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There’s a lake behind me.
I crawl to the window exit.
“Marybell, I’m coming for you, lady,” the blood mage taunts from somewhere behind me. The kitchen bar collapsed onto the floorboards, blocking the mage’s way into the house, but he’s digging his way back inside.
I make it to the window and pull. It’s not opening. I pull harder, glancing back at the pile of wood on the kitchen floor, watching it shift around as the mage makes his way into the cabin. When he digs his way inside, he’ll end me.
With all my might, I pull the window, but nothing happens. Is it latched?
I don’t see a latch. Oh wait. There is one, but it’s so high up, I can’t reach. Damn lycans and their height. I look around for something to climb on and spot the trunk, the one I can’t move. But I can move the table.
Hurrying, I get behind the table and shove it to the window, climb onto it, and open the latch. The moment I do, I force the window open, not expecting the wind to catch it and sweep it open further. The wind also sweeps me, and I trip and fall onto the deck.
My nose is bleeding, my eyes are blurry as I crawl over the deck. The mage’s voice is following me. He’s in the house, calling my name.
I crawl to the edge and, without looking back, dive into the cold lake.
My lungs almost cease but I must keep moving.
I’m not the best swimmer.
But I’m a pretty good snorkeler. In the Summer Fae Court, on the spans when the clear blue seas called to me, I would don the snorkeling equipment they made available at the stands on the beaches and explore the shallow waters, seeking pretty seashells. Mermaids would join me and sometimes let me hitch rides on their backs as we looked for shells together.
I think about warm summer waters as I paddle my feet as if I had fins and emerge on the surface only long enough to take in a jagged breath, then dive under once more. I do this as often as I must until I reach the other end of the lake. The rising mist is too thick and the mage can’t see me anymore. He’s not a lycan. Lycans have keener eyes. If I can’t see the cabin, he can’t see me out here either. Good. I escaped.
I dig my fingernails into the dirt of the shore and try to pull myself up. But I’m almost frozen and weak, my muscles failing. I hold on to the grass, the wet clay of the lake, scraping my fingernails against it, trying to hold on and crying because I’m failing. My fingers are cramped, my fragile body, exhausted from not resting while in heat and then from swimming the length of the lake, gave up.
I’m sinking.
My last thought is of Seith and how I’ll meet him in lycan heaven. I bet they have fun there. I bet there’s ale and lots of dancing.
A strong hand grabs my wrist and yanks me out of the lake.
I try to resist the male, but have no fight left in me. Darkness falls.
28
SEITH
If there is anything left of Dan once I get done with him, I’ll honor him with a funeral the way we’ll honor the other males who fought with him. I’ll allow them a proper lycan burial, because my younger brother said that when the two blood mages joined the fight, Dan’s males hesitated. Some ran. My former friend Tim took off from the fight entirely. Most lycans are proud males and not cowards. We fight with honor. Inviting others into our fight is dishonorable.
While we are creatures born with magic much like the savages are, unlike them, we don’t perform any magic. Because we found out that the Kilseleian king and his mages manipulated the savage horde’s animal form to be their personal dogs, most lycans dislike blood mages.
Dan has another brother, a younger one, who runs with my younger brother and who fought on my side and killed the mage who spelled the arrow that pierced my body. The other one, I killed inside my cabin.
Inside my fucking cabin, where my mate was supposed to be safe.
Philippa’s two girls hid, and they’re fine. They came out shortly after the fight, and the poor things are clinging to my hands for dear life as the three of us stand inside my house, waiting for their mother.
She’s healing whichever lycan lets her work on him. Normally, I’d heal myself, but I must heal more quickly than normal, because my mate is missing.
The window is wide open, letting in the brutal wind. Blood smears the deck and trails all the way to the end, telling me that Marybell likely dove into the frigid water or was pushed in. I’ll search the bottom of the lake.
Pain zaps my lungs. Near collapsing already, I hitch a breath, struggling for air.
Philippa rushes into my cabin, and the girls rejoice and let go of my hands in favor of their mother’s. Spence follows. I hear him taking the girls away, which leaves me alone with Philippa.
“Have a seat,” she says.
