He’s waiting for me around the corner, so I stop briefly on the path, mostly because I want him to hear what I have to say, but also because exhaustion is getting the better of me.
“Thank you for showing me your home.” I allow myself to smile, a challenge of sorts, as I continue. “And for promising that I can leave in one piece.”
He grins at me, but when I stumble on my next step, he reaches out to help me. “Your body is still healing. We stayed out too long. Let me help you?”
He’s asking more than telling me and I appreciate it because my pride would get in the way if he tried to strongarm me.
I accept the arm he slips around me, his strength unfailing as he helps me through the jungle and back to the cabin.
My head is fuzzier than ever by the time I’m tucked into his bed—so fuzzy that I hardly have the energy to take in the comfortable room, the chair in the corner, every surface cluttered with objects, many ancient-looking books among them. Most of all, how perfectly soft and snuggly his bed is or the fact that it smells like the ocean. Or maybe… like a tropical beach that fits with our jungle environment.
Ingrid settles down on a thick blanket that Roman folds and places on the bedside table, while my wolves drape themselves on the floor around me.
Roman settles into the chair with a quiet, “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
I don’t have the energy to ask him where he plans to sleep. But I fall asleep feeling more protected than I’ve ever felt in my life.
If only Malia, Taniya, and my mom were here, safe with me, this moment would be perfect.
* * *
“Crone has proven that she wants you eliminated as soon as possible,” Roman tells me as we stand in the wide clearing beside the animal shelter the next day.
Thankfully, after a full night’s sleep, another healing rune, some food and plenty of water, I’m feeling a hundred percent and ready to take on training.
“She can’t put you in a fight directly against the other royals until the final trial,” he continues. “But the information I gathered before the Purification Ceremony indicates that the next task could be a cage fight with an opponent conjured by Crone.”
I’m intrigued by how he gathered this information, but my greater focus is on what the cage fight might involve.
“I’m good with hand-to-hand,” I say, reminding him of my extensive training. “But will that be enough against whatever opponent Crone conjures?”
He runs his hand through his blond hair, leaving it roughly tousled, and I try to ignore the fact that he’s wearing just a plain white shirt, molded to his body, and a pair of gray sweats. It takes effort not to remember the way he stroked the healing rune across my bare shoulder this morning—the spot where the thorn had embedded itself—or the way his fingertips lingered a tantalizing beat longer than they needed to.
My demon wolves are all lying on the grass around the edges of the clearing and Ingrid has found a place to perch on Temple’s shoulder—which she seems to like as much as my own shoulder.
“Your opponent is likely to be based on an existing beast or supernatural. It could be an angel, or another demon, or a combination of beasts with various deadly traits. If she wants to mess with everyone’s minds, it could even be a conjuring of Jareth himself.”
“Damn,” I whisper, dreading the idea that the first time I see my father could be in a cage fight.
I shake off my dread. “Okay,” I say as I face Roman. “I clearly need additional fighting skills if I’m going up against an opponent conjured by Crone.”
To my surprise, he shakes his head. “Your fighting skills are exceptional. I have no issue with that part of your training, but your demon powers have been neglected to the point that you rarely use your demon sight to give yourself an advantage.”
I can’t deny what he’s saying. The first experience I had of my demon sight was in the Vegas hotel room when I let go of my inhibitions and control—a memory that heats my cheeks. Since then, I used my demon sight to detect the steppingstones across the Scourge. After that… disastrously… at the Purification. Then, when I was fighting for my life in the Forbidden Lands, I merged my wolf’s energy with my demon power in the heat of battle—something I’m not sure I can do again at will and in the cold light of day.
Having spent my life fighting to keep the dark half of myself under control, and fearing its destructive qualities, it goes against all my instincts to release it freely. When I say as much to Roman, he shakes his head again.
“The key is not to lose control of your power—it’s far too strong and dangerous for that. You must always be in control, but you need to practice merging your wolf and your demon power together so that both hover just below the surface, always ready to spring into action when needed. If you do that, your dual powers will give you an advantage over the other royals.”
For the next few hours, I give this task all of my focus.
Working to combine the biting icy darkness of my demon power with my earthy wolf’s energy takes every ounce of concentration. It’s like trying to combine oil and water, hot and cold.
If it weren’t for Roman’s constant coaching, pushing me to keep fighting the resistance between them, I wouldn’t understand that the key to mixing these powers is a third ingredient. Something that will help the two bond.
“It’s you, Nova,” Roman says when I finally find my groove. “The part of you that isn’t your wolf or your demon is the part that will allow your two sides to merge. It would have happened years ago if you hadn’t been so successful at keeping your demon side suppressed.”
As my energy swirls, I carefully release the darkness I’m holding back, and it swells within me, chilling and warming my senses in turns. With every inhale and exhale, I work to let go a little more, allowing myself to trust in my own ability to control this darkness.
