“You okay?” Natalie asked, coming up beside her and sending a look in Sven’s direction.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Only to me, and only because I’ve seen that look before in the mirror when JT’s being particularly irascible. I recommend chocolate, alcohol, a chick flick, and some target practice, not necessarily in that order.”
A laugh bubbled up in Cara’s throat, where it choked to a sob. “I think I’ll have to take a rain check. And I don’t… Damn it.” Sudden tears burned her eyes, and she turned away from the others. “I can’t do this now.”
“Are you sure? What if—”
“Don’t,” Cara said sharply, having already done the what-ifs herself. What if he didn’t make it through the op? What if she didn’t? What if they’d met as normal people doing normal things, and discovered fireworks? What if, what if, what if. “We’re at an impasse, and talking about it any more now would only distract us from our priorities.”
“That sounds like something your father would say.”
“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it wrong.”
“Places, everyone!” Dez called, waving for the magic wielders to form an inner circle and the winikin to form the perimeter, along with the two magi who would be acting as their backup.
Cara’s eyes skimmed over Brandt and went to Sven, who was checking weapons and ammo. As if sensing her gaze on him, he looked up, and their eyes locked. She caught a flash of pain in his face, felt it in her soul, and, without thinking, took a step toward him.
“Go on,” Natalie urged. “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, not right now.”
But then, from outside the cavern, Mac let out a shivering howl, followed by a flurry of furious barks. Sven’s head whipped around. And Cara’s heart sank as he hesitated a split second and looked back at her with heartache and apology written on his face. Then he turned and bolted for the short tunnel that led out of the cave, chasing after the sound.
And he was gone.
It was only a few seconds from the first howl to the moment he disappeared into the tunnel’s darkness. But Cara stood staring at the empty tunnel entrance for nearly half a minute. One part of her couldn’t comprehend that it had happened so quickly; another said it had been inevitable.
Oh, gods. It had really happened.
Dez waved for Patience to join Brandt in the winikin line, and she did so without missing a beat, which told Cara that the king had known about Sven’s visions, probably before she did. That should have hurt far more than it did, but it seemed that the parts of her that handled grief and pain had overloaded. She felt dead inside. Dull. And so very cold, partly from shock and partly because there wasn’t any warmth coming through the connection anymore, not even a trickle.
“Cara, sweetie…” Natalie reached out and clasped her arm.
“I’m okay,” Cara said, though that was a lie. “He warned me this would happen.” She hadn’t believed him, though. Somewhere deep down inside, she must have told herself that it wouldn’t come to this, or that if it did, he would stay with her.
Apparently parts of her were still seventeen and stupidly optimistic. Or they had been. She could feel them now, dying inside her as she turned away from the tunnel mouth and focused on her team. Hers now, because she no longer had a coleader, no check to her balance. It was going to be up to her to lead the winikin, up to them to protect the magi.
And Sven… Gods, please keep him safe. But that was the only thing she would ask for when it came to him, because she had a job to do and a team to lead.… And he had just bailed on her for the last time.
Sven ran along a narrow game trail in the rain forest, searching, searching. There! Up ahead, a flash of movement, a stir of leaves, and then gone. Lungs burning. Close now, but where?
The vision blurred to reality and then back again, making him feel desperate and schizo. He ran on two legs, on four, and then back again, following the whip of Mac’s tail, glimpsed briefly and then gone. Leaves and branches lashed at him, and a troop of monkeys screeched overhead, sending parrots darting from the trees.
Mac didn’t slacken, didn’t look back.
“Damn it, get back here!” Sven’s voice sounded strange and alien in his own ears. “What’s going on here?” The strange double vision felt like it did when he was deeply linked with his familiar, but their bond was silent. He couldn’t call the coyote back, couldn’t ask what he was chasing, didn’t know why they were running away from the cave and their teammates—away from Cara, damn it.
What more do you want from me? he asked the gods, anyone who might have an answer. He was following the vision, but he didn’t have his magic back, couldn’t hear Mac, hadn’t gained anything except a broken fucking heart.
He had known it would hurt like hell to end things, but he hadn’t even begun to guess how much it would suck to see her walk away and not look back.
The trail widened and he saw Mac fully for the first time since the chase had begun. The big coyote was flattened out with his nose to the ground and his tail flagging, tracking, searching, all the things Sven kept envisioning. Only he wasn’t inside Mac’s head in the visions. He was… Shit, he didn’t know where he was, or why.
He stopped dead on the trail. The skewed double vision cleared abruptly, as if he’d shut off some other channel without being aware of its existence. He was alone in his head once more, brain no longer fogged by something else’s dreams. And he didn’t like what he saw.
What. The fuck. Was he doing?
He was running away. That was what.
Brush crashed up ahead, then faded as Mac kept going without slackening speed. But Sven let him go as his head did some crashing of its own. Part of him wanted to keep going, keep running… but the rest of him said to turn his ass around and go back to where he belonged. Not just with his teammates or the winikin army, but with his woman. Cara. He had come back to Skywatch determined to make amends for having let her down time and again, and what did he do instead? He hurt her a thousand times worse and told himself it was the right thing to do.
She was the one who’d been right, though. He was running from her, from his growing feelings, though he’d talked himself into believing that the urgent, out-of-control sensations were coming from his bloodline magic. And in doing so, he’d blocked that magic, just like she’d said. At least, he hoped that was what had happened, because that should mean it was fixable.
He couldn’t explain the visions or Mac’s odd behavior, but it was time to make a choice. He could keep following the vision, or he could go back to the fight, the team, and his woman.
“I’m going back.” He said it aloud, daring the nahwal, the gods, or the universe to tell him different. Then, not waiting for an answer or caring what it might be—this was his life, his choice—he spun and bolted back the way he had come.
No lightning struck him dead; no demon appeared to drag him to Xibalba as he raced through the rain forest on his own two feet. He didn’t feel the slashing branches, didn’t stress about his magic, Mac, or anything else he couldn’t control right now. The one thing he could control—the thing he should’ve been in better control of all along—was himself. Starting now.
As he ran, he prayed that Cara would give him one more chance to apologize, one more chance to prove that he wanted her, that he was willing to make whatever amends she wanted, whatever sacrifice would prove that he was committed to her the way she wanted, the way she deserved.
He didn’t know yet how he was going to do that. But he would do it. That was a promise.
The way back seemed shorter than the trip out; he was there within minutes, chest heaving and legs burning from the sprint. He’d made it!
But as he neared the edge of the clearing at the mouth of the tunnel, a terrible rattle split the silence and the air shimmered in a smudged gray curtain across the cave mouth. The surface bulged and rippled obscenely, warning that the barrier was almost breached at that point, which wasn’t something they had planned for. If the demons came down that tunnel and caught the Nightkeepers unprepared… “No!” Sven surged toward the breach. “Cara!”