His arms fly around my waist, and he pulls me close, scooping my legs to either side of his hips. He drops his forehead to mine, his lips close to my mouth, and I inhale quickly at the sharpening of his teeth. Another glimpse of a wolf that disappears too fast for me to verify it.
There’s a growl in his voice, stronger than the hints of a beast that he’s revealed before. “I couldn’t find you until I thought like a wolf,” he says, running his hands through my hacked hair and down my back.
“You sent your wolf to find me?”
“A mere conjuring,” he says. “But I used its senses. Its eyes. Its ability to follow a scent. I found your sisters first. Then, finally, you.”
I fold my hands behind his neck, keeping my forehead pressed to his. Conjuring his wolf would have been painful—only emphasizing the loss of his ability to shift.
My heart is heavy as he rubs my back. I close my eyes and soak up the tendrils of power that he sends through me. We’re running for our lives and have no time to explore this connection between us, but even so, I take this moment because my heart is sore, and I need to heal.
“Whatever nightmares the Scourge tried to use against you, it wasn’t real,” Roman murmurs to me, his lips warm as they brush mine.
My arms tremble. The sound of my mother’s voice echoes through my mind, even though I know it wasn’t her at all. Only a manifestation of my own fears and pain. My own guilt.
The truth is, I did leave my mother behind. Not willingly, but she would have woken up without us, and I can only imagine how it could feel like betrayal and abandonment when she’s already been abandoned by the other being she loved.
My father.
“We need to keep moving,” I say, my voice as broken as my insides feel. “I have to end this once and for all and get back to my mom.”
Roman’s strength surrounds me as he rises to his feet and sets me back on the ground, and I draw on what I need to keep moving forward. To step to my sisters and press my hands to their cheeks, giving them my strength and love.
“Momma M knows that we love her,” Taniya says, confirming my suspicion that my sisters were also tormented by our decision to leave Mom in the care of the eagle shifters. “Dastian and Athella will keep her safe. They’ll make sure she knows we didn’t leave her by choice.”
Taniya’s belief in the eagle shifter alpha, Dastian, and the eagles’ spiritual guide, Athella, is well-founded. They proved themselves to be strong allies, and Dastian was there when we were forced to assemble the weapon and leave our mother behind. He will have told Mom everything. And Mom… She believes in us. She will know that we’re doing everything we can to come back to her.
I turn to face the darkness ahead with new determination. I might not know a lot about the dangers within the Scourge, but in my short time traveling through it, I’m sure of one thing: It can’t destroy love.
CHAPTERELEVEN
The splashing of Roman’s rune light brightens the path, banishing the shadows from around us as we continue through caverns and then narrower paths, each one appearing to be hewn from the rocky foundations of Mortem itself.
My sisters shift back into their wolves, but I remain in my two-legged state. I hope my demon sight will help me see threats more quickly this time and keep me from losing my mind to any new nightmarish illusions. My sisters don’t have that advantage and I feel the weight of responsibility even more keenly. I couldn’t protect them before, and I’m determined that won’t happen again.
Koda remains confident in his choice of direction, but he moves at a slower pace, his shoulders hunched as he leads us deeper into the Scourge. I have no doubt he was as affected by the shadows as we were. I edge forward, finally catching up to him, although I walk in silence at first.
I’m still figuring out our brother-sister relationship and I don’t want to force his confidence before he’s ready. I also don’t want to distract him too much from his task since the path has become more winding.
Roman keeps pace behind me as we traverse the rocky ground. I sense his focus on me, and the farther we walk in silence, the more the night’s events hit me.
I nearly lost my life tonight in the fight with Arga and then the battles with Esta.
Roman nearly lost me tonight.
I promise myself that when we reach the angels’ realm, we’ll have time to process everything that has happened. That is, once we survive the Scourge and convince the angels we mean them no harm.
As we continue to walk, my sisters remain behind me in their wolf forms, and my demon wolves span out around us. For now, the rune light seems to be keeping any creatures away.
Finally, Koda speaks. “I heard our father’s voice in the shadows before,” he says, drawing me from my thoughts. His gaze flashes briefly to mine before settling back onto the path. “He told me I betrayed him.”
I take a beat before asking, “Did you?”
“Yes,” he says, his lips pressed into a rueful line. “By not doing what he asked when he gave me the power stone from his ring.”
My forehead creases. “Jarethgaveyou the stone?”
Koda pauses before he continues on. “You thought I stole it.” He gives a small shake of his head. “Nobody could steal that ring from our father. I doubt even Esta could have.”
