I sigh out the remaining pain I feel, soaking up her healing power, my own head bowing until our foreheads touch.
My heart fills with gratitude for her care of me. I don’t know what I would do without her in my life.
I’m conscious of the passage of power through me to Koda where he grips my hand. I’m sure Malia is conscious of it, too, but she doesn’t seem to try to stop the flow to him. I also sense the stream of her energy to Ace and, through him, to the ruby-eyed wolf.
Malia is healing all of us, all at once.
Opening my eyes as the worst of my pain subsides, I seek Roman and Taniya, who stand around us in battle formation with Temple, Luca, and Blitz, protecting us while we’re still vulnerable.
My heart swells even more at the strength of my pack. Their protection means I can take this moment to accept the help being offered to me. And all of the love that comes with it.
As I sense my strength returning, my broken bones knitting and Malia’s energy replenishing mine, I find myself looking up at Roman, who calmly surveys my pack. Last night, he brought me back to my sisters so I could pile in with them to sleep. He backed away quietly as if he knew I needed my pack bond, but also as if he didn’t feel he could be part of it. Yet.
Now… He’s working with Taniya and my wolves like he’s fought beside them a thousand times before.
With a soft exhalation, Malia leans back and slowly lifts her hands from us. She asks me first, “How do you feel?”
“Much better.” I wrap my free arm around her, discovering my reflexes and strength are nearly back to normal. “You’ve given us what we need to survive.”
Ace jumps to his feet, extending his neck to nudge the ruby-eyed wolf’s face with his nose as her eyes slowly open.
As soon as she sees him, she jolts upright.
I watch her carefully while she backs away. She angles for the gap between us and Roman. Her head is low, her shoulders hunched and tense, and her crimson eyes are wide and wary.
She bares her teeth at us. I’ve spent my whole life with my wolves and I recognize the move, not as an aggressive action, but an anxious one. She’s afraid and it doesn’t surprise me. The way Arga treated her during the fight was heartbreaking and I can only imagine how badly she might have been treated in the royal kennels.
“Her name is Ruby,” Koda murmurs as he slowly rises to his feet beside me. “In case that helps.”
As he speaks, he releases my hand, and I feel a lull in my power.
The nightmares, for all their scary glory, seem to like the bliss power.
At the sound of her name, Ruby swings to Koda but quickly back to me, and then to Taniya and Malia.
Her growls fade and she makes a questioning sound. Before today, I doubt she had any contact with wolf shifters, and it must be strange to sense our animals within our human-shaped bodies now that she’s not caught up in battle and can process what her instincts are telling her.
“It’s okay, Ruby,” I whisper to her. “We won’t hurt you.”
If I had more time, I would seek to form some kind of tentative bond with her—take my time to connect using the ancient demon words in the same way that Roman connected with my wolves—but Esta and Crone are bound to be looking for us.
We’re lucky they haven’t found us already.
To my surprise but also relief, Ace leans in to Ruby, nudging her neck, urging her to settle beside him. Ace has always been my most aggressive wolf, the one with whom I’ve had to work the hardest to maintain our bond. He is protective, but in the most violent way possible.
The nudge he gives Ruby is the gentlest I’ve seen. Far gentler even than he’s shown his brothers and sister.
At the same time, the other wolves give a low whine, and Ruby settles even further, her hackles lowering and her head rising, her bunched muscles relaxing.
Satisfied that Ruby won’t attack us while Ace is watching over her, I focus on the problem at hand.
“What happened? Did we break the weapon instead of the gates?”
The weapon lies on the ground, its pieces still fully connected but no longer glowing. Last time, Roman spirited it away before I had the chance to see how it operated after being used, so I’m not sure if this is normal.
Once again, he scoops up the weapon, but he doesn’t whisk it away this time. “I had a chance to study this weapon in the Wilds,” he says. “I assumed it only worked to travel between Earth and Mortem, but these runes on the clasp are set in pairs. Each pair has a rune that depicts one of the three worlds, along with a rune that I believe is a particular location on that world.”
He turns the weapon so I can see each rune when I lean in to study it.
