emanated fear. Whinnying loudly, the horse reared up, and from its sides unfolded two enormous wings.
This was no kelpie.
Wait. Stars. There were stars on the token. It wasn’t a picture of a horse. Not a kelpie. It was a pegasus.
She reached for the horse’s nose. Her fur was like satin. Smooth and soft. The animal’s fear pulsed into her, and Jayden pushed her calm confidence back. “You’re caught in a vine. Can you understand me?”
“Yes.” The pegasus’s voice rang clearly in her head, and the animal breathed a sigh.
“I’m going to help you.”
The animal stilled. Jayden crawled under the pegasus and took out her dagger. A thick tangle of vines wrapped around the creature’s back legs. “Stay calm. I won’t hurt you.”
The pegasus remained perfectly still as Jayden hacked at the woody vine. The storm seemed to calm with her. Now uniform, no longer battling wild against control. Could this be her bonded animal? Jayden’s insides buzzed with that hope Serena always urged her to cling to.
At last the vine loosened, and green serpentine plants dropped to the forest floor. A blast of wind eddied the air around Jayden. She looked up as the pegasus lifted skyward. Gone.
Jayden’s shoulders drooped as she glanced at Westwind.
The wolf still bristled.
Jayden rose and wiped the grime off of her clothes. “There’s nothing to be worried about. It’s gone.”
She turned to see the pegasus standing behind her.
Thunder pealed and Ethan woke with a start. His heart raced as he remembered the picture in his mind of his parents dead on the ground. Blood pooled around their bodies. Flowed from their necks. And the rain. It didn’t wash away a thing. Just splashed into the blood, making streams out of red puddles.
Rivers that drowned him in his dreams.
He’d felt the threat. The danger had pulsed hot across his chest for the first time in his life. A warning he didn’t understand but that told him to move. Told him to take the reins his father had left unattended and urge the cart horses forward. But he hadn’t. Not at first.
They’d died because he hadn’t tried to save them.
In his nightmares, the blood always drowned him. Splashed red against his hands. His face. And the thunder laughed. The lightning revealed his mistake in stark detail.
A cool nose pressed into his hand.
“Hey, buddy.” He patted Scout’s furry head.
Scout whined.
“I’m okay.”
Scout pawed at his arm, pulling it closer. As soon as Ethan cracked a smile, Scout practically crawled into his lap and licked his face.
“All right, all right.” He pushed his dog down and Scout rolled over to have his belly scratched. A thanks he deserved for banishing those vivid pictures away.
Ethan sat up straighter.
Where was Jayden? He didn’t feel a threat. “Did Westwind go with Jayden?”
Scout nodded and grabbed Ethan’s hand in his teeth to get him to resume belly-scratching. He complied.
Everyone else was asleep. The unicorn nestled next to Serena with his eyes closed.
“Help me. Help me. Help me.”
A breeze filtered around Ethan, carrying a soft, small voice. The Whisperer.
The stone. He could talk to her in the stone, but the last time he’d looked in it, Scarface had seen him and come after Kinsey.
Ethan’s heart seemed louder than the rumble of thunder. He stuck his hand in his pocket. Curled his fingers around the stone. Should he look?
It was night. No one else would be watching. Right?
His fingers dove through the light folds of the material and touched the smooth surface of the stone.
The girl’s voice seemed to echo in his mind. “Help me.”
He had to.
Red, like burning embers, spread over the black surface and revealed the girl still huddled close to a rock wall, shivering.
“You’re sure they’ll come?” the voice in the stone asked. It was dark where they were, too. Only a light flickered in the background. A fire. The flames seemed to dance in front of a rock formation. Could that be Castlerock?
Then he saw Quinn. Bound. Gagged. Tear streaks on her young face. Her eyes pierced him. How did she always sense his presence? His talent warned him, and ice chilled his stomach, just like his mother telling him not to come out of the wagon. Not to come save her.
This time he would save her. Save where he’d failed Kinny, his parents.
Someone stepped into the line of sight. Blocked his view. A fire in Ethan’s chest raged when he recognized Scarface. So the man had survived.
Revenge pushed at his talent, the fire in his chest boiling.
Scarface bent over the girl, and she trembled. “You be good while I’m gone, because if you try to escape, we’ll run you down.” He laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t be that long. Just until mid-morning.”
Shaking, Ethan curled his fingers around the stone and put it back in his pocket. She’d be alone? It was dawn now.
How was Scarface getting across the water? There would have to be a boat there, waiting for him. If Quinn was on the island, chances were that the beast had already been killed. Or died on its own two thousand years ago.
Ethan glanced at Scout. His paws twitched in a dream.
He smiled. It looked like a good one. “Stay here, buddy.” He gently stroked Scout’s head, then he stood, keeping his hand on his borrowed sword so it wouldn’t hit the tree.
He had to save Quinn. It was time to follow his talent.
Alone.
This way, he wouldn’t be stretched too thin.
The pegasus’s dark mane shimmered from the rain. Marbled gray swirled through the feathers on her wings and fur on her coat. Jayden had never seen a horse with such an arrangement of colors. The pegasus stepped closer, her hooves quiet like Dash’s.
“My name is Jayden.” She didn’t know what else to say to the elegant creature.
The pegasus lowered her head and Jayden saw, in her mind’s eye, one billowing, deep gray cloud crashing into another, and wave of lightning fanning out between them.
“That’s your name?”
“Yes.”
Jayden stared in awe. “It’s like a storm cloud.”
“Stormcloud.” She reared up onto her hind legs, letting her magnificent wings spread out beside her. Her coat changed to black as night, then faded into a purple, then midnight blue. A streak of what looked like lightning flashed out across her wings before she settled to the ground. “My name is Stormcloud.”
“How are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Changing colors.”
Stormcloud folded her wings against her sides and became the color of an evening blue sky with her mane and wings a shade darker. “This is normal for a pegasus.”
Pictures of other pegasi flying in the air, changing colors from orange to magenta to deep purple as they danced around through the clouds at sunset, infiltrated Jayden’s thoughts. “It’s like camouflage.”
Stormcloud dipped her head down and tossed it up a few times excitedly.
Westwind whined and Jayden turned to the wolf. The sky was lightening. “I should be getting back to camp.”
“You travel with the wolf, too?”
“Yes.”
“You can speak to them?”
“Just this one. Westwind is my friend.”
“Westwind.” Stormcloud closed her eyes and Jayden could sense a gentle breeze, warm to the touch. It carried a sweet scent like early blooming flowers and thawing snow and season-worn grass.
Jayden blinked. “That’s the west wind?”
Stormcloud flicked her head again. Her excitement flooded into Jayden like a spring downpour.
Jayden looked at the ruddy wolf. “What’s Aurora?”
Joy burst through Stormcloud and pushed into Jayden like a gust of wind inside her soul. Her thoughts spilled again into Jayden’s mind, showing her a dark sky lit up with dancing colors, like perpetual lightning strikes never disintegrating into the night. Blue, green, and purple. Stormcloud reared up and her expressive coat captured the scene as well.
“It’s beautiful,” Jayden mused and she looked at Westwind. She turned her gaze back to Stormcloud. “I feel your emotions as if they’re my own.”
“I feel your wonder. You are like a changing wind right now. Not sure which way to blow.”
“We’re bonded, aren’t we?” Jayden stroked Stormcloud’s nose. It was the most natural yet amazing conclusion she could come to.
“Bonded. That sounds right,” the pegasus mused.
“A pegasus. I can’t believe it. You’re more amazing than anything I ever expected.” She smiled and Stormcloud dipped her head low. Jayden stroked the mare’s incredibly soft nose. “You’re beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
Westwind chuckled as he loped back the way they came, looking over his shoulder to make sure they followed. Stormcloud stayed near Jayden. After they had almost reached camp, Stormcloud’s head pulled from Jayden’s hands and her ears swiveled forward. Jayden glanced over her shoulder. Ethan was walking away from camp. Alone.
She glanced at Westwind. “Does Logan know?”
Westwind shook his head slowly.
“He’s going to save the Whisperer. We can’t let him go alone.”
“The Whisperer?”
“She’s a prisoner of someone who plans to release the Mistress of Shadows.”
Stormcloud reared and lightning flashed across her wings. “That can’t happen. Tell me what I need to do.”
Chapter 62
Unexpected
Conclusion
Connor sat on top of the hill in silence. Moonlight spilled across his paws. His tail swished back and forth as he stared at the palace. Something in its belly beckoned him to stay.
Today he was to leave with his mother. Today they were to break out. It was perfect because most of the soldiers had headed out—less reinforcements to go after them—and Franco himself had left ahead of this group.
But today Connor felt the urge to stay. To protect. There was a strange pull tugging his heart. Luring him to remain as if he were needed here. He stood and loped back toward the massive gray structure. Perhaps this was what Ethan felt when he needed to protect the other Deliverers.
If that were the case, maybe the Deliverers were headed here. Maybe he needed to stay because they were coming to rescue him now.
Heeding his gut had never been a problem. Getting Rebekah to understand this decision might be, though.
Creeping in through the assassin’s gate, he padded through the dank halls in his wolf skin, sending the rats skittering. He took the back stairs and slipped into the hallway, then down toward his room.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor. Connor morphed
back into his human form and hurried into his room. He pulled on his breeches as the sound drew closer. The footsteps stopped outside his door. With no time to put his nightshirt on, he tossed it on the ground, flipped his blankets to the side, and climbed into his bed. Then he waited.
A gentle creaking betrayed the opening door. A hooded figure slipped into his room. He sniffed. The familiar scent of roses wafted toward him. His mother? She was early. Hours early. She looked his way and he nodded once. Then she glided toward his dressing room. He lay back down, but his ears remained alert.
She wore her travel clothes, including her gray hooded cloak and boots. It was time, then. The guards outside her room would be disposed of. The warmth of a body neared his bed. For a human, Rebekah was soft-footed. She’d always been.
“Are you ready?” Her eyes met his.
He wouldn’t go with her now, though. “Mother, I can’t—”
She handed him a vial. “Drink this.”
Sitting up, Connor took the potion. Whether or not he was staying, he’d need to break the trace. He drank. It slid down his throat like honey seasoned with bitter herbs. He shuddered.
Why had he done that? It would bring more danger for him now, knowing he was going to stay. And yet, he’d done as she asked without thinking.
She took the glass from him and he noticed the bit of gold peeking out from her sleeve. “I imagine Franco will want to make sure you are still here when he sees I have gone missing. He must see you sleeping. Then we can leave together.”
“I am not—”
“Connor.”
“Mother, don’t use that bracer to make me do as you wish.”
She placed her hand over her mouth and her eyes grew wide. Then she removed the bracer and held it out for him. “I didn’t intend to use it on you. It was an accident. I never want that to happen again.”
Did she mean it? He stared at the evil thing. New footsteps in the hall broke him of his trance, and he wrapped his hand in his blankets to avoid touching the weapon as he slid it under his pillow. As the footsteps drew nearer, Rebekah withdrew into his dressing room again.
