I caught his eye across the circle now, and we both nodded subtly.
At least we both shared the same goal.
“And our ammo situation?” Sam asked, oblivious to mine and Breck’s Plan B.
Breck hefted his gun higher on his shoulder and patted it lovingly. “We’re all set there. My boys came through and we’ve got enough fire power to last us for … well, if it’s not enough, we’re all dead anyway.”
I shot him a look.
Brittany jabbed him in the ribs. “Not helping,” she said and then smiled encouragingly at Sam who just sighed.
“Look, we only have one shot so there are a few things I need to say before we do this,” Sam said.
“I thought we weren’t saying goodbye,” Brittany protested.
“We’re not,” Sam assured her. “But if something goes wrong—”
“Sam,” I warned.
She turned to me, her wide brown eyes full of hope and so much love that I lost my breath as I looked back at her. “I’m not saying goodbye,” she repeated. “But if something goes wrong, I left a letter for each of you in my nightstand—”
“No,” I said.
Sam pressed her lips together and managed to look irritated. For some reason, that made me feel better than any amount of confidence she’d shown so far.
“We’re not exchanging letters or talking about anything that involves you not being here to say whatever you want to say,” I said.
I grabbed her, yanking her roughly against me so that her lips parted in surprise. I reached down and kissed her on the mouth, the pressure enough to have her stiffen and then melt underneath me. It lasted long enough to earn groans and cat calls from the others, but I didn’t care. I was sending a damned message.
When I finally let her go, her lips were swollen and her face flushed. It was my favorite fucking look ever. Now, I committed it to memory—the only goodbye I was going to give her—and then leaned close. “I love you in case I live,” I said, my voice hard enough to sound angry—exactly the way I meant it.
But Sam smiled. “I love you in case I live, too,” she whispered.
I nodded. “Good. Now let’s get down to how this is going to work and get it done. I’ve already had a long day, and I think everyone here could use a celebratory drink so if we’re going to talk about any sort of plan for when this is all over, let’s talk about the bottle of whiskey Breck has stashed underneath the couch cushions.”
“Hey,” Breck began.
“Uh. Three quarters of a bottle,” Brittany admitted, and I raised a brow.
“What?” She shrugged. “Guarding Indra got boring. In related news, Koby sucks at drunk Monopoly.”
Breck snickered and Koby grinned in a way that made me wonder if he actually sucked or if he had other reasons for losing to a drinking game with Brittany. Huh. Interesting. A theory for another day.
“The moon has risen. It’s time,” Safar announced, effectively killing the mood and sobering everyone instantly.
Smiles faded, replaced by grim frowns of determination and sparkling eyes that promised death—whether we failed or won, there would be death in these woods tonight.
“Let’s do it,” Sam said, and again, I wondered at her certainty.
But I let it go and focused on getting everyone into defensive positions as Safar gave Sam final instructions about the ritual.
When I returned to the circle, Safar stood before Sam, murmuring quiet words in a language I didn’t understand. On Sam’s face was a tribal design of black lines that went from forehead to chin and even lower to her throat and chest. Safar dipped another finger in some black, chalky substance she’d mixed using a leaf as a makeshift bowl and drew another line across Sam’s throat.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s part of the ritual,” Safar said.
I gave Sam a questioning look and she sent me a reassuring smile.
My stomach lurched. “You’re very calm,” I said.
“I’m ready,” she answered which only made me more nervous.
“But we don’t have anyone to ground—”
“I’m ready,” she said again and I pressed my lips together, nodded, and leaned in for a kiss.
She grinned as I leaned away. “You have black ink on your mouth,” she said.
“Worth it,” I told her and then to Safar, “What do you need me to do?”
“You have one job,” Safar said, not looking away from her handiwork as she spoke to me.
“What’s that?”
“Guard the prisoner. Make sure she does what she can to help ground Sam.” She nodded to where we’d left Indra tied to a nearby tree. She hadn’t spoken again after our little bargain, but when I looked at her now, the scabbed wound on my arm burned.
I turned away from her and found Sam watching me intently. My shoulders sagged, but I nodded without a word. It wouldn’t do me any good to tell them both they were wrong: I had two jobs. To guard the prisoner while Sam completed her merge—and then kill her when we were done.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sam
Breck, Brittany, and Koby had all disappeared into their various hiding places, ready to take on the waves of rabid werewolves we knew would come through the moment the wards went down. Alex stood nearby, guarding Indra from the wolves. Or me from Indra. Or the world from Indra’s bad attitude. I wasn’t sure. I did know that everyone else was strapped to the gills with weapons while I held a candle in one hand and a crystal in the other. My face itched from the war paint Safar had decorated me with. But even with all of that, I’d never felt so exposed.
When I’d mentioned it, Safar assured me I didn’t need a weapon since I was the most powerful creature here already. In the gathering darkness, wearing nothing but a cotton dress and war-paint that made me want to claw at my skin, I didn’t feel it. But I didn’t argue either.
I wanted to get this done and get out of here as fast as possible. The air still smelled burnt from the fire. I tried not to let that affect my confidence. Harold was waiting at the road with the car running, I reminded myself, ready to get us out of here before the wolves could tear us apart—if it came to that.
Of course, if I merged, Hina was supposed to be able to find a way to save us from them. Or even better, save them from themselves by healing them all before they could hurt anyone else. Theoretically. I wasn’t going to count on that, though. Not when it came to the lives of my friends.
I stood still while Safar finished digging out a casting circle with a stone and a garden shovel she’d borrowed from Harold. I had no idea why this part was even necessary, but Safar only knew one type of merging ceremony and since it included a lot of fancy prep work, that’s what we were doing. I wasn’t going to cut a corner anywhere.
The redwood offered a reassuring shelter at my back, and I tried to take comfort in Harold’s reminder that all trees were sentient to a degree. That I wasn’t quite alone in this circle after all.
Then again, I was pretty desperate if I was hoping a tree came to life.
Overhead, the moon had risen and now beamed down at me like a spotlight trying to pull my attention upward. Inside me, Hina stirred expectantly and my stomach flipped.
I took deep breaths in through my nose, trying not to vomit.
Alex met my eyes—and smiled.
I smiled back. I could do this. With Alex, I could do anything.
Safar finished lighting all the candles and incense and returned to stand before me. “Are you ready?” she asked, and I nodded, smoothing my dress.
“I’m ready,” I said, sitting inside the circle of candlelight and closing my eyes.
“Don’t forget to use Indra’s power to ground yourself,” she said.
“I feel it,” I said, and I did. I barely had to look for it before I sensed it, drawing me closer.
“Good,” Safar said. “Now, look inside yourself. Allow yourself to open to every closed door and barred window. Tonight is for all the parts to come tog
ether. You must not hold back anything.”
Safar continued to talk me through some sort of visualization, but it wasn’t necessary. In fact, her next instructions were lost. The moment I did as she said and opened myself, it was like a flood gate being thrown wide. There was no closing it again.
I’d given her full permission to come through. Not just now but earlier, in the shower, I’d embraced it. Embraced her. And that had been all the opening she needed.
Hina was here now. And she wasn’t leaving ever again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Alex
Wind swirled up around Sam’s circle and Safar jumped back as a gust tore through her hair and robes. A branch cracked above and I watched in horror as it fell fast toward where Safar had knelt trying to relight one of the candles. I lunged for her but it wasn’t fast enough. The branch struck her hard against the base of her skull and she crumpled, unmoving, in the leaves. I picked her up and carried her out of the worst of the wind, checking for a pulse and breathing a sigh of relief when I found one. Still, she didn’t respond when I called her name or shook her. Behind us, the wind raged.
I left Safar where she was and turned to see Indra finally standing, her eyes intent on Sam across the space. Another gust tore through the circle, and the candles blinked out. Then a third gust sent the candles, incense, and other supplies scattering.
My chest tightened. Safar was unconscious. Sam was unresponsive. And the circle was open. I didn’t know a lot about magic, but I had a feeling that wasn’t good. I took an instinctive step toward Sam—who didn’t seem to be affected by or aware of the wind at all—but Indra’s voice stopped me.
“Not yet.”
I whirled on her, eyes narrowed, heart racing. Before she could say more, a crack rent the air. Thunder boomed. Somewhere not far off a branch cracked and fell to the forest floor. Lightning followed, flickering like an eerie strobe light just once before plunging everything back into darkness. Where the hell had the damned moon gone?
I looked back at Sam, holding my breath. She hadn’t moved or even opened her eyes as the wind raged, tossing the ends of her hair this way and that until it seemed as if gravity had started shifting around her. Above us, clouds were moving in. Dark, swirling storm clouds that promised more electric energy in the air.
I remembered Safar had been speaking, still giving instructions up until the wind and thunder had begun, and my fists tightened. Something had already gone wrong.
Sam was losing herself, and I was helpless.
A minute passed and the clouds worsened, threatening to dump rain. The wind tore at everything now, including my clothes and Indra’s. My cheeks burned with the bite of it and Safar had started leaning into it, trying to get to Sam who sat still as stone inside what was left of her circle.
I whirled on Indra once again, yelling over the sound of the wind. “Do you know what’s happening to her?”
“She’s splitting,” Indra called back and my gut wrenched at that. Splitting sounded a hell of a lot like the opposite of merging.
“Do something,” I insisted.
“Oh I already have,” she said, a strange smile twisting her lips.
I stared at Indra, denial making it impossible to accept her words. “No. This can’t be how it ends.”
She didn’t answer, and I dropped to my knees, ready to beg. “Look, I know what I promised you, but I can’t do that. Not yet. You promised to help,” I reminded her, eye to eye now. All of my own rage and fear and disgust were tossed aside. I didn’t care what Indra did to me anymore as long as it helped Sam. “Do whatever you want to me but … help her.”
Indra’s expression softened, and she blinked, frowning and looking around as if something unexpected had just happened. “Well, shit.”
I blinked. I’d never heard Indra sound so … human.
She heaved out a deep breath—as if she’d been suffocating before and could finally fill her lungs fully. “That was enough to break the spell, I think.”
My brows creased and my lips parted. “What does that mean? What spell? And why do you sound so different?”
“When you let go of your hatred for me, it … I guess you really are the conductor, like my mother said.”
The entire thing was confusing and irritating as hell. “We don’t have time for your mother’s riddles. If you don’t start talking straight to me, Indra, so help me, I won’t be able to stop myself from killing you.”
She cocked her head at me. “Don’t you see it yet? That’s exactly what you’ll have to do.” My jaw fell open even more but no sound came. Was she trying to bait me into losing it and just killing her for the sheer relief? Had her own death been her plan all along?
But she seemed to read my thoughts and shook her head. “Not mine. My mother’s. She used her magic to lock away all of my humanity in order to preserve the trap she laid.” She pointed at Sam. “What’s happening to Sam now is my fault. I … wasn’t sent here to ground her. I was sent here to toss her free.”
“I knew we couldn’t trust you,” I began in a growl.
Indra shook her head. “Listen to me. Your anger kept you from hearing before. My mother knew that. All magic has a yin and yang. A loophole, I guess. In this case, releasing your anger also released me from her darkness.”
“Okay. Fine. Great. I’m not pissed and you and I are BFFs. Can you call her back now?” I asked, impatience threatening to tear me apart. We didn’t have time to chat about it all. Sam was losing herself. And I was losing Sam.
But Indra shook her head. “Hina is much more powerful than I am. But,” she grabbed my arm even as I tried to spin away, lost to the panic, “Alex. Your vow to kill me … fulfill it.”
“What the…? Fuck that. I can’t just—”
“It is the only way now. The only things larger than Sam’s goddess are the souls of the wolves trapped by my blood.”
“So, the magic released by killing you will bring her back?”
“It will. And I can’t say I don’t welcome the relief,” she admitted. “My mother will never stop using me for her own lust for power. It’s why I was born but it’s not how I want to die.”
“She wanted to kill you. Why?” I asked, finally beginning to understand how powerful Indra’s death could be.
“She wanted my blood for herself. She would have harvested it and offered it to Ea in order to return to his right hand. It’s all about power.”
“So, if I kill you, I get to choose how to use the magic in your blood then?”
She nodded. “Mine combined with yours … It is everything Sam needs now.”
“My blood will only hurt her. I tried it earlier on the plants earlier and it killed them—”
“You used the blood my darkness infected,” she said, pointing. “In your arm.”
I looked down at the bandage that was almost soaked through now. “How did you…?”
“My mother’s magic did that. Part of the trap. If dark magic was inside you, that would affect how your blood-magic worked.”
“And how does it work then?” I asked, my words a challenge. Because I thought I knew now, and if she lied to me—
“Your blood is literally an amplifier. It will strengthen whatever it touches. When it touches mine—and Sam’s—it is more than enough to restore her. To ground her. To tie her to all the parts of herself she needs to claim. And it will release me from the darkness that is my mother. Please,” she added, laying her hand on mine.
Pleading. Indra was pleading with me to end her. The one thing I’d wanted for months—and here it was, the answer to everything.
I sat back on my heels, stunned. Behind us and all around, leaves smacked against the ground, the tree trunks—branches dipping and swaying in the rough wind. It was almost too loud to think, but Indra’s words made it impossible to focus on anything else.
“My blood is a conductor …. Like conducting electricity?” I said, still trying to understand what all that damned venom had to do with it.
“Supernaturally speaking, yes. You’ve been through fire after fire and you didn’t just survive it. You became it.” Her eyes sparkled and for once she looked amused that I’d beaten her. “Why do you think you’re so hard to kill?”
“Because of my blood?” I couldn’t help the disbelief that crept in. Or maybe it was just disgust. Irony. From the moment I’d been bitten and infected by Tara two years ago, I’d despised everything about that venom—and the subsequent hybrid transfusion that had saved my ass. I’d hated the weakness and the mortality that came with how vulnerable I was to werewolf venom. But the way Indra was telling it, I wasn’t vulnerable at all. In fact, I was the opposite.
“You’re a product of both sides, Alex. A witch and a Hunter. One made by Hina. The other by Ea. One for love and the other for chaos. Don’t you realize how important that is?”
I didn’t, actually, not before. But now … Now, I knew. My blood was my power. My blood was my magic. Sam wasn’t the only one with a purpose here. And I’d done nothing but fight mine the entire way.
“What do I do?” I asked again, this time ready to follow whatever instruction she gave.
A small voice in the back of my mind whispered a warning that Indra was still the enemy and probably couldn’t be trusted. But I shut that voice down and thought only of Sam. Sushna claimed I’d been sent here to protect the healer. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. I didn’t know anything about being sent. But I knew a hell of a lot about choosing to go.
And so when Indra told me to take out my knife, that’s exactly what I did.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sam
Something was wrong.
Indra’s power had grabbed me the moment I sat down, and I’d clung to it—something to root myself to. But now … I was lost inside myself. I couldn’t find Indra. I couldn’t find the moon. I couldn’t even find myself. Or a way back out again. I was stuck. Floating in a sea of magic that felt more and more like space as gravity seemed to lift away.
Defiance (Heart Lines Series Book 5) Page 22
