Aviva
I wake in a cold sweat, finding it impossible to catch my breath. I didn’t dream last night, but I feel like my mind has been moving a hundred miles per hour without a moment’s stop in the hours I spent sleeping beside… sleeping beside Freya.
I look around, pushing a patchwork quilt down to my feet as I take in a new space, a new room, memories of last night flooding back to the forefront of my mind. I’m in Freya’s cottage in the village. I came here instead of sleeping alone in Ryan’s house. I curled up in bed beside her after leaving the mountain, after swimming in the hot spring, after I felt like I had something sharp lodged in my chest….
A shout echoes from outside. More shouts, all male, follow. It’s an argument.
“Freya?” I hiss, feeling over the bed. It’s still warm, like she’d only been here moments ago, but it’s so early that the sun hasn’t even reached the mountain peaks. Silverhide is still blanketed in foggy darkness.
I start to slide out of bed when the front door of the snug, stone cottage opens, and hurried footsteps move to the bedroom. Freya bursts through the bedroom door, in a nightdress, her shoulders covered by a beautiful woven blue and white shawl.
Her blonde hair is wild, curling around her face and falling out of her braid as she rushes toward me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.
I know at that moment that something is terribly wrong. “Aviva–”
“What happened?” I leap out of bed wearing a similar nightdress I found in her dresser. I move toward the door as she gapes behind me, trying to find words to explain the thick, crackling tension in the air.
She left the exterior door open, and now the male voices are more clear. I immediately see the foggy, shadowed figures of two men standing in the center of the village, surrounding a fourth man. I run toward them through the fog as they turn to me, their faces coming into startling clarity.
Grey has his hands on his knees, bent at the waist. “I was halfway here when Jacob called me back through the mind-link. I went back to Endova but Ryan was–Alpha Ryan–”
“Aviva,” Andrew says breathlessly as I step out of the fog. James turns to look at me, his face cast in unreadable shadows, but their body language is clear.
“What happened to my husband?” I ask, not recognizing my own voice. “Where is Ryan?” If Grey, one of the pack's best scouts, is here, and Hunter isn’t….
Andrew steps toward me, glancing at James. “Navvan warriors attacked Endova last night.”
The breath catches in my throat as he continues, “Endova is secure now–”
“Secure for now,” James cuts in, his expression ice cold. “Grey, go get some rest. Andrew, start gathering our men–”
“What happened to my husband?” I snarl, looking between them. “Where is Ryan?”
James looks stern, but Andrew’s expression cracks enough that I can see the uncertainty in his eyes.
“Ryan took an arrow to the chest. It’s bad.” Andrew licks his lips before cursing under his breath. “I’m sending men–”
“We’re sending men to ensure our territory is secure,” James says, giving Andrew a look.
My heart beats erratically as I look from man to man, noticing the stark differences between them, behind their eyes. I barely notice Freya stepping up beside me, her hand resting on my shoulder.
“Is Ryan alive?” My voice is like boots crunching over gravel.
Andrew nearly breaks, and even James shudders. That’s how I know he is horribly wounded. Wounded and on the edge of death. My throat closes up as I wait on pins and needles for their answer, for their confirmation to what I realize is my worst fear.
Losing Ryan. Losing the very man who can’t seem to decide what he wants from his own wife.
But suddenly they start arguing, talking over each other.
“Ryan made it clear–”
“It was a silver arrow coated in wolfsbane, James!”
“He made us vow–”
“He will die,” Andrew bites out. Freya squeezing my shoulder as I go completely, utterly still. “If we don’t do something, he will die.”
“I’m not going against our Alpha’s direct orders.”
“His powers can’t keep up with the poison. He won’t be able to heal himself–”
“What did you just say?” My voice cracks as I look from man to man. “What powers?”
Andrew chews the inside of his cheek, throwing James a look. James shakes his head as he crosses his arms over his chest, looking down at his boots. It’s Andrew who speaks, his voice strained as he says, “Ryan and his family… I don’t really get it, okay? But Ryan can heal pretty fast from his wounds. His grandma, and his brother, his cousin… they have this ability–”
“He made us promise not to use the tears on him, Andrew,” James rasps, but his voice finally breaks, giving me a glimpse of the emotion tearing through his body.
“We don’t have a fucking choice. He’s dying. Grey said so. Grey said the healer in Endova isn’t sure he’ll make it through the day–”
“The tears?” I whisper the words, completely and utterly confused. Powers? What powers? Like magic? Like the kind of powers the Queen of Eastonia and the Shadow King possess?
“His grandmother’s tears,” James answers. “The vials. It’s medicine. It can heal… anything.”
“Ryan has the ability to heal on his own pretty quickly without them, but with silver and wolfsbane in his system… he was shot through the heart, Aviva. He can’t heal from that on his own.”
“But the tears could save his life?” I ask, desperation clinging to every syllable.
Andrew and James look at each other, some internal debate swirling between them. Andrew looks at me, shaking his head. “He made us promise we wouldn’t waste them on him–”
“Waste?” I choke. “He’s dying–my husband is dying, and you’re debating whether or not to give him what can save his life?”
“It might not be enough. We only have so much,” James argues. “We made a vow to our Alpha–”
I turn and sprint, my feet sliding over wet gravel. Andrew curses and runs after me, but I’m faster, and I reach Ryan’s house and run inside before he even reaches the stairs to the porch.
I rip the lockbox from under the bed and realize I don’t have the keys. Andrew runs into the room, and I whirl, snarling, “Where are they? Give me the keys–”
“I don’t have them.”
“Who does?”
“I don’t know–”
I snatch one of my blades off the bedside table where I’d placed it before deciding to sleep at Freya’s cottage instead. Before Andrew can even take a breath, my blade is pressed against his throat, his eyes going wide.
“Aviva,” he whispers, raising his hands in surrender. “Ryan wouldn’t want you to do this.”
“Slit your throat, or save his life?”
“Both. He made us promise to save the tears for our pack members and to never use them on him, even if he was dying–”
“I never made such a promise. Where are the fucking keys?”
“Ryan might have taken them with him. I don’t have them, James doesn’t have them.”
I snarl and shove him away, turning back to the lockbox. It’s heavy as fuck, but I lift it, grunting with effort as I walk out of the room and drop it on the kitchen table. Ryan has a wide variety of tools and weapons in the cabinets in the kitchen instead of pots and pans. I find a hammer, slamming it against the locking mechanism over, and over again until it finally pops open.
Andrew stands and watches, not saying a single word to me as I roughly pull the little wood box out of its haven and fist one of the vials.
“Aviva, please, just listen to me–”
“Do you want him to die? Does James? Because that's what it sounds like.”
“We don’t,” he says heavily.
I turn to look at him over my shoulder. “Is James hoping Ryan loses his life so he can be Alpha? Is that why you’ve been standing around debating this when the answer is so fucking simple it makes my head spin?” I bare my teeth.
Andrew shakes his head. “You don’t know Ryan well enough yet to understand–”
“I am the Luna here, am I not?” I rage, clutching the vial. It’s warm to the touch, and I swear it vibrates, but maybe that’s just the anger coursing through me.
“You are,” he admits.
“Then as Luna, I command you to get out of my fucking way so I can save my husband, your Alpha, before he dies.”
I turn and walk back into the bedroom, slamming the door shut. Andrew is still in the living room, his eyes downcast, when I emerge dressed in one of my outfits from Endova, the loops already loosened for shifting. My bow and quiver rest on my back in a harness, and my knife belt hangs around my waist. I don’t need shoes because I won’t be in my human form again until I reach Endova. I won’t be stopping, no matter what greets me in the plains and forest between our two villages.
“I’ll kill James if he makes any moves to take over in my absence,” I tell Andrew roughly, my voice dripping with malice. “I’ll kill you, too.”
“I know,” he says, barely able to meet my eyes as I cross the room and throw open the front door. I clutch the vial between my teeth and shift without another word, sprinting off into the early morning fog.
I’m a blur, my body parting the fog, as I run through the village. People are starting to leave her houses. Men are shifting, following what has to be directives from James to start guarding the village. They look up as I pass in a whirl of red fur and weapons. I don’t even look at them. I can’t spare the time.
Thirty miles. I could run that in an hour if I stay at this speed. Maybe less.
The forest lined road leading out of the valley is a blur of deep green. The road leading to the Roguelands fades behind me. The plains open up, painted gray and deep gold, free of the fog cloaking Silverhide in darkness. The stars turn from bright bulbs to streaks of light at this speed. I chase the sunrise, my paws pounding over raw earth, kicking up dust. I leap over the width of the creek, my heart pounding, and land on the opposite bank, my claws curling into the rough, solid ground of Endova.
The next ten miles are a golden blur as the sun rises, casting the distant village in streaks of light. Smoke rises, blanketing the village in a haze as I sprint out of the plains and into the village proper. I shift mid-step, pulling on the strings to tighten the loops on my dress so it hugs my body again, and spit the vial into the palm of my hand just as Mercy runs out of our house, sensing my presence.
“Aviva, thank the Goddess–”
“Where is he?” The fear and utter grief I haven’t had a chance to feel since waking up this morning come rushing to the surface, causing my thundering heart to crack into pieces. “Where is my husband?”
Mercy looks so broken as she shakes her head, mouthing, “I’m sorry,” but I push past her toward the healer’s cottage, ignoring the shattering sensation in my chest that tells me I’m too late.
Ryan’s dead.