Chapter 26

I didn't die.

The scream that filled my ears was coming from my own mouth and I hadn't even realized it. By the time I did, and by the time I dared to open my eyes again, the sky was a bright blue around me.

The sun was setting somewhere in the distance, beyond the deep blue ocean.

And I was flying over it.

Outside. I was outside of the Whispering Woods, and Storm was carrying me with his talons around my arms, just like he had that day Mama Si first brought me here as an offering. I held onto them on instinct and turned to look back as much as I could, to see the gigantic dark clouds over the surface of the ocean that was the Whispering Woods. It was right there still, exactly as I remembered it—and I was leaving it behind. Storm was taking me higher and higher, moving away from the Woods, and I wasn't bleeding. My body wasn't torn apart by magic. I was still breathing, and the magic of the curse hadn't even scratched me.

Or maybe it had and I hadn't noticed because of the fear and panic?

I tried to look down at my body, at the cardigan and jacket and boots I had on, the bag strapped to my shoulder still, but no fur coat. And no blood anywhere on me—which was ridiculous.

I'd gone through the Blood Call. The curse would bind me to the Whispering Woods the moment I chose my partner. And I knew what the curse did to anyone trying to get out of the Woods without being banished. I'd seen it with my own eyes when Grey had gotten too closeto the border to pick up my books that day. He'd only gone too close, not all the way through the barrier, and the magic had nearly ripped his arm off.

So, how in the world was I still alive?

"Storm!" I shouted at the top of my voice, but the open air carried my voice away and I barely even heard it myself. Instead, my focus shifted to the ocean below me, the Isles that I could see so clearly, both Dragons' Den and Faeries' Aerie, and another one I hadn't seen before far to the right. It was smaller and darker, with nothing but ruins and rocks on the surface, not a single tree in sight. It had to be Sirens' Lair—and that's where Storm was taking us.

He was flying toward Sirens' Lair, and the closer to it we got, the more of Witches' Wing we saw, and the smaller the Whispering Woods became.

"Stop it! Put me down!" I shouted at Storm, slamming my fists on the scales of his talons, but he didn't budge at all. He just kept on beating those large wings with impossible speed and taking us forward, never making a single sound.

The wind blew at my face constantly, and I was barely breathing. My God, he was moving so fast now that I hardly saw anything from the wind and the tears and the sunlight in my eyes.

But even so, when something moved to my side, I had no trouble recognizing what it was. And even though I knew Shadow had wings and he was small and he was always behind me somehow, I was still shocked out of my mind to see him there, flying a bit lower, just a couple of feet to my side.

Shadow was coming with us.

Where the hell are you going?! I wanted to shout at the top of my voice, but I couldn't. We must have gone higher up still because the air became too thin, and it was almost impossible to breathe.

I'm dying, Storm. I'm dying…

Storm didn't stop flying.

My lungs threatened to explode. My mind was shutting down, all my thoughts fading away, and there was nothing I could do to keep myself awake.

The last thing I remembered before my eyes closed was darkness. A cloud of darkness just like that of the Whispering Woods over the ocean's surface.

Was Storm taking us back? Had he finally remembered that the curse would kill me out here?

But, no, we'd left the Whispering Woods behind long ago.

So, where the hell was he taking me?

My mind shut down completely.

Magic buzzedon my skin and the power of it zapped me, shocking my entire system. My eyes opened and I was wide awake within the second.

Darkness.

The blue sky was gone. The sun that had been retreating behind the horizon slowly was gone. The Seven Isles had disappeared, too, and now there was only darkness.

Had Storm really brought me back to that mountain?

I remembered the dark cloud over the ocean, and at first I'd been so sure it was the Whispering Woods, but…

The trees underneath me now were different. Smaller. Thinner. Completely naked of leaves. And there was a mountain made of large rocks in the middle of them, but nothing else that I could see. Nothing—no hills, no other mountains to the sides, no towns and no lights and no castle—just trees and a pile of rocks.

I breathed in deeply, surprised to find my lungs were still working. Surprised to find I was still in one piece and Storm's talons were still around my arms as he flew lower and lower toward the ground. I grabbed his claws and I tried to hold my breath, tried not to be afraid but to expect another fall like the one I'd had on my first day in the Woods.

But Storm roared a deafening sound that shook me to my bones, and he let go without a warning.

My scream got stuck in my throat. I tried to hold onto him, but it was impossible. My fingers slipped and I was falling before I knew it, but we were also much closer to the ground than I'd realized, because I barely fell a couple of seconds before I made impact on my side.

It hurt. My shoulder hurt like hell, and I pushed myself to sit up instantly, desperate to see my surroundings.

When I made it back to my feet, I realized I was perfectly fine. No broken bones, not even a twisted ankle. Storm had known where I would land this time, and now the sound of his roar somewhere to the west made my heart jump in my chest all over again.

I had no clue where we were, but I knew I needed to follow him, to be wherever he was because I did not want to know what the hell was hiding in this darkness. The smell in the air was that of rot and mold, but I didn't mind. The fact that I'd survived that flight with Storm without actually suffocating on thin air was a goddamn miracle—I wasn't complaining about a smell. I just ran toward the sound of Storm's roar, hoping he'd lead me to a sign that would tell me where the hell I was.

And then I saw red.

Red eyes were watching me somewhere to my left as I ran, and not just one pair but a few. I slowed down at first, sure that I was making things up, but then I saw the fur, too. I saw the sharp teeth. I saw the monstrous creatures that were slowly approaching me.

Impossible, my mind insisted, yet they were still there, and the magic that had gathered so suddenly under my skin threatened to burn the flesh off my bones.

When I ran again, I was more than confused, certain none of this was even real. It couldn't be, could it? The darkness, the smell, the magic in me, those creatures—unreal.

Even so, I used every ounce of speed in my body, and they still caught up with me.

Half of me wanted to call for Storm, hoping he was close. Hoping he cared enough to stomp whatever these creatures were to fucking death before they ate me, but there was a chance that I'd only be wasting time and energy, and that Storm wouldn't even hear me.

No longer even in control of my body, my instincts decided what to do next for me—which was to release the heat that had gathered inside my stomach from all that fear and panic and horror since the moment I'd been thrown to the ground. Maybe I could do nothing against dragons the size of a car, but these creatures weren't any bigger than me, so my magic didn't hesitate.

It came out of me, raw and uncontrolled, and I was thankful for it. There was no other intention to it except to stop those creatures from reaching me. I just wanted to get to safety so I could find Storm and figure out why he'd brought me here—and the magic complied. It hit everything around me with a thud, and suddenly no more red eyes were looking at me. Suddenly no more monsters out of horror movies were running with me, and by some miracle, I made it out of the tree line and jumped upon the thick rocks that had gathered into a large pile in the middle of this darkness.

My heart hammered in my chest and I could hardly breathe, but I was standing. It didn't hurt anywhere that I could tell, and from here, I could make out Storm's silhouette as he flew a few feet off the ground about half a mile ahead of me. So, I ran again, never stopping to think or try to see if more of those red-eyed monsters were coming for me. If they did, more magic was under my skin—much more to unleash on them even while I ran.

I kept my eyes on Storm and I begged whoever would listen that I made it all the way to him, that nothing popped up in front of me until I did. I jumped from one rock onto the other because to go back to the flat ground meant to run among those trees, and there was a chance I could lose sight of Storm from there. So, I stuck to the rocks until I was close enough to make Storm out perfectly.

Until I was close enough to this rectangular piece of rock bigger than any others surrounding it—and I heard the voices.

My body shut down instantly and I was paralyzed in place. It must have been a fucking dream because I knew those voices, both of them, and they were coming from right behind that big rock.

It took me a good moment to get my legs to move again. I was too shocked to scream or call out or do anything at all but get closer because I wanted to see with my own eyes. I needed to see for sure that I hadn't just lost my mind, that I wasn't just hearing things, that this wasn't just my imagination playing with me.

And when I was close enough that Storm's wings blew my hair back, I climbed the smaller rocks until I saw behind the big one.

Until I saw them.

Grey and Valentine were facing one another, barely ten feet apart. They were both alive.