Chapter 50

TOR

I t took Death and I fighting back to back, sending out a tidal wave of death magic at the exact same moment to take out every one of the creatures. Panting, I leaned on my left leg, my right slashed across the back of my thigh and blazing with insistent pain, another pulse thumping through my head where I knocked it, taken down by a hulking lion of a creature.

"Bind them in ropes," Death rasped, his back brushing mine with every rapid breath. "We'll transport them to cells under the castle, then find Cat and Miz."

I groaned in relief at the thought of us being together again. I needed to lay eyes on Cat, needed to wrangle Miz into a hug and never let go. Worry jabbed my chest from the inside out, but I slashed my hands through the air, summoning ropes of unbreakable darkness to bind the creatures. Experience said they wouldn't be out for long, and when they came around, we needed to make sure they were enclosed in stone and steel. The dungeons were the best place for them until we figured out what the hell they were, how Nightmare had created them, and just how she planned to use them.

"On three," Death panted when they were all bound, his back still pressed to mine. "One. Two. Three."

I grunted at the exertion of transporting so many creatures at once, my bleeding body taking a toll on my power. I'd shredded whole armies with this power; injuries dealt by these things were slow to heal. I should have been healed by now. No, I shouldn't have bled in the first place.

I'd worry about that later. Now, I kept pace with Death, throwing beast after twisted beast into the cells beneath our castle, sweat dripping off the tip of my nose, my skin hot to the touch.

"That's the last of them," he said with a raspy sigh when our magic worked in tandem to imprison the last creature, avoiding the sharp edges of their horns.

"Thank fuck," I groaned, leaning against the brick wall between cells for a moment, trying to catch my breath. "My leg's fucking killing. How's your back?"

"Not much better," he admitted, resting his forehead against mine for a second. "Pain's probably got a tonic or salve for it. We'll go see him when we have Miz and Cat back."

I sucked in a slow breath, straightening from a slouch, and brushed a brief kiss over his mouth before pulling away. "I want Cat and Miz back now. I don't like them being away from us." I rubbed my head. "I could track Cat if I had my phone, but I gave it to Miz. How the fuck are we going to find them?"

Death shrugged casually. "There's a way."

I narrowed my eyes when he withdrew his own mobile from a pocket of thinning darkness, his weakness evident. "Hey, that's the same app I've got. Whose phone did you put a tracker on?"

A tired laugh puffed from him. "Yours."

I drew back in surprise, not sure whether to be pissed or touched. I settled on both and gave his shoulder a light punch. "Fine, track my phone you psychopath."

When the little arrow blinked to life, I accepted his offered hand and magic billowed around us, carrying us back to the dark trees of Ford's End. He deposited us not far from where we'd fought the monsters. The scent of pine and blood filled my nose, not a hint of Cat's peaches and cream or Miz's clean, floral scent.

"This way," Death said confidently, batting blood soaked braids out of his face. "Your phone's about twelve minutes away."

"About twelve, like that's not incredibly specific," I quipped, sharper than I meant thanks to the panic closing a swift net around me. "We can make that in five if we run."

So we ran.

I engulfed us in pools of darkness every few steps, quickening our pace, the marker on Death's phone fixed in both our sights.

Almost there, almost—

Wood snapped somewhere ahead, close enough to the app's pin that rage poured into me and I reached for fistfuls of power, ready to kill whatever got in my way.

"Cat!" Misery yelled, his voice echoing through the trees, making my heart falter. He was well enough to shout, and he didn't sound in immense pain. He was fine. But what about our girl?

Death and I raced across the last bit of distance, breaking out of the treeline around a small, tin-roofed cottage. Light spilled from a single window and a door that had flown off its hinges. One of Nightmare's creatures had blast through the door, sleek with dark fur over powerful muscle and a rabbit's face. I assessed the creature, planning where I'd strike.

"Don't let her escape!" Miz shouted when he spotted us, his voice raw and gold eyes haunted. Blood streaked his chest, dripping from a puncture on his collarbone. "That's our fucking wife."

That's— "What?" I demanded, abandoning all my previous plans. I looked into the creature's velvety face, her eyes big and shining. "Beautiful, is that you?"

"There's an antidote," said a raw, raspy voice, and I flicked a split-second glance at the cottage as a gaunt man stumbled into the woods. Virgil, Cat's missing brother. He looked like shit. "You need to inject her with this."

"We're not injecting her with anything," Death rumbled, the ground shaking with his rage.

"You don't understand," Virgil blurted, staggering forward a step. "This will make her shift back, but she needs the antidote once a week for the rest of her life. Like I do. This is who she is now."

"Death," Miz breathed, his voice small and devastated. "It's really her."

"Come here," Death replied, holding out a hand.

I kept my eyes on our girl as she edged towards the trees, keeping all of us in her line of sight. Like we were threats. Like we'd attack her. "Where do you think you're going, pussy cat? Get over here, and let's see if this beautiful new jaguar of yours can purr."

Miz shot me a disbelieving look as he reached Death's side, near enough to see that he shook from head to toe. I shrugged in reply to the glance. If that really was Cat, my girl was under all that fur. I didn't care if she had warts and a hooked nose; she was mine, and I loved her.

"She's going to run," Virgil warned softly. "She needs the antidote before she can get away, or she'll be stuck this way."

"I'm not injecting her with an unknown substance," Death argued, unmoving on the subject.

I held Virgil's eyes, letting all my darkness out to play, and sent a tendril of magic to wrap around his ankle. "Tell the truth, or I'll kill you here and now, no second chances."

"I'm serious," he hissed, breathing faster when he noticed the magic wrapping around his calf. "I'd be stuck in beast form right now without the antidote. I managed to shove my shoulder into the needle and press the plunger with my claws. I'm… conscious while I'm in the other form, but Cat's so new, she's all instinct right now. She needs this." He held out the syringe, moonlight making the yellow liquid inside glow. "She's my sister, I'm not about to fuck with her health, her life. But she'll—if she stays in this form, she'll kill someone. We all do eventually."

Cat had barely recovered from killing Darya. I couldn't let her take another life.

"We only have your word for that," Misery said with a frown. "It's not enough. We'll—"

Cat lunged for the treeline with a surprising burst of speed and energy. Fuck, my girl was fast in this form. I let darkness pool under me and jumped into it, carrying myself across the woods and into her path.

"Not that way, beautiful. We can't lose you in these woods." Not when Nightmare would be watching this unfold. Had she planned for Cat to become one of her creatures, or was this a happy accident? I had a million questions, but keeping Cat where we could protect her was more important.

Cat's throat shook with a warning snarl, a sound that was fucking adorable even if she currently wanted to rip my head off. She was taller up close, as tall as I was, but even knowing a wild animal faced me, it was hard to be afraid when this was my Cat.

I reached a hand back to Virgil, ignoring Death's low, vibrating protest.

"Tor," Misery protested.

"Our girl needs this, Miz. This will turn her back, right Virgil?"

His voice was right behind me, cautious and rasping. "It lasts for a week before she needs another dose."

I nodded, closing my fingers around the syringe he put in my hand. I glanced down only to check there was no stopper on the needle, but it was a split second Cat used to jerk forward, hot breath fanning over my skull, my face, my arm.

"Tor!" Death yelled.

I didn't move out of the way, letting my girl snap her impressive jaws around my shoulder. While her teeth were buried in me, the site of each puncture wound screaming with pain, I brought my other hand around and buried the needle in her side, depressing the plunger until it was empty.

"You're cute even when you're biting me," I said, my voice tight with pain. I booped her wet nose, staring into her shiny black eyes as she removed her teeth, blood spurting from my shoulder.

"Tor," Miz snapped, footsteps beating the ground as he ran for me, Death right on his heels.

"I don't know who you are, but you seem to give a shit about my sister," Virgil said, grabbing my good shoulder to pull me back when Cat darted forward again, lithe with grace and feline power, so fucking beautiful. I'd let her bite me again if it made her happy. "And I doubt she'd want you full of holes of her own making."

"I hope they scar," I said, and meant it.

"You insane motherfucker," Misery snapped, throwing his arm across my back. I leant into him, watching our girl as she shook her head, then again, and again. "Cat?" he asked in a small voice.

"She's turning back," Virgil explained, letting go of me. There was an awful stench of piss and filth around him; I tried not to wrinkle my nose. "It can be disorienting. She'll need me and her husband."

"Husbands," Death corrected, a low thunder of warning still in his voice.

"Husbands," Virgil echoed, scrubbing his face. "More than one. More than one husband. Multiple husbands. Husbands, plural. Two of you."

"Three," I corrected, frowning when the pain in my shoulder and back burned hotter in every place she'd bitten me. Exactly like the wound on my thigh. Fuck. Death better be right about Pain having something to fix this; I couldn't afford to be weak with Nightmare lurking.

"Oh, good. Three husbands," Virgil breathed, on the brink of a meltdown. "Three."

I suspect he would have continued like that if Cat hadn't screamed, dropping to the woods floor so fast we couldn't catch her. Death sank to his knees beside her, hands in her dark fur, stroking in an attempt to soothe a pain that wasn't visible.

"We're right here, little one, we're right here, you're okay."

She whined, the sound animal at first but becoming human. Small and terrified and pained. A fist gripped my heart. I couldn't handle seeing her hurt. The first snap of bones breaking made me flinch, every consequent break driving into my stomach until I felt sick.

"It worked," Miz breathed, fisting the back of my shirt as we watched Cat, our Cat, curl into a tight ball on the floor, her red dress ragged and shredded, her body human once more. "Fuck, the antidote worked."

"There's a box of syringes in the lab," Virgil said, a tightness to his voice as he crouched beside his sister, ignoring our warning looks to brush a lock of white hair from her face. "I don't… want to go back there."

"How long were you there?" Misery asked, grunting when I swayed into him. Motherfuck, I was a mess. I needed to get my shit together and heal these wounds, but my body was struggling and my magic had no effect.

"Weeks," Virgil said flatly. "Five weeks. I tracked it by the—by my shifts." He lowered his voice to a murmur as he leaned over Cat. "It's Virgil, I'm here with you. You're going to be completely fine. I'll help you every step of the way. You're not alone."

She whined, curling into a tighter ball, shaking all over.

"We need to get out of these woods," Miz said, both of us jerking forward a step at her pained noise. I was holding him back, my weak ass stopping him from kneeling at her side. "We could go home but—Virgil will die there."

With no death magic or bond to us like our little bride of death, his life would wane.

"I'm not leaving Cat's side," Virgil warned us, leaning over Cat protectively. "And no offense, but I don't know any of you and I'm not leaving my sister in your hands."

"I know a place we can go," Miz said reluctantly. "There's an abandoned house on the other side of the island. I warded it years ago and the shields still stand. If you shore it up with your magic too, she won't get in."

Death nodded decisively. "Let's go." He swept Cat up into his arms, his expression tortured. I waited for her to cry or whine, but she was silent. My gut clenched. I staggered closer, reaching for her face, a fucking mess when I felt the warmth of her breath on my knuckles. Alive—she was alive.

"She'll wake up," Virgil offered. "Her body's just processing a lot of trauma and changes. I've been through it and I was—fine."

The pause didn't inspire me with confidence, but he was up and walking and capable of speech, at least. And Cat had all of us to take care of her. Who did Virgil have?

"We're gonna have a nice, long chat," I warned him, ignoring the fact he had two heads and both were fuzzy at the edges. "We have questions."

"I bet," he sighed, rubbing his face. Virgil's eyes widened in panic when Misery leaned my deadweight ass against his side. Great, I couldn't even hold myself up. I needed a random guy to keep me from face-planting the ground.

"Let him fall, and I'll skin you," Miz hissed, his gold eyes flashing. "Alive."

With that, he raced back to the cottage, emerging moments later with a wooden box full of those yellow syringes. "Let's go," he snapped, stress lining every part of his face. "Before Tor passes out."

"Hey," I complained, taking a step—and swaying into Virgil. Hard. "I want to carry Cat."

"Not happening," Death huffed. He exchanged a look with Miz, and suddenly my legs were knocked from under me. My head spun. My thigh and shoulder pulsed, as hot as a poker.

"Don't argue," Misery warned, anticipating my complaint. I deflated, resting my head on his shoulder, mindful of the gash in his arm. My eyes glued to Cat, limp and unconscious in Death's arms as we left the cottage behind, Miz leading the way through the woods and out the other side. We were too weak to use magic to transport us, so the walk to the safe house was a long trek through the shadowed woods, following a narrow, snaking path that fed out onto a tarmac road on the far side of Ford's End.

Every footstep jostled my shoulder until I had to clench my jaw to hold in my sounds of pain. Black spots crept in at the edges of my vision, but I fought them, keeping my eyes on Cat's head as it lolled on Death's arm. She hadn't woken up. Why hadn't she woken up?

Miz inhaled sharply, stopping so abruptly that I cried out, the sound escaping my clenched teeth. Motherfucker, my body hurt. Misery's breathing raced out of control, his arms shaking as he clutched me tighter. I tried to lift my hand to squeeze his arm but I couldn't lift a fucking finger.

"There's no escape," Virgil breathed, hyperventilating too by the sounds of it. He edged closer to us, his arm knocking my feet, sending fire to the slash on my thigh. The black spots crept closer, framing my vision like a vignette.

I turned my head a fraction, squinting at our moonlit surroundings. There was a figure at the end of the road, draped in dark red silk like blood woven into fabric. She stood in our path, far enough away that I had to narrow my eyes to slits so they focused on her face.

"I'm here for my terror," Nightmare said with soft amusement, her voice barely loud enough to carry across the road.

Could this night get any fucking worse?

"Oh, fuck off," I groaned, throwing my head back in exasperation.

The sudden movement made pain erupt and the blackness snapped its jaws around me without warning.

Before I could hear the goddess's response, I blacked out.

I hope you loved All Hallows Game! Get ready to meet the fourth member of Cat's harem in the next book, All Hallows Trick.