| |
Thea felt stone against her cheek. She turned her head and blinked up in confusion. Liam was crouched over her, shaking her shoulder roughly.
“Stop it,” she said, pushing herself upright, looking dazedly around. “What happened? Why...?” She caught sight of the bodies of Hunter and his human girl, still wrapped in each other’s arms. Climbing to her feet she cautiously moved closer to them. Their chests rose and fell as if sharing gentle slumber.
“Well, this is all very touching,” she sneered, but her voice shook. She clenched her trembling hands, wrapping her arms about herself, trying to master the terror of losing him once; the slicing pain of losing him twice, both in the same moment.
“You collapsed when they did,” Liam sounded uncertain.
“Well, I’m not collapsed now,” she snapped, turning her back to him, trying to focus her racing thoughts and churning emotions.
She couldn’t believe what she had just seen. She couldn’t bear it. Any of it.
Feeling Hunter leave her, watching him dissolve... The pain of it – her heart felt such agony she’d thought it was dissolving with him. She didn’t know the depth of her feelings until that moment. Then seeing him brought back to life, called back by the love of this girl, by the love he must have for her.
Her own love turned to bitter hatred.
She had believed Hunter’s interest in this girl a whim. Had tried to believe it a whim, at least. He hadn’t loved another since she’d had him, her puppy-eyed boy. She’d thought that meant he was hers still. But now she saw truly. She had never had him.
She had nothing. Not him. Not anything. Her plans were in ruins. She would never be able to trick Hunter into sharing his power with her again. Without him she lost command of the human court and of the Nemaro. Perhaps they were frozen without her to guide them, frozen while Hunter lay unconscious. But when he awoke, so would they. And they would come for her and rend her into pieces, to scatter her stone fragments.
And then what? The new stolen lives... If the girl lived and joined them in the ocean as Jarrod wanted, the Nemaro would live on, while Thea sank through the tides as dust. But if this girl could never join them... She eyed Skye’s prone form speculatively. Now was the time to end her, she would never be more vulnerable than this.
She moved closer to the pair, considering Skye’s death. The clan might not end the way she’d planned: in dramatic agony on the sands of this place. But with this girl gone they would all die, just as painfully.
Or would they? Her eyes narrowed, moving slowly to Hunter. Something had happened just now. This was not the first time she’d woken from collapse because of these two. Then, something had moved between them and changed destiny. Closing her eyes, she stretched out for the threads that had once joined the Keeper to all the clan, vanishing when he had left the sea. Yes, there. Humming with life force, sustaining them all. Once more the clan were connected. So that meant...
She began to smile. If Hunter was Keeper once more, then Jarrod could no longer cross their boundary and live.
And if Hunter perished, so too would the clan. One by one? Or all at once? She cared not, not even if she went too, so long as they perished with her. She had lost everything; her death was certain. She had lost. She looked down at Hunter. With his unconsciousness, the wind was no longer wild. Just the very tip of a dark lock of his wet hair shivered where it lay across Skye’s pale cheek.
It was a knife in her heart. If she couldn’t have him, no one would. If she couldn’t live, neither would they.
*
LIAM’S TERROR WHEN Hunter dissolved hadn’t become any less when Skye somehow drew the guy’s swirling particles back together. It was hard to look away from them, lying together in each other’s arms. It hurt. Whatever had been about to separate them forever, Skye had fought against, and won. Reminding him of what he’d lost. Gina.
It took him a few seconds to understand what Thea was doing when she picked up a rock lying just behind her and strode towards the couple, eyes fixed on Skye, raising her arm. She almost overbalanced when he stepped in front of her, blocking her path. He seized her wrist, and she stared at him in surprise
“Let me go. Get out of my way, you –”
“No.” The power crackling around him was heady, pulling him in, and repelling him too. He was way out of his depth. But he wasn’t having this...this psycho kill like this in front of him. Whatever Skye felt for Hunter, she was still a village girl.
*
“WHAT? HOW dare you?” Thea was so astonished that he did dare, she could barely hiss her question.
Liam’s gaze was cold, and his grip on her wrist was painful. Astounded, she saw that he didn’t fear her. And even more, there was loathing for her in those hard eyes.
“This is nothing to do with you,” she protested. “He is one of us, so his death should please you. And she brought him back from...from oblivion. She deserves the same fate.” She tried to twist free, pushing forward, but his grip didn’t let up and he pushed her back.
“I said no. I’m not having this. If you still want my help, it’s them,” he nodded at the unconscious pair at their feet, “or it’s them,” he looked towards the sea.
“Them?” she followed his gaze to where even now her people might be moving towards them. “You fool. Don’t you see it’s over? We’ve lost. Without them,” she pointed at Skye and Hunter, “We’ve lost.”
“What do you mean? Do you really think we can’t destroy your clan just because he isn’t part of this?”
She stared at Liam, feeling a glimmer of hope. “Perhaps you have something there.” She wasn’t one to surrender. She couldn’t have the lives of the villagers. But her clan dying... “Surely together we two are strong enough.” The lethal determination in Liam’s eyes fired her own. She looked down at Hunter. He was still insensible and unable to intervene. “If we can wield enough power, we can finish the most important part of my plan: destroy the Nemaro. So yes. Let us try. You are with me?”
Liam nodded once, grimly, closing his eyes, spreading out his arms. Once more Thea tapped into the power of the two bloodlines that flowed through him and then reached out for the threads that connected her clansmen to Hunter. She wove the fingers of the power she wielded through the threads and followed the straining lines back to each source: the Nemaro, her clan.
She knew each one like an extension of herself. Curse you all, she thought, you deserve this. All were lost in a limbo, unconscious like she had been, perhaps only remaining thus while Hunter slept. She didn’t have much time. But one - one was missing... The one she needed to see die most of all. Where was Jarrod?
He was stronger than she’d thought. He must have slipped his noose earlier without her knowing, but he wouldn’t get away this time. Trembling with effort, she held tight the threads of her clan, and stretched further looking for... There: she knew the feel of him better than anyone.
She reached out for the thread that connected him to Hunter and gathered it into her grip with the rest. Winding tighter, stretching them taught...she pulled until they broke. And then she poured all the persuasion and intent that she and Liam shared at each mind, a flood of potent force, and felt the barriers give, like a stone wall breaking, shattering, taken out by the tidal wave of their power. They were hers. She knew Liam sensed it too, felt his surge of vicious satisfaction.
Through Jarrod’s eyes she saw the green-eyed girl he had been fond of, her hair shifting in the current, her eyes wide with hope and fear. It would have been amusing to watch him end her, but she needed to keep Liam engaged. Instead, at her wish, Jarrod pushed past the girl and began to move forward, following her command to join the line of Nemaro where they began to move towards their boundary.
“Wait.”
Thea blinked away from Jarrod’s vision and looked at Liam.
“I want to see it happen. Properly.” His eyes were cold as stone.
She smiled.
Leaving Skye and Hunter where they lay, Thea and Liam descended the lower ledges of Lithus Rock. Slipping into the water together they moved to where Jarrod and the others helplessly waited.
