Sweat slid down her torso and past her breasts.
Her skin itched and contracted, hurting like an open wound.
Lava bubbled off the side of the trail. A shield of some sort, an alteration of physical laws, kept her from burning up completely. Curiosity filled her as she forced herself to keep descending into the earth.
Finally, she reached a small cavern with no exit. Going on instinct, she reached the far wall and placed her hand upon it. A current coursed through her. She closed her eyes. Logan was on the other side of that wall.
She settled herself and tried to take a normal breath.
Waiting.
Chapter 38
This was definitely the craziest thing he’d ever done. Logan stood in the center of a cavern that seemed too hot to survive, with the remaining members of the Seven standing at the four points of the compass, their shirts off and sweat coating their chests. Torches illuminated the walls around them.
An unnatural power, something ancient and undefinable, roared through the chamber. Time and space spun away, shifting and shimmering in the air. The laws of physics no longer existed, and neither did he. For a moment.
His body heated and then chilled, shocking him.
Garrett stepped closer to the middle, and Logan lowered his chin, trusting his best friend.
“We share blood,” Garrett said, his voice low and hoarse. “These are the words spoken for each ritual. When the bonding starts, it hurts like hell, man.”
Those weren’t the words. Logan forced a grin, but his jaw cracked.
Garrett continued. “Send your mind elsewhere. You’ll see things you’ve never imagined. Creatures that want to eat you. The stream of time. The unknown.” He shuddered and wavered. “Look for Ivar, and look for Quade.”
Logan nodded, his vocal chords burned away. The small circle around him began to lighten and glow a fierce red. Was it actual fire? Lava? His boots bubbled and burned away, leaving his feet in agony.
A haze surrounded him, decreasing his vision. Hewaspain.
Smells and sounds attacked him. Unfamiliar and terrifying. Where was he? He couldn’t see. His skin folded, and the cells inside his body popped like balloons attacked with an ice pick. He panicked and leaped for his best friend, but his feet remained in place. His muscles didn’t move.
There was no way to freedom.
At the thought, Mercy’s face flashed through his mind. He calmed, gathered his control. He was a Kyllwood, and he’d survive this.
A blade flashed. Squinting, he tried to see it. Garrett held a sharp silver knife, lifted it, and swiped the blade across his left palm. Blood, sweet and pure, scented the air.
Pain cut hard and deep through Logan’s palm, and he looked down to see an identical cut. Garrett stepped even closer, and his boots burned off, but he held up his hand with the palm dripping blood to the earth. An offering of sorts. Logan’s arm moved on its own, palm up, and he caught Garrett’s blood on it.
Garrett’s eyes closed and he said something, but the void ripped the words away.
The earth rumbled and roared, quaking. Garrett moved away, and Ronan took his place, slicing his hand and creating an identical cut, somehow, on Logan. They repeated the ritual, and then Benny and Adare took their turns. Finally, blood from all four mingled with Logan’s on his palm.
He tipped his head and drank without thought. Raw nails cut down his throat, the feeling true agony. How could this be good?
The blood on his hand bubbled, turning black, digging into the cuts. He gasped and dropped to his knees. Blades pierced his ribs from inside, heating them until they glowed beneath his skin. Unimaginable pain, too deep to be called pain, overtook him.
He opened his mouth to scream, but there was no sound. Then he flew away, ripped out of this reality with the force of the wind.
His body continued to burn, but he left it, only feeling echoes of the pain. A force shot him from one place to the next too fast for him to catch his breath. Hot places, cold, painful, pleasurable. Different gravities and different atmospheres. At first he was too stunned to react, and then thought returned.
The Viking. He had to find the Viking.
Could he stop this wild ride? Remembering Mercy’s words, he drew on the forces inside himself. “Stop!” he bellowed.
Instantly, he dropped out of cool air into a blast of heat, smashing into a series of rocks that pierced his legs. Gasping in pain, he sat up, covered in blood. But his actual body was back in that chamber. Sure as shit didn’t feel like it. This hurt.
