Veil of Thorns

by Gwen Mitchell

  Lucas stopped, and Bri walked on a few paces before she noticed and turned around.

  He closed the distance between them in a single stride and tentatively took her hand. “I had hoped to have more time before I had to be the soldier on a mission.”

  She studied the rocks at her feet.

  “Briana,” he said, then waited.

  She met his gaze, and like always, her heart did a little gallop ahead before she reined it back.

  “For as long as we are here, I will be a soldier on a mission—the mission of keeping you alive. But when this is all over and I get you somewhere safe, when this soldier’s mission is through, I’ll be the wolf on the hunt again.” He lifted her fingers to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles in a teasing caress. “Won’t that be fun?”

  She couldn’t stop herself from blushing but yanked her hand from his grip. “I like the soldier just fine. And the wolf—the real wolf—is okay with me too. He’s quiet. I think it must be your mouth I don’t like.”

  In reply, those sensuous lips rolled into a cocky smile. “I think you’d like my mouth quite a lot if you gave it a chance.”

  She scoffed and rolled her eyes. So much for an apology.

  Lucas turned up the path and left her staring daggers at his back for the next several hours as he set a grueling pace along the hilly cart road. After about twenty minutes, she was sweating like a symphony conductor, and glad she hadn’t had any coffee, because she was sure her heart would explode. But for the rest of the day, her pride would not let her utter a word of complaint.

  They reached the mine well before dusk, and Bri was too exhausted to be irritated anymore. She seemed to have found the limit of her full moon health boost and felt utterly wrung out.

  Bri rested and drank water as ordered while Lucas set up camp on a narrow strip of flat ground between a copse of trees. He had a fire blazing well before the sun went down. The temperature dropped swiftly. Bri changed into warmer pants and a heavier jacket and was settling into a camp chair as Lucas strode out of the woods wet and shirtless, carrying two skinned rabbits.

  She focused on the rabbits as he skewered them and set them above the fire, not on the way the firelight glinted off the sinuous black markings across his back and chest.

  She’d never eaten rabbit, but her appetite would not stand for squeamishness. Especially if they had another hike like that coming tomorrow.

  It turned out to be delicious, and Lucas paired it with some carrots and a boxed rice dish from his bottomless cache of supplies. They even had hot cocoa and s’mores—or, she did. Lucas stuck to Scotch, but she coaxed him into a few marshmallows. He liked them completely charred.

  She almost forgot for a little while where she was, or why. Until she was telling a story about summer camp with Astrid and Kean. She had to stop mid-sentence and stare into the flames, willing herself not to cry. Finally, she gained control of her voice and changed the subject. “Can I ask you something? About Vivianne?”

  Lucas nodded, drinking in every detail of her face in a way that made it impossible not to feel self-conscious.

  “Was she a good Oracle?”

  He sighed and rubbed his hand over the back of his head. “She was uncanny.”

  Bri sat quietly, waiting for him to continue.

  “The first time we met, she was only a girl of twelve or thirteen, and I was a wolf. She was not at all afraid. She marched right up to me, stroked her hand down my muzzle, and knocked our foreheads together. ‘You are for me,’ she said. It was seven years until our paths crossed again. She had never seen me as a man, but again, she marched right up to me, stroked her finger down my nose and said, ‘hello, my wolf.’”

  Bri smiled at the fondness in his voice, and her chest constricted as more tears bunched in her throat.

  “She always knew where I’d be. I tried to stay away from her at first, but she cornered me again and again. I was being hunted, and despite being wary of witches…I loved it. It was exciting. Flouting the rules, both mundane and magic. With a seer so powerful, it seemed the rules needn’t apply to us. For the first time in my long life, I found something to covet, something to want for my own, not for glory or power or war. Soon she became like air to me, and I lamented that I would have only one human lifetime to breathe. Of course, she had an answer for that too.”

  Bri hooked onto that and tried to steer him away from his romantic trip down memory lane. “Did she ever tell you how she discovered the ritual?”

  He frowned and shook his head. “She spent hours at a time staring into her scrying bowl. There was no sense asking her the origins of her visions. I’m not sure she even knew.”

  “Scrying bowl?” Even as Bri said it, she could picture it in her hands—a black stone bowl filled with water. She could practically feel the cool, smooth surface, the weight of it resting in her fingers. “I remember.”

  Bri had never tried to scry. Most of her magic lessons had been based on the goal of accessing and controlling the flow of her power, not actually applying it. Maybe that was why she was stuck. Perhaps she just needed the right tool…like when a musician discovers their perfect instrument and something just clicks.

  You are the blindest Oracle there ever was.

  Most of her visions had come to her in sleep or else pulled her into unconsciousness, but the waking ones… had always been in reflections. If she was truly an echo of Vivianne, perhaps her powers had the same slant. “Why didn’t I see it before?”

  “See what?” Lucas asked.

  “Another connection between me and her.”

  Besides the fact that they’d both used the mirror and they’d both faced the Soul Eater.

  The vision the ancient mirror had given Bri rose up in her memory unbidden.

  A fly buzzing from Eric’s gaping mouth. Geri’s cheeks streaked with bloody tears. The life draining from Kean’s face, leaving it ashen stone.

  A tidal wave of grief rose in the wake of the memory, but she shoved both back down, as she’d grown so adept at doing. Perhaps she was still too afraid to face who she was. What she was.

  What she was responsible for.

  I’m trying to make it right.

  “I imagine there are many such connections that will reveal themselves over time.” Lucas said, oblivious to her inner turmoil. He didn’t say it as a taunt, just matter of fact. But it still rankled.

  He was probably right.

  Bri didn’t answer. She climbed into her sleeping bag and replayed the memories from summer camp, silently praying for Kean to hear her through the ether as she promised again and again that she was coming for him.

  She blinked into the darkness of the tent, thinking of time wasted, love lost, and the boy who had been her rock through the stormiest times in her life. She and Kean had always been deeply connected. Despite the clash of wills, they had always seen each other, shared themselves entirely. They knew each other’s deepest fears and flaws, seen the lowest of lows together. Kean had battled her demons like they were his own. Even after she had abandoned him for years, he’d sacrificed himself protecting her. Now, she felt his loneliness was hers to carry as well. She wrapped it around her heart like a shroud and silently cried herself to sleep.

  ***

  Kean no longer felt the passage of time. Whenever Bri came to him, he wasn’t sure if her spirit was real or a dream, but he relished every moment anyway. As the moon waxed, the crumbling, faded grey house would slowly solidify into color and fill with light. And then, on the full moon nights, he would hear her beautiful music.

  A song she’d written just for him. He would stand by the piano, waiting, and slowly, she would appear. At first, just a faint shadow, and then a gossamer fairy, lit from the inside, but semitransparent.

  Those precious hours spent talking, staring, trying to reach out to each other. He lived for them and them alone. But they had begun to melt into his memories and mix with the distant past of his mortal life that was now over. They were consecutive
moments in just a handful he’d shared with Bri since she came home.

  They may be all you ever get.

  He could feel his connection to that life–that realm–diminishing. A rope that was slowly fraying to a single thread and soon would snap. What then? Would he fade into the grey? Would he even realize it?

  Now he sat at the kitchen table as the rest of the house slowly dissolved around him. Waiting. Always waiting.

  For what?

  He’d begun to wonder if those visits with Bri were just a fantasy he kept reliving. But then she’d been there, solid and shaking in his arms. Her lips had been full of sweetness that was a jolt to his senses and charged his spirit with the desire to keep fighting.

  It had taken every ounce of his will to force himself to let her go. He could not bear the idea of her spirit trapped here in the nothingness with him, so he’d wielded what little control he had over this purgatory and willed her out.

  That could have been days or years ago. He had no idea. The grey that washed between those moments with Bri was meaningless and endless.

  She might never come back.

  His fists clenched on the table. He was not ready to accept that. Bri would not give up on him so easily. She would come back. He had to believe it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Briana had been seething on the first day of their journey—his own fault, Lucas could admit. His impatience had made him brash and he’d nearly pushed her too far. Even though everything he said was true, it was clear she was not ready to face that truth yet. But on day two, Bri was sullen and withdrawn, and he had no idea what he’d done that might have caused her shift in mood this time.

  She gave him no opportunity to needle her out of her sulking, only clipped one-word answers as she stewed over something from their talk the night before.

  Wondering which part, exactly, was driving him crazy.

  Even though the terrain got rougher, littered with fallen logs and thickets of thorny bushes, and the incline grew steeper, Lucas pushed their pace harder than the day before. He stuck close to the mountain springs and stopped to rest frequently in the hopes that she would engage him in conversation.

  “I never asked you if Ryder checked in last night,” she said as she dutifully peeled off her boots and changed socks.

  “We agreed to meet tomorrow evening. He is still seeking his way through the wards. Did you have questions for him?” he sat down beside her.

  Bri shook her head, running her hands over her pack, double- and triple-checking that each pocket was secure.

  “Any questions for me?” he tried. When she ignored him, he changed tacks. “You’re ready to face her?”

  Her head snapped up and she gave him an incredulous look. “Of course not. I’m terrified. What if she sees right through me?”

  Lucas laid his hand at the nape of her neck. When she relaxed against him, he began gently rubbing her shoulder. At first, he meant it to be reassuring, but even through the thin fleece of her jacket, he could tell she was full of muscle spasms. “You know her weak points.”

  “I know what Ryder says are her weak points.” She bowed her head and closed her eyes, giving herself over to his ministrations.

  He smiled, pleased that she was learning so quickly not to take things at face value where the wraith was concerned. He scooted behind her so he could use both hands, following the trail of knots down the middle of her back, between her shoulder-blades.

  “No wonder you’re in such a foul mood,” he said as his fingers dug into the largest snarl. Why hadn’t she said anything?

  She gave a half-hearted grunt in reply. A pleased moan escaped her lips a few minutes later as he finally worked the largest knot loose with his knuckle. The sound shot straight to his groin, and his hands stilled.

  He heard the hitch in Bri’s breath, smelled the intoxicating shift in her body chemistry that had tempted him beyond reason the other night. As his instincts to hunt and claim raged to the surface, all he could do was will his hands to stay put, to not wrap around her and nuzzle his face into her. Instead, he slowly splayed his fingers across the back of her ribcage.

  Bri stayed perfectly still, sensing the tension in his demeanor.

  He kept himself mostly in check, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to lean forward and smell the sweat gathering at her hairline, his lips barely brushing the back of her neck.

  Her heartbeat kicked up, and his hands tightened, afraid she would run. Wanting her to run.

  She could not run. He would only give chase.

  Lucas sat there for a few seconds. He stood in one swift motion and ran into the trees like a scared dog, both his raging hard-on and his instincts howling at him to go back and take what was rightfully his.

  He shifted into the wolf and scouted ahead on their path and doubled back to make sure their trail wasn’t being followed, burning off some of the excess energy that brief contact with Bri had stirred up. Even as the wolf, his emotions were amped. On edge.

  Taking his mate on a journey rife with danger was driving his instincts haywire. Especially since he hadn’t fully claimed her.

  She was still so fragile. So mortal.

  The solution was staring him in the face, but he knew she would refuse, despite the logic. Until he gained her trust and affection, she would not give in to her desire, and he was at a stalemate.

  Lucas returned an hour later to find Bri beside a small creek.

  She’d dug a trench off to one side and lined it with small stones, creating a shallow pool. She sat beside it with a journal and pen in her lap, her head bent over the pool and her face twisted in concentration.

  He gave a small chuckle at her expression.

  Bri frowned when she sensed his presence but didn’t look up.

  “I don’t think it’s supposed to be that difficult.”

  “How would you know?”

  He dropped an apple from his cache into her lap and sat on a boulder across from her. “You look like you’re expecting to see something in the pool.”

  Her brow wrinkled into an adorable scowl.

  He fought back his smile. “But that’s silly, no? There’s nothing in the pool. The images aren’t coming from the water or the reflection, they come from inside you. From your magic. Think of yourself as the projector and the pool as the screen.”

  For a moment she looked as if she was going to issue another haughty reply, but instead she gazed into the pool and tried again. A few blinks later, her irises swirled a milky white.

  “Dammit.” Her eyes cleared and she glared up at the clouds. A beat, and then thunder shook the mountainside and the sky tore open, drenching them with icy rain.

  Lucas took Bri’s hand and led her to the nearest flat, open ground and conjured the small dome tent from his cache. They both burrowed into it. Once they were zipped in, he conjured dry clothes for them and dutifully turned his back while Bri changed. “What did you see?”

  “Us. Slogging up a mountainside in full rain gear.”

  He smiled and waved his hand again. “This rain gear?”

  “Yep.” She paused. “But that doesn’t mean we have to. Couldn’t we just hang out and play cards or something? Wait it out? We are days ahead of schedule.”

  When she piled her wet clothes in a mound at the bottom of the tent, he turned back around. Her hair was still in a braid, but curls had broken free to swirl around her neck and face, reminding him of the whorls of battle paint the Celts used to wear. Her eyes were the deep green of a mountain glade, surrounded by thick, dark lashes spiked with moisture.

  Every detail about her seemed to glow. Like the tiny, nearly invisible hairs along the bow of her lip, and the constellation of freckles across her collarbone, just south of where he could see her pulse beating.

  He could lose himself cataloging every single one of those details.

  You’re already lost.

  He let his most carnal thoughts show on his face as he replied, “I’d be perfectly happy to spend an
afternoon trapped in this tent with you.”

  Bri rolled her eyes. “Hiking in the rain it is.”

  In truth, he was relieved she didn’t call his bluff. Staying in the tent would have been torture.

  He’d been so certain of himself a few short days ago. Certain that the Fates were conspiring to give him what he wanted. What he’d earned. But it seemed like the more time he spent with Briana, the more she held back. Not even the Fates could force her to like him if she decided not to.

  No one can force that woman to do anything.

  And now, for the first time in more years than he could tally, he was doubting himself. What if the magic between them wasn’t affecting her in the same way? What if she didn’t feel drawn like he did? Could he be so desperate for his mate after so long that he could be…imagining their connection? Her responses? Only seeing what he wanted to? At what point did he have to take her denials at face value? It was a delicate dance of slowly digging at the foundation of her resistance while not pushing her far enough to outright reject him.

  She hadn’t—yet. She would fume, sulk or get irritable, but she hadn’t outright denied the spark between them. He knew that was mostly because she needed him, but he was not above capitalizing on that need. As long as she didn’t demand he back off, he would keep digging. If she did…well, he would figure out what to do then.

  Nothing with her will come easy.

  In the end, it didn’t matter. If the Fates would not make a gift of Briana, and magic would not help him along, he would have to earn her heart the old-fashioned way.

  Bri was a trooper. Despite how much the weather slowed their pace, she wouldn’t let him stop until they reached the point he’d marked on his map. By the time they arrived, she was shivering and could barely stand, but there was a triumphant glint in her eye that he found quite endearing.

  He built a large fire under a rock outcropping and made sausage and peppers with pasta, which Bri devoured with glee. Ten minutes later, she barely made it into her sleeping bag before she was snoring softly.