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I had no time to speak, so I sent out a wordless plea to the only one I trusted implicitly. “Can you guard Natalie’s family?”
“Yes.”
Rune’s silent agreement had barely materialized before I was sprinting toward the cloud of dust rising from where our clan’s home used to be. Our clan’s home...and Ash, the only pack member who’d been left behind when Willa gathered others to hear my announcement.
It was too late to change the past, but I still stretched my legs to run faster. If Ash was in there...he’d be crushed. I knew that rationally, but emotionally I wasn’t ready to admit the obvious.
Instead, I sprinted until the hole yawned before me. Skidded to a halt at the edge, my foot nudging a pebble to slide down into nothing. Then I waited, straining to hear above my own breathing.
There was no sound to prove a bottom had been hit.
Until, finally, sound came. Not the tinkle of a pebble, but stone grating against stone as the earth trembled beneath me. A huge slab of rock slid sideways, closing off the hole from the sky above it. I was in its path....
I stumbled backwards, arms pinwheeling even as I sent out mental tendrils to nearby pack mates. Too many had followed me far too quickly for their safety. “Back!” I commanded down the tethers that bound us together. I could feel the immobility of shock in several, so I cracked the tethers like a whip to slap them into motion. Ash was gone, but I wasn’t losing any other members of my pack to this disaster....
Wasn’t losing anybody except, potentially, myself. Because helping pack mates escape had required all of my concentration, slowing my backwards progress for one critical second. Now, the rock beneath me shook again, harder. I slipped, my right foot falling into the remaining gap.
Fingers scrabbled at the broken cliff edge, but I needn’t have bothered. I wasn’t falling. Not when the slab lunged forward like a pincher, trapping my ankle.
I screamed. Un-Alpha-like behavior, but the pain was excruciating as the rock pressed against me. My bones weren’t broken, but if this kept up my ankle would soon grind into dust.
Then Rune was there, yanking me upright. “My foot!” I shrieked, unable to lower my voice’s register.
His timbre, in contrast, was deep and soothing. “I see it.”
As he spoke, he drew his sword, that long length that had been scabbarded about his person as long as I’d known him. Using the point like a pickaxe, he stabbed the blade into the ground. Once, twice....
It shouldn’t have worked. Swords weren’t made for digging.
But this disaster was the work of fae, not nature. The vise clenching my ankle yawned back into a hole and I jerked my foot upwards. Skin peeled away but my leg held me. Still, when Rune’s hands came out to steady me, for a millisecond I clung to his strength.
Then I straightened and became Alpha. Dragging Rune beside me, I sprinted away from the closing hole, toward the pack mates who had reassembled at a safe distance. Their gazes were glued to our approach.
No, their gazes were glued to our joined hands. It should have been harder to run with Rune than without him, but it wasn’t. I drew strength from the connection of fingers intertwined.
Still, I forced myself to release him. As I did so, Rune murmured, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“So tell me,” I puffed out, knowing he wouldn’t have brought up the issue now if it hadn’t been profoundly important.
But I lost the thread as someone ran forward, out of the pack, toward the hole which was now no wider than my minivan. There was no tether between me and this runner, no link I could use to draw this person back to safety.
Or, I should say, these people. Because Kale turned to glance back once, letting me see the baby in his arms.
I expected his face to twist into a grimace the way it had when the wind tried to kidnap him. But, instead, he smiled as he addressed me. “This is my quest,” he called. “I have to prove myself.”
As if it was his choice to do something so crazy. As if it wasn’t obvious a fae was pushing him to leap down into that yawning darkness with his sister against his shoulder.
Whoever was in charge, I had no way to stop them. The hole closed up behind Kale and the baby, belching out another plume of dust.
***
NATALIE’S FACE RESEMBLED the ground where the mansion used to stand. Crumpled. Broken. Unrecognizable.
But I couldn’t deal with that now. I tore off my shoes, sinking my feet into the soil. This had gone too far for me to be coy with the Guardian. I needed her help and I needed it now.
Wriggling my toes in the dirt, I had to believe that the Guardian would bring Kale and the baby back to me if I asked properly. Ash too, I hoped. The mansion we could rebuild on our own time.
So I pushed into the soil, waiting for roots and fungi to bite into me. A sharp stone scraped against my pinkie toe and I forced my foot further in that direction. Using the stone as a knife edge, I rubbed back and forth, hoping to draw blood.
Meanwhile, I reached out with my mind. “Guardian, we need you.” She might be annoyed that I’d dragged my heels about choosing a Beta and a Consort to consolidate the generational power transfer. But surely she wouldn’t let a pack mate and two children disappear into the earth....
No answer.
So she needed a bit more incentive to pay attention. I drew my easiest to reach dagger, shaking my head when Rune moved forward to help me. In front of my pack, I couldn’t afford such softness.
But I didn’t test him by going for my throat either. Instead, I sliced across my wrist in one fast stroke, drawing the edges of the wound open so blood would flow out faster. Eyes clenched shut, I poured my blood into the earth.
“Guardian.” This time I spoke aloud, drawing my pack into a circle around me. Their attention would help seal the deal. It had to. How long could a baby survive in the earth without her mother? How long could Kale follow some fae-mandated quest through the dark without losing precious bits of himself? Was Ash even alive?
Still no answer from the Guardian. The only sound was Natalie’s muffled sobbing.
Okay. On to plan two.
Slapping a hand over my wrist to slow my bleeding, I padded away from the devastation, toward the forest. Maybe the issue was proximity to the broken earth our mansion had descended into....
Dozens of shifters followed in a wave of silent feet. Rune was there too, I could smell him. And Natalie, whose sniffles broke the silence. All of them were depending on me to fix this.
I was Alpha. It was my duty.
Faster, I pushed past young woods and into older forest. My wrist was starting to ache now. My ankle throbbed in time.
Branches slapped me...then they didn’t. Rune had come up to clear my path, holding aside tree limbs before they could collide with my face.
I barely noticed, so intent was I upon drawing closer to the heart of the Guardian’s territory. There was the big tree beneath which I’d first met the unicorn. There was the stream that flowed into a hole in the ground and disappeared.
My father had once pointed out that hole to a much younger me. “This is a direct path to the Guardian. But make sure you never need to use it.” His tone made clear that if I succumbed to that desperation, I would have failed at my job.
“So I’m that desperate,” I muttered. “So sue me.”
“Tara?”
For one moment, Rune and I were the only ones present, sheltered by budding hazel. The rest of the pack was close behind, though. They were already within earshot.
So I shook my head and pulled my hand away from the wound on my wrist. Blood oozed out, albeit slowly.
Rune opened his mouth, but I didn’t give him a chance to stop me. Instead, I clenched my own teeth down on the thin scab that had materialized while I pushed my way through the forest. Salty blood shot into my mouth and I spat the red into the clear water. Turning my wrist, patterns of crimson curled into the stream.
“Guardian,” I called, “tonight I swear to choose a Beta. In return, I beg your assistance.”
Nothing. Well, nothing other than pack eyes biting into me. Expecting me to solve this problem the way I had all others in the past.
And I would. There had been two requirements from the Guardian. A Beta and an Heir. “I’ve chosen a Consort,” I continued.
A fish sucked at my toes, and for a split second I heard the Guardian’s voice in my head. “But has your Consort chosen you?”
My brows drew together. This was the Guardian’s reservation? “Yes,” I answered aloud. Then, to Rune, “Tell the Guardian that you have accepted the role of Consort.”
Rune had sent the contract to his lawyer yesterday, but I doubted our fae protector would care about signed paperwork. We’d solidify the legal side after Kale, Ash, and the baby were back among us. For now, Rune’s word and mine had to be enough.
Only, he was shaking his head. “Tara....”
Was he shy? “Tell them,” I prodded, knowing the alpha bite wouldn’t force Rune to answer. Still, it would let him know how serious I was about the question.
Rune’s eyes closed and the scent of persimmon that had carried me through the forest sunk away, fading into the flowing water. His voice was low, but not so low my pack couldn’t hear him.
“I tried to tell you earlier, Tara. My lawyer explained the ramifications of the contract and they’re unacceptable. I won’t give away my rights to a child. No, I won’t be your Consort.”