My sire squeezed my shoulder and went inside to check on Dad. I rocked in silence next to my carrier, imagining how scary it must’ve been for him to get the news from a note. The back door opened and shut and I met my carrier’s eyes.
“They have to go, love. They have their pride and their instincts. It’s not much different from the fact I’m staying here because you’ll always be my little cub,” he said and it took a full ten seconds for his words to settle themselves into my brain.
“NO!” I groaned.
“They’re not alone. Your grandpa is going too,” my carrier flashed me a sad smile. “This is the way of things.”
“Which grandpa?” I asked, imagining Xenos blasting through Pami’s smug face.
“The grandpa who is not me,” Xenos’s voice reached my ears before my carrier had the chance to answer. “I’m here to discuss what might need to happen after they save your mate.” He took his place in the last rocking chair and none of us said anything for a moment. “We don’t know the toll the magic might’ve taken on Vallis’s body. We don’t know what the magic prevented or didn’t prevent. He might need to spend some time in the hospital. Your grandsire has called ahead to ensure that there is a place at the Heartville Hospital with Bane Hemlock for him. It’ll be a quieter place for him to recover. He’s going to make that decision on the spot once he sees him. If Vallis needs to go to Heartville, they’ll take him there. That’s how your grandsire justified going on this trip and I fully support his choices and the thought process behind them. If that is what comes to be, we’ll get you there once we know they weren’t followed.”
Neither Vallis nor I had thought that far ahead and as hard as I tried I couldn’t imagine my poor mate suffering and… I took a deep breath, trying not to cry.
“The mind has a way of protecting itself,” my grandcarrier patted my hand. “Come on. Your dad cooked. It would be a shame to let a good meal go to waste. There will be plenty of time to sit in shock later. Hold onto that postcard. Dern doesn’t send them out willynilly. May I see it? If it’s not too private?”
I passed off the postcard with the note one side and the photo of a full Moonscale breakfast spread on the other side to him. He chuckled after he read the note.
“Do you know what he’s talking about?” I asked.
“Yes and it sounds like you will too when the time is right. I feared things might go that way,” my grandsire sighed and shookhis head. “Every great warrior will fall by the same weapon they raise eventually. Doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Vallis
Fallen Star Territory
As soon as I stepped foot back onto the world of my birth I was sucked back into my body as if someone reversed a leaf blower. A wave of twisting nausea crashed over me and I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate not to think of the confined place I was once again locked inside of. Only the dirt wasn’t there. Not even the scent of the scraps that had fallen into the coffin with me. Something liquidy sloshed nearby and my heart thudded against my ribs. Sweat covered my face and neck and I had to force myself not to gulp air like there was no tomorrow. Hyperventilating wouldn’t help anyone.
“Stop it you stupid bear!” Pami’s high-pitched keen broke through the sloshing. “I banished you once! Don’t make me do it again!”
“GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!” The bear roared. “I’LL TOSS YOU INTO THE WATER WITH YOUR LITTLE CANDLES. WAIT? YOU DON’T HAVE ANY OUT HERE, DO YOU? WHAT? ARE YOU CARRYING THEM UP YOUR BUTT?”
At least I knew Finn the bear didn’t abandon me on purpose. If she banished him once, she might do it again. I needed to think fast but the sun was beating down on me, burning myskin and penetrating my eyelids as if they were damn near translucent.
“You foul-mouth, sour-breathed, creatin!” Pami swore.
“You swallow-faced daughter of a dung beetle!” Finn came back at her.
I blinked. One, twice, three times. I had to see something. Whether it hurt or not I had to figure out where the hell we were because all I smelled was Pami and the water. We were on the water, and they were having a schoolyard argument. I couldn’t tell Mori that my location had changed. I was fucked. I was tied to a boat and fucked. I squinted against the bright sunlight and had to close my eyes before I even got a good look at my decimated body. If Pami dumped me into the water, I was a dead bear. I’d never manage to swim back up to the surface.
“Maybe the dead bear will figure out how to tell them?”my bear chimed into my thoughts.
Every reflex inside me told me to struggle against the ropes but the moment I struggled my captor would know that I was awake.
“Why are you arguing with a ghost?” Another voice cut into the mix. This one was further away. That was it! We had to be on Moonbottom Lake. She was taking us out to the little island in the center of the lake where the other woman waited. But why?
“Oh, shut up you ancient prune!” Pami smartassed back to her. “Shut up or I’ll drown your sacrifice!”
“My sacrifice?” the woman laughed, a loud full belly sound. She was a bear. At least I’d put my money on her being a bear with a laugh like that.
“Sharon Claudis,”my bear chimed into my thoughts.
Something hit me hard. Not aloud or physically. No. Inside my head. Other people were on their way. I knew it because my mate knew it. The knowledge made me flinch.
“I see someone has joined the party!” Pami laughed.
She sounded even more deranged than before. I squinted at her again. She was a whisp of her former self as if all her magic had knackered out. Once upon a time, I might’ve tried to reason with her but their comes a time in every tyrant’s life that they are beyond reason.
