Logan
“BRIE!” I shout toward the trees. My voice carries through the night but doesn’t bounce back to me. It just keeps going, and going, and I’m at a complete loss as to where we are or where my mate could be.
Maeve murmurs at my feet where she’s lying flat on her back. I woke up five, maybe ten minutes ago in so much pain I could barely breathe, let alone stand. Now, I’m stumbling from spindly tree to spindly tree, using them to steady myself as I scream my mate’s name into the night, but she doesn’t answer.
Through the trees, I can just see the ocean, the storm raging in the distance. Lightning in shades of crimson and deep violet split the clouds as wind rushes toward the mainland. I can feel the electricity in the air, even from miles away. I can taste the thick, metallic stain of magic on my tongue. That storm… Maeve created it. It’s her powers drifting away from us, stirring up the sea.
But Maeve is currently unable to even speak as it stands, and she’s cold to the touch when I kneel and take her by the shoulders, shaking her.
“What did you do? Where is she?”
“Give me a minute,” she rushes out, the words slurred and jumbled. Her lips are blue, and her skin is an odd, pale gray. That golden luster to her skin is totally gone, like her powers light her from within, but now she’s drained.
Totally, completely drained.
I’ve heard of this phenomenon. I know what I need to do for her, but I’m torn between my duty to Maeve and finding my mate. I look out over the distant water again, my chest convulsing. Is Brie in the sea?
I press my hand to my chest, finding it hard to breathe. The bond is still there–still strong–but I’m weak. Weaker than I’ve ever felt. I couldn’t shift right now if I tried, if my life depended on it. I can’t summon the mind-link or even see through the darkness.
“Did we make it? Are we in Emberfyll?” Maeve asks, her teeth chattering violently.
I can’t bring myself to answer her. I have no idea where we are as I shrug out of my shirt, laying the thin fabric over her trembling body. We’re dry, which is good, but she’s cold, and the warm night air isn’t doing a damn thing to fix that.
“Stay here,” I command and rise, stumbling several yards before my legs start working properly again. I gather sticks, stopping to scream Brie’s name every couple of seconds, until my arms are full, then carry the bundle back to Maeve, who hasn’t moved at all.
I start a fire and drag Maeve closer to the flames, which are too new to give off heat yet. I repeat this process, stacking more sticks onto the fire until the flames begin to warm us. I keep Maeve close to the flames, watching her for signs that she’s warming up. When she turns her face from the flames, wincing at the heated bite, I drag her a foot away, and make the fire bigger.
I’m not sure how long this goes on. The watch on her wrist is busted, the glass shattered and the face within burnt to a crisp. The clouds hanging low above us promise rain, but the wind moves them across the sky before they dump water over the fire, and the sky opens to stars that… that I know. That I remember.
Maeve continues lying flat on her back. Her coloring is better, so I leave her side again, and walk through the woods, keeping the sea in my sight. The moonlight breaks through the clouds and begins to trickle through the new-growth trees. Some of them are shorter than me, actually. Just a few years old, so skinny I could snap them in half, and I realize why.
The ground beneath is scorched. Moss and pockets of grass have begun to poke through the thick layer of soot left behind by a fire that absolutely ruined the forest that used to be here, burning the ground through layers of soil until the fire met rock.
I remember that fire. I remember seeing it from the boat. I remember the glow on the horizon as I clutched the railing, and Emberfyll fell out of sight.
Maeve did it. She got us here.
“BRIE!” I scream the moment I reach the cliff overlooking the miles long beach that wraps around the northern half of Emberfyll. I’ve never been far south. That was my uncle's domain. But I know this place. I know the stars and constellations overhead. I know the beach.
I know how to get home.
I scream Brie’s name again, yanking on our bond, but I’m spent. I would feel it if she died, though? Right? The bond would have snapped like the moment we rejected each other. I would have felt that same empty desperation.
But would I have felt it if she was left on the other side of the veil?
Soft stumbling footsteps alert me to Maeve’s presence nearby. She grips the trees that are nearly as tall as her, snapping them as she tries to brace herself. Her legs shake violently as she shuffles in my direction, breathing hard. Her face is still so pale. I sigh and reach for her, hauling her into my chest to keep her steady so she doesn’t fall over the cliff.
“What happened here? These trees are new. This forest is… a baby.”
“There was a fire shortly before I left.”
“That would have been… a wildfire? This damage is insane, Logan, even for that.”
“It was likely more than that,” I mumble, scanning the beach and the water beyond for any sign of Brie.
Maeve goes deathly quiet for several seconds before asking, “It was magic, wasn’t it? Like my flames?”
“I was too young to know the details, but I’ve wondered.”
She doesn’t press for information, which I’m thankful for. My chest aches with each passing minute without knowing where Brie is, and I’m starting to panic. If I was stronger, if my body was more capable after being thrust through space and time with Maeve’s magic, I would shift. I wouldn’t stop running until I found her.
“I need to–to go down to the beach. I need to find her,” I say, my voice like gravel as exhaustion sweeps through me in throbbing waves that are nearly enough to drag me to my knees.
I can feel Maeve looking at me when she replies, “We need to just sit down. I know, Logan, and I’m sorry. We’ll find her, okay? But we’re both in really bad shape.”
“And what kind of shape do you think she’s in?” I snap.
Maeve’s lips thin, her eyes turning back to the water. She’s trying not to cry, that’s obvious.
I want to tell her this isn’t her fault. But that’s not true. Losing her sister wasn’t her intention, however, so I can’t really be mad at her, despite how I feel right now.
We return to the fire after several minutes spent debating our options. In the end, I can’t shift, can’t use the mind-link, and Maeve has no power left. She’s teetering on the edge of freezing solid, and I can barely keep the fire burning hot enough for her.
“We need to start moving. We need real shelter–and food,” I tell her over the crackling embers. “It’s nearly morning. We’ll have better light to continue our search for Brie, but we have to find her as soon as we can.” I close my eyes against the pain of not knowing where she is. “She’s likely on land. She has to be. I can feel the bond. She’s here, somewhere, and we need to find her.”
Maeve is asleep, however, with her forehead resting on her knees as she sits beside the fire.
I consider sleeping, too. I need it, but we’re out here alone and exposed. The woods offer no cover. I can see for miles through the thin trees. But I haven’t been keeping an eye out like I should have been because the second I look over the top of Maeve’s head and into the woods, a shadow catches my attention. I’m up on my feet, leaping over the top of Maeve’s head, within a breath.
Maeve yelps when the sole of my boot grazes the top of her head, but the sound is stolen by my body colliding with another man, the two of us hitting the ground with an echoing thump and rolling into the sparse underbrush.
He screeches in pain, but I cut off his breath with a hand clamped around his neck, squeezing hard. He’s a thin man. Thin, and maybe just a little shorter than Maeve. I can feel every bone in his body as I press him to the hard, blackened ground.
He looks up at me in terror, his dark brown eyes wide and short blond hair catching the moonlight, which reflects off his slightly pointed ears.
He murmurs something, but his voice is choked, his eyes beginning to bulge. Only when his body relaxes do I let him go, but I stay straddling him, keeping him pressed to the ground. He’s probably Maeve’s age. A teenager. Gangly but severely malnourished. I glance at the shadowed heap beside us and notice a skinny, diseased rabbit lying limp, all skin and bone. Not enough meat for much more than a few bites of protein.
I look down at the man again, scanning his face. “Who are you? What are you doing out here?”
“Simon,” he rasps, struggling to breathe. “I was just hunting.”
I tilt my head toward the rabbit. “Having any success?”
He grimaces, his eyes watering, but I slowly rise, feeling down his body for weapons. I take the two knives from his belt and step away, holding them out in warning. Simon rolls over, coughing violently, then fists the rabbit carcass and presses it to his chest. “Who are you?” he asks, glancing at me before trying to look around my body to where Maeve’s sitting by the fire, wide-eyed and silent as she watches me and the man.
“Where’s the nearest village?” I ask, but my mind is reeling. I didn’t know if there would be anyone left here. This fellow would have been an infant when I left Emberfyll with my parents. Someone raised him. His well-made homespun clothing and weapons make me believe he lives with someone–with people who have skills.
“About five miles east,” he says, then swallows, unsure whether or not to give me exact directions. I don’t blame him for being weary. “Is she hurt?”
“Don’t even look at her.”
Simon flinches and purposely looks toward the woods instead. He’s pale and refuses to meet my eyes as I step toward him, heaving a breath and preparing for his answer to my next, and final, question.
“Who is your king?”
Simon looks slightly taken aback. Finally, he looks up at me, shrugging boyishly. “We don’t have a king.”
I feel the air leave my lungs in a whoosh, replacing some of the tension in my body with an odd wave of calm.
“But yesterday afternoon Elder Seamus found a lady on the beach who said she was the missing prince’s mate–”
“What?” I grab his shoulders. “Did you say Seamus?”
“Who’s Seamus?” Maeve quips, but I ignore, hauling Simon to his feet.
“What did the woman he found yesterday look like?”
“I’m not sure. We’ve just been hearing things in the villages. Some of the older men are out in groups searching for her companions…” His eyes go suddenly wide as he looks up at me, then glances at Maeve. His mouth moves but no sound comes out. “Y-you are–you’re Prince Logan, aren’t you?”
I let him go. He staggers backward, losing his footing and falling right on his ass. The rabbit slides out of his grip as he kneels forward in a deep bow. “Alpha King.”
Maeve claws her way to a standing position using my arm leg, then my arm, for support.
Simon echoes his statement–that I am the Alpha King. The words work through my body like tendrils, like claws, awakening my wolf powers again.
“Where is my mate?” I ask him, my voice low and serious. “Take me to her.”