Page 39 of Death Will Follow

He didn’t respond, seemingly unaware she’d spoken at all.

A piercing cry cut through the eerie quiet, harsh and grating like the tip of a blade dragged along rusted metal. Nova winced, ducking slightly and clapping her hands over her ears. She shot a glance at Samira and Bryn, who’d had the same reaction, both females grimacing at the unpleasant noise. Her eyes flicked back to Callan moving unsteadily toward the water, seemingly entranced.

As Nova took a step toward him, Mara rose out of the lake and hovered above the surface. Her blotchy green skin hung loose, sagging on her bones like an ill-fitting garment, as she reached for Callan. The creature’s black hair was thinning with large clumps missing, the scraggly ends sticking to her limp breasts. She opened her mouth, dripping blood like a wound slashed across her face, and cried out again.

Nova fell to her knees, the screech reverberating painfully in her skull. She’d barely regained her footing when Callan charged into the lake. As the water reached his knees, he stumbled and fell, flailing his arms and splashing wildly as he struggled to reach the creature. Nova gritted her teeth against the pain of Mara’s shriek and sprinted into the shallows after him. Hooking her left arm around his middle, she hauled him back, but lost her balance.

Callan crashed down on top of her like a felled tree, and her head dunked under the lake beneath his weight, water flooding her nose. He thrashed on top of her; she couldn’t come up for air. Nova wrapped her legs around his hips and locked her ankles, refusing to let go. Panic bloomed in her chest, her body begging her to take a breath, darkness seeping in along the edges of her vision.

All at once, Callan rolled off of her and she burst through the surface, coughing and gasping for air. Samira and Bryn sat in the shallows, each with a hold on one of Callan’s arms. Still, he fought against them, desperate to wade further into the water.

“Bryn,” Nova choked once she had breath. “Get him out of here!”

Bryn leapt up and shifted in a heartbeat, her enormous wings beating forcefully as she snatched Callan out of the water with her talons. Nova managed to get on her feet, breath still ragged, as Bryn soared back toward the Tundara Estate. Callan continued to struggle even as Bryn clutched him tightly in her claws.

Once Callan disappeared from view, Mara’s screams died out. Nova and Samira scrambled onto dry land, wary eyes fixed on the creature. Mara sank until she was nearly submerged, the empty sockets of her eyes bobbing above the surface for a moment before finally vanishing into the depths.

Nova exchanged a weary look with the Noble Lady, both panting in the oppressive heat. Nova forced out a weak whistle, and Frost, who had bolted when his rider was carried off into the sky, answered her call. She and Samira rode back to the clearing where the other horses remained tethered, gathering the animals and racing back to the Estate as quickly as the dense terrain would allow.

Seventeen

Callan lay on the bed, writhing weakly, the gauzy white linens twisting and bunching up underneath his squirming limbs. More or less unconscious, he murmured nonsensically. Sweat beaded on his skin and pooled in the hollow at the base of his throat. Bryn said he’d been in that state since she arrived back at the Estate with him dangling limply in her grasp.

Nova sat beside him and planted her hand on his bare chest. His heart thundered beneath her palm. Opening the amber glass bottle she’d obtained from Samira’s healer in residence, she squeezed three drops of the tincture into the corner of his mouth. Gradually, his movements slowed as he drifted off into a deep sleep. The healer assured Nova the effects would last only a few hours, and that Callan would be as good as new when he awoke. With her patient finally still, Nova examined the wounds on his torso and thighs, slashes of varying lengths and depths from Bryn’s talons.

“Gods be damned,” Nova muttered, dabbing at a shallow slash along his rib cage with a damp cloth.

“It wasn’t my fault,” came Bryn’s voice from the doorway. “He wouldn’t stop moving. Finally tired himself out when we’d nearly reached the grove.”

“I don’t blame you, Bryn.” Nova squinted, the tip of her tongue peeking out the corner of her mouth, as she wiped away the last bits of dried blood. “I blame him, the damn fool. He shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

Nova slathered a strip of gauze with a thin layer of raw honey and laid it over the cut, pressing down firmly. She was tempted to leave his wounds undressed, if only to prove a point, but she could never do such a thing. She wouldn’t heal them outright for him, though. His body would have to do the work.

Let itchy bandages be a lesson to him, she thought.

“I supposed it could have been worse,” Bryn offered, coming closer and leaning against one of the bedposts.

“Much worse,” Nova sighed, swiping her hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. “He’d have been lucky to drown before Mara got to him. The lake bottom is littered with bones.”

Nova glanced at Callan’s sleeping face, his brow smooth and lips slightly parted. He always looked so carefree when he slept. So unburdened. Nova blew out a breath, took a clean cloth, and dipped it in the bowl of tepid water. Gingerly, she mopped the sweat from his face and the sides of his neck. Callan stirred, his forehead crinkling. Nova leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his hairline.

He is a handsome fool.

With Callan’s injuries tended, she set to work tidying up, dropping the soiled rags in the bowl beside the bed and corking the jar of honey.

“Were those my father’s ravens today?”

“They were.”

“Any of them trackers?” Nova asked, joining Bryn at the foot of the bed.

“No shifters. Just ordinary birds. They came with the sun at their backs. By the time I saw them, it was too late—they’d already swarmed us.” Bryn made no apologies, but her tone left little doubt she felt responsible for what had happened.

Nova laid a hand on Bryn’s shoulder in silent absolution.

“But if none were trackers, how did they find us? Even if my father had learned we were in Tundara, how could he have known our precise location?”

Bryn shrugged. “I wish I knew.”