Page 29 of Blaze

Ransom licks the side of my face, a warm, slippery kiss that makes me giggle. The sound echoes oddly in the vast expanse. Smoking spider webs waver with the vibrations.

“You aren’t angry with me?” I ask, even as I realize this isn’t exactly the time for this conversation. I mean, who knows what’s out there, ready to kill us. Yet, the words just sort of fall off my lips. “For bonding with Maddox?”

Ransom cuts his head to the side before bumping his cousin’s shoulder. I’m no expert in body language (especially canine body language), but it looks like a friendly gesture and I’m pretty sure that whatever happened between Maddox and me is water under the bridge as far as Ransom is concerned. For all I know, hellhounds share females all the time and I’m projecting my father’s prudish expectations onto my love life. I’ll have to ask when there’s an opportunity. Right now though, we’re stuck wading through a maze of spider webs, Carmine summoning more vines to cut them down as we go. She even manages to make something beautiful out of the scorched earth I left in my wake.

I’m not sure how long it takes us to reach the other side of the sticky forest, but I know immediately when we do. The pitter-patter of drops from above sends dread spiking down to my toes. I know what it is before a single raindrop plops onto my skin and I know, with every fiber of my being, that I don’t want to wade through the storm on the other side of this maze.

“Nightmare rain,” Ransom says grimly, transforming from his hellhound form into a distractingly nude man. My goddess, is he beautiful. He looks back at Carmine and Draven and then takes a deep breath as he faces the two of us once more. “I think Carmine and her guardian should stay on this side. She’ll need her joy to restore this world.”

“Then who’s going through?” I ask, my stomach dropping because I can already figure out the answer.

In response, he takes my hand in his right and seizes Maddox by the ruff with the left.

“We are,” he says.

Then we plunge headfirst into the torrent and despair curls frigid fingers around my heart.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

RANSOM

The rain immediately soaks us to the skin, and my companions become dead weights in my arms.

I have to hoist both aloft to keep them from sagging to the ground as their wills buckle. My own knees shake and threaten to give out, dropping me to the soaked ground in a hunched posture of hopelessness. I move slower in this form, but I chose it because it allows me to carry them both. In my hellhound form, I can only drag one of them through with my teeth. With human hands and shoulders, I can bear their weight. It’s hard but not impossible.

Blaze is moaning something unintelligible, batting at an imaginary enemy, and alternately cowering in fear from a threat I can’t see. My stomach lurches with understanding when she murmurs a plea to her own father. The bastard must have beaten her at some point. If he still lives, I’ll rip his throat out for it. No one should live in fear of their own parent. In hellhound culture, unfit parents are killed and their children are given to people who are worthy of raising pups. Even royals aren’t above the rules.

Maddox doesn’t move at all. For a heart-stopping second, I’m convinced he expired the moment the rain touched him. But no, he’s breathing, the shallow rise and fall of his chest the only comfort I have in the downpour. The sky above looks black, with not even the light of the stars guiding my way forward. Maddox’s sources say the rain isn’t a large barrier, just a potent one. But with no light, part of me is convinced I’ll be running forever with no way out. No companions but the dark and the despair that tries to claw all sanity from my mind.

I wonder if the fact that Maddox has bonded with Blaze is revisiting him in this truth rain. I hope not because there’s a reason I haven’t broached the topic with either of them—because it doesn’t bother me. Strangely. Even as I imagine it should, it doesn’t. Perhaps because I want them both to be happy? I’m not certain.

I stay upright by sheer will alone. I will not let this rain defeat me. Nightmares? Hah. My life has been a nightmare for over twenty years, subject to the whim of a tyrant. Maddox succumbs to his guilt, mumbling something about bringing Lycaon to our doorstep, and even a Chosen isn’t strong enough to withstand the psychic attack for long. But I am. I’ve forged my own fortress in my own mind to deal with times like these when the touch of something unwelcome threatens to overwhelm me. I retreat just enough to be in the moment, but not of it. To let myself experience without feeling. It lets me stay on my feet when others buckle.

This is my strength.

Axion couldn’t withstand something like this. I know he was grateful to have been king, instead of in my position as a whore. He’s more than paid for what he compelled me to do, trapped in Lady Death’s fortress as her lapdog for the rest of time. Maddox has paid his dues as well, mired in his own guilt for years. He’s flagellated himself enough for a thousand lifetimes. But if he hadn’t done what he’d done, I wouldn’t have the lovely woman in my arms.

I wouldn’t have Blaze.

But I do, and I want to continue having her. I love her, even if that love, these feelings, are as new and unsteady as a candle flame. I want a chance for it to grow stronger. That’s what helps me push through, to sprint through the rain without collapsing in utter despair. It’s what makes me laugh in exultation when I come out the other side, soaked but alive and sane.

I blink the deluge from my eyes and gasp when the world comes back into brighter focus. The world around us is barren, turned ash gray with a gilded cage the only spot of color in the otherwise drab landscape. Cyllene is crouched inside the cage, as golden and gloriously beautiful as the cage that imprisons her. Her ember eyes flick up to meet mine and hope alights on her features, transforming them into something unbelievably radiant. The cage is perched precariously on the edge of a cliff, and if I crane my neck, I can see the vast recesses of the worlds between stretching far below. I believe Fantasia’s branch waits below. There’s a battle playing out, but I can’t make out the details without moving closer.

A snarl draws my attention to the left. I’m expecting Fenrir to lunge at us, teeth bared. But the creature isn’t snarling at us. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t noticed us at all. Instead, he’s facing off against a slender woman. She radiates vitality and warmth. False warmth, but warmth nonetheless. I know her on sight, know how she smells, how she feels clamped around my cock. Vita wanted me years ago and pestered Lycaon for a night with me. I’d been beaten when I refused her, and it hadn’t done me any good in the end. She’d taken me anyway. Just the memory turns my stomach.

Vita’s face is screwed up in fury. She’s bloodied, one of her slim shoulders mottled with blood. The Fenrir doesn’t look well either, patches of his midnight fur have turned brittle and gray, flaking off when he moves. But he’s too large for her to drain in one pull, the way she consumes humans.

“Hold still you mutt!” she shouts at the giant hellhound, leaping aside when the Fenrir crouches and then springs for her. He lands where she’d stood only a few moments before, nails digging furrows into the ruined earth as he struggles not to slip over the edge. It’s clear her goal is to push him into oblivion so that Cyllene is at her mercy.

I can’t let that happen.

I jostle Blaze and Maddox until they stir, both groggy and clearly uncomfortable. The sensation of dread won’t pass until they’ve had a chance to strip off their sodden clothes and dry themselves off—dry off the stinging rain. I can stand it only because the sensation is familiar. I’ve lived in a constant state of dread for years.

“Now is our chance,” I hiss. “While Vita has the Fenrir distracted. We need to free Cyllene. The rest is up to her. Blaze, can you sear the lock off the cage?”

She blinks up at me, uncomprehending for a second before her mission sinks in and she nods. She doesn’t have the strength to stand, but she summons the will to crawl along the grainy earth. The way she slinks forward reminds me of a hellhound female, and my heart swells with pride. She’s mine. She’s Maddox’s too. And that’s just as well because if one of us dies, there’s another to care for her. It just seems right, somehow.

Maddox rises shakily to his feet after a moment and I point him toward Vita. “Help the Fenrir dispose of that bitch. I’m going to help Blaze.”

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