Page 8 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

7

EVERETT

Ice blooms from each step I take, spreading over fallen Reformists and monster corpses as I pass them. Wind howls, so thick with snow that I can’t see three feet in front of me.

Underneath my ripped trench coat, blood drips heavily despite my body trying to freeze over the wound that I clutch from where an ally bear shifter clawed me earlier. Exhaustion helps me ignore the sparks of physical pain as I wander down Main Street through this abandoned town.

I’ve been awake for over three days straight, ordering Reformists around and fighting and killing fiends the same as I've done every day since Brigid Decimus appointed me to this station. She insisted I was someone people look up to. An influential figure to give others hope in a dark time like this.

What a fucking joke I turned out to be.

I love you.

I cough, pain ricocheting up my torso. Going through the motions for six months has left me psychologically, physically, and mentally depleted. Now, I’m just…empty. Injured. Unmoored.

Hopeless.

How long am I supposed to just fucking exist like this? I may as well be one of the Undead. Besides, no matter how hard I've tried to keep them safe, what's left of my quintet is gone in every way that counts.

Squawk.

I nearly trip over a day-old corpse when I hear a raven caw somewhere nearby. Changing direction, I skirt around an abandoned car with busted windows. Now and then, shrieks and other inhuman sounds of fiends are carried to me on the wind. Beyond this blizzard, twilight is falling over what’s left of this razed town, which, ironically, used to be called Snowy Ridge. Now, it’s an active combat zone. I’ve been sending Reformists here weekly to maintain our hold.

The most recent troop was just massacred before my eyes—by each other, mostly. The wraith who got to them is still here, trying to find a way to get inside my head and feed on my fear.

But the wraith doesn’t stand a chance, because all my biggest fears have already come true, yet here I fucking am. Utterly alone as I walk without purpose, the nevermelt saber in my hand dragging loudly across the frozen road.

Gods, I’m so tired of this. Of everything.

A sudden wave of dizziness from blood loss sends me stumbling, the saber clattering out of my hands as I hit the asphalt. I cough again, grimacing as I roll over. My body isn’t able to keep the pain in my side numb anymore.

Killed by a wraith-crazed bear shifter. What an anticlimactic way to go.

But if I’m moments from the Beyond…

“Just let me find her there,” I whisper at the sky I can’t see, pretending like someone is listening to distract me from the doom closing around me.

And if Crypt beat me to her, Sachar had better assign that asshole some kind of punishment for leaving me alone like this, after all the shit we went through together.

As if the cruel gods decided this really is my time to go, I hear grunting and heavy footfalls before a massive figure appears standing above me. A ghoul. They linger in areas like this to feast on the fresh dead. This one is covered in gore like it was doing just that.

When the shadow fiend’s attention drifts down to me and it makes a hideous sound, I decide this is it. I’m too damn tired and tapped out to defend myself—and so what if a ghoul does me in? It’s all the same at this point.

I close my eyes and speak under my breath, willing these words to carry me to her quicker.

“I love you, too.”

So much that it's killing me.

It’s what I should have said when she was in my arms. It’s what I’ll say to her over and over again in the Beyond as I beg for forgiveness for failing her in every way possible.

Just as the beast lifts a foot to crush me, a gleaming something arcs through the air.

The ghoul’s head rolls off its shoulders before the body collapses, thudding heavily onto the icy road right next to me. It twitches and goes still as a smaller figure emerges from the dimming whiteout. Black hair billowing in the wind. The perfect height. Probably beautiful, if I could see more clearly through the blizzard.

Look at that. The gods are allowing me to dream about her in my last moments.

The figure rounds the fallen ghoul to crouch beside me, and as soon as I get a better look at her face?—

No.

This isn’t real.

She's not real.

But this face is too fucking perfect to be drummed up by my memory.

Dark, beautiful eyes filled with the fury of hell itself. Olive skin. That perfect curve in her lower lip. A slight redness to her nose and cheeks from the cold. Ghoul blood dripping from the scythe in her hand. Even Baelfire’s bite scar on the side of her neck when the wind blows her hair aside again.

“Were you going to defend yourself?” my hallucination demands.

And I know she has to be a hallucination. There's no other explanation, but I can’t stop staring. I’m too stunned by the sound of the voice that's been haunting me for months. It’s dripping with protective warning like she’s livid that I was ready to give up.

“Everett,” I vaguely hear her prompt.

I trace every feature with my gaze. This delicate, understated beauty, contrasted with her powerful presence, is a drug I can't give up.

My hallucination’s attention settles on the left side of my face, and she reaches out to brush the haggard scar with her fingertips.

Her very real, very warm fingertips.

My heart skips several beats, my entire body reacting like I was just struck by lightning. She touched me. I know that touch. I’ve ached for it so long that I can’t breathe through a sudden wave of confusion and sharp fear.

This can’t be real. It can’t be. Because if it’s real and she’s touching me?—

“Maven?” I whisper, my reality twisting in on itself as I realize hallucinations don’t have warm fingers.

Fingers that are quickly turning pink and purple from frostbite.

Oh, gods.

Fuck. She’s real. She's real, and she touched me, and now she's going to pay the price.

Pure horror floods my system, choking me. Darkness has coagulated around us, chilling whispers and laughter dancing in the howling wind as I watch my keeper begin to freeze, ice crackling up her arm and neck. Her eyes widen, a scream lodges in her frozen throat, and?—

An inhuman screech cuts through the air beside us so violently that it startles me. As soon as it cuts off, the scene in front of me ripples and changes. Maven is crouching beside me exactly how she was, only now her attention is on the wraith beside us…which was just cut in half by her scythe. Both pieces of the shadow fiend drop to the ground, shrieking and hissing before evaporating.

I’m left trembling, shaken to my damn core as I realize the wraith just made its move, using my newfound fear against me—and she killed it.

Because she’s here. Real.

Maven looks back at me. The scythe in her hand shrinks instantly, now a clear knife that she tucks away without an explanation. She’s just crouching here, all… alive .

When my breathing turns quick and labored, her gaze slips down to my bloodied side. She moves the torn trench coat aside and immediately moves to put pressure on the wound, but I panic.

“Don’t,” I warn hoarsely, propping up on one arm to scoot away as my head spins.

She can't touch me again. It's not safe for her.

Maven’s dark eyes lock onto mine. “I understand if you hate me.”

Wait… what?

Hate her? What the hell is she talking about?

“It doesn’t change the fact that you’re mine,” my keeper clarifies firmly, reaching up to brush snowflakes out of my hair before I can protest.

She removes her coat, tears a strip out of it, and takes advantage of the fact that I’m propped up to start wrapping my bleeding midsection.

“I did try to prevent this,” she goes on, not even flinching at the cold emanating from me. “If you four had just accepted my rejection at the beginning, you would have had a different keeper, and none of this would have happened. Unfortunately for you, that was your one chance out. Now, I’d sooner raise myself from the dead than let you go.”

I still can’t move, but a sound somewhere between agony and relief escapes me by accident when her fingertips glide gently over the scar on my face again.

An unbearably tender sensation follows everywhere she touches. It’s like being infused with pure peace.

And gods, this warmth . I haven’t felt anything like it since she stopped breathing in my arms.

Just the reminder of that moment when everything shattered has my reality again rearranging itself. Between the exhaustion, pain, and shock, I can’t get a grip.

“Prove this is real,” I demand raggedly, closing my eyes when her fingers trace the scar down my neck to where it dips below my clothes. “Say it again.”

If she’s real, I need her to ruin me again.

Maven knows exactly what I’m talking about. She considers for a moment before her free hand slips into my hair. She tugs my head back gently to make me look at her again, but it’s just enough that my heart skips another beat.

“I love you,” she admits quietly, still endearingly reticent about those words. Then her eyes narrow in steely warning. “Which is why you're about to promise me that you will never again sit on your ass doing nothing when you’re in danger.”

It’s her. She’s back.

“I promise,” I manage.

And finally her lips are on mine, so heated and perfect that two things happen. My long-neglected cock twitches, and my fragmented heart starts to pound. This moment is beyond surreal. I think I’ll wake up any second, but when she continues to kiss me, something savagely dark and incurable cements itself deep inside my bones.

Maven thinks I regret being bound to her? How fucking asinine. She should be a million times more worried about who exactly she just confessed to loving, because I am not the same match she knew.

I thought I wasn’t worthy of her before, but now…

Gods. Would she still want me if she knew how much I’ve changed?

I should warn her about it, but I’m too damn selfish. Too desperate to never miss her warmth again.

When she finally breaks the kiss, more emotions bombard me as it finally starts to sink in. She’s here, but she’s not dressed warm enough. She’s in single layers of ill-fitting clothes and must be fucking freezing .

And then I spot the dried blood on her clothes.

Absolutely. Fucking. Not.

“How did you get here?” I demand, suddenly unable to think about anything except getting her out of this active zone.

She tips her head in a western direction. “Felix transported me here. He and Kenzie took cover in an abandoned store half a mile that way.” She pauses, rising to her feet—no, foot. Something is wrong with the other one. “I sense shadow fiends headed in this direction. Stay here on the defense while I take care of the fiends and fetch Felix.”

Yeah, right. Her, leaving me?

Not an option ever again.

The residual adrenaline racing through me in the face of my keeper’s impossible return is pushing me into full-blown crisis mode, and it only gets worse with every second I stare at her injured shoulder and ankle.

She needs to be healed. Now .

Shakily, I get to my feet, slipping out of my ripped, snow-dusted trench coat and cursing the fact that this filth is the most I can offer her. Maven protests me giving it to her, but she gets even more annoyed when I scoop her into my arms despite the screaming agony lacerating my side.

“You’re hurt,” she snaps. “Put me down.”

So my injured, combat-hungry keeper can dive headfirst into danger? So she can be taken away from me again while I’m just as helpless as I was last time?

“No,” I seethe vehemently.

And knowing that my keeper isn’t about to accept that answer, since she’s the most determined person in the entire five planes of existence, I turn and storm in the direction she indicated.

“Put me down,” she warns again.

I can tell she's about to start struggling, so I freeze her wrists and ankles together with nevermelt without looking down.

The second she's restrained, Maven goes perfectly still in my arms. When her unbreakable poker face slips into place, I'm pretty sure that means she's royally pissed.

Which is fair, since I’m a world-class dick for doing this. But there’s no fucking way I’m about to set her down in this dangerous area, injury be damned.

For the next ten minutes, I cradle Maven close to my chest and do my best not to stagger too much as I walk through the raging blizzard. Any shadow fiends or other creatures that try to approach are frozen instantaneously before they can get too close.

I freeze more ravens, too.

Meanwhile, the shards of my heart continue to thump painfully inside me. I’m on the verge of a breakdown at just the thought of setting my keeper down. The sooner I get her out of here, the sooner I’ll be able to breathe again.

She’s alive.

She’s back.

She’s mine.

I have questions, but they’ll wait until she’s safe and warm. I need time to hold her until the alarms blaring in my head pass, and then she can tear me a new asshole all she wants.

Soon, I shoulder through a broken door and into the remains of what was once a small grocery store. Like most other stores, it’s in shambles and looks like it was heavily raided before it was left to rot with the rest of Snowfall Ridge.

Once we're out of the blizzard, I let the nevermelt around Maven's wrists and ankles melt, but I keep her in my arms.

“I'm sorry,” I finally whisper. “I just needed to get you out of there.”

She stays silent, refusing to show any emotion. That kills me a little.

Kenzie Baird and her caster are huddled together for warmth nearby, but the shifter startles at the sight of us. “Thank gods you guys made it! I kept hearing shadow fiends out there and was starting to get really worried–oh, shit. Uh, Profess–I mean, Everett? You're kind of dripping blood everywhere, so I really don't think you should be holding Maven like that.”

I ignore her just like I ignore the blood saturating my side.

“Transport us. Now,” I tell Felix.

The atypical caster glances at Maven for her input. To my chagrin, her expression remains ironclad, the same way it used to whenever something was deeply bothering her.

I'll apologize again later over and over, if she lets me.

Felix begins laying the spell to transport us out of here. Moments later, the bright light of stomach-flipping transportation magic deposits us abruptly into the dark, cold, blizzarding night just outside of Everbound’s massive front double doors. I barge through them immediately, ignoring Felix and Kenzie having to wait for magical clearance.

Their unfamiliar presence at the wards will tip off someone in my security detail, so they’ll get let in eventually, even if they’re pissy about waiting in the cold for a bit. Or maybe they’ll simply go home to Halfton. I don’t care.

The fact that Maven says nothing at all about that is…mildly alarming. I glance down, but it’s impossible to tell what she’s thinking.

Is she indifferent? Upset? Hurt that I refused to let her fight back there?

Finally, I can’t take it anymore. As I stride toward my old staff office, I blurt out the obvious. “I took over Everbound.”

She says nothing.

“You’ll be safe here,” I try again.

The barest nod.

“I’m sorry. I know I'm an ass. I swear I’ll get a fire started for you and warm food and?—”

“You kept the scar the lich gave you on purpose,” she says quietly.

That was the last thing I expected her to say, and it makes me slow to a stop. My injury is on fire. Between that intense pain and the need to hold her close, breathing is torture.

Maven reaches up to gently trace the scar on the side of my face again, sending shivers down my spine.

“I’m curious. Why didn’t you have Silas heal you?” she asks.

“He couldn’t.” He was too far gone.

“Someone else could have.”

“There was too much going on.”

That’s an excuse, and she must know it because she raises a brow expectantly. I swallow hard, turning my chin so she won’t have to look directly at my new face.

“I know it’s hideous. But I…I deserved it.”

For many reasons, but mostly because I failed her and deserved every reminder of it. Besides, it’s not like my so-called pretty face ever did my keeper any favors.

But if my keeper hates how I look now?—

“Hideous, my ass. It’s annoyingly sexy.”

I’m so surprised that I blink down at her, warmth rising into my cheeks. There's no way I didn't just mishear her.

“W—what?”

“And I thought you couldn’t get any more gorgeous. So fucking unfair,” she mutters almost under her breath before fixing me with a glare deathly enough to actually make me flinch. “Put me down before you bleed out.”

I steel myself, the crisis alarms still going off in my skull. “Not happening.”

“Fine, then I'll?—”

“You’re back, Commander?” a surprised voice interrupts.

It’s a vampire approaching down the hall—one of the mercenaries working under Douglas’s command. Protective panic washes over me, and I angle my body so it will block his view of Maven. With how infamous she’s become, she’ll be too easily recognized, and the last thing I need is more idiots spewing my keeper's name every chance they can.

“Send Douglas to my old office. Now,” I order. “He needs to heal someone, and he needs to come alone.”

He agrees, salutes, and darts away with vampire speed to fulfill orders. I’m about to march Maven to safety, but another sudden wave of empty dizziness hits me so hard that all at once, darkness swallows me whole.