Page 40 of On Burning Paths

Nyx shivers when I whisper, “But what do you want, Nyx? Surely you can spare a moment from only considering others to think about your own desires.”

Her body tenses on the word desire, and it sends a thrill of satisfaction through me. I’ve known since that day in the garden that she held some interest in me. Despite what most men think, there are plenty of human women who are excited at the prospect of spending a night with a vampire.

We’re stronger and faster, and that’s just as helpful in the bedroom as it is on the battlefield.

Her desire feels like a part of herself she refuses to embrace, and I hate the idea that she'd just ignore it.

We could die at any moment. It matters what she wants.

“I…” She pauses, clears her throat. “I want to give to my people. Bring life back to the lands around our manor. Help the farmers, and provide a life of comfort and retirement to our current servants. Hire more help to restore the building. Live a life…like what my parents had, before they fell ill.”

The words seem to tumble out of her, coming fast and unedited, and I drink it in. This life of comfort and family that she describes sounds nice. In a way, it reminds me of a certain opulence I’ve enjoyed before, but much warmer.

“So it sounds like a good future is about more than just retrieving your sister,” I murmur, and Nyx nods, starting to twist around in my arms like she wants to face me and say something.

But before she can, Fenric lets out a noise of triumph, startling her away from me.

“What is it?” she asks, but Fenric doesn’t have time to answer. There’s a commotion at the start of the bridge.

One of the Ashen Hounds, in his disgusting mongrel form, attempts to cross. My vision is pretty good, even through the rain, and if my memory serves me, the coppery-colored mutt is Hugh. Yes, that’s it. His fur is slick from the rain, and I can practically smell the disgusting wet-dog scent from here.

“Oh, this should be good,” I mutter, but Nyx pulls away from me, taking her warmth with her, and steps forward, shaking her head in horror. Despite the fact that any of those shifters would rip her limb from limb, given the chance, she still seems to harbor concern for them.

“He’s never going to make it,” she whispers, sliding her hands up like she might want to cover her eyes, might want to keep herself from having to watch.

And she’s right.

The wolf is too big, and scrabbles over the surface of the bridge. At first, his speed carries him a considerable distance, but then the wind rockets in, whistling against the rocks and tossing the bridge like nothing more than a strand of hair.

Letting out a yelp like a scared puppy, the shifter jolts to the side, nails scratching over the wood to gain some sort of purchase, then pitches back the other way, somehow managing to stay on the bridge.

We all watch intently as the wind tosses him about. Through it all, he manages to keep hold of the thing. Lightning splits the sky above us in great white forks, illuminating the canyon in flashes, and with each strike the thunder rolls through the air so hard I feel it in my chest. The lightning comes down again and again on the bridge itself, cracking against the stone and sending chunks of it skittering into the void below. A bolt catches a tree at the canyon's edge and it goes up fast, bright and sudden, before the rain sweeps in and smothers it to smoke.

“It’s actually fascinating,” I mumble, “how this is even possible without opposable thumbs.”

The others don’t answer me. Hugh manages to right himself when the wind calms, pausing atop the bridge, which is relatively stable.

Time suspends. For the slightest, briefest fraction of a moment, I can almost feel myself rooting for the fucker. Even though sympathy for a were is a serious vampire faux pas.

Then he lifts a single paw to step forward and the sky tears open. The lightning that comes down is not like the bolts that have been striking around us. It is total. Blinding. A white so complete it erases everything—the canyon, the bridge, the others beside me—and for one suspended, breathless moment there is nothing in the world but light and the crack of it, a sound so absolute it doesn't register as sound at all but as pressure, as wrongness, as the feeling that something fundamental has just been broken.

When my senses return, I find the bridge, and what remains of him is already falling. His body turns slowly as it drops, charred and small against the vast dark of the canyon, nothing left of the massive creature he'd been a moment ago. I watch him fall past the jutting rock faces, past the ledges and the crumbling stone, until he hits the bottom far below with a sound I feel more than hear.

He comes to rest among all the others. The bones, the rusted weapons, the remnants of every life this place has already taken. Just another body in a canyon full of them, another contestant who had a family somewhere, a reason for being here, and now has nothing at all.

I look away.

The other shifters begin to howl with their loss, and I try not to feel those howls down to my soul.

I’ve lost my entire team, and you don’t see me crying about it. I… moved on. Like I had to do. Shifters like to pretend they’re these hunky, hardened beasts, but the truth is that each of them is no more than a lap dog, panting for a chance at your dinner scraps.

“We can’t do this,” Nyx says, turning to look at us, those big hazel eyes of hers filled with worry. “We’ll all die.”

A wrinkle appears between her brows, and I realize she’s afraid not just for herself but for us. She’s worried about us. I can’t remember the last time someone worried about me, and the thought makes my chest ache.

“I have an idea,” the berserker says, his burgundy curls hanging limp over his forehead. I hate that I’m charmed by his go-getter attitude. “I’ve mapped out the pattern of the wind, and I have an inkling of how we can handle the lightning.”

Thorian laughs. “What, have you got an in with my father?”