Page 9

Chapter nine

K eegan fell to his knees, clutching his throat as he gasped for air.

Though his skin burned where the mirror ropes had touched him, ice pumped through his veins, contorting his body in deep, racking shudders.

His head spun, his eyes watered, and his heartbeat pounded in his ears like a war drum.

Then, before he could even catch his breath or process what had just happened, he was pulled upright and lifted from the ground.

Panic clawed at him, eating away any semblance of civility, and he reacted on pure instinct, kicking and flailing as he fought against his unknown attacker.

“Keegan! Keegan, it’s me.” Strong, protective arms surrounded him, crushing him against a wall of solid muscle.

“It’s me, kaelaer ,” Rune shouted into his mind.

“You’re okay.”

He felt pretty fucking far from okay , but he clutched at Rune, breathing in his scent and soaking in his steadying presence.

“What the hell was that?” he asked, his voice hoarse and shaky.

“I think a better question is, where the hell are we?”

Taking a deep breath, preparing himself for some sinister hellscape, Keegan lifted his head and forced his eyes open.

Instead of lightning-streaked skies and rivers of lava, however, he found himself standing on the outskirts of a familiar setting.

The Village of Lost Souls.

Only…not.

For starters, everything had been reversed.

The shops sat where the Tower had been, the high-rise and castle completely absent, leaving large gaps in the terrain.

At the bottom of the hill, a crumbling pier led into a dry riverbed, and rather than perpetual twilight, an orange hue blanketed the village, the light hazy like a noxious cloud.

“What is this place?”

More importantly, how did they get back to where they belonged?

“I don’t know,” Rune answered, and he sounded none too happy about it.

“I guess we better check it out, though. If the same thing happened to the other souls, maybe they ended up here as well.”

The last thing he wanted to do was go traipsing through some deranged mirror world, but they couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.

Even if someone had noticed their absence, they would have no way of reaching them without ending up trapped themselves.

Which meant no one was coming to save them.

“Yeah, okay,” he agreed, albeit reluctantly.

“Maybe someone can tell us what’s going on.”

Hand in hand, they followed a narrow road made of inky black stones, the surface glossy and reflective like polished onyx.

A frigid wind whipped through the town, ruffling Keegan’s hair and pelting his face with grains of glittery white sand.

Without a word, Rune reached over and flipped Keegan’s hood up, pulling it tight around his head.

While he hadn’t thought it possible, Keegan smiled.

“Thanks.”

Rune responded with a muffled grunt.

“Let’s start at the diner.” He pointed toward the building closest to them.

“If the souls ended up here, they would head somewhere familiar.”

Yeah, that made sense.

If he had come through the mirror alone, that likely would have been the first place he went as well.

At the same time, he sent up a silent prayer of gratitude to whatever deity was listening that he didn’t have to navigate this nightmare on his own.

“How are you so calm about this?” Granted, one of them needed to keep a level head, but he just couldn’t comprehend it.

“I’m not calm, but panic is a luxury I don’t have right now.”

With that one statement, Keegan finally understood.

This was no longer Rune, the slightly disgruntled supervisor who managed resident complaints and oversaw supply drops once a week.

This was Rune, the Guardian, the protector.

Stoic, single-minded, and determined, he had flipped the switch to warrior mode.

It was intense, a little terrifying, but also…

kind of hot?

The hinges didn’t screech when Rune pushed open the door of the diner.

No fire waited for them in the stone hearth.

No smiling Cian standing behind the counter with a cup of hot coffee.

In fact, there was nothing there at all beyond empty tables and a thick layer of dust.

They checked the bakery next, then the apothecary, moving down the row of dilapidated buildings with crooked doors.

Each time, they were met with silence, finding only emptiness where there should have been life.

“I don’t understand.” Hundreds of souls must have been sucked into this place.

“Where is everyone?”

Outside of the blacksmith, Rune stared up and down the paved street, scanning their surroundings as he turned in a slow circle.

Once he had completed his assessment, he nodded and took Keegan’s hand.

“There’s nothing else here, meaning there’s only one place left to go.”

Then he started walking, pulling Keegan with him as he marched down the hill toward the river.

Well, where the River Acheron should have been.

There were no dark waters filled with glowing souls here.

No ferry to aid them to the other side.

Just a seemingly endless stretch of white sand dotted with black trees, their branches spindly, twisted, and barren.

When they reached the bank, Rune scrambled down the steep drop-off with ease, then turned to offer his hand, helping Keegan navigate the crumbling earth.

Once he reached the bottom, they looked at each other, their eyes saying things they didn’t have the heart to speak, and nodded.

Still, Keegan saw no signs of life—or afterlife for that matter.

As they walked in silence, he scanned the ground for footprints, but if anyone had passed through there, the wind had since eroded the evidence.

The air grew heavier as they ventured farther into the desolation, the oppressive silence pressing in on them from all sides.

Every crackle of shifting sand beneath their feet echoed unnaturally, carried away by the cold wind.

As they passed one of the trees, Keegan paused, his gaze drawn to the way the light refracted off the surface.

The black bark gleamed slickly, bubbling like oil on water as it swelled and contracted in an unsettling mimicry of a pulse.

Turning away, he shook his head, choking back his fear as he hurried to catch up to his mate.

Just beyond the halfway point, the atmosphere shifted again, the orange haze fading to a muted silvery-blue glow that did nothing to ease his anxiety.

Shadows flickered and faded where none should have been, their blurred outlines somehow sharper against the stark backdrop.

“Rune?”

“I see them.” He squeezed Keegan’s hand, urging him to hurry his steps.

“Just keep walking.”

His heart beat faster, knocking against his ribcage, and the hair on his nape stood on end.

He ducked his head, his back bowing with the weight of stares from eyes he couldn’t see.

Whether the shadows or something darker, they were being watched, tracked.

The wind settled to a gentle breeze as the shoreline came into view, but even that didn’t bring relief.

Without the constant roar in his ears, he heard it now.

The scratching. The chittering.

Soft at first, muffled, but growing louder.

The shadows encroached, growing bolder with every step they took.

They danced at the edges of his periphery, slinking closer, their voices resonating like the clack of a typewriter.

Then, without warning, one darted in front of them, scuttling across the ground like a giant spider, its clicking interspersed with high-pitched hisses.

Something brushed against the back of his legs, pulling a yelp from him, and he spun around, searching for the offender.

What he saw made his stomach drop and his heart seize.

The shadows rolled toward them like dense, black fog, crawling and tumbling over one another as they reached out with long, crooked limbs.

“Run!” Rune shouted, grabbing him by the back of his sweater and spinning him around.

“Go!”

Heart pounding, muscles taught, Keegan pumped his arms as he sprinted across the sand.

His breath came in ragged pants, searing his lungs and burning his throat, as he pushed himself harder, faster, his eyes trained on the shoreline ahead of him.

He didn’t slow, didn’t dare look behind him, but he could sense the shadows closing in, could practically feel their icy breath on the back of his neck.

“Go,” Rune repeated when they finally reached the other side of the river.

“Climb.”

Grabbing hold of an exposed root, Keegan used it to pull himself up the hill, his feet scrambling for purchase as the packed earth cracked beneath him.

Slipping and sliding, he finally managed to heave himself over the edge of the embankment, rolling onto a patch of thick, wet grass.

He bound to his feet, prepared to keep running, but stumbled to a stop when he realized Rune hadn’t ascended the drop-off with him.

Turning, searching, his heart clenched when he spotted his mate still in the riverbed, his back stiff as he marched toward the oncoming horde.

“Rune!”

“Run, Keegan. Don’t look back. Just keep running.”

Striding through the sand, his form began to shift, the air around him thickening, shimmering.

His shoulders widened and his back arched, bending him forward in a hunched, unnatural posture.

The fabric of his shirt shredded, falling away in tattered strips, as dense, midnight-black fur erupted across his body.

His legs contorted, lengthening into powerful limbs tipped with claws like polished obsidian.

Keegan couldn’t look away, mesmerized by the terrifying transformation.

His mate’s face elongated into a broad snout, his fangs gleaming like ivory daggers as he released a guttural roar that shook the ground and reverberated through the trees.

By the time the shift was complete, he towered above the riverbed, a colossal black bear with eyes that burned like hellfire.

Lowering his head, he roared again, a sound of defiance and primal challenge.

Keegan stood paralyzed, his sneakers rooted to the ground with indecision.

Rune had told him to run.

He’d told him not to look back, but he couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t leave him.

His stomach twisted with dread as his mate charged into the blackness, his massive paws throwing up sand behind him and leaving indentions in the earth.

The shadow monsters swarmed, undeterred by his gnashing teeth and swiping claws.

They crawled over his back, his head, blanketing him in an impenetrable cloud of darkness.

“Rune!” A hollow ache formed in the pit of his stomach, and his legs trembled, threatening to give way.

“Rune!”

“Keegan, get out of here!”

But he didn’t run.

Afraid for his mate, frustrated with his own uselessness, he paced the riverbank, desperately racking his brain for some way to help.

He didn’t have fangs or claws, no manmade weapon that could cut through shadows.

In fact, he knew of only one way to dispel the darkness.

The thought had barely finished forming when a circle of orange light emerged from the trees behind them, as if the forest itself had heard his pleas and responded with favor.

Instead of divine or cosmic intervention, however, salvation came in the form of a face that looked identical to his own.

“It’s about time,” his brother panted as he came to a stop in front of him.

“Noah? Oh, my god, Noah!”

“When this is over, I’m going to punch you right in the mouth. Consider yourself warned.” He shoved one of the flaming torches he carried into Keegan’s hand.

“Take this and follow me.”

Keegan barely had time to register the weight of the wood in his grip before Noah darted ahead, the flames creating a ring of glowing protection around him.

Keegan ran after him, holding his own torch overhead as he slid down the embankment and hurried into the fray.

The monsters recoiled at their approach, writhing and hissing as they peeled away from Rune’s body.

For the first time since the fight began, Keegan caught a glimpse of his mate.

His fur was matted and streaked in crimson, with patches missing in some places, but he was still moving, still fighting.

“Rune.” He rushed forward to stand in front of the beast, stroking the fur on his chest as he trembled with relief.

“Are you okay? Where are you hurt?”

He had a long gash along his snout, and his upper lip had been split, revealing the massive canine beneath, but otherwise, he appeared unharmed.

Hell, he wasn’t even breathing heavily.

“I’ll heal.” His eyes tracked Keegan’s twin, watching as he paced around them, waving his torch like a talisman.

“I told you to run.”

The gods save him from stubborn fools.

“Yeah, and where would you be if I had?”

Rune dropped his massive head, nuzzling against the side of Keegan’s face.

“You never listen.” His tone was soft, though, gentle, filled with indulgence and affection.

“We need to go.” Taking a step back, he lowered himself to the ground, but instead of shifting again, he chuffed.

“Get your brother and climb up.”

Keegan frowned.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m already healing. Hurry up before they come back.”

Seeing no other alternative, he called for Noah to join them, then boosted him onto his mate’s back.

Passing his torch to his brother, he crawled up after him, helped along by a paw the size of a freaking hubcap.

“Hold tight,” Rune warned as he pushed to his feet and started toward the riverbank.

“And whatever you do, don’t let those torches go out.”