Lexa
Time is a construct in my mind with no beginning and no end. I remember being dragged onto the baking sand, my fingers slipping free from Kaleb’s. I remember being carried and laid on hard metal, hazy figures hovering over me dressed in white, like angels, their masked faces haloed by blinding fluorescent light. I have a feeling there were times when I was awake, when I’d open my eyes to slits and catch Kaleb’s scent all around me, my cheek pressed to his chest. I remember swaying. Constantly swaying.
“We’ve kept her mostly sedated,” says a voice I don’t recognize, and suddenly I’m being lifted again, my body little more than skin and bones as a scent I haven’t encountered in ages hits me like a brute force directly to the chest.
“And her man? I was told she has a mate now. Where is he? Was he on that boat?” Logan’s voice is rich and stern as he shouts the question over a barrage of overlapping voices. If there is a reply, I don’t hear it. I curl my fingers in Logan’s shirt, my tears of disbelief wetting the fabric. “I’ve got you. Don’t cry, Lexa. You’ll kill me,” Logan says, his tone dropping to a breathy whisper. He tucks my face against his shirt as he sidesteps through what must be a huge crowd. “Hey! Find the man they call Kaleb! That’s a direct order! Do it now!”
My bones feel impossibly hollow. Logan carries me like I’m weightless, and the sterile, metallic scent that’s been rendering my senses useless suddenly lifts, and the sun shines down so viciously, so heated, that my skin prickles, and my eyes burn. Am I back in the Glade? Are the fires still burning?
“Move. MOVE!” Logan snarls, and then I’m jostling in his arms as he breaks into a sprint. Noise is everywhere. I can’t make sense of it. A car horn blares somewhere in the distance. Everyone is shouting orders, voices overlapping. I focus on Logan’s heartbeat instead. If he’s here, Brie will be nearby, unless we’re in… Emberfyll.
Oh, my gods.
Am I back in Eastonia?
I try to lift my head, but my back is completely, utterly bruised. My muscles strain from lack of use, and I slump, a dead weight in my brother’s arms. He clutches me loosely, like he’s worried he’ll hurt me. I wonder if he can see the black and purple bruises covering most of my body, bruising I can feel with each step he takes.
The sunlight suddenly fades. A door slams, and voices lift in alarm. I gasp then moan as Logan tries to lay me down on a cool, flat surface, my tender spine trembling on impact.
“Lexa!”
“Ryan, stop!”
My eyes open to slits. The two faces peering down at me come in fuzzy focus. Kenna leans down until we’re nearly nose to nose, and I feel her hands pressing against my chest, her powers coasting over my battered skin.
“Let me see her–-please–” A choking sob comes from the left. My eyes slide to the side while Kenna continues to press her powers under my skin, a prickling cold tracing over every muscle, numbing me to the bone.
Mom, Dad, and Logan stand side by side. Mom’s eyes dart over my body, her mouth moving but her words so tangled by sobs they’re unintelligible. I’ve never seen her cry before.
Dad is just staring at me, his expression shifting between rage and a heartbreaking kind of thanks. Logan has a hand on them both, like he’s the only thing keeping them upright.
“She’s in very poor shape,” Kenna says, her voice so near I can feel her breath on my cheek. “I need healers. As many as you can find.” Her powers flood over my arms and chest before moving lower, my belly going stiff and cold as they sink to my bones, and she lets out a stifled gasp. I look up at her, unable to speak, unable to move. Her silver eyes hold mine. “A baby?”
Dad jerks, his face going purple with fury. Logan must have lost his grip on Mom because she lunges forward, taking my face in her shaking hands, her cheeks wet with tears and curly red hair wild. “Lexa,” she croaks. “I thought–I thought they killed you. What did they do to you? My–my–”
Kenna’s powers reach my spine, and the world tilts, my vision going so blurry all the faces in the room fade to fractals of light before going black.
I wake up with a jolt that screams fresh pain down my back. It’s dark. A window above the bed at my side lets in nothing but starlight as I scan an unfamiliar room with stucco walls. Misty slouches in a chair right next to bed, her hand resting on my thigh, her fingers ice cold and frosty on my bare skin.
I try to sit up and choke on a breath, like my lungs aren’t used to working properly. Misty lurches out of what must have been a deep sleep because she looks utterly disoriented before her eyes meet mine.
We stare at each other for several seconds.
“I wasn’t sure you’d wake up for a while.” She reaches up to rub her eyes, her fingertips nearly blue in the faint light coming from a candle burning on a table top in the corner of the room. She flexes her frozen hands with a wince, but her eyes don’t leave mine. “Are you feeling… anything? Any pain?”
“Yes,” I whisper, my throat tightening.
Misty rises and sits on the edge of the bed, smoothing my hair away from my face. “What happened to you, Lexa?”
“I–where’s Kaleb?”
Her eyes give nothing away, but her lips turn in, flattening. My heart quickens. He didn’t come, did he? I imagined all of it. Everything–
“He’s quite worried about you. He got in a little fight with Logan, I… they’re fine–both of them. A broken eye socket and shattered fingers are nothing for my powers, but… he’s downstairs explaining everything to Evander, Ryatt, and Ryan. They’ve been talking for hours. I came up here to sit with you to give your mom a break. I had to force her out. I hope she’s resting. I don’t think she’s slept since you–since you left.”
A myriad of emotions hit me, knocking my heart sideways. I curl into the fetal position, my hand pressed against my stomach on instinct. Misty runs her fingers through my hair in a way that makes me feel like a kid again–safe. Safe and home.
“Where are we?”
“Serpentia. You’re not well enough to move yet. Kenna has her hands full with the clinics. Everyone from… where you came from… is being treated before they’re allowed to move on.”
It’s too much. My head pounds as she continues, “Everyone is going to the Deadlands. That’s the last plan I heard before I came upstairs. But you can’t go anywhere until your back is better. You were… Kenna and I were just talking about how we’ve never seen anything like–”
“Blake healed me.”
Silence swells between us. I look up at her, drinking in her shock. “What?”
“I got hurt before, and he healed me. Knitted my back together using his powers.”
“He doesn’t have healing gifts.”
“He doesn’t. It’s something else.” I close my eyes, wincing as memories flood my mind. Then, I remember. “Did he… did Maeve…”
“Blake is in Moonrise with Marianna and Skye. She called us about an hour ago and said everything was fine, that he’s asleep. He… he’s different, isn’t he?” She strokes my leg absently. “He did something with his powers. Are they gone?”
“I don’t think all the way, but he saved us. He saved Kaleb’s life. He freed everyone from–from the Glade, and he tried to save Kaleb while I had to–” I flinch, the ghost of the memory of that knife sinking into Kaleb’s flesh sending me into a sudden tailspin. “No–no–no! I didn’t want to. He–he said I had to–”
“Oh, honey,” Misty rushes out, caressing my cheek as tears flood the pillow beneath my head. “It’s over now. It’s all over. You’re home. You’re going to be all right.”
The door opens to reveal my dad and Kaleb. They don’t both fit in the doorway, so Kaleb stays behind as Dad steps into the room, shocked and upset that I’m awake. He speaks rapidly to Misty, but the words tangle in my ears. I’m just looking at Kaleb, and he’s returning my gaze, exhausted.
But free.
I burst into tears.
“Give them some space, okay? I’m serious. There’s so much you could be doing right now.” Misty tugs Dad’s arm, forcing him out of the room. “Ryan, for fuck’s sake. Your mate is in shambles downstairs. She hasn’t slept in weeks. Lexa will be here in the morning. She’s not going to disappear.”
Dad grabs Kaleb by the shirt. It’s modern, likely something from the ship that carried us home. “You’re going to take care of her, okay? I’m leaving this to you.” I’ve rarely heard Dad talk in the old tongue. It sounds so foreign coming from him, but his words, and tone, are perfectly clear.
“I am. I gave you my word.”
“I gave you mine,” Dad says, but his voice sounds more threatening than anything else.
Misty groans, muttering something under her breath about Alpha men, and shoves Dad out of the snug space with all of her might, slamming the door shut behind them.
The room swims for several seconds, and then Kaleb’s in my arms, his face buried against my neck, and I’m dragging him to the bed that wasn’t designed for two people, let alone someone his size, at all. The frame squeals in protest, but I don’t care. Nothing else matters.
I choke back sobs until my tears run dry. He holds me tight, our bodies prostrate on the mattress like we haven’t touched in weeks. Maybe it has been that long. I barely remember a thing.
“How did we get here? What happened?”
Kaleb gathers me close and shushes me. “You need to be resting.”
“Blake? He was allowed to go home?”
He nods, swiping tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. “Lexa, everyone is fine.” He presses his mouth to my forehead in a tender kiss. “You did it. You brave, idiotic, feral woman.” His mouth meets mine in a kiss that would sweep me off my feet if I were standing. “I love you. I love you, Lexa. I–I didn’t get a chance to say it before.”
“You did,” I whisper against his mouth, breathing him in.
“I should have said it long before.”
We lie like that for some time. He tells me everything he remembers, which is a lot more than me, because by the time the naval forces arrived, I’d given in to my injuries, and he’d held me on that beach for hours until the first warriors breached the surf. Blake had been the last to board the boats. He’d waited until every single shifter from the Glade was accounted for, and then, he and Kaleb spent the better part of two weeks healing and preparing for whatever was to come.
I wake to the sunrise the next day. Kaleb isn’t beside me when I gingerly slide my feet out of bed and hobble through what I think is a townhouse tucked near the town square in the shadow of the outer areas of the University of Tarsian’s sprawling campus.
Mom takes my hand and doesn’t let go while Misty examines my back, and Dad pours coffee for everyone in the room.
But I’m watching Kaleb and Logan through the sliding glass doors leading out to a desert sun soaked patio, the two Alpha Kings leaning over a map of the Deadlands.
“They’re deciding who gets what,” Dad says quietly, smirking at Mom. “Like they get to decide. As far as I know, I’m still the Alpha King of the Deadlands.”
“They’ll each have a piece,” Mom says lightly, but her tone is broken, like her throat is raw. “Emberfyll and the Glade will keep their Alpha Kings but only as long as they play fair.”
Misty smoothes her fingers along my spine, stopping at the base. “Do you want to know what you’re having, Lexa? I can already tell.”
Kaleb turns to look into the house over his shoulder, the softest, warmest smile touching the corners of his mouth.
“No. I think I want it to be a surprise. Is the baby all right?”
“Just fine. Perfectly healthy.”
That doesn’t sound right. I remember the moment the king's powers struck me in the belly, the cold feeling of it.
Kenna begins to lean away, but I jolt, reaching behind me to grip her fingers.
“I need you to look for something for me.” Every eye in the room turns to stare at me, but I guide Kenna’s fingers back to my spine. My throat tightens when my gaze falls on Kaleb again. He’s out of earshot. I’m glad for it. “Can you tell me if the baby has wings?”