Page 121 of Commanding Flame and Shield
No.Even my mental voice was a hoarse croak. I shook my head.No. Aren looked to me, his eyes glistening, chest heaving. The images played out in my head. Seconds. I had been gone only seconds, and they’dtakenher. Aren had tried to leap into the shadow of their jump, tried to follow the shadow magic...But collided with a ward. A wall. He had just fallen to his knees when I’d reappeared.
The others were closing in on us, and it was Alec’s voice that was audible. Broken. Ragged. Raging. Calling her name. Just her name.
“Where?” He demanded, eyes on the Commander still kneeling in the snow. I thought he might strike him. Aren looked up, eyes hopeless, and shook his head. “God dammit!” Alec roared. He whirled, throwing his blade into the mortar of the brick wall across from him with a crack that reverberated like a gunshot. His fingers raked through his long curls as he fell to his haunches.
“Fuck.” It was a whisper on Ansel’s lips, dark eyes wide and stunned. “They knew. The masquerade. The exorcisms. They knew.”
“The trap was for August.” Aren’s voice was breathless. “It was meant for August. Alvara...she was...a consolation prize.” He'd seen the vision that led to her hurling me back to safety. Seen it as the darkness descended.
Lana swore, low and filthy, sheathing her blade to rub at her face, then hold her head. Fear had given way to a vicious retribution, and the need for that vengeance pulsed in the surrounding air. One image danced between our minds. The image that had summoned them all to her side. The image of Alvara, battered and broken at the hands of monsters. Alvara.MyAlvara.Mate.My soul mate.
I tapped down that connection, tapped towards her, begged her to respond.
We became statues in that alley. Staring unseeingly at the spot she had last been. Ansel moved to it, removing his glove to sense the energy where she had vanished. Perhaps read it as she would have. Nothing. There was no trace of her.
The cold eventually brought our minds present, bodies demanding a reprieve. One by one, we vanished from that dusted alley. I was the last. The last one standing, staring, begging God, the Universe, any being that would listen, for mercy. For a miracle. For her to appear, panting and out of breath from her escape. From slaying them where they stood, cleaving them from the earth like weeds. For her to be here, where I might finally tell her all I felt, all I knew, all I wanted. Taste her lips. Feel our breath mingle.
Please.
I begged. For Alvara, I was not above such things.
There was no sense of time, sitting in that pool of grief. Begging. God. The Universe. The Goddess the witch clans allegedly worshiped. I didn’t care who answered, as long as someone did.
My skin was stinging, limbs entirely numb, breath frozen in my beard, when I finally made the jump.
The scent of coffee greeted me. Coffee, and adrenaline. The air was rotting with the latter. They’d been chugging the scalding bitter liquid for a while, only a small cup worth left in the pot on the counter, all in fighting leathers and armor. All huddled around a map now taped on the great island in the kitchen. Aren’s shoulder blades looked like they might burst through his shirt—might grow wings and fly after the great bird that had attacked us.
Marcus and his brothers were picking chicken legs clean, not bothering to eat the meat. They just tossed the pickings onto the counter beside them. I watched as they separated meat and tendon and sinew from the bones themselves.
Aren, his knuckles white under his grip on the counter, growled. “We do not practice dark magic. We do not—”
“Aren.” Ansel’s voice cut into my consciousness. His tone a warning bell. “It’sAlvara, Commander. There is a time and a place for restraint. This is not it.” I somehow registered the small mercy in those words. Somehow knew that Aren’s grinding teeth were in true discomfort, that Ansel was keeping his perspective. The stomach-turning image of Alvara’s broken legs and defiant face flashed in my vision. I swallowed down the bile that followed. It wouldn’t end that way, wouldn’t come to that. I would burn the world to the ground before it ended like that. Burn out each den of those monsters before I’d let it end likethat.
Vaguely, I heard Aren swear, and grant his consent to whatever plan they were hatching. A flicker of gratitude blinked in my chest.
A glass of water appeared in front of me, and somewhere in the distance I heard Alec order me to drink. I did.
Someone patted me on the back. As if in condolence. I snarled my warning.
They shifted, and debated, and argued.
Something was on fire.
“Nathara would nail my balls to the wall if she knew we were using chicken bones,” Jason muttered to no one in particular.
“Well, it’ll have to fucking work,” Aren growled. “Because it’s all we’ve got.”
And then Marcus was there, staring at me, hand braced on my shoulder. He didn’t heed my warning growl. Instead, his fingers gripped deeper into the muscle and bone until it hurt.
“Mate, I need you to focus.” He snapped his other fingers, and I settled my gaze on his cerulean blue eyes. Pain. Agony and anger, webbing with a hidden shadow of alarm dwelled there. “Mate. Stick with us. We will find her. We will get her back. We need you to do the scrying.”
“What?” My voice came out breathless. It didn't even sound like my own voice.
“Scrying. Your connection will be the most powerful.”
“I. Alec or Aren will know—”
“Alec and Aren aren’t her mate. Youare. You will have the strongest connection. Jason says your braid is the most interwoven. Would be better if the mating had been made official. Even as it is, you will be our best chance.”
