Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

HALWEN

I hadn't had a nightmare in years, but this was about as far from a dream as could be. Darkness swirled through the forest around me, and every time it brushed my legs a new horror unfurled through my mind.

I was six and listening to my parents argue on Earth. He's going to find me, Lyall, it's only a matter of time before he hunts us down. You have to go, take Haley to Hell; my grandmother will help conceal you. She hates Cronus.

I shook my head hard, trying to dislodge the words. My mum knew about Cronus?

Wait, who the fuck was Cronus and why did my head erupt with pain at that name?

You're trying to remember, Halwen. Don't fight the memories; let them flow through your mind.

"Busty…?"

Wait, who was Busty? My automatic guess would be Dolly Parton, but the voice was a man's.

Another shadow swirled in the dream, rushing against my legs. Now I was sixteen, my head recoiling from the fist that just slammed into it, making pain explode through my entire being. I was used to the other kids in the home beating me, but this had come as a surprise. I squinted at the house master through the blood gushing from my eyebrow. If you think you're so tough, let's see how well you do in the training camp. Jinsevia is offering a hundred crowns for every new recruit, and I'm sure they'd love a new punching bag.

Fuck you, I snarled and took a shot at his face, aiming to break his nose. Instead, he punched me in the head so hard I blacked out. I woke up in a covered cart rattling down the uneven roads into the mines of Jinsevia, where the most brutal of Hell's army trained.

"Enough!" I snarled at whatever was torturing me.

I wanted out of this dream; why was I being haunted by my past? I'd moved on from it; I was happy, I was free, and I had amazing mates and two daughters I loved with my whole heart. I didn't need to see any of this shit, and the more visions hurled themselves at me, the more I started to realise this was no ordinary dream.

Now, I was seventeen, saved from assault by the sudden eruption of my blood magic cutting off the brute's heart.

I was twenty-nine and storming through a puddle in pursuit of ten thousand gold crowns, content to grab my target and haul him back to my client for a hefty payday. Until I met him, and Kai tried to kill me, and Wane revealed we were mates.

"Is this a threat?" I demanded of the darkness in my dream, my lips curled back from my teeth as I spun in place, glaring at the forest that replaced the vision of the tavern. Shadows swirled like fog. "If you go anywhere near my mates—"

Not a threat, the same male voice cut in. A reminder.

That certainly wasn't Dolly Parton.

Another shadow rushed at me, and I jumped hard when shouts and deafening noise shattered the forest. I recoiled a step, and I was in the Damned House, my breath catching as Locke advanced on us with a shotgun.

Emlyn lay at my feet, blood pooling on our kitchen floor, and the gunshot that made my ears ring hit—Harvey, my Harvey. Oh, god.

One by one, we fell. Em, Harvey, Kai, all murdered in front of me. And then Wane and I clung to each other, huddled under a dome of shadow, his wings wrapped around me and mine around his as his vicious father bore down on us.

When the last gunshot rang, I felt the impact, felt Wane's magic fall, and—

I remembered everything that happened after.

Clawing my way out of my grave a hundred years later.

Alphaven. Finding my mates as Ferals. Wynvail being wicked and cruel and entirely without a heart.

My head reeled at that, failing to reconcile it with the family man I'd lived with for the past hundred years. We'd been together for a century since we killed Locke, and everything had started to fall into place when we found Verena—or rather when she picked Harvey's pocket and stole one of my daggers in the same second. Now we had Kaida, and everything was perfect.

But the memories didn't fit—my old memories and the ones that rose now, summoned by the shadow visions. They clashed, collided, and began to collapse. One life was true. One was false.

My breath hitched. "Don't," I choked out. "Please."

Shadows rushed around me, but no more visions assaulted me; my mind was doing a good enough job of that itself, hurtling violent memory after violent memory at me until I was on the verge of sobs. I had everything I'd ever wanted.

But I remembered trekking across Hell to get their memories back, remembered the pain of realising Wane had been erased from our memories, and I remembered Wyn saving us from the cave before it could collapse. And Cronus's eye watching us the whole time.

Wyn didn't change sides in the Damned Realm, didn't see the error of his ways and help us kill his father. He hunted us to the ends of the realm, then Locke murdered us. Wynvail lived and tortured my mates with every chance he got. He was a villain.

Until he saved us.

I shook my head, trying to kick the swirling shadows aside. I tore myself away from them, grabbing the rough trunk of a tree as I urged my noodle legs into a sprint.

I needed to outrun these cruel memories, needed to preserve the life I'd lived for a hundred years because if—if none of it was real, then she … then our daughter—

A sob shattered my chest as I ran, but the memories wouldn't be denied. They filled my head until I shook, until my eyes overflowed with a river of tears, and I wailed a note of pain and rage and desperation.

Please. Please don't let these memories be real.

But they kept coming. The Labyrinth. Cronus taunting us, pushing us to breaking point. Almost losing my mates so many times I'd lost count.

Then the Damned House. Finding Wane. Losing Wynvail.

I crashed to my knees between the roots of a tree, remembering and hating every second of it. My breathing fell apart, short gulps of air never watching my lungs. I let out a pitiful cry with every failed breath,

I lost him. Hated him and loved him and lost him.

And Wane—at home when I climbed into bed and settled into his arms, he'd draped the heavy weight of a wing over my side. But he didn't have his wings; Cronus made his servant hack them off his back, giving my mate wounds that had bled for a hundred years.

I bowed over my knees in the dirt, a loud keening sound building in my chest.

We hadn't been living peacefully for a century. We'd been torn apart, turned against each other, made to hate each other—and then we'd been dealt every kind of violence in known existence. Torture, mutilation, emotional damage, mental ruin, and in the end, Cronus, he—killed me.

He might as well have killed my mates along with me; when I returned, it was to men haunted by grief and so shaky that the foundations we'd built ourselves upon were rife with cracks. They threatened to fall at any moment.

"I'm not going back," I cried, thick with tears. "I'm not going back. Do you hear me? I'll never give up this life!"

A shadow brushed my cheek, wiping away a tear. I twisted away with a snarl.

"No," I growled, guttural and pained.

I shut it out, all of it, even the vision he'd dredged from my childhood memory about my parents. My mum knew about Cronus, knew we were his descendants and that he'd come for us. She didn't abandon us, didn't discard me like I was worthless. She told Dad to take me because she knew Cronus would devour me if he found me.

Had he devoured her?

I shook my head, tears flying from my cheeks.

This timeline isn't real, Erebus said gently, surrounding me in a coat of shadows that felt like … a hug. I'm sorry, but it doesn't exist. It's a place that time forgot, a reality that almost happened if Wynvail had chosen to betray Cassander Locke.

But he didn't. He followed every command he'd been given, and we'd been murdered.

I broke, forced to accept none of it was real—the house, the happiness, the peace. Kaida. A scream ripped my throat, burned my lips as it rent the air, and filled the forest with grief.

When I was done, I rasped, "It would kill them. It would kill me. I can't do it."

It's not real, Halwen, the shadows breathed, hesitant and concerned. She's not real.

She felt real when I held her, when I nursed her, when I set her down in her basket and watched her chest rise and fall with tiny breaths.

"She's real to me," I whispered, my shoulders shaking as pressure built in my chest, my heart caving in.

Not again. I can't do it again. I can't love a baby and lose her. I can't.

But pain pinched my ankle, and I screwed my eyes shut so I didn't have to see the gleaming blue vein around my ankle, biting so deep that blood welled constantly from it. Like Wane's back had bled constantly. Because none of the life I'd lived for the last hundred years was real. It fell apart like a window struck with a bullet, until I couldn't look at my memories of that life without seeing reality on the other side.

I couldn't have been pregnant for the past nine months because I'd been fighting gods and titans, and for most of the last century I'd been in a shallow grave in the Forest of Halwen.

The shadows wrapped tighter around me when my tears dried up, and I stared emptily at the forest. I wished I was numb, wished I couldn't feel, but my whole body splintered with pain. It shattered through my heart, cracked my bones, and filled every vein in my body until I screamed inside my head.

There's a chance you could be safe. You could have everything you wish for, Halwen. You just have to shatter this timeline and walk away from the fight, no matter who Cronus takes captive. Walk away even if he hurts your friends, even if he threatens your family. If you walk away, you, your mates, and your children will be safe.

My ears rang. "I don't have children."

You have Verena, he argued, fierceness entering his voice. She's your child, if not by blood, then by fate. You found her, even in the timeline that never came to pass. Do you think that was a coincidence? She's yours, Halwen.

Shadows cupped my cheeks, and my bottom lip caved in. I didn't want to listen, didn't want to hear a single word he said. He was asking me to rip my life apart, to let go of Kaida when I'd only just got her, and I couldn't.

I refused to.

Do you remember what I told you? Wane could use the power he inherited from me to reshape the world, and so could any descendant. I didn't mean my descendant, Halwen. His voice gentled, until my throat swelled shut. I meant his.

"You're being—cruel," I cried.

I got the eerie sense Erebus just kissed the top of my head, and fatherly affection swallowed me. Fuck.

Kaida isn't real, Halwen, but right now you, your mates, and Verena are unconscious on an island in Crete while a sadist guards your bodies—to keep you imprisoned on the island.

I swallowed. "So?"

If he was trying to convince me to go back, he was failing. I was happy with my mates, we weren't hunted or hurt; we were safe. We had a newborn baby, and—

So, you are not alone in your body. And Cronus knows this. He chose this timeline very carefully, to give you everything you dream of, so you would never leave. You are not alone in your body, he repeated.

"You mean I'm possessed?" I demanded, emotion entering my flat voice for the first time in minutes.

Busty sighed sadly. I'm trying to be vague so no one else will understand my meaning. Put it together, Halwen. You can do it.

"I don't care."

You must! he snapped, suddenly louder, furious. You have a choice to make—take all that magic growing inside you and end Cronus once and for all or take your family and hide forever. But staying in this false timeline will only succeed in keeping you captive.

I swiped my hand through the shadows, trying to scatter them. When that didn't work, in a small voice, I admitted, "But I'm happy here."

You'll be happy in the end. Trust me.

I did, and I didn't want to.

"I'm going home," I told him. "Don't enter my dreams again."

Busty sighed, the shadows ebbing away from me until I could see the forest again, massive branches forming a leafy canopy so only dappled light made it through. I knew these trees, had dug myself out of a grave watched by them. This was the Forest of Halwen.

No.

I shut out everything Erebus told me, bringing Kaida's scrunched, red face into the forefront of my mind. A smile crossed my face, and I took a step away from the forest, the shadows, and every vile memory that had speared my mind.

And yet… pain sank through my foot when I walked, and I glanced down with a hiss. My heart stuttered when I saw the blue thread wrapped around my ankle, biting into my skin until bone was visible.

Fuck.

I pressed a fist to my mouth. Everything Erebus told me was true. But—it changed nothing.

I couldn't give up Kaida. I kept walking, ignoring the pain that shot through me with every step.