Misty
“Aviva, stop!” I shout as she begins to turn toward the woods, her bow raised and arrow primed and ready. My powers ignite, stronger than they’ve ever been, and explode through the clearing in bright, blue light that sizzles into the ground.
I swear, somewhere deep in the swirling, blue ether, I hear what sounds like a lock clicking–like I’ve just jammed a key into a padlock and wrenched on it until it turned–and then the ground shakes violently, a crushing, grinding sound beginning to echo through the clearing.
Red eyes appear near the tree line–three sets–barreling toward us. Aviva roars as she pulls back on her arrow again, but then she… disappears with a surprised scream.
“Aviva?!” I shout, then choke on her name as the ground beneath me falls away.
My powers burn out. I’m falling through the darkness, reaching blindly for anything to grab onto. Something beneath me hits the ground with a crunch, and then I’m landing on top of the object, which turns out to be Aviva.
We both choke and yelp, rolling to opposite sides. My healing powers tremble to life, attacking the pain in my hips and back from the fall, while Aviva snarls and tries to untangle us.
“What did you do?” Aviva pants, desperate to catch her breath as she stands on unsteady legs.
I don’t have a chance to answer. Red eyes float in the rainy darkness above our heads.
The snarling, gnarled growls of the three rogues echo down to us. Aviva grits her teeth and picks up her bow, letting go of an arrow that pierces the first one right between the eyes.
The other two circle the opening we’ve fallen into, snapping their massive jaws, their naked, molted skin dripping with rainwater as their talons grip the freshly overturned earth.
Aviva shoots another arrow, but she’s squinting against the rain, and the arrow pierces the shoulder of the rogue, which causes it to pitch forward and fall.
“MOVE!” Aviva shouts.
I jump out of the way, flattening my back against… solid stone.
The rogue’s scream of pain pierces the air, making my ears ring. I narrow my eyes against the rain in time to see Aviva going absolutely ballistic on the rogue, slicing its head clean off its neck with one of her long blades.
Blood sprays. I find it hard to breathe as Aviva picks up the rogue's head and stares into its dead eyes before chucking the head so hard it flies straight out of the hole and smashes against the one rogue still standing, who yelps and scurries away.
Holy shit.
Aviva, coated in blood, turns to me with a vicious look in her eyes. She scans the stone wall behind me, her chest heaving as she catches her breath. “Where are we, Misty?”
I choke back my shock and whirl toward the wall, laying my hands against the cool stone.
The rest of the hole is packed dirt. I follow the stone until the dirt begins, and back again, my fingers slipping over symbols and swirls that make little sense to me.
Aviva comes up behind me smelling sharply of blood and mud, extending her hand to swipe her fingertips over the symbols, then retreats, clearing her throat.
“It’s a temple,” she says under her breath. “The symbols are Firestone.”
I start pushing on the stone like a trap door will miraculously open for us, but nothing happens. Instead, rain continues to thunder overhead, soaking us to the bone. Water begins to pool around our feet, turning the dirt beneath us to sticky, soupy mud.
Shivering, I turn my eyes to Aviva, whose eyes–once full of bloodlust–now shine with concern as she squints up at the sky.
We’re twenty feet below the surface. There’s no way up.
“Fuck,” she hisses under her breath and turns to start picking up her weapons. She examines her blades before sticking them in the muddy wall of the hole.
“What are you doing?” I ask, watching as she tries to jump with her blades in each hand, slamming into the dirt wall, sinking her blades deep… but not deep enough to climb, like I’m thinking she’s trying to do.
The blades slide down, dragging more dirt and soggy earth with them. Dirt tumbles into the hole, scattering around our feet and soaking into the water still gathering, nearly to our ankles.
“We’re stuck,” Aviva says under her breath, running a hand over her face.
“I’m sorry–”
“It wasn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have come back here.”
“Well, you were right about things being drawn to this place. The rogues…”
“Maybe,” she says, sinking into a crouch. “I mind-linked with Ryan. He’s on his way with help, but it’s going to be a while.”
I’m sure Cole sensed whatever was going on and is racing here, as well. I lean against the stone and close my eyes. I’m freezing, but my powers are exhausted, and trying to shift right now sounds more miserable than shivering in the rain.
Aviva cleans her blades in the water and slides them into her halter, but her eyes are wide and distant as she asks, “Have you been studying The Book of Whispers?”
I chew my lower lip, eventually shaking my head. “No. Not yet. It’s in… in an early form of Firestone, I believe. I've been trying to learn how to read it, but it’s proving to be impossible and I… I’m not sure I want to know what’s in there.”
“I want to know,” Aviva whispers over the rain.
“You can read it. I don’t care.”
“Maybe you should care, Misty. That’s our history, as sordid as it is. We need to know what to expect–”
“You think the book can give us a glimpse of the future?” I laugh sardonically, shaking my head.
“I think it’ll tell us what we should be weary of so history doesn’t repeat itself.” She rises, coming to my side, and leans against the wall as water begins to rise over our ankles. “What did you see when you went through that portal?”
I grind my teeth. I haven’t told anyone the truth. When asked by my parents, and my aunt and uncle, I told them it’d been dark. Black, empty nothingness… which is a half-truth.
I think of the women. Emory, and Faye. Whoever they were, wherever they lived…
“We’re connected to another world somehow,” I say, closing my eyes at the memory of Faye’s fangs. “It’s quiet there. Foggy and slightly cold. I didn’t see much before you rescued me, but I met–”
A distinctive howl cuts through the rain, followed by others–an army of rescuers.
Aviva doesn’t make any moves, however. She’s looking right at me, her gaze burning into my profile.
“Who did you meet?”
I turn to face her, both of us soaked to the bone. Aviva’s hair sticks to her filthy, blood covered face.
“I met someone who wasn’t like us. Someone that wasn’t a shifter, or a witch… and she was kind. There was a child with her. She looked important,” I admit. I meet Aviva’s eyes. “We’re connected–our world, and theirs. I don’t know why, but I feel responsible for them now, and I think that’s why I can’t make myself learn the secrets of The Book of Whispers… yet. If anyone were to find out… Aviva–”
“I understand,” she says, lacing her fingers in mine and squeezing. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thank you.”
Our names are shouted into the gloom from above, and then several lanterns appear, shining golden light down into our muddy prison.
Cole appears first, looking borderline manic, his eyes wide with concern that softens to frustration when he sees me in one piece but stuck twenty feet below. Ryan crouches at the edge of the hole, raising his brows at his mate.
“Well, well, well–”
“Shut up, Ryan,” Aviva says dismissively, glaring playfully up at him. “Just get us out of here.”
* * *
I lift my head from a pillow fashioned from a rolled up length of wool as Cole’s shadowed frame enters our tent. Rain pounds against the tarp roof while I sit up, scooching over to give him room to sit beside me.
He pushes out of his muddy boots and shrugs out of his jacket before reaching for the piles of blankets I’ve been buried under for the better part of three hours. It has to be nearly morning by now, but the sky is so dark from the storm raging overhead that it’s impossible to tell the time.
Dressed in nothing but one of Cole’s shirts, I shiver as the cool night air touches my skin, but Cole turns to me as he pulls off his shirt. “I didn’t think you were still awake.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” I tell him, giving him a small smile as he rises over me, having to bend down at an odd angle to slip out of his wet pants.
He curls up beside me on the sleeping mat separating us from the cold, dirt floor and piles the blankets on top of us. “You’re freezing.”
“I think I’ll continue to be cold until I can take a shower,” I reply a little dreamily, sighing as his body heat fans around me. He pulls me against his chest, wrapping his arms around my waist. His warm breath tickles my neck, sending flickers of heat down my spine.
“Ryan wouldn’t let Aviva into their tent until she was clean. He dunked her in a nearby creek repeatedly.”
“Really?”
“That’s where I was… well, I was treating Ryan’s wounds after Aviva got her hands on him after the fact.”
“Did she find that third rogue?”
“Yes,” he says with a sigh. “A few warriors got hurt in the fight that ensued, but it was good experience for me, honestly, doing some field medicine.” He snuggles closer, his voice edged with exhaustion. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Are you mad?”
“For what?”
“Using my powers to open a hole to the underworld?”
I can feel his smile against my jaw. “No. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you. It’s not the first time, and I doubt it’ll be the last time. Plus, we got a night alone out of it.”
I chuckle, nestling deeper into his touch. It has been a while since we’ve been alone like this. The rain drowns out any other sounds from the tents scattered nearby, closing us into a vacuum of silence where the only noise is our heartbeats.
Addy’s staying with Freya, the village babysitter, it seems, who’s also caring for Lexa in our group's absence.
Cole already knows what we found, of course. It would have been hard to miss the strange exterior wall we’d uncovered during our fall, but neither of us are keen to talk about it right now.
His hand slides over my belly, pressing me closer to him as he kisses across my jaw. I turn toward him, catching his lips with mine in a heated kiss that warms me through and through.
I missed him. I missed us, when it was just us, and we were learning each other outside of the war that brought us together. Those first few weeks spent in freedom, building a life together… it was bliss. Bringing Addy into the fold felt natural, but our life suddenly felt so busy, so loud.
I missed quiet nights like this, when it was just me, and him. Is that selfish?
“What are you thinking about?” he asks against my lips, sliding on top of me.
“Just you,” I whisper, sighing as he nudges my knees apart. “Just that I missed you. I missed this.”
He steals the words with a kiss that banishes any thoughts in my head.