Not for the first time, Aidan woke curled against a stranger’s chest.
Not for the first time, he woke with a gasp, struggling against the nightmares that tried to drag him back under. His breath burned and his skin was slicked with sweat. But the dream was fading, and nothing save for his pulse seemed to be on fire.
For a moment, he let himself lie there, let himself try to find comfort in the slow, steady rhythm of Gregory’s breath against the back of his neck. At the pressure of Gregory’s arm against his stomach and chest.
Then Fire smoked its way through his consciousness, reminding him that this was dangerous. This was weakness. And even though Calum was dead, Aidan could never afford to be weak again.
Before Gregory could wake up and ruin it all by talking, Aidan slipped from under the guy’s arm and pulled on his clothes, then walked out of the tent. A part of him considered staying by the cooling fire, coaxing the embers back to life, but there was an anxiety in his bones that not even magic would burn out. So he kept walking. Out through the tents, toward the field beyond. A few comrades still sat around their fires, drinking or drunk, singing or asleep. Those awake nodded at him groggily when he passed, raising glasses or cheering softly. One of them raised Calum’s head. Definitely not much left. Aidan smiled at them in return.
He didn’t feel it.
His thoughts reeled from the dream. How long had it been since he’d dreamed of home? Of his mother? Those were two paths he never let himself tread and, thankfully, ever since he’d become attuned to Fire, his dreams had followed suit.
It’s just stress, he tried to tell himself. But what did he have to be stressed about? He’d liberated Scotland. He was, for all intents and purposes, King. He just shagged a really hot guy.
For some reason, though, he couldn’t shake his dream from his mind. Already, it was nearly lost to the fog of forgetting. He remembered being on the plane. He remembered watching his mother watch the plane land, the excitement on her face. And then...
He shook his head. It was already gone.
So why did it latch in his heart like a rusted hook?
He shivered and pulled deeper through Fire, wrapping himself in warmth. The rest of his doubt and dreams faded in the heat.
He passed the last tents. Kept walking. And when he was a few hundred yards away, he finally stopped. He hadn’t realized he was walking straight back toward Edinburgh.
The sight of it made his breath catch.
Smoke curled from the burning castle, snaking up into the heavy gray dawn like the shades of those who’d met their end within its walls. Once more, he felt that pull in his heart, as though the castle were a part of him. As though it had always been his destiny. To come here. To triumph. To rule.
Not for the first time, he felt the twist of disgust within himself. Not for what he had done. No—he couldn’t let himself think about that, couldn’t let regret or doubt sneak back in—not for that, but for what the castle had become. He had wanted to rule. He had wanted a grand coronation. To ascend the throne with pomp and circumstance. To have some relic as a crown. To have a seat of power.
Instead, he was given the shell of a castle and the ruins of a country.
After all his hard work, it still wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t fair.
“What are you thinking?”
Aidan jumped. But before he could pull through Fire, the voice registered, and he forced the adrenaline down.
“What did I tell you about sneaking up on me?” Aidan asked, looking back to Kianna.
“That I’m damn good at it.”
She stood beside him, hands in her pockets, staring up at the castle. Even though they had won, even though there was truly no threat to be seen, she still had a few weapons on her. A katana at her waist. A pistol on her thigh. Undoubtedly a few throwing knives in the inner folds of her coat. And a length of chain wrapped across her chest.
“Why do you always carry those?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“Same reason you’re always open to Fire.”
“Because I’m addicted?” Her words. Not his.
“No. Well, in your case, yes. But in mine, because I refuse to be caught off guard.” She fondled the pistol. “Besides, years ago, I named this one Kindness. So I always carry it with me.”
That was a new one. Though she did always seem to have a gun on hand. He just never realized it was the same one. Or that it had a name.
“Kindness?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Mum always taught me to kill my enemies with kindness. So I do.”
Aidan snorted in spite of himself. “That’s a terrible pun,” he muttered.
“Whatever. You laughed.”
Silence lingered for a moment while they watched the smoke curl. At least, Aidan tried to. The mention of Kianna’s mother brought his dreams back to mind, the tiniest spark in the ashes of his thoughts. He let go of Fire, just for a moment, and let the dream smolder.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked. “And up so early, too?”
“Thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
He nudged her. Thankfully, she didn’t nudge back.
He wondered if she remembered what she said last night. About always being there for him. He wondered if she would still mean that, if she knew what he had done.
She didn’t let him wonder too long.
“I always thought that when we destroyed Calum, we’d find a way to get it back.”
“What?” he asked.
She gestured to the field. “This. I dunno. Like there’d be a switch. But here we are. Day after victory and nothing’s changed. Scotland’s still a pile of shite.”
“I’ll make sure to complain to the landscapers. You sound depressed. Did you not get laid last night?”
When she did nudge him back, he stumbled to the side. Slightly.
“They were quite amazing, thank you,” she said. “All three of them. But you know what I mean. I guess I wanted to believe we would wake up and it would feel different. All that’s changed is that there are a few less Howls for us to kill.”
He shrugged. “At least we woke up.”
“Aye. I guess.”
He considered telling her about his dream. But that would open a door neither of them wanted to peer through, victory or no. They didn’t talk about their pasts. Ever. Hell, he barely gave himself room to think about his. So why was it coming up now, when he should have been elated with the promise of a future?
“So what do we do?” she asked.
“What we were trained to do,” he replied. “Kill the undead.”
“I never understood why we call them that. I mean, they’re not raised from the dead or anything.”
Aidan shrugged, remembering the vision of Calum. One of them was, and I have to find the secret to it. Kianna continued.
“Do you think they’re going to let you back in?”
His heart stopped.
“What? Why wouldn’t they?”
“Because you were exiled.” As though he could have forgotten.
“I killed Calum.”
“I know,” she said. “But it might be difficult to convince the council that’s enough. They still might see you as a threat.”
Little do they know... he thought, visions of Trevor and the rest flashing through his mind. He squashed the images down.
“I’ve redeemed myself,” he said, his words flat.
“I know, love. I’m just saying we might have a bit of difficulty convincing everyone else that.” She looked over at him, and her serious expression faded into a grin. “You’re going to have to be on your best arse-kissing behavior. And I know that’s hard for you. Licking, however...”
He nudged her again.
“How was Gregory, anyway?” she asked. Just as nonchalant as if she were asking what he thought dinner was.
“Fine,” he replied.
“That bad, huh?”
He just shrugged.
They stood there for a bit, staring out at the ruins of Edinburgh, the silence between them heavy and mostly comfortable. Aidan refused to worry about returning to Glasgow. He had worked too hard and sacrificed too much to let Trevor’s sentence of exile get in the way of further victory. He’d earned his place.
Even if the rest of the country didn’t know it, he was King. And they would learn that soon enough.
“Strange, innit?”
“What?”
“I’d thought that I’d feel more relaxed once this Calum business was over with. If anything, I feel more stressed.”
“Worried someone’s going to come after us?”
“Nah. I know that’s going to happen. It’s more...” She tapped her lips with a finger. “It’s more like, what do we do when there’s no one else to fight? Do we just live? With this?” She gestured to the field, to the ruins beyond.
He knew what she meant. He told others that he fought to rid the world of Howls, but he and Kianna, they knew the truth.
They fought because the alternative was boring.
They killed because anything less felt worse than death.
“Don’t worry, love,” he said, mimicking her accent. Poorly. “We’ll be dead long before that happens.”
“I hope you’re right,” she said.
Trouble was, he could tell she meant it.
So did he.