Reaching down with barely controlledrage, I took the two sickles in each of my hands and stalked toward the fight.Gavin’s bear form was pinned against the tree with Mukesh’s black magicswirling in arcs around him, trying to hold him there. Mukesh had his back tome as I quietly stalked forward raising the sickles and preparing to take hishead clean off. Just as I raised the blades and tried to come down on his neck,he spun around and caught them in midair. One of his fingers dropping to theground. Severed.
“Nice try, little wolf. Now I will killyou the same way I did your shaman.” His breath smelled like a mixture of acidand oil. I tried my hardest to hold onto the handles but he pushed his handsforward and I lost my grip as he tried to ram the blades into my own neck.
I felt something then. A tug on thematebond. Gavin was pulling something from me. I was so focused on not gettingstabbed in the gut that I didn’t realize what it was until Gavin tore free fromthe black magic holding him to the tree and lunged forward, mouth open, shiningwhite teeth bared.
Mukesh realized too late, his eyeswidening just as Gavin’s jaws clamped down on his head and yanked it right offof his body. Taking his spine with it. The sickles dropped to the ground as Istaggered backward. Black tar was spurting from the Skin Walker’s headless bodyand a great hissing noise rose up, like steam being released from a kettle. Hisbody suddenly shrank in on itself as if it was losing all of its water. Istared at the sack of skin on the ground in horror as a rotten smell akin tovomit permeated the space. Dark clouds rolled overhead and a thunderous crackrang out.
I hit the ground, covering my ears at thedeafening sound. But as soon as it had come, it was gone. The sack of skinbefore me suddenly began to melt, it congealed and turned to liquid until itresembled the black oil of his blood. The grass beneath it began to sink aswell as Earth Mother absorbed the evil that was Mukesh. Holy shit. He was dead.I stared at my blood-covered hands in shock. Was it my blood, Mukesh’s, Gavin’sor Nahuel’s? Too much blood had spilled today.
“Anya?” I hadn’t realized that Gavin hadshifted until I saw him naked before me. His chest was covered in the finewhite scars of the weird symbols that had once been there and he was covered indried blood. I burst into tears and jumped up, crashing into his open arms. Hesqueezed me tightly and I yelped, pulling away.
“My back,” I said weakly.
His face fell. “I’m so sorry. I didn’twant this to happen. Nahuel … and your back. I thought I could handle himmyself. Mama said I would be the one to kill him.”
I absentmindedly traced one of the carvedmarks on his chest, relieved to see it was in fact healing and wouldn’t bepermanent. “I nearly lost my mind when I woke up and my mom told me you turnedinto a bird and flew away.”
He exhaled and grabbed my fingers in his.“I promise to never go after an evil Skin Walker on my own again.”
That got a small but tired smile out ofme. I looked over at the remains of the black puddle that was Mukesh. The man whodid untold acts of evil was dead. Then I scanned my face to the right. Mythroat seized at the sight of Nahuel’s headless body and tears rolled down myface. “He knew. He knew he was going to die saving you and still he came.” Itried to speak clearly but the emotion made it difficult.
Gavin looked horrorstruck. “I never gotto tell him I was sorry for being a jerk. I had a lot of anger about beingabandoned as a kid and I didn’t know where to put it, so I put it on him.”
The wind picked up then, so hard that myhair whipped against my back. Gavin and I inhaled at the same time and a smilebroke out on my lips.Sage.The entire canyon smelled of Nahuel.
“Thank you,” Gavin croaked and the windswirled around him, bringing a few leaves with it. Then it was gone. As calm ascould be, as if it never happened. Nahuel was by far one of the greatest peopleI had ever known.
“We can’t leave him here like this. Let’swalk to the car and call my dad,” I told Gavin and he nodded.
We walked hand in hand in total silence andin utter and complete shock. I almost lost Gavin to the darkness and we hadlost Nahuel. That knowledge caused a cavern to open up inside of me. How was Igoing to tell my mom? When we got to the car, I used the key tucked under thewheel well to get inside and called my dad.
I kept it short and sweet. “The SkinWalker is dead, but Nahuel died too. Gavin is fine and so am I. Can you send ateam to bring his body home?”
He paused for a moment and I felt his alphapower brush up against me. I didn’t even think to use my mental link to callhim. I was too out of it. The shock had my brain not thinking clearly.
“Okay,” he said gruffly and I knew thatthe news of Nahuel’s death hit him hard. He told me once that he pretended tonever like the shaman but anyone who cared about my mom and me that much wasgood on his list.
“Tell mom. I can’t,” I said as the tearsflowed again.
“Okay, Anya. Come home. I’ll see to itthat his body is well cared for.”
I hung up and texted him the GPS locationof the car. His wolves would be able to smell the body from here. Then I juststared at the dashboard, noticing that Gavin had found a pair of jeans in theback seat. They were Nahuel’s. Smelled like him too.
“I was such a dick to him,” Gavin saidwith regret.
Reaching over, I grasped his hand as myeyes fell on the manila envelope. “He knew you loved him. He left you that.”
I reached forward and handed him theenvelope and he placed it on his lap looking flabbergasted. “Let’s read itafter we get home. I can’t–” He stopped and I knew it was just too much.Without another word, I started the car and pulled out onto the road headingfor the island. It wasn’t truly home but it would do for now. It’s where myfamily was and family was home.
*
When we got back to the island it wascrawling with new werewolves, reporters, people in wheelchairs and someofficial government agents. They were all packed near the visitor’s center.
‘We’re here. We’re safe,’I told my dad. I didn’t want him to bedealing with all of this mayhem and on top of that, worrying about me.
‘Good. Your mother is waiting for you inyour bunk house. I’ll come find you after this meeting with the humans.’
Damn. I hoped his meeting went well. Ineeded some good news.
