Orion shifts back, and I’m used to the sound now, the slight click of bones and whoosh that follows. “Why is your heart beating so fast?”
“No reason,” I mutter. I’m not explaining my feelings to my enemy for him to make fun of. I don’t enjoy pain like he does.
Orion eyes me suspiciously before slamming his head back on the wall of the hut he made himself. “My wolf wishes for you to go to sleep.”
“Well, tell him no. I can’t sleep.”
“Does Sleeping Beauty need a bedtime story?” His voice is cold and filled with frustration. What a shame it isn’t my job to make him feel better. I’m sure he has someone hired to make him feel better in his royal castle. It’s almost ironic he calls me a nickname for a fairytale princess when my life isn’t anything like one and his life is exactly like one instead. Maybe I should callhimprincess.
I roll my eyes at his annoying face. I don’t even have the strength to argue with the lunatic who is shirtless. So shirtless and toned. Unfair. “You go to sleep. You’re annoying me now.” I close my eyes and try to pretend he isn’t glaring at me.
Time ticks on, the days merging into one long blurriness, and I find myself waiting for the night to come, just so I can see the stars. Starvation is burning a hole in my stomach, and I don’t know how many days it has been since I’ve eaten. I can’t sleep either, because this hunger reminds me of Eli and being trapped. The stars remind me I’m not in that room, in that house and locked in. I am free, and Eli is not here. I will not burn again. I keep stroking Blackfire until his breathing evens out and he is fast asleep against me. I wish I could let myself sleep too, but I can’t until my body forces me to.
I’m just closing my eyes when a roar echoes in the night and the roof of the hut is pulled off, taking part of the walls with it, roots ripped and torn, before being thrown across the night sky into the sea. The remains of the hut splash into the sea as I stare up at a creature of legend. A golem made completely of stone is looming over us, and it’s really, really not a pretty thing. The golem’s head is twice as big as its body, and its hands only have three stumps for fingers and a tiny thumb.
I know its name because I’ve seen it in a book before, a drawing of something similar, but this thing is far worse. Blue goo drips from many holes on its body, seaweed hangs over its shoulders, and its eyes are white hollows of glass. The golem reaches down, and Blackfire opens his eyes at the last second, throwing his entire body across mine to protect me. The golem grabs him instead of me, pulling him up as I scream his name.
Reed and Orion are on their feet in seconds, but it’s too late. The golem kicks his foot straight into the ground at our feet, and the force sends us all flying in different directions. A cry escapes my mouth as I slam into the sand and roll to a stop.
Something tells me to look, and I see Blackfire and Orion have shifted back. The two of them use fire and earth to hold the golem down and rip parts of stone off him, but their magic seems wrong. They are struggling to even stand, both of them sweating and swaying. No! I have to help them, but I don’t know how to.
Reed’s wolf is running towards me, light blue glowing off his white fur, and he roars. It feels like a warning roar. I turn around, and another one of those golems is on me. It reaches down, grabbing my leg as I leap out of the way, and pulls me up in the air upside down. I scream and fight, but I can do nothing as it holds me close to its mouth and opens, revealing rows of sharp blue teeth, with human bones sticking out like he tried to floss and failed. Gross.
Being eaten by a troll has to be on the top of my worst ways to die list.
“Let. Her. Go!” Reed screams, and ice wraps around my stomach. I’m yanked straight out of its grips, a pain-laced cry leaving my lips as the golem’s nails cut into my calf. Reed throws me behind him and moves in front of me. Water smothers the golem and holds him still. I stand, limping to his side as Reed clicks his fingers and the water turns to ice around the golem. He puts his hands together and rips apart the golem as blood poursout of Reed’s nose, eyes and mouth. The ice shatters, stone with it, and the golem screams until there’s nothing but drops of it all across the sand.
“Are you o—” Reed smiles at me just before he collapses. I can’t hold his weight, and I go down in a heap with him on the sand. True fear fills my senses as I drag his head into my lap and wipe the blood away from his eyes, from under his nose and mouth. I push my head onto his chest and sigh in relief when I hear his heartbeat. I look up, seeing the other golem is gone. Blackfire and Orion are passed out in their wolf forms, but their chests are moving from what I can see.
Dammit, I care. I care about these psychotic assholes.
Tears fall down my eyes as I look at Reed and stroke his forehead, pushing his hair to the side. “Fuck you for doing that for me! You said I wasjust fun, and then you went risking your life to save me. Again. You’re confusing me, and this is exactly why I’ve never let a man close before. Now here you are, sneaking into my heart and body, and I don’t know why you’re doing this. This isn’t just fun anymore.” My voice cracks. “Not for me.”
I know he can’t hear my rant, but it feels good to get it off my chest. The night is silent once again, and the stars are twinkling as I hold Reed to me, willing him to wake up. I might be mad at him, but I need to see his eyes open. Talking of eyes, my own start to droop, and I’m sure I’m seeing things as a fog drifts in off the sea, slowly brushing across the sand around us. Everything’s fading, and I’m too weak to even sit up anymore. I fall back onto the sand, clutching my hand in Reed’s hair to make sure he stays with me until he wakes up. They’ve all clearly just used whatever last reserves of power they had to keep me alive. If another golem comes for us, we’re all dead. I can’t stop them.
Being human has never been something I wished to change until I had something to defend, and being human has become a weakness.
I look to the water, to the soft waves brushing closer and closer. It shimmers, glittering briefly like light spheres have been thrown into the dark waves. A statue pushes out of the sea, water splashing off its beautiful, short and curvy body. The statue is made of ice-blue stone, and it is clear like glass in places, the light reflecting through the body. The Maiden goddess. She has a small, very curvy body I’m jealous of, and her hair is pushed up into a messy bun with a glowing tiara settled in front. The tiara captures my attention because it is a cascade of spiked blue diamonds in a ring around her head, holding a star right above the middle that glows like Reed’s eyes. I’ve seen all three of them now, these statues, and I suspect they might even be the goddesses’ way of appearing to us.
Should I tell her now or later that she isn’t my second favourite anymore? Later. She might get jealous and kill me.
The Maiden statue glides through the water and pauses where the waves barely touch the sand. I can’t move, not as her voice slowly fills my mind, and it hurts. I wince, slamming my hands against my head to stop the voice and the headache that rips through my brain. “You are the one we have waited for. The human sent to us by fate, and soon, you will taste true power. Soon, you will belong to us, and we will be tied to you as it should be. The world must have a human as the balance, and you have been judged, Meredith Crone.”
The world is spinning. “What did you find when you judged me?”
“Perfection.”
I pass out before I can ask her more and find out if she meant someone else. I’m not perfect, and Inevercould be. They need to find someone else…and I just want to go home.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“You’re back. Tannith just fell asleep, but I’ll tell her later.” Elizabeth is awkwardly patting my arm, and I blink at the soft light of the deer-horn chandelier. Her hair is hanging down as she stares at me with a permanent frown. When she sees I’m awake, she hits my arm. “You scared me! I came down from my shower to find all four of you went, and I couldn’t sense you at all through our bond. Then, you appear ten days later on the couch and don’t wake up for three days! Ayan and I have tried everything to wake you all up, but nothing!”
In other words, she cares about me, and she is mad about it. I grin at her. “You’re not allowed to hit your selected. I don’t know if that’s a real thing, but I just made it up.” She hits my arm again, and I laugh, pulling her to me and hugging her tight. She goes still in my arms before she hugs me back and sighs before stepping away. I only ever hug Tannith, but Elizabeth ismy friend too now. I’m done pushing people away. I have to try, and it’s cool to have a murder-happy bestie. Unless she murders me…I didn’t think this through.“Thank you for looking after us.”
I slowly begin to tell her everything that happened in the Maiden test, well aware that Ayan is watching and listening from a few feet away. He tenses when I tell him about the golems and Reed passing out.
Ayan snaps his teeth together and looks at me like I made Reed do something bad. “You nearly killed my heir.” I hate the way he says the wordmy. It’s almost like he is claiming some part of Reed. “The blood… That happens when you hit the barrier of magic and push at it. Many wolves die doing that. Why would he do it for you?”
