I glanced at Veles, who nodded as if to say go check on him. Not that I would have just sat there if he hadn’t. I slipped off my cushion of furs and headed after the Raven. Anxiety I’d been ignoring pricked my skin like a thousand needles.
The Raven had avoided speaking to me or making eye contact since I’d escaped from the lake. It was time to find out what was bothering him, because the distance he was putting between us was worrying and unlike him.
I caught up to him between two slender tree trunks. The shadows were deeper here as night fell rapidly.
“Raven, wait.” I reached for his arm, but he shied away.
“Wynter, go back to the fire. You’ll freeze out here.”
“And you won’t?”
His coat had been ruined when he’d used it to staunch the blood at Horatio’s wound, and now he was dressed only in a shirt, britches, and boots.
“I don’t feel the cold, you know that.” He said this almost mournfully, as if he grieved the loss of such sensation.
“Yes. I do. What I don’t know is why you’re avoiding me? You didn’t even look at me when I escaped from the lake. I thought … I thought you would have been happy I was alive.”
His throat bobbed. “Of course, I was happy. But Veles showed his appreciation with enough enthusiasm for the both of us.”
Jealousy? No. This was something else. And he was averting his gaze from me again.
“What is it? Why won’t you look at me?”
He made a sound of exasperation. “I failed you. I allowed you to be taken.”
What? “You didn’t allow anything. You saved Mirage just like I asked you to. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“You are my priority.” The words were stiff, almost rehearsed.
“Says who?”
“It’s the way it’s always been.” He risked a peek at me and then ducked his head again. “The way it’s always meant to be. It’s what you want. I understand that.”
It was almost as if he wasn’t talking to me but to someone else through me. Oh, God. “Raven, what the crud are you doing?”
“Morrigan?”
“No.” I pointed at myself. “Wynter. We’ve already established that I’m not her.”
He licked his lips. “I felt you when you were gone. I knew you were alive. I used to feel Morrigan like that all the time, and now I feel you.”
“So?”
“You were right. She is alive. It’s the only explanation for what I’ve been sensing. The bond has been to her, but through you. You’re a channel to her. She still has me.” His voice cracked. “She’ll always have me. I thought you wanted me, but it’s her. Her want channeled through you.”
It was true that I felt things—rage, power, aggression—feelings that weren’t my own, but the emotions Raven elicited … those were mine. “No.” I shook my head. “My feelings for you aren’t hers.”
“And what are they? What do you feel?” His tone was bitter, hurt. “The desire to claim and take?”
I knew where he was going with this. The desire to claim was her. All her. The aggression was all her, but there was more.
“I care about you.” I touched his elbow tentatively. “I enjoy your company, and when you’re not with me …” My throat was suddenly tight. “When you’re not with me, I feel your loss. I want you by my side. I want to feel your breath on my cheek and your arms around me when we curl up to sleep.”
His breath hitched. “Wynter.” He bridged the distance between us.
I pressed my hand to his chest. “What do you want, Raven? What do you feel for me?” I whispered the words, almost afraid of what he would say.
He pressed his palm to my cheek and then slid it down my throat, stopping to bracket my collarbones with his slender hand. He leaned in, so his breath was hot on my lips, his heartbeat a gallop beneath my fingers.
“Everything. I want to drown in you, and God help me, I want you to claim me. You. Not her. Say it, Wynter. Say it.”
His words slammed into me, knocking the breath from me, and then desire gripped my mind.
“Mine.” The word was a growl of need, and my fist curled in the hair at the nape of his neck before I tugged his mouth down to mine.
I kissed him with tongue and teeth, pushing him up against the tree trunk, pressing my body to his and reveling in the surge of blood that traveled down to the juncture of my thighs. I pressed my breasts to his chest and my groin to his hardness, moaning into his mouth, and he sucked in a breath at the contact.
He was mine. He belonged to me, to do with as I pleased, to claim and to be claimed by. The want was a sharp ache, a tugging and hot wetness between my thighs that demanded friction.
My mouth still fused to his, I reached down to unlace his britches. My hand slipped inside and brushed the hard, silken length of him.
“Wynter … Oh, God.” He gasped into my mouth.
He felt good in my hand. Right. He felt perfect. I wanted to taste him, just like he’d tasted me that night in the winter kingdom. Berstuk had controlled us that night. He’d taken Raven and used his body to sate me, but the Raven had felt it too. He’d had my juices on his mouth, and I wanted to give him the same.
I tore my lips from his and lowered myself to the ground. My knees sank into the snow as I freed him from the confines of fabric, and then my mouth was on him, sliding down his shaft, suckling on the sweet flavor that exploded on my tongue. Berries. He tasted of berries, and I needed more.
His gasps and moans were music to my ears, and I worked him, hand pumping, mouth sucking and licking.
“Wynter.” His hands wound in my hair, and for a moment I thought he would succumb, that he’d abandon himself to the sensations and thrust into me.
His grip tightened, and he pulled me away. “No. This isn’t you.” He hauled me up and cupped my face. “Is this you?”
What did he mean? My head was spinning with desire for him, for us together.
“Wynter, I want you, not her. I want you.” He kissed me softly, and the raw, desperate edge that had taken hold of my mind subsided.
Warmth filtered through me—an ache in my heart, a pricking at my eyes. I blinked back tears. “This is me, Raven. I want you. Me, Wynter.”
He studied me as if desperate to believe it, but I saw the moment he withdrew. The shutters came down, and he pressed his forehead to mine. “You are a piece of her soul, and if she lives, then she controls you. She can see through your eyes. She can take what she needs and wants.”
No. That couldn’t be right. “If that was true, then Oblivion would have me.”
“No, Wynter. You’re an untainted part of her soul. And while she lives, she can forge a connection with you. Oblivion has her body, that’s all. He’s trapped in her body, but her soul … Her soul is still alive.”
I closed my eyes. “I won’t lie. I feel her power sometimes. And there is rage and anger and thoughts that aren’t my own. But right now, in this moment…” I opened my eyes and looked into his. “It’s just me and you.” I smiled. “I can’t change what happened to you. I can’t change how I came into being, but I will fight to forge my own path. To be my own person. Morrigan might guide me from time to time through her connection to my soul, but my heart … that’s wholly mine, and if you’ll have it, I would like to share it with you.”
He frowned. “And Veles?”
I’d have to speak to him, to make him understand something that until this moment I hadn’t fully understood myself. That I was in love with three men, and that I wasn’t willing to let any of them go. The revelation was like a rock being lifted off my chest.
It was liberation.
It was truth.
“My heart is big enough for the both of you.” My voice trembled because what if he didn’t want to share me? What if I wasn’t enough?
The Raven closed his eyes. “I’m not free. If she’s alive, then I belong to her.”
Ice trickled through my veins as the truth of why he was holding back was
revealed. Morrigan had a hold on him. Morrigan owned him. We’d thought she was dead and that I was the final piece of her, but she was still alive. Determination was a tingle in my bones.
I wrapped my arms around him. “Not for long. Not if I have anything to do with it.”
Chapter Nine
Finn
The dead forest is behind us. The empty village is behind us. Roxy has skirted the winter kingdom, moving like the wind. She’s fast, so fast that the world is a blur when we’re in motion. I keep thinking that surely she will tire. That we will stop to rest, but she has been running for hours and not paused for breath. But then does a mechanical construct need to breathe?
Every stride takes us closer to Wynter. The autumn lands are her destination, and we will intercept her before she can reach it. Once she knows the truth, she’ll come back with us, back to the shimmer, then beyond. Back to Yav and safety.
Flatlands covered in snow greet us, and beyond is a forest of tall, thin trees with branches reaching up as if beseeching the heavens for reprieve.
Look at me. I’m becoming a poet.
Roxy begins to slow and then comes to a halt.
“What is it?”
“Death.”
I glance down to see the snow tainted pink, churned up here and there.
“She killed here. She survived here,” Roxy says softly, circling the spot saturated with what must be blood.
My heart skips a beat and then aches with a deep sorrow. “Wynter killed?”
There is a smile in Roxy’s voice. “Yes. She killed to save the ones she loves. She is no longer innocent. No longer the same human that descended into Nawia.”
She sounds almost proud.
“Wynter is no murderer. We have to get to her before she’s forced to kill again.”
Roxy shakes her fur. “Hold on. We won’t stop until we reach her.”
Chapter Ten
The fire cast a warm glow on the campsite. The furs were warm, but the real heat came from Veles’s body, which was burning for me. He nuzzled my neck, the stubble on his jaw a delicious rasp against my skin, a rasp he soothed with a flick of his tongue. I bit back a moan, not wanting the others to hear, but at the same time not wanting him to stop touching me.
I needed to tell him about the Raven, about my feelings for him.
His hand cupped my breast, thumb brushing over my hard nipple to send a thrill shooting through me. Oh, gods.
I took a shuddering breath. “Veles, wait. Please.”
He raised his head to sear me with ember eyes. Waiting. He was outwardly patient, but the intensity of his gaze said otherwise.
“In the forest with the Raven, I—”
“You don’t need to tell me.” He closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain. “I’d rather not have details.”
My heart thudded harshly in my chest because there was a twisted devastation in his tone.
“Veles, I—”
“I’ve seen you with him,” he said quickly, and then sighed and pressed his temple to the side of my head. “I recognize passion when I see it.” His voice was soft. “When I came after you, I came with the knowledge that you’d chosen him, but then … Then you chose me too.” He lifted his head to look into my eyes. “I know you want him, but I know you want me too.”
“I don’t just want you, Veles. I … I love you.” The words were a soft explosion against his cheek.
He made a strangled sound and gathered me close, burying his face in my hair. “Gods, Wynter, I love you too. More than I’ve ever loved anything before. I’ll share your heart if I must because losing you would kill me.”
I lifted my chin and kissed his jaw.
He looked down into my face. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to make you come.”
My mouth was suddenly dry while other parts of me were flooded with wetness.
“I’m going to fuck you with my fingers and watch you unravel.” His voice was husky and deep, an auditory friction that made my pulse race in anticipation.
And then his mouth slanted over mine, and his hand slid into my britches. I gasped into his mouth as his thick, long fingers pushed into me, and then raised my hips to welcome the invasion. I swallowed the moan that the delicious circles of his thumb elicited, excitement fizzing in my veins at doing something so illicit under the stars with others so close by.
Could they hear us?
Did they know?
I didn’t care.
He made love to me with his hand, his fangs grazing my lips with every delicious kiss. As I rode the wave, Berstuk filled my mind, his groan echoing the one I couldn’t voice, and the Raven’s presence bloomed in my blood, his desire mingling with mine as I tumbled over the edge into oblivion.
* * *
My eyes snapped open. Someone will betray you. Beware. Beware. Celnith’s voice echoed in my mind. Why was my pulse galloping? What had I been dreaming about? My breath was shallow and quick, and I took a moment to calm it.
It was dark. Too dark. Had the fire gone out?
“No … please …” Veles’s whisper teased the hair at my crown.
I looked up into his face, which was twisted in a mask of horror.
“Veles, what is it?”
He didn’t look at me. “No. No, please …”
What was wrong with him? Why was his expression so … glazed? Despite the heat trapped beneath the furs, my skin broke out in goosebumps.
“Veles? What is it? What’s wrong?”
“This can’t be happening. I can’t lose you. Please.” He grabbed hold of me, hauling me against him. “So much blood. How can there be so much blood?”
He was dreaming. He had to be. But his eyes were open. “Veles. Veles, what are you doing? I’m fine. Look, I’m fine.”
But he was squeezing me too hard. Hurting me. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t—I shoved him away using every ounce of strength and rolled out from under the furs.
My vision blurred, and the world was hazy for a moment, and then it hit me. The problem wasn’t my vision. We were surrounded by fog. It pressed in on us, suffocating and reducing vision.
“You took it. I know you did.” Grendel’s gruff voice cut through the fog.
“Did you kill her?” one of Fenn’s men said.
The sound of fist meeting flesh followed.
“Why can’t I remember? Why can’t I remember?” Fenn moaned.
Bellows and curses followed.
What was happening? Veles gripped my elbow and turned me to face him. “You can’t do this. You can’t fight it. You’ll die. I can’t watch you die again. Not again.”
Fog clung to his frame like an ethereal cloak, and his voice sounded strange, all distant and dreamy.
There was something wrong. There was something wrong with the fog.
He was stuck in a dream. It was the only explanation.
“Raven!” I stumbled away from Veles. “Raven, where are you?”
The fire must have gone out because the night was black and gray, and the stars were blocked out by the fog. I walked with my arms outstretched, stumbling over bracken that had welded itself to the ground with ice, while around me Fenn’s men fought. The clink of weapons being drawn chilled my blood. Were they dreaming of battle, and if so, then would they think each other the enemy? I had to wake them up. There had to be a way to stop this.
The Raven would know. “Raven!”
A shadowy figure emerged from the fog. Slender and regal. Raven. He stood with his gaze fixed straight ahead, unseeing. His mouth moved, but no sound emerged.
Oh, no. “Raven.” I grabbed hold of his shirt and shook him. “Wake up.” I cupped his face, fingers sliding across his wet cheeks. “It’s not real. You’re dreaming. You’re dreaming, and you need to wake up.”
Nothing happened.
He was connected to me, and I wasn’t affected, so maybe I could use our connection to rouse him. I stood on tiptoe and pressed my lips to his, willing him to hear me, to see me, to come back to me f
rom wherever this fog had taken him. My lips tingled, and then his arms were around me, and his mouth moved against mine.
He softened the kiss, whispering against my lips, “Wynter.”
I pulled back. “Are you with me?”
He blinked down at me. “What’s happening?” He shook his head. “I was … I was with her.” His lip curled.
“You were dreaming. This fog is doing something to everyone. They’re all awake but still dreaming. If we don’t stop it, then they’ll kill each other.”
He sucked in a breath. “No. No, they won’t. Because something else will do it first.”
“What do you mean?”
“This fog doesn’t come alone. It brings something with it. I’ve heard tales of sudden fog that sweeps across the land, and when it passes, there are only bones in its wake.”
“In that case, we need to get out of here. Now.”
An eerie wail cut through the mist, and I froze, heart slamming in my throat, eager to escape.
The Raven took my hand and squeezed.
Another wail rose to our left, as if in response to the first.
“They have us surrounded,” the Raven whispered.
We needed to be ready to fight, but Fenn’s men were busy fighting each other, and Veles? Where was Veles? Where was Dareth?
I turned to the Raven. “Hit them, slap them, punch them. Do whatever you have to and wake them up.”
“I don’t think that will work.”
“We have no choice. We have to try.”
I tugged him through the fog, toward a mass of shadow, the scrape of metal, and the chatter of raised voices.
“Did it. You did it. I know you did.”
“Get away. Watch out. Duck.”
“No, not again. Not again.”
“Wynter, no. Please don’t die.”
The voices all mingled, and then I was yanking at sleeves, slapping faces, and shouting.
Fate’s Destiny: Heart of Darkness Book 3 Page 5
