Page 18 of Malice: The Mate Games (Apocalypse #3)

Chapter

Thirteen

MERRI

I told myself there was nothing wrong with walking past Christian’s door on my way downstairs.

As far as I knew, he’d yet to come to after his freak accident yesterday.

Malice had checked on him multiple times in the night, and Grim assured me he’d be able to sense if his death was imminent.

All of that should have kept the niggling worm of guilt from poking at my mind, but it didn’t.

There was nothing I could do to help. I knew that.

It didn’t change the fact Christian was the closest thing to a friend I had here, horsemen excluded.

Besides, Christian had gone out of his way to check on me. Repaying the favor was the least I could do.

Something told me that standing outside his sickroom with my ear pressed against the door didn’t exactly fit the bill. But that’s exactly what I was doing all the same. I wasn’t sure what I was listening for. Snores? Signs of life? A muffled thump changed everything, spurring me into action.

“Christian?” I called, opening the door and rushing inside the room.

The man was on his hands and knees, breaths coming in labored drags as he attempted to get to his feet.

“Sorry to disturb, mademoiselle,” he rasped, clearly still in pain. “I was just trying to get outside.”

I took in his bathrobe and bare feet with a lift of my brows. “Dressed like that?”

He gave me a sheepish smile as I helped him back to his bed. “The storm has stopped. I thought I might make a potion to help with the healing. You need me at my best. This is not my best.”

I shook my head as I tucked him under the blankets. “Christian, do you realize how close to death you came yesterday?”

“No. I don’t remember anything beyond going to the generator. Then a flash of light and after that... nothing.” He plucked at the front of his robe. “Clearly things did not end well.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked, placing the back of my hand on his forehead to check for a fever before realizing that was absolutely unhelpful and letting my arm fall back to my side.

“Everything hurts at the same time. My head is... how do you say? Foggy.”

“You were struck by lightning. The internet isn’t working anymore for me to confirm, but I’m pretty sure those symptoms all line up.”

His brows lifted in surprise. “That explains why everything smells a bit like burnt hair. It’s me. I smell of burnt hair.”

I couldn’t resist the urge to tousle the chestnut waves still in place on top of his head. “Don’t worry. It’s all where it’s supposed to be.”

“And you would know that how?” he asked with a flirty wink. It was immediately followed by a wheezing cough as he tried to make himself comfortable.

“That’s enough flirting from you. Are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you need anything?”

His expression grew serious, lips pressing into a grim line. “I need to be back to my old self. I can’t do anything useful while I’m stuck in here.”

“You mentioned a potion. Is that something I could grab for you?”

Christian sighed and gave a very slow shake of his head. “Non. It’s not the kind of thing one can make in big batches. It has to be used while it is fresh.”

“So it’s supplies you need?”

Looking like he’d just run a marathon, Christian gave a weak nod. Sweat was dotting his brow, and he’d already lost what little color he’d had. Just talking was taking everything out of him.

“If you make me a list, maybe I can collect them for you?” I offered, feeling the need to do anything I could to help him.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. Do I have to leave the property? That is the only thing that would stop me. The guys won’t want me to do that.”

“No, but the most important ingredient is near the chateau’s lake.

It’s a rare flower typically only found in Japan.

” My skeptical stare had him offering a weak chuckle.

“I have cultivated it here so it blooms throughout all seasons with the help of magic. It’s called diphylleia grayi, the skeleton flower.

You’ll know it when you see the nearly translucent petals, turned clear because of their reaction to the constant mist that coats the lake’s surface. There’s nothing like it.”

I immediately thought of Grim and his greenhouse, wondering if I might be able to pluck one of these super-rare flowers and bring it back for him to enjoy.

“Okay, sounds easy enough. How many do you need?”

“Five should be more than enough. I will need the stem as well as the blooms, so when you pluck them, make sure to grab them as close to the root as possible.”

I nodded, nothing about the task seeming overly complicated. “And the other ingredients?”

“Worry about the flower first. The potion is useless without it. By the time you get back, I’ll have a list of the rest, which can all be collected from the garden by my cottage.”

“All right. I’ll go look now. Don’t try to get out of bed while I’m gone, please. The last thing you need is an injury on top of everything else you have going on.”

“I am lucky to have someone like you looking after me, Merri. Merci.”

A few minutes later, I was headed for the front door, basket in one hand, clippers in the other.

After a quick glance outside, I snagged Chaos’s hoodie, which he’d hung by the door.

The sky wasn’t clear like it had been before the eruption, and the wind was strong enough that I could see the tops of trees bending under the force of the gusts, but at least we weren’t dealing with torrential rain and dangerous thunderstorms anymore.

That didn’t mean I would be warm enough in just my long-sleeved shirt and jeans. Chaos wouldn’t mind.

Or if he did, I’d just distract him until he forgot why he was mad.

I smirked, already making plans for just such an occasion.

Knowing Chaos’s temper, they’d come in handy sooner or later.

And thinking through distractions for him doubled as a distraction for me.

I didn’t mind a nature walk or even a mild hike, but trudging through mud didn’t qualify as either of those things.

It was unpleasant, to say the least. Every step made a sucking sound as I moved through the grounds on a path that would take me to the lake.

The storm had done a number on so much, but I hadn’t accounted for everything around me to resemble a swamp rather than the beautiful, well-maintained grounds we’d been greeted by.

“I have to be almost there by now,” I muttered to myself, not accustomed to this new-to-me area of the property.

I’d done some walks in the last few weeks, obviously, but never one this far away from the house.

Mostly because the weather hadn’t permitted it.

Not that I considered this much more welcoming, but I guess mud was preferable to snow if one had to traipse around. My little Keds were ruined, though.

Damn.

I really liked these shoes.

The earthy scent of standing water tickled my nose. It wasn’t unpleasant, just different. I picked up my pace, hopeful my quest wouldn’t last much longer so I could get Christian what he needed.

The lake was eerily beautiful as it came into view below me.

I hadn’t realized the chateau was situated at a higher elevation, but the evidence was here, clear as day.

Just as Christian had described, mist hovered over the water, barely kissing the surface.

The groundskeeper had mentioned that the petals turn translucent when touched by water, so the flowers had to be near its edge.

Which meant I needed to get down this hill.

It wasn’t a massive one by any stretch, but it was steep.

And as I’d mentioned, it was incredibly muddy, which made my descent a bit more tricky than it should have been.

Every step I took was done with care because the waterlogged earth under my feet kept shifting and threatening to send me ass over teakettle.

I loved The Princess Bride as much as the next girl, but I wasn’t eager to act out Buttercup’s tumble down the hill today.

Especially since I wasn’t chasing after my sweet Westley.

Unfortunately, the land had other plans. Between one awkward step and the next, a huge chunk of mud gave way beneath my feet. Likely due to the pressure of the steps I’d taken from higher up, which had created enough instability to unsettle the entire section I was climbing down.

“Oh fuck!” I cried, fingers clawing into the dirt in vain as I attempted to stop myself.

But there was nothing to grab onto. The mud and I were practically one as we slid the rest of the way down the hill, gaining momentum as we did.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I half chanted, half screamed as I went unexpectedly airborne and then crashed through the mist and into the nearly freezing lake.

Mud and rocks followed behind me, pushing me down, down, down, impossibly deep into the frigid water.

I’d had no idea the water would be so deep or that I would be going for an impromptu swim.

I hadn’t had a chance to take a deep breath before being submerged, and thanks to my fall, I was so disoriented I couldn’t tell which way was up.

I opened my eyes in the murky water and released the little air I had in my lungs, praying I’d be able to see which way the bubble went so I could kick to the surface.

Luckily, the water allowed just enough visibility, and I found my way up, swimming as hard as I could even though Chaos’s hoodie and my jeans dragged me down with their weight.

I was panicking, my lungs burning with the lack of air. I didn’t even allow myself to contemplate the odds of catching hypothermia the longer I stayed in the water. My only thought was up. I needed to keep moving up.

My head broke the surface just before I took an involuntary gasp, one that would have sealed my fate if I’d been a second slower.

Coughing and spluttering, the taste of dirt in my mouth, I dragged in much-needed oxygen as I swam to the water’s edge.

My limbs were shaking, and it was too hard to keep myself upright, so I flopped down beside the water while struggling to catch my breath.

I had no way to track how much time passed while I lay there. I didn’t try moving again until my lungs stopped feeling as though they were filled with fire, and my limbs were no longer twitching from the exertion.

“Good . . . job . . . Merri. Way to . . . fucking go.” I rolled to my side and got to my hands and knees.

I was still shivering from the cold but thought I could manage to get to my feet. I certainly couldn’t just lie here forever. My basket and clippers were long gone, but that was the least of my worries. Though, I didn’t fully appreciate how true that statement was right away.

It wasn’t until I was standing, body turned in the direction of what I thought was the hill I’d just slid down, that I knew I was in big trouble. I say thought because nothing looked the same. No hill. No evidence of any kind of mudslide, no chateau in the distance.

“What the hell?” I whispered.

I spun back around and tried to orient myself because I couldn’t tell where I was at all.

Not a familiar landmark to be found. But I could see the seaside village beyond our little haven.

And what I found as I gazed across the inlet separating our island from the rest of the archipelago was horrifying.

Huge plumes of black smoke curled up from decimated buildings, flames glowed in the distance, and the beach was littered with dark shapes that I didn’t want to examine too closely because I was already pretty sure I knew what they were.

My stomach churned. Was this the reality of the world around us? My men and I had been living our lives in a literal bubble of safety on this island, and I’d been so wrapped up in my own shit I hadn’t taken the time to really look at what was happening.

My pulse kicked into overdrive, and once again, it was hard to catch my breath.

I was on the brink of a full-blown panic attack, but it was a bit like watching a train in the distance.

Knowing it was coming directly for you but unable to get out of its way.

My mind was reeling, oscillating between what I was witnessing and the fact that I had no idea where I was or how I was supposed to get back.

If I could calm down, maybe I could string some coherent thoughts together, but I was too afraid.

Glancing at the lake once more, I steeled myself to re-enter the water.

The only way I could know for sure if I was stuck in this reality was to try and go back the way I came.

I dragged in a bracing breath, or the closest thing I could manage, and took a step.

Instead of my foot meeting water, my face slammed into what I first thought must be an invisible wall.

But as I bounced backward, powerful hands grabbed my arms and hauled me into a chest I knew very well.

I looked up and found furious hazel eyes staring down at me.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Red?”