Page 28 of Unbroken (Rath & Rune #4)
Sebastian found himself standing on a beach, in front of a man in old-fashioned clothing whose savage grin exposed blood-stained teeth. The sun set behind him, painting the sky in rivers of crimson and scarlet, but night was coming on fast.
“Quincy,” he said, naming the final Hollowell sibling.
If Quincy’s appearance now was true to life, then he’d been a handsome man indeed. But the manic expression on his face bordered on unsettling. “Yes. You’ve met my other siblings, I see.”
Sebastian braced himself. “They’re Bound to me. And I’m going to Bind you as well.”
“Of course you are,” Quincy said simply.
Something was wrong. This wasn’t going the way the other Bindings had. “Aren’t you going to offer me something in return for leaving you unbound?”
“Is there something you want?” Quincy asked, tipping his head to one side.
“Well…no.”
“Then we’re in agreement!” Quincy clapped his hands together. “Bind me and let me rejoin my siblings once again.”
Every instinct told him this was some sort of trap, though he couldn’t imagine what it might be. “You want to be Bound? Why? None of the others did.”
Quincy sighed and folded his hands behind his back. “I love my brother and sisters, but they always had…let’s say, more limited imagination. Not like me. Not like Lydia.”
“Lydia? Gregorio’s wife?”
“Don’t reduce her to my little brother’s appendage,” Quincy snapped, anger flashing over his handsome face. “She surpassed him in every way. The true scholar of our family—I had such hopes for her daughter. But I suppose Phoebe is long dead now.”
“I don’t understand,” Sebastian admitted.
“You don’t need to. It doesn’t matter.” Quincy grinned like a shark. “Not anymore.”
The vision ended so suddenly he felt hurled back into his physical body. His arm was agony, the wounds bleeding more than the previous ones had, but it was done.
The final Book was Bound.
Strength flowed through Sebastian’s limbs. He felt as though he could run a race, or climb a mountain, or make love all night long.
Lenore sat beside him on the bench; she’d let go of his arm at some point and put her needle away. “It worked,” she said, and the look on her face was that of the cat who’d gotten into the cream.
“Yes.” The skies opened up, lightning cracking, the rain now turning into a downpour. “Ves! We have to help him.”
“Go.” She pressed the Book of Blood into his hands. “Save my son, as I saved your sister.”
Bonnie—he’d been so disoriented from blood loss he hadn’t wondered how Ves had gotten free, or what had happened at the house. “I will.” He paused, looking straight into her eyes. “Thank you, Lenore.”
Then he was off and running, back through the maze toward the clearing.
* * *
They hadn’t gone far, and it only took a few turns before the hedge opened up into the clearing at the center.
The flames were guttering, thankfully, the poisonous smoke drifting away from where Sebastian entered.
The Dark Young tree thrashed, stretching all of its long branches out as if to stop what was happening, but unable to get close enough to do anything.
Ves lay in an unmoving heap, a sheet of blood obscuring his features, puddling around him on the ground. Victoria stood poised above, holding a half-broken marble bench over her head.
She was going to crush his skull.
“Stop,” he said.
He couldn’t compel her, but it was enough to get her attention. She spun toward him, face contorted in hatred. “You—” she began.
But he was done listening.
She’d infused the power of the Book of Blood into her own body, trying desperately to reverse what the sap had done to her. It hadn’t worked, but her human half was still shot through with the Book’s magic.
He could sense the blood pulsing in her veins. More: the breath in her lungs, the bones in her body, the flesh of her muscles and skin.
All of it given over to the Books, except where the sap protected her. And that part, which she’d hated and tried to remove, was too small to save her now.
She came at him, meaning to stave in his head with the bench. But he had only to reach out and undo…everything.
One step, and her skin disintegrated into dust. She opened her mouth to scream at him, but her muscles unraveled to smoke, the bones beneath crumbled to ash, the blood to powder.
Then it was over. What looked like a dead tree in the vague shape of half a woman stretched out its lone, clawed hand toward him, the bench tumbling harmlessly to the ground beside her.
Sebastian lowered his arm, his scars pulsing with pain for a moment, before it faded.
It was over. Victoria was dead, and the final Book in his hand.
Ves lay unmoving in a welter of blood.
“Oh fuck.” He ran to Ves, dropping onto the ground at his side. “Ves? Ves! Talk to me.”
He rolled Ves over onto his back. Half-healed wounds showed where Victoria had clawed open his face, the muscle still visible in places. Worse by far was the terrible hole in his abdomen, the gash on his head that peeled back the skin and exposed skull beneath.
He was breathing…but it was too faint. Too shallow.
“Ves?” Sebastian bent over him, blinking back tears. “Wake up, angel. I know you can heal from this, so wake up.”
Nothing. No movement, except for the breath coming ever more slowly.
“No. No, it can’t end like this.” Sebastian reached for his power—surely the Books could do something, could help him now.
But he only knew how to destroy with them. They’d never been intended to heal.
“No,” he said again. Rain pounded on his skin, but he barely noticed it. Throwing back his head, he screamed into the sky above him. “NO!”
The frantic rustling of leaves penetrated the haze of despair closing around him. Turning his head, he saw the tree straining to reach them. Reach Ves.
“Can…can you help?” he asked. But it couldn’t answer; perhaps its mouths weren’t made for human speech, or it simply didn’t have a mind that worked that way.
Praying he didn’t hurt Ves even more, Sebastian grabbed him beneath the arms and heaved him across the trampled grass toward the tree.
As soon as they were in range, the tree wound its weeping-willow-like branches around Ves and drew him to its trunk.
Another branch flailed through the grass, then came up with what Sebastian recognized as the kind of spout used to tap sugar maples.
With a convulsive movement, the tree drove the spout deep into its own trunk.
Almost immediately, sap began to drip from the spout. It tried to move Ves into position; Sebastian hurried to help it, tipping Ves’s head back and opening his mouth so the sap could flow onto his tongue.
It might not work. The sap had invigorated flowers, turned a human woman into something very like a Dark Young, but what it would do to an actual child of the Black Goat he didn’t know. He only knew there was no other chance to save Ves.
“Come on,” he whispered, rubbing at Ves’s shoulder. “Come on, please, angel, please.”
For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then Ves sputtered, choking on the sap.
Sebastian’s heart leapt. “No—swallow, love, there you go. It’s all right.”
Ves swallowed convulsively several times. His eyes flew open, and he blinked in confusion, first at the tree, then at Sebastian.
“What the—?” He tried to sit up; Sebastian pushed him back down.
“It’s all right,” he said, unable to hold back tears of relief. “Just rest. Have a little more sap.”
Ves’s brows knitted together in confusion. “Victoria?”
“Dead.” The wounds on Ves’s face had healed, and his scalp was sealing back together. “The tree—your sibling—saved you.”
The tree caressed Ves’s face with a few of its branches, then stroked Sebastian’s hair. The WHS might have used its sap for evil, but the tree itself was innocent of their crimes.
Ves reached up and pulled the spout out with a single jerk. The tree shuddered, but its bark rapidly closed over the wound.
“Where’s Mother?” he asked.
Sebastian looked around, but Lenore hadn’t followed him. “I don’t know. She, uh, she Bound the Book of Blood to me, though.”
“Ah.” Ves frowned a little. “I’m sure she’s lurking around somewhere.”
“Probably.” The rain was easing off, thunder marching away toward the ocean. He stood up, then helped Ves to his feet. “Come on, angel. Let’s get you home.”