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The words land with the impact of a meteor in my hollow stomach. I flinch, biting back the impulse to ask why. Why he’d allowed the miserable creatures to hurt him. The marks from the beatings are obvious. Even in the campfire light I see the swell of one cheek, the cuts on his neck, the black and blue bruises on his bare calves. His body will recover, as soon as he eats enough to promote the healing. I’ve seen the miracle of his metabolism firsthand.
But the physical signs of his torment are literally only skin deep.
“Aiden,” I swallow and move closer so I can touch his hand. I need the contact, need to know he’s really right in front of me. He seems so far away, like he’s still lost in the dark woods. “What exactly—?”
“They took my eye.”
I stare at him, horrified. “What?”
“It regenerated. Wardon brought a healer to me.” He pulls the blanket tighter around himself. “I killed them, or rather, the wolf did. The ones who did it. I didn’t think it would bother me so much, to be imprisoned and tortured.”
The last word falls between us with the weight of an anvil. I flinch at the impact and because I am touching him, he feels it and jerks out of my grip.
“Aiden,” I reach for him again but he shies away.
“I’m going to the stream to wash,” he turns and stalks down the embankment, leaving me alone by the fire.
My hands clench into white-knuckled fists. I would have liked to end them for him. And I wouldn’t have done it with my Goodnight Kiss either. No way would I tether the souls of the bastards who had hurt and humiliated him to the Hunt. No, I would impale them on a spike and then roast them slowly over an open fire, giving him the choice of whether to turn the spit.
They are dead though, killed by Aiden’s own hands. But if he could overpower his captors, why had he endured the torment? If he’d let the wolf out sooner, he could have saved himself the pain, the humiliation. Why allow himself to be put through the abuse?
I want to cry, want to rage, to scream, to kill something. More than anything else, I want to go to him. I stay where I am though. The bitter words we flung at each other still hang in the air. He’d said he needed to wash, even though it was obvious he’d already been to the stream. The only reason he’d have gone back was to avoid me.
To lick his wounds in private.
Five minutes pass, ten, fifteen. I sit like a particularly useless bump on a rotting log, trying to convince myself that I’m doing the right thing. It’s what I would have wanted, if I were in his place. Space to piece myself back together, a bit of distance and time.
I frown and chuck a twig into the fire. But that was the wolf’s decision. And mine. Not Aiden’s. He’d wanted my touch, until I’d recoiled. The ugly reality wedging itself between us. It was only then he had run off.
Misery fills me as I recall Harmony’s words. Neither will be as you remember them.
I’m not sure I believe in the seer’s predictions, but Nahini’s white hair and Aiden’s tormented soul....
Again, I glance toward the stream filled with a sense of wrongness at being separated from him, feeling like he needs me.
For what though? What can I possibly say or do that would make any kind of difference? Vengeance has been met. Physically he’s okay. Aiden is immortal, he’s endured untold horrors inflicted by monsters of all shapes and sizes and survived, come out forged stronger by the fires he’s walked through. I have every confidence he will get past this as well.
The fire dances before me, the heat and light sinuous but offering no comfort. I wish he would come back, just so I can see for myself that he’s all right. I pick up a stick by my boots and poke the wood beneath until the teepee of branches collapse, sending a rain of sparks up into the darkened sky.
Go to him. It isn’t Aiden’s voice I hear in my head. I recognize it as part of myself even if the sentiment is foreign.
I argue with it, this fractured bit of self. Tell it things it should already know. I am not the sort of girl to offer comfort to anyone. I’m cold, calculating. The Ice Bitch. I kill people. It was easier to run into the burning inn than to find the words that would make Aiden all right again. Words aren’t something I can stalk through the woods, or run to ground. They can’t be captured or killed and they always manage to escape me.
He’s always stuck by you. Been there for you to talk to no matter how awful you are or how many times you’ve shut him down.
“That’s different.” I speak aloud, aware that I have crossed the official line into talking to myself.
Yes. He does it because he cares for you. You don’t because you’re selfish and scared. You use him, just like he said.
I don’t like this small voice coming from inside me. Don’t like how it shines a light on the thick black shadows that hide my secret truths. And I really don’t like that it might be right.
Aiden always wants to be near me. He would sleep in my room, at the foot of my bed if I let him. Maybe he doesn’t need space as much as he needs me.
Go to him.
I chuck a piece of the stick I’ve been fiddling with into the fire. What if I make it worse?
There is no response. The voice has said its piece.
Getting to my feet, I make a decision. If he tells me to back off again, I will without argument. But I will at least make the offer.
The slope down to the water is steep and away from the light of the fire my eyesight is poor. Moonlight spills through the trees though and after a moment I spy the blanket on the shore.
I half stumble half slide down the bank to where the blanket lays, then cast about for any sign of him. He’s standing in waist deep water, the silver white current bubbling around him. The air is chilly but steam rises from him. He’s just...standing there. Not washing or moving, bathed by water and moonlight. And regrets so thick they might as well be fog.
I don’t think, just like when I went into the burning building. My actions might lead to disaster but as a hunter, I have learned to trust my instincts. Without giving myself time to deliberate, I strip down to my underwear and walk up behind him.
The water is icy at first and I shiver. How can he stand it? The bottom is rocky, the sharp stones jutting up to poke my tender soles but I doggedly make my way to where he waits. I’m not noiseless. I don’t have his ability to move through the water like a wraith, so I know he hears me, but still he doesn’t turn.
About a foot away from him the temperature increases. I take another hesitant step. Warmer still, like the difference between tepid bathwater and a hot tub. It’s him, I realize. The son of fire warming the glacial stream. My breaths comes in harsh pants but at least my teeth stop chattering. I wonder if I take another step will I boil alive?
Slowly, giving him enough time to pull away, I reach for him, my hand landing on his shoulder blade. His skin is hot, though not the heat of fever. Words, those slippery little buggers, still elude me. I can give him this though, the feel of my skin against his, a subtle signal that he isn’t alone.
Stiff as petrified wood, his skin is hot to the touch. He smells of cedar, sage and Aiden.
There is a pause, the kind of silence just before impact.
“Don’t I disgust you?” he murmurs.
“Why would you?” I take a chance and move closer, sliding both hands around him in a sort of backwards hug, partly because I don’t have anything in my arsenal to combat his demons, and partly because I just want to touch him.
“Because....” He shakes his head as though not sure of how to finish.
I swallow and take the final step until I’m pressed flush against his back. “You don’t disgust me, Aiden. I don’t think you ever could.”
I feel his every breath as his lungs expand and deflate. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
He laughs but there is no humor in it. “All of it. Running away. Getting captured, not escaping. Putting you in a difficult situation, then yelling at you. Mostly yelling at you.”
I press my cheek against his back. “Do you really feel like I’m using you like some sort of sex toy?”
He’s quiet a moment. “Sometimes.”
“Then why are you still here?”
Beneath my palms, he tenses. He takes a quavering breath. “The trolls would have hurt you. Tortured you in front of me. I thought I could endure it. The wolf wanted to fight, but I knew if I did, they would have hurt you and that I knew I couldn’t stand.”
He had fought for my sake. Had let himself be maimed all to save me enduring the same. I don’t say anything, just hold him tighter, moving one hand up until it covers his hammering heart.
He puts his own hand over it, his grip almost painful. “You know what I dreamed about that last night at the farm? That you let me hold you all night. Nothing else. You just wanted to be close to me. Without magic, or hormones, or anything else compelling you. That you just...want me.”
I do. The words stick in my throat. I squeeze him tighter.
“I should have fought them.” His throat bobs. “A true warrior would rather die than let himself be captured.”
“The last thing I need,” I say dryly. “Is another dead warrior on my hands.”
He laughs, the sound almost strangled.
I press a kiss to his shoulder blade. “I doubt I’ll ever understand you, but I like you as you are. Alive and well.”
“Same,” he murmurs and turns in my grasp. “Nic?”
I shiver as he presses into me. Where his flesh touches mine, the heat seeps in, chasing the last of the icy grip of the water away. “Yeah?”
Slowly, his hands come up to cup my face as he lowers his forehead to mine. He’s naked and I’m the next thing to it, our bodies just a few inches apart. Though our conversation isn’t conducive to romance, it occurs to me that physical comfort can take more than one form.
“I’m still not ready,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.”
He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Just let me hold you.” His hands brush a few wayward strands that broke free of my braid away from my face.
He’s frowning, though I don’t think it has anything to do with my hair. His lips part, but before he can speak, his eyes go wide and he points at something behind me. “Nic, look out!”
I turn and spot the rush of water barreling down the cliff in our direction. It overflows the small bank of the stream, a river charging in, taking over, Aiden lunges for me and I make one step toward the bank but then it’s there, knocking us off our feet and dragging me beneath the icy water.
****
Through the Man’s Eyes
THE WALL OF WATER SUCKS Nic down under like a rag doll, her fingertips a hairsbreadth from his own. Aiden lunges for her but the current steals her before he can grip her hand.
He doesn’t pause to think, doesn’t brace for the impact, but allows the surge to take him, too. Wherever she’s going, he’ll follow and that’s all there is to it.
The water tosses him off his feet. His head dips under but there is breath in his lungs. He kicks, breaks the surface, sucks in another lungful of oxygen. The sheer force of water isn’t the only threat. Century old trees have been pulled free by the deluge, and they are part of the charge. Roots stick up above the churning water with great clods of dirt still clinging to them. If Nic hasn’t drowned already, one of those could crush her with as little effort as he might swat a fly.
The wolf is back at the threshold that separates man from beast, scrabbling to break free, to find her. The wolf can track her across the Abyss itself. Aiden grips a nearby branch and hauls himself onto one of the logs even as he tells the wolf he, the man, stands a better chance of catching her.
Maybe there is a way to use both skills.
For her he will ask the creature that murdered his baby brother and destroyed his life. For her he will beg the wolf whom the gods fear.
Help me. He pours his heart and soul into the plea. Find her for me, for us.
And he lowers his defenses.
He half expects the wolf to seize control, the way he’s always done when Aiden can’t fight him back. But instead, his eyesight sharpens, his nose is flooded with the senses of the night and he can feel her.
Our mate. The creature sends him an image of her along with all the sensations he associates with Nic. It’s a cornucopia of tiny details that make up a unique being.
With the wolf’s guidance, the bond becomes a living thing. Not just a general idea of where she is, but a part of her, a part of himself that throbs and pulses with a life of its own.
Aiden fixes those details in his mind. He breathes in, sorting through the microbes of newly disturbed soil, decaying leaves, rotting wood and fresh sap. And there, about twenty yards ahead the icy blue of her undergarments and the paleness of her skin reflects in a shaft of moonlight.
She isn’t moving, isn’t flailing or trying to grip a handhold. Her small form is so still, lifeless. He shakes the disturbing thought away and then stands. With the wolf’s assistance, his balance is more stable, his grace preternatural.
He leaps. One moment his feet are on one tree, then he’s in the air, a scattering of sparks drifting above the surging river. Though he is weightless he has no control over speed in his fire form.
Hurry. The wolf is still with him, anxious as he is to reach her.
Up ahead there’s a sharp bend in the river, a great granite outcropping with a few trees growing out of the side, the knot of their roots exposed. He senses her movement halt. Either she grabs onto the roots or her limp body is tangled within them. He’s been given a chance to catch her.
He makes for the bank, reforming on the outermost tree. Six feet below him he sees her, eyes open, small fists clinging for dear life to an exposed root.
“Nic,” he shouts even as he clambers down through the snarl of roots and dirt to her. “Hold on, I’m coming.”
“Trying,” she gasps.
“You’re doing great.” Her strength amazes him, her training making her stronger, more capable. But she is mortal and her strength is not infinite. Her lower half is still in the water. The pull of the current demands its due. It tugs her almost horizontal, greedy, insisting she continue to travel with it.
There is an odd feeling to the water, a presence of sorts. Could this be Wardon’s work? The Master of the Waves is capable of redirecting rivers and lakes. Yet the congealing essences don’t feel malevolent so much as intent. The river must go somewhere and pity to those who have the misfortune of being in its path.
“Almost there.” Aiden’s gaze locks on Nic as he navigates through the massive network of roots.
“Hurry,” Nic gasps.
The note of panic in the one word has him glancing down. She isn’t looking at him, but rather a massive tree that is on a direct collision course with her.
His heart stops. The thing will crush her beneath its weight.
She looks up at him, back to the doom barreling towards her and then once more at him. Her eyes meeting his, blue and bright with unshed tears. A calm seems to wash over her.
“No!” Panic grips him at that look. Terror for her urges him to get to her, to save her, or at least to take the blow for her. The tree won’t kill him if he can just reach her. Sparks. He can come apart, then mold together grab her and they’ll drift out of the river. There is no time.
“Aiden, I can’t.” He hears tears in her voice.
Somehow, he’s become hopelessly trapped within the roots. He starts ripping at them, uncaring if he goes plunging into the water. “Don’t even think it. Just give me time!”
“Aiden,” she sniffles and then, with the ring of command in her voice orders him, “Stay safe.”
“No,” he bellows. The wolf is frantic, clawing at him, begging him to do something. But his muscles freeze in place. She can’t be doing this to him again, not now. “Don’t make me watch you die!”
“I’m sorry,” Nic releases her grip.
The river swallows her up.
