Page 58 of The Girl in the Forest

Behind me, the cavern crumbled in a tumbling storm of gray. I’d released too much energy. Destroyed the magic that had been fueling the wall sconces in the passage, because they were dead and cold.

I tried not to drown in the nothingness that closed in, but even with my hands outstretched, I had no sense of up or down, left or right. Rocks pelted my head, my arms. Something warm streamed across my face, blood or tears. Or both.

I’d been so close. But I’d failed, and now another wall was snapping into place, one I could not see. Not in the pitch black. But I didn’t need to see what was built out of uselessness and cowardice. Of never being committed, unable to get over a six-foot wall.

Despair drove me to my knees, then down on the rubble-strewn sand. I let the grief flow. All the moments I hadn’t cherished, the dreams I hadn’t dared to have. The one chance that slipped beyond my reach and was now gone forever.

But fear shuddered with that thought, and I searched for the broken sigil on my wrist. If he was doomed to protect me, I couldn’t let him try when it was pointless. I was losing him. He was losing me. Nothing we did could change that.

With my fingers shaking, I pressed hard on the rune. Mace said Grayson believed in hope. He’d asked what I believed in.

“Wolf, it’s a trap,” I whispered. “The witches are dead. Take him away. Don’t come.”

No answering twitch. And somehow, that seemed right to me.

I deserved this ending. Deserved to disappear in a cave that I’d broken with too much energy, because I had no control. I would always be that way. Beyond hope.

And then I felt him sweeping through the dark. The magnificent, turbulent power of a dread lord, striding forward, wrapping his strong hands and lifting me into his arms.

As he carried me through the many tunnels, past the standing stones… as Grayson’s heat overwhelmed me… the wolf rune twitched.

And there, a feather stroke at the back of my mind. A male voice.

A voice I should not have been able to hear.

A voice that said, “You will never lose me.”

CHAPTER 15

Noa

I must have passed out, because when I woke up, I was lying on the wet ground, tucked beneath a grotesque bush with Grayson lying beside me. Rain splatted against the cloaking leaves above my head; water drops slipped through the tangled gaps and plopped chillingly on my face. When something scurried across my hand, I thrashed, scraping at the dead leaves, stirring up more spiders and the many-legged things.

Grayson rolled his body over mine, pressing his hand against my lips.

“Quiet,” he mouthed, holding my gaze until I focused. Then he tipped his head to the side.

I barely breathed as I listened to the tramping of feet. The rough, complaining voices. Through a space between the leaves, I could see one man on the path above. A second man was on the piney slope, step-sliding in our direction.

I froze.

Alpen!

The man on the path shouted, “You gonna piss all day, Banks?”

“Who cares how many times I piss?” The sliding man was overweight, wearing clothes that looked like he’d slept in them, and his boots, braced sideways in the pine needles, did little to slow his momentum. “Patrol on your own, if hurry’s so damn important. I’ll catch up.”

“We’ve been over this,” the distant man said. “Smugglers ain’t leaving us no charity, and nobody pays unless they got no choice. That needs two of us, Banks, and if you keep straggling, some other patrol gets there first. Then we’re screwed, you and me, and I ain’t going back to the Mule empty-like because you won’t do your part.”

“I’ll do my part.”

Banks halted his momentum and braced; I studied the tips of his boots through the leaves of our bush, hoping he didn’t slip or take another step.

“For the fuck’s sake, Banks—”

“Quit your yammering about nothing.” Banks lost his balance as he yanked on his pants. Straightened, and jerked. “Rain’s the shit for patrols, and any fools out here won’t risk those witches.”

“You and me, Banks, we’re patrols, and we ain’t afraid of witches turning our balls into some girl’s titties. Could be others not afraid.”

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