Page 17 of Fae Reckoning

My heart began pounding as the untamed part of me that had longed so terribly for my mate, and thathad been relatively quiet since I’d last seen Rush—when he’d forgotten our love for each other—thrashed inside my body as if my ribs were its cage. The scuffs and grunts and shuffles and more groans around us were suddenly faint, impossibly far away. I attempted to steady my body against the savageness within me that needed one thing and one thing only.

“Rush?” I eked out. The bond-beast raged inside me, protesting that I wasn’t running into his arms already. But my eyes had adjusted, and though it was too dim to make out fine details, I could see that there were many bodies between me and wherever he must be.

“By the Ethers,” Rush said, his voice strangled. “Elowyn!”

“Where are you?” I asked urgently.

“Not so loud. They might hear us.” I was about to ask—in a whisper this time—whoexactly might hear us, when Rush continued. “Over here, on the other side of … wait, is that a … dragon?”

“Yep,” I answered softly. “Please tell me he didn’t land on anyone.”

“I … I … Elowyn, that can wait.”

I wasn’t sure it could. If someone was beneath the dragon, I was certain they’d agree.

But Rush was already saying, “I have to see you. I need … fuck,I need you.”

On wobbly legs, I stood. It sounded a whole lot like Rush remembered me now—rememberedus.

“I’ll be right there,” I said. “Just give me a second to make sure everyone else is?—”

“No seconds,” he said, sounding like his own bond-beast might be jerking on his reins. “You. Now.”

“Shit, well … okay.” The bonded part of me railed as I still hesitated. As if it were rattling its cage, my chest trembled with the effort of resisting its urges. But Rush was here, sounding well enough. Any of our friends might be suffocating to death as we spoke.

My entire body vibrated as I warred against my every instinct and forced our reunion to wait. Saffron whined in my arms at my distress. My question stilted, I asked, “Zafi, you alright?”

From my right, she let loose a groan several times her size. I turned but couldn’t make out her diminutive form. I did see Reed and Edsel, however. They looked battered but unharmed otherwise.

“No, I’m not alright,” Zafi whined. “I feel like I got ripped into a million tiny pieces and then glued back together again.” She coughed. “Only I’m not sure all the parts are back the way I want ‘em. Ugh, what if they aren’t? Is that possible?” Her final questions were high-pitched and panicked.

I didn’t want to admit that I had no better idea than she did. The map might sear itself onto my skin, but it came with more questions than answers, not an instructional booklet.

Ineededto touch Rush, to confirm he was actually here, that I wasn’t imagining him. If I’dlearned anything in my time in the Mirror World, it was that things weren’t always as they seemed. In fact, they usually weren’t. And practically anything could be ripped away from you without warning, especially your loved ones or your very life. My need to feel Rush manifested as a swarm of what seemed like ants—but wasn’t; I checked, twice—crawling across my skin, the glowing map long extinguished. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

“Everyone looks fine,” Rush said in a fast clip. “And I’m so, so fucking glad, really, truly, I am. I’ll celebrate them all later, I promise. But El, right now, I need you in my arms. I can’t wait another second. Please don’t make me.”

His approaching footfalls crunched disturbingly. As he drew closer, the light of his lumoon grew brighter, enough so to reveal why exactly the floor was so uneven: bones,so many bones, scattered across the floor. Charred and rotting flesh clung to some of them. Others were bleached white by the passage of time. Some appeared to have belonged to poor sods who were roughly people-shaped but larger. Most appeared to be dragon bones. My gut roiled, and a sudden growl erupted from Xeno, somewhere to my left. More even than me, he’d been raised to revere all dragons—and to protect them at all costs, however steep.

“The queen’s a dead woman,” he swore in a grumble so deep it scarcely sounded like my best friend.

If there was any common sentiment among our mismatched group, it was our mutual desire to murder the queen—the now immortal queen. The reminder surged through my mind unbidden, leaving a sour gloom in its wake.

“El,” Rush called again, his voice nearer, suggesting he was picking his way toward me from the other end of this enormous cave.

“You don’t understand. Someone might be in life-or-death trouble.”

“No one’s badly hurt,” West said.

Licking my lips, I couldn’t help but hinge on thebadlyqualifier. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

West’s tremulous affirmation didn’t sound certain. But that was all the permission I needed.

I discovered myself already running, stumbling over bones and skulls, slipping on patches of moss or gore, righting myself and then stumbling again. A foreign desperation had taken control of my body; Zako wouldn’t recognize me as the agile warrior I’d trained so hard to become. I tripped, caught myself against the black dragon’s shoulder—he growled and snapped his teeth at me—I didn’t so much as pause. Rush had last sounded as far away as if he’d been on the very opposite end of the Gladius Probatio’s arena.

I kept running.

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