Lexa
I’ve been to funerals like this before but always in Endova. There haven’t been many deaths in Silverhide. Our pack is young, with hardly any elders, and we’ve been relatively safe.
I find myself clutching Kaleb’s forearm while we walk through the city under a cloak of wet, humid darkness, my mind racing over the battle on the beach. How many pyres were lit in the days that followed? Dozens? I missed them all.
Kaleb doesn’t flinch away from my touch. His progress to the pit, the massive gate to the outside world, is slow, steady, letting me set the pace. My legs feel like lead despite the healing draft still working through my system. My elbow is fine now that it’s set back in place, and the drafts have done their job knitting my tendons back together, but the ache in my heart remains.
A crowd has gathered along the wall. Shadowed figures of men, women, and children look up at us as we approach. I see familiar faces. Familiar curious glances. But tonight, people bow their heads in silent solidarity while I clutch Chessie’s lock of hair, the only piece of her the fae king has allowed me to have.
A calf length dress borrowed from Lis–more of a nightgown, in its defense–brushes my thighs and my sandals clack against ancient stone pavers lining the ground near the wall like they’re part of an old road, something built long before these walls were here. I try to think of anything else but the fact I’m now drifting toward a tall, wooden structure with a flat surface where a body should be, but isn’t, because even in death, Chessie was a captive.
Kaleb fades into the background as I step forward, alone and weary. My eyes sting. Gods, I’ve never cried this much in my life. I’ve never felt so removed from my body. It’s hard to describe grief this tangled.
My dad told us about Isla and Maddox–their stories, their trials and victories–but never spoke about their deaths. It was painful for him, even years later, when we were old enough to understand what it felt like to lose someone you loved so desperately the world simply ceases to exist in the same way once they’re gone.
Now I know.
I know the injustice of it.
It makes me furious but also desperately, irrationally, confused.
I thought I’d lost her once before, but I didn’t have time to think about it because of my imprisoned state. This time, I’ve had nothing but time.
A very old woman suddenly reaches my side in the darkness. She gently clutches my wrist in her withered hand, her fingers smooth and cold on my skin. I look down into her milky eyes, and she nods to my hand, to the length of gold now warmed from my touch. This strand of curls is what we will burn tonight and give back to the Goddess so Chessie can find her way home.
A soft, ethereal hum floats through the air behind me. Women I don’t know move forward, standing straight and proud behind me as I place the lock of hair as high as I can and step back. Hands touch my shoulders, my arms, as they guide me back into the fold–their fold–and when Kaleb steps forward with a torch and hands it to me, his eyes lit from within by the flames, I make a silent promise instead of speaking out loud about Chessie and her legacy.
I will be her legacy.
I will avenge the life that was stolen from her.
Meg’s life is now mine to take.
And I will.
Goddess, I will.
I grip the torch and lay it on the bundles of thin sticks and straw at the pyre’s base. The fire blooms epically as my heart lurches, and I let the pain of losing my best friend flow through me for the last time.
I cannot not cry again, though my tears are not worthy of her death. I will spill blood in her honor, and that’s a vow. But my tears are not currently under my complete control.
Voices rise over the crackling fire–soft at first. It’s a rhythmic hum, a lullaby, something ethereal and lovely. I close my eyes as more voices join the delicate chorus, a sob dying in my throat. My body loosens until I fold into myself, kneeling on the dirt while the flames lick upward, toward the stars.
A woman kneeling in the dirt beside me leans her head back, her face tilted up as well, and her voice rises above the rest as she sings with her entire chest, beckoning the others to follow. All around me, voices rise like the smoke funneling to the stars–voices of different depths–some pained, others hopeful.
But the song they sing is so frustratingly familiar that it brings fresh tears to my eyes even though I swear I wouldn’t cry for her again, that I wouldn’t let the truth of what happened become my new reality. My lips part, quivering as the lyrics awaken something primal inside of me–something damning and painful.
It’s a song for a fallen warrior. A song wrapped in a mother’s love and a mate’s eternal grief. A song that’s been sung for thousands of years in the Deadlands, often in quiet rooms where mothers rock their babies to sleep. It’s sung in rooms where looms cast shadows over lonesome women waiting for their hunters to return. It’s sung on nights like this–when we’re forced to let go and say goodbye.
I crumble under the shared weight of anguish being loosed from lips who didn’t know Chessie, yet love her. Voices of those who saw their daughters in her eyes as she fought tooth and nail to stay.
Guide our sister, our daughter, our warrior, home. Carry her in lengths of fur into your golden embrace, oh Goddess, so she may see the stars of your own making. Sing her Your stories. She’s worthy, our young one. Take our sister, our daughter, our warrior, home. Our sister, our daughter, our warrior.
My voice radiates through the crowd in a keening cry, imperfectly harmonized, wetted by hot tears I can’t fight. The fire soars, but I don’t feel the heat. It’s beautiful and chaotic, just like she was. Just like she’s always been and forever will be. Forever young. Forever beautiful. Forever innocent.
We carry her memory. Her legacy. Our beautiful daughter of iron and claw. Open Your gates, oh Goddess, show her Your land of eternal sunlight. Let her run free in Your land of braided rivers, in Your fields of honey colored wheat. Oh Goddess, Your daughter, she comes bearing our blessings, our desperate cries. Oh Goddess, guide her home.
My knees bite into the dirt as I lower my head, my hair falling loose around my face, sticking to tear soaked cheeks. A warm, strong hand gently clutches the back of my neck, and I’m guided sideways until my face is flush in the crook of Kaleb’s shoulder. His scent cuts through the smoke, his presence slicing through the song. I turn my face into his shirt, my voice muffled by the rough fabric now soaked with my tears. I don’t care. I’m beyond feeling anything but a choking sense of loss I can’t make sense of, and he kneels by my side, an immoveable force of nature, the only thing keeping me from falling to pieces.
He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me onto his lap. He rises, carrying me like an infant, turning from the pyre while standing tall, shoulders squared. I don’t see how the crowd of mourners parts to allow us to pass. I don’t feel the hands that stretch toward us, pressing silent blessings onto my arms, my hair, bowing their heads as he moves us toward his house. The song blooms through me, falling out of me in broken sobs and shattered syllables until I’m limp, barely able to breathe, but I sing. I sing until my throat aches, until my lips are raw and my chest is so tight I can’t draw in a breath. Kaleb’s footsteps on the stairs are silent as he carries me up, turning into his room instead of mine. He clutches me tight, carrying me like I’m weightless, just a terrified, overwhelmed, and exhausted child.
He doesn’t make a sound. His chest barely moves as he takes a shallow breath.
I clutch his shirt, and he lays me down on his bed. My arms tremble as my fingers dig into the fabric. “Don’t–please–don’t go–” I whimper, trembling so hard my teeth clash together. “Please, just stay.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, smoothing my hair away from my face while I blubber incoherently, begging him for… anything. For help, for solace, to make it make sense. I curl around him, sobbing into his lap. His touch smooths down my back. He leans toward me, shielding me with his body, like he’s all that stands between me and the horrible, vicious world beyond.
And in a way, he is. At least for right now. At least until the pyre burns to ash, until the embers flicker for the last time. He eases further onto the mattress, dragging me with him to the center of the bed, where he tucks me against his chest, folding around me until I’m buried in him, his warmth, his touch a firm promise that he’s not leaving.
And he doesn’t.
Even when I open my eyes again to faint, rainy morning light trickling through the gaps in his faded curtains, he’s still here, asleep, his body folded around mine, safe and warm.
Outside, rain pelts the windows again.
I lift my head from his arm before breathing deeply, taking in his heavily masculine scent. It’s calming and instantly reminds me of everything that happened between us yesterday–the concern in his eyes when he’d seen the state of my arm, pressing me to the table in the kitchen downstairs, his mouth on mine…
Heat floods my body. I shudder, curling deeper against his chest, but the slightest brush of my thighs as they rub together has every nerve ending firing in rapid succession. His hand resting on my hip tightens.
He can’t possibly sense this feeling trying to claw for dominance. This want. This heat that makes it impossible to feel anything but his touch and his body this close to mine. It cuts through my grief–a needed distraction, something to numb the pain but something so strong it makes it difficult to truly feel anything else.
He shifts his position only slightly, his face buried in my hair, his breath tickling the top of my ear, and he slowly lifts his head. I close my eyes, but I know he’s fully aware now that I’m awake, and we’re caught, having fallen asleep together, tangled in an embrace.
The rain pattering against the window isn’t loud enough to drown out my thundering heart.
He’s going to ask if I’m okay, isn’t he? He’s going to pull away, make some gruff comment, or look at me with that hollow expression that screams disdain.
His fingertips sink into the curve of my hip. He curses under his breath, pressing a rather colorful word against my shoulder blade, and even just the touch of his mouth against my skin has a fire burning to life in my chest I can’t ignore.
Neither can he.
He inhales against my skin, his teeth grazing my shoulder where the straps of my gown have fallen over my arms. My lips part in a quiet, subdued whimper of pleasure I can’t bite back.
Kaleb splays his hand wide over my belly, drawing me closer to him, my back flush with his chest and my ass firmly planted against his lap where I feel his desire pressed between us.
Oh, gods. What are we doing?
A bright kind of desperation floods through me. The desire to be touched by him is overwhelming every other feeling, driving me absolutely insane. He buries his face in my hair again, taking a deep breath, like he’s also trying to rein himself in, but we’re already in dangerous territory.
“I know you’re awake,” he says hoarsely into my hair. He presses against my belly again, drawing me into him and the feeling of his cock…. Gods, every aching inch of him…. Another involuntary moan escapes my lips, and he shudders. “Lexa.”
His fingers inch upward toward my breasts, and I can barely contain myself when his hand closes over one. I rub my thighs together, and that’s it. That’s all it takes for him to growl, to roughly roll me over onto my back so I’m beneath him.
He pins my wrists together above my head with one hand in an effortless but slow motion, his eyes locked on mine, waiting for me to flinch, to tap out.
He already knows my limits. He’s seen me reach my breaking point before many times.
No man has ever beaten me down until now.
No man, other than my dad, has seen me cry, until Kaleb.
No man has ever made my body feel like this without even touching me, and when he does touch me?
He keeps his eyes locked on mine then lowers his head to press a single, deep kiss to the hollow of my throat–testing me. Waiting for me to tell him no.
I don’t.