17. Raven

Raven

D iana’s shoulders stiffened as Nefir dealt the emotional blow. Lilis likely could not be defeated. Far be it for me to contradict him and mention that the realms could be healed…if the Wolf Queen died.

I’d already decided…that wasn’t going to happen.

“Don’t underestimate her.” I brushed past the god. He’d not fought me at all when I’d tackled him, and I could still feel the stillness of his blood. It hadn’t moved or pulsed under my hand. He wasn’t alive like we were.

“I wouldn’t underestimate my sister either.” Nefir slowed to a stop. “This is as far as I can go. The one you seek is at the base of the mountains.”

Diana stepped out and in front of him. “How do we stop your sister? A weakness? Anything at all will help, Nefir.”

I thought he wouldn’t answer, that he’d just puff into smoke and disappear. And maybe he would have if I hadn’t reminded him.

“The stars watch, motherfucker,” I growled under my breath.

He stiffened and his energy spiked as if he were restraining himself from attacking me. I half wanted him to try.

“There are two things I can tell you. One, as gods we are bound by few static rules. The first is that, if a solemn vow is made by a god, it cannot be broken. Do not trust her unless she swears it on the stars.” He lifted two fingers. “Second, while you don’t have the power to stop her completely, she can be driven back…temporarily held at bay. But it requires both the heart to face her and the strength and bravery to risk it all.” Nefir turned to look at Diana.

A chill swept through the air. “Like Sienna did,” Diana breathed. “Sienna drove her away.”

“Yes. Lilis is stronger now, so it won’t likely be so easy this time, but it can be done.” Nefir dipped his head, his eyes closing as his image began to fade. “I must go. Even the stars will not demand more of me.”

A breath of hot wind gusted around us and Nefir completely disappeared, his body turning into grains of sand, blown apart by the wind.

“Well ain’t that an exit!” Myrr dug her heels into Kevin’s side as if he were a pony. Kevin grunted and obliged, bringing her close to Diana. “We find Jade, and she can drive the goddess away for a time. Sounds like a plan to me.”

Maverick was quiet, his eyes searching the horizon. “I have a feeling it won’t be that easy.”

The others turned to him. “Why not?” I restrained myself from calling him chickenshit. With effort.

Perhaps it was the deepening connection to Diana, or maybe it was the knowledge that I would die and she would be alone…unless she still had Maverick. Fuck. I might as well have swallowed a pile of Kevin’s shit for the nausea that rose at the thought of them together. Me dead and gone. Her needing comfort and turning to Maverick–

I spun on my heel to look at the distant mountains as Maverick spoke, my throat tight and my chest throbbing with a pain that I knew was coming.

“Nefir said…he said it required heart and bravery and the strength to risk it all. Only then could the goddess be driven away. I don’t think Jade is capable of that. She’s not bad, don’t get me wrong, but she was just so afraid. How could she face a goddess and her fury?”

All good questions. “Won’t find out unless we actually track her down.” Look at me go, not spitting vitriol at him. Mostly it was a strange sense of impending doom I couldn’t shake.

I started down the sand and rock slope, sinking in deep to the dune as I let gravity pull me forward. I couldn’t look at him right then, couldn’t look at what might be Diana’s future.

But I loved her enough that I wanted her to find happiness once I was gone. If that meant Maverick…fuck…

I led the group, and Nicholas joined me. Diana was right behind me, with Myrr riding Kevin at her side.

Maverick and Theo pulled up the rear. Nicholas picked up his pace a little and I matched his speed until we had a good twenty feet between us and Diana.

“What’s wrong? I can sense something…” he breathed the question for only the two of us to hear.

Did I tell him? Or did I let him see?

If I was going to die soon, did it matter if he saw what was in my head? Probably not, and whatever fear of his gift I had, faded under what I felt for Diana.

“Take a look if you want.”

Nicholas startled, but he didn’t ask if I was sure. Carefully he brushed his hand against the back of mine as we walked, so casually I doubted anyone noticed.

I let my mind stay open to the conversation with Myrr as she’d spoken for Elhimna.

Nicholas pulled back before he saw anything else. “Fuck.”

“I see you grasp the situation,” I drawled, hiding behind my court persona. “I will take her place, Nicholas. It will be up to you to see them back to her Keep.”

“You would trust her with me.” Not a question.

How did I say all the things that needed to be said without alerting Diana that something was wrong? She would see our heads together and then she’d be asking questions, if she wasn’t prepping to pepper us already.

“You swore allegiance to her, that is all you need to remember. And yes…I trust you.” I glanced at him, then skirted around the first dark opening.

I paused at the mouth of the hole that spanned seven feet across, a gust of cooler wind spilled out. Cooler, but foul, as if a giant had belched straight up the pipe.

“Disgusting, and I’m riding a hell-hound who uses his farts for added propulsion, I’m sure!” Myrr and Diana joined us, Diana crowding close to my side. Kevin let out a long low whine, pacing around us, butting his big head against Diana’s hip.

The urge to wrap an arm around her and just breathe her in was almost too much…but not here. Not now.

“What do you think made these holes?” Theo asked. “Like are they craters from asteroids?”

Maverick grunted. “Maybe giant worms? I heard talk of such things when I was here but I didn’t put stock in it.”

A rumble under the ground wobbled my knees. I grabbed Diana and pulled her back from the seemingly bottomless cavern. “Let’s not find out.”

The earth heaved and the edges of the cavern fell in as something moved within.

“Too late,” Diana said. “Run.”

Kevin took off first, Myrr clinging to his back. Of course the hell-hound was born in the demon realm, he likely had some experience with whatever it was that we were…I grabbed Diana’s hand and started running as all the dark holes began to grumble.

The first creature to appear seemed to be long and tubular, that was my first glimpse.

“Gods, dumbass, why did you have to say giant worms!” I bellowed.

Only it wasn’t a worm that crept out of the earth. Tentacles shot out, the tips of them split into three pieces that came together like a thumb and two fingers. If a thumb and two fingers could be covered in spikes. More and more of the long reaching tentacles erupted, and I didn’t know if it was a single creature under the earth, or if there was a fucking nest of them.

It didn’t matter.

“Faster, we gotta go faster!”

Maverick was dodging the flailing, grasping tentacles as was Kevin and Myrr but…

“Theo!” Myrr yelled.

Diana and I skidded to a stop. Behind us, Theo was literally limping along.

My Frostbite took a step, as if she’d turn around, and I tugged her back. “Go. I’ll get him.”

I could pack him no problem and still run at nearly full speed. As strong as Diana was, I didn’t want her burdened at all.

Not with her life literally being foretold to end—I wasn’t leaving anything to chance.

I bolted back to Theo, grabbed him and flung him over my shoulder. The wind whooshed out of him, but he didn’t complain. He was all bones and wiry old man muscle, which meant we both felt every bounce of him on my shoulder as I wove my way through the now field of waving tentacles.

I caught up with the others quickly, because they were slowing down. “Why are we not still running?”

“They aren’t attacking us.” Maverick grabbed his side as if he had a stitch. I’d give him something to heave about. “I think they’re harmless.”

“Chickenshit, we are in the middle of this plain, if they decide to attack, we’re all in trouble.” I didn’t set Theo down. I looked to Diana who was nodding, but we’d held still too long.

The first tentacle shot toward Myrr and Kevin. The hell-hound dodged no problem, but the clack of the three-pronged pinchers, the grinding of the sharp points on one another, and the mouth that opened where the three pinchers connected…that was too close for comfort.

“Still think they’re harmless?” I snapped at Maverick as we all took off running again.

Only now we weren’t just dodging the thick bases of the tentacles. We were dodging every lightning-fast snap as they shot toward us.

The only weapon I had was my dagger that held the sun at bay, and I wasn’t about to lose it in mid-day in the middle of a desert. Which left me running on defense.

Diana was just ahead of me, and I split my focus between keeping her safe, and keeping myself from being snapped in half.

“Duck!” I yelled as a tentacle from behind her shot forward. She dropped to the ground, rolling and leaping back to her feet just out of range.

Maverick took a hit to the side from a sweeping tentacle, which sent him flying through the air.

Diana bolted forward and caught him as he landed, helping him stay on his fucking feet.

Nicholas stayed close to Diana and Maverick, and I brought up the rear.

Our group ran for what felt like hours, avoiding being cut in half, but barely.

The pinchers missed us, but not by much. Slices littered our bodies, arms and legs, the near misses many. But at least they were misses. We were going to make it.

“Almost there!” Myrr called back as she and Kevin charged past the last of the tentacles and wormholes.

Sweat and blood blurred my vision, but Diana, Nicholas and Maverick were clear of the monsters.

I stumbled past some invisible line that I felt more than saw, and dumped Theo off my shoulder.

“Thank you,” he gasped the words as if he’d been the one running.

I grunted a response, unable to do more than that as I dropped to my knees, a buzzing running through my blood. My vision was blurring, and my breath came in gasps. No one else was reacting as I was to the…

“Venom.” I gurgled.

Nicholas grabbed me and pulled me further away from the strike zone. “Shit, are you allergic to it?”

Allergic. To a fucking worm? I tried to say no, but my mouth and tongue were numb, and my muscles were spasming, contracting over and over out of control.

Diana dropped to my side, her fingers ghosting over my face. She was covered in blood too from the pincers. “You need to drink from me. No one else is having a reaction like this, so we have the antibodies. Nicholas, help me.”

Nicholas lifted me up and grabbed my bottom jaw, prizing it open even as it tried to clamp shut on its own, muscles seizing. No words, I couldn’t say anything as Diana straddled me and tucked her neck close to my mouth.

Nicholas got the angle right and helped to sink my teeth into her. She could have offered me her wrist, but this was a sign of great trust. Her eyes closed and her chest rose and fell a little faster.

Fuck, this was not how I wanted to drink from her. Not like this. Not surrounded by people. With Maverick watching.

My teeth pierced through her skin, and her blood flooded my mouth; a heady rush of magic and frost, of the forests and wolf and that sweet essence that was purely Diana. The very core of her was my mate and that was something I couldn’t even identify as a flavor. It just was.

A soft breath from Diana, as if she were fighting the moan that wanted to roll through her, the pleasure that came with the bite. There were no new ties that locked into place, I felt no different than I had a moment before.

Because I was already bonded to her deeper than any simple blood bond could create.

I swallowed convulsively three times, drinking deep. My muscles relaxed and the reaction to the venom of the tentacled creatures faded. I couldn’t lift my arms yet, and Nicholas’ hands moved to pull us apart before I took too much. That was good.

“That’s enough, he’ll be okay now,” Nicholas said.

Except…except he touched both of us at the same time, skin to skin.

A groan slid out of me as Nicholas, Diana and I were locked together, scenes playing out through my mind. The oasis. The words of Elhimna.

The world seemed to scatter around us, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we were catching a glimpse of our immediate future.

Diana flat on her back, blood spilling from her mouth. Her chest unmoving.

I jerked away from them both, a roar of pain erupting out of me. No, no it couldn’t be so soon. Because even though I would throw myself on the sword for her, I knew the truth.

Prophecy would not be denied.

Diana caught my face with her hands, her warmth centering me, her icy blue eyes calm despite just seeing that she would die soon. “It will be okay, Raven. Trust me.”

“It isn’t you I don’t trust, it is the monsters we face, it is the prophecies…” I pulled her into my arms and crushed her to my chest. As if I could just hold her there and make everything else go away. Because she’d seen the words of the god. She knew her death would help heal the realms now. Something I would have kept from her forever if I could have.

Nicholas shook, still on his knees. “I…I didn’t know that could happen.”

“None of us did. Chances are it couldn’t have until you drank from Myrr,” Diana said, still calm as if she hadn’t just seen her death. “And I think we have time to figure out what it means. Prophecies rarely go the way they sound.”

How could she think that? It wasn’t exactly vague, but I wanted to believe her too much to argue.

She didn’t try wriggle free of my crushing hold. Slowly, I let go of her, though it was like tearing free from one of my own limbs.

“Well, fun as that is, I smell food and I’m hungry,” Myrr announced. “And I see smoke up that way so let’s go get us some eats! Maybe they will have a big old welcome feast? That would be nice. It’s been a trying day.”

A trying day.

Theo laughed. “Well, that’s the truth, my beauty.”

I didn’t care where Maverick was. Part of me was hoping he’d fallen into one of the creature’s gullets.

Diana’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “It will be okay, Raven. We will figure it all out. I swear it.”

My body sung with the blood she’d given me, reminding me that she was mine, through and through. And that her death would shatter me in ways I’d never have imagined. She started toward the smell of smoke, her back to me. I followed, as I would follow her always.

“No, Frostbite, it won’t be okay. Not if I lose you.”