Page 16

“Just a lot colder.” She nods. “Darkness is the same everywhere you go, but some you can escape, while others never end.” Her words are littered with memories and horrors, ones I have no desire to delve into. She survived ten years in Gehenna, which is impressive. I cannot imagine what she endured. I do not wish to like her, but I do respect her ability to survive.

“I’m surprised you didn’t run.” It’s a question.

“I promised myself I would never run again, and I never will. Stop being nice to me. We all know you want to kill me.” Her eyes cut to mine, harder now, and I cannot help but smirk cruelly.

“That I do, but tonight, I feel sorry for you.”

“Do not.” The hiss is pure malice.

I chuckle. “Think of it as a truce only for tonight.” I shrug. “Tomorrow, I will go back to being a bastard to you, and we will go back to trying to kill each other and be rid of this pesky bond yanking us closer together.”

She scoffs and looks away, remaining quiet for a long time.

“Will he be okay?” I can tell the question is pulled from deep inside her. Like us, she doesn’t want to care, but the bond is forcing her to.

“Bram?” When she nods, I purse my lips. “We all have nightmares. You invaded his privacy, with or without meaning to, and he woke thinking he was still back there. He will be fine. It is not the first time we have almost lost one of us to the past.”

We both lapse into silence again. We aren’t friends, lovers, family, or even mates despite the bond. We are enemies, and neither of us wants to be anything else, just thrown together by a twisted fate we cannot seem to avoid.

She shivers, tugging her feet deeper under her, and it’s then I notice their colour. She didn’t have time to put layers or shoes on, unlike me. I was already on watch when it happened, hence the reason I came after her, even though I hate her most—well, after Emrys and maybe Kitt, though his emotions are a lot more twisted up. My fox’s calmness washes through me, blocking most of that.

“Your feet must be cold,” I say, more curious than concerned. Could she die from the temperature? Would it freeze her rebirth enough for us to break the bond? Maybe.

Do not, it could kill us too, remember? Keep her alive. Kitt’s voice sparks annoyance in my head.

“I’m used to it,” she responds, glancing down at the reddening appendages. “My mother once submerged my lower half in a frozen lake for three hours as punishment. I couldn’t feel my feet for days and was bedbound.”

“Your mother sounds like a delight,” I deadpan, and she smiles as I sigh, feeling Kitt’s nudge. Against my own wants, I shift and wrap my furred body around her feet and legs, warming them as best as I can. She jerks in surprise, but I simply lift my head and stare at her in fox form. I’m bigger than most, around half the size of her body, my fur a mix of blue and grey. My eyes glow, and sparks of lightning look like static flowing from my back as I curl around her with my tail tucked into my mouth to keep her core warm.

Blinking down at me in surprise, she lifts her hand to pet me, but I flash my sharp fangs, stopping the movement.

“Sorry, pretty boy, forgot for a moment who it was.” She drops her hand and looks out at the darkness as my fox settles down, annoyed at having to be this close to someone, but orders are orders. “I never thought I’d miss the freezing cold, but down there, I did every now and again. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, maybe because you can’t respond.”

Huffing, I bite her side until she glares at me, but when I settle down, she carries on anyway, as if I care what she has to say, though I hear the others listening. They are probably wondering how they can use it against her, at least for Kitt. He’s always working on a plan to keep us safe. It’s what he did before and why we follow him now.

“It will be like where we are going, only worse. It’s not the elements that will kill you, though. That will be my mother. She didn’t become the leader of the darkest witches of our time by being nice. You said earlier I was like her, and you’re right. I can be cruel, but I wasn’t always. She made me this way. When you grow up around enough death and games, you start to think it’s normal. I bet you can understand that.” She spares me a look, one that tells me she knows too much.

One thing we’ve learned is that her and her mother are not friends, and whoever wants her dead will be on our side, which will make everything easier. Pushing down the twinge from the mate bond, I focus on that and holding on until it breaks so I can go back to the way I was.

We sit here for a while, lost in our own musings, until her hands wrap around my body, tugging me off her. My fox hisses as she grabs him none too gently and throws him at the rock. I hit it hard, and I’m just about to show her my powers when I see the dark shape descending upon where we were, its claws raking the earth where I just lay.

She saved my life.

Cocking my head, I look at the beast in shock, recognising it right away. It’s one of the collector’s most feared pets, and this beast only does as the collector commands.

Ferol grabs the beast’s jaw as it opens wide to swallow her, since she is in the way, and with a mighty yell, she throws it back into the air. Its malformed wings struggle to catch the air, which gives her time to get to her feet and grasp a sharp rock.

The creature is a mix of all the best ones—vampire, dragons, shifters—and the collector moulded it into one, making it insane. Its body is the size of a dragon’s, but it’s in the image of a bat and a human. It’s disgusting and fearsome and also very deadly.

I’ve wanted to kill one of these shadows for years. Glee fills me for a moment, even as I sense the others. I have this, I assure them.

Racing towards the beast, I push off the ice and soar through the air. Once I’m on its back, I sink my teeth in as my powers flow through me. Lightning arcs from my body, causing it to roar. Its wings falter as it collapses on the edge of the verge, digging its claws in to stop it from plummeting to the valley below. Releasing my bite, I slide down its buckling neck to the snow and flash my fangs at it.

I swell with power, tripling in size until I am bigger than the beast. The ice forms deadly spikes as I yank the shadow down onto them. It cries out, struggling on them as I prepare for the final attack, but Ferol steps in.

The rock hits the shadow, and it turns its head to see her as she flies through the air. Fire races across her body as she hits it. She holds one of my sharp icicles in her hand, sinking it into its head and twisting until it stills. Ferol slips off it and looks to me, the shadow dead behind her as my ears flatten back in annoyance.

Changing, I sway before her, licking my lips where I taste the beast’s blood. “You saved me.”