Runemaker, page 4
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Jarrett said. “The problem is, you’re too naive to care.”
“But the spirits—”
“To hell with the spirits, Tenn!” Jarrett roared. Air billowed around him, spraying Tenn with biting rain. “How do you know the spirits are on our side? How do you know they’re even real? Do you have any clue how many people have driven themselves to death because they thought they heard God? How many people died thinking they were protected, that because they were doing God’s work they couldn’t be harmed? I’m not going to be one of those people. I’m not going to be another nameless zealot killed way before his time.”
“The spirits are the only reason you’re alive,” Tenn growled.
“No. The reason I’m alive is you. Because you read the runes and you changed them. No spirits. No divine intervention. Just you and magic.”
There wasn’t the slightest hint of softness in Jarrett’s voice. Every previous time Jarrett had mentioned what had happened in Leanna’s chamber, it had been with gratitude, with disbelief. Now, he sounded upset that Tenn had saved his life. Would he feel this way if he knew Tenn had been speaking with the Violet Sage? Or would he take that as another clue that Tenn had lost his mind.
Jarrett took a step closer.
Tenn took a step back.
“If the spirits or gods were real, why won’t they tell you how to end this? Why send you to the ends of the earth to meet a guy with no wits and a shit-ton of dangerous magic? What if it’s because they don’t know? Or they’re not real? Or because they aren’t actually on your side? Why do you always assume the good in people, when everything in life shows you the opposite?”
Tenn couldn’t keep his thoughts together. He could barely keep up with Jarrett’s barrage.
He also couldn’t imagine anyone ever saying that he always assumed the best in people.
“Look at the facts, Tenn. We were sent to the middle of an inferno to meet a boy who could burn down the world. We have no clue what we’re supposed to do and clearly neither does he. Meanwhile, there are real people fighting and dying in America. Real people we could really be saving.”
“If you want to go back so much, why don’t you just leave?”
The muscles in Jarrett’s jaw corded out. For a moment, Tenn thought he would call his bluff.
“Because you can’t be trusted around broken birds,” Jarrett finally said. “And too much rests on your shoulders.”
“I’m not leaving him.” He tried to make his voice steady. Tried, and like so many other things in his life, failed in doing so.
Jarrett swallowed. Looked away. Tenn figured that was the end of the conversation, but Jarrett’s next words stilled his heart.
“How did you get me out?”
“What?”
Jarrett didn’t look at him. His jaw was set and his eyes fixed on something far away. Something he definitely didn’t like.
“From Leanna’s compound. How did you get me out?”
Tenn’s thoughts short-circuited. He hadn’t gotten Jarrett out. Tomás had.
It was the one thing he hadn’t been able to explain to anyone—the twins or Jarrett. It felt like treason. It was treason. Admitting that he had not only been helped by, but had helped in return, one of the Kin... There was no way he could admit that. Especially not when Jarrett was like this. Thankfully, there hadn’t been much talk about that night since it happened. Too much time spent recovering or planning or defending. Too much time focused on everything but Tenn’s betrayal.
Tenn looked to his feet. He could feel Jarrett’s eyes boring into him.
“Secrets will be the death of us,” Jarrett said.
Tomás’s words flickered through Tenn’s mind—Jarrett still hasn’t admitted why he was sent to find you. Convenient...
“Then you first,” Tenn said. He didn’t know where the resolve came from, but he was tired of being shit on. He’d sacrificed everything to save Jarrett. Had done what no one else could. And yes, he’d worked with the enemy, but he hadn’t given anything to Tomás, hadn’t promised any help. He’d killed a Kin and saved his partner—what did the rest matter? “Why did you come find me? I know it wasn’t to protect me. So why?”
He didn’t expect Jarrett to answer. He looked back to his partner and saw the waver in Jarrett’s eyes, the brief flick of uncertainty.
“There’s a war going on, Tenn,” he finally said. He raised his arms to the sides, taking in the expanse of London, the burn on the horizon. “And there are two sides. Those of the living, and those of the undead. The Prophets told us you had power. Great power. And I was personally sent to find you and ensure that you would use it for the right side. They knew we had a history before even I did. They knew I could bring you to our side and use that power to fight the Dark Lady.”
Tenn felt the unspoken words hanging in the air between them. A guillotine.
He had to hear them. Had to know once and for all if Jarrett coming back into his life had been romantic destiny or something...darker.
“Or else—”
“Or else I was to do to you exactly what I will do to the boy if he goes bad. The same thing I once thought you would do.” Jarrett’s eyes were hard once more. “Eliminate the threat.”
CHAPTER FIVE
AIDAN
“Did I kill them?”
Aidan’s voice echoed through the emptiness, giddy despite the encroaching dark. He knew he wasn’t alone. He could feel it in the hottest recesses of his smoldering heart.
“You did,” Tomás responded.
And just like that, they stood together, a cathedral arching up around them, Gothic and imposing, stained glass flickering across the tiles from the burning hellfire outside.
Faintly, he could hear the screams.
If anything, it made him smile wider.
Tomás was his usual stunning self, even in the blur of the dream. Light caressed his olive skin, kissing the ripples of his stomach, the lines of his chest, hiding in the folds of his sheer button-down shirt and tight black jeans. He stared at Aidan, but not with the hunger of before. Not with the purpose. No, Tomás’s head cocked to the side, tousled hair brushing his shoulder, and he studied Aidan in a way that made him feel less sexy and more scrutinized.
Aidan’s smile dropped.
“What?” he asked.
“Can’t you remember?”
He reached out, took Aidan’s hands gently in his, turning them over and over, examining the crossing lines of his Hunter’s mark, the dark glint of his tattooed flesh.
“Remember?”
“My dear prince,” Tomás said. “You’re dying.”
Windows shattered around them. Fire roared into the cathedral, eating at the rafters and raining ash and molten glass to the bone-layered floor, but Aidan couldn’t feel it. He was falling, suffocating in a cold void that swallowed every spark within him.
He looked down to his arms. To the welts and burns and bruises of torture that pockmarked his skin. To the two missing fingers on his left hand. To the pink, angry welt that cursed his Hunter’s mark.
The moment he saw that, the world around him roared back into blistering focus.
Brother Jeremiah’s torture chamber, the bastard kneeling before him, garden sheers in one hand and Aidan’s bloody digit on the floor as he readied himself for the next snip. Jeremiah, holding out the shard of crystal the Dark Lady had used to bring Calum back from the dead, the crystal he’d been sent to London to find. Kianna, bound to the chair, bruised but not broken as Jeremiah tried to levy the two against each other. Kianna, rescuing Aidan from the cell. Aidan, running back in.
And then.
The crystal in Aidan’s hand. Burning and melting as Calum’s stolen power flooded him. As Jeremiah admitted working for the Dark Lady.
As Jeremiah screamed.
As everyone screamed.
Including Aidan.
Including Aidan.
Aidan’s screams cut through the roar and the fire, sound and fury bursting off in a tidal wave, until they were back, back in the blackened cathedral, and Aidan cowered on the ground before Tomás, his bloodied hand clutched to his cold and powerless heart.
“What...what happened?”
“You failed me,” Tomás said. His words were as cold as the ice inside Aidan’s chest. “You lost the stone. You lost Her words. And now you are dying for your folly. I can’t imagine you have much time left, my prince.”
Aidan swallowed. Tried to find a semblance of pride. Of heat. He couldn’t.
“I thought I was your king,” he said, looking up at the Kin.
“Apparently we both thought incorrectly,” Tomás replied. “You are broken. And I have no use for broken things.”
He shook his head sadly. Then his face changed, pity turning to rage.
With a snarl like a wolf, he kicked Aidan in the chest.
* * *
Aidan woke with a scream as pain exploded through his ribs.
Pain, and a cold worse than anything he’d ever known.
A hand pressed down on his forehead in an instant. He fought it off. Tried to fight it off. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t even lift an arm.
“Shh,” came Kianna’s voice. Soothing, for the first time in her life. “Hush, wee man. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
But even through the haze of agony, he knew she was lying.
Another twist of pain in his chest; he turned his head to the side and coughed, blood splattering across the moldy white carpet.
White carpet.
Flickering.
He turned his head to the other side. To the ball of white and pale blue flame that billowed up like a waterfall. Magic. Someone was using magic. But he couldn’t feel it. His chest constricted at the sight, at the need.
Who...?
Apparently, he’d spoken the word.
“We have company,” Kianna said bitterly. “And you’re drooling.”
Aidan blinked. Tried to focus his vision past the flame to the shapes lumped on the other side. A few duffel bags. A plate of bread and cheese.
A boy with dark hair and sunken eyes, wearing the black trench coat of a Hunter.
Aidan jolted back. Or tried to. It was more of a spasm that amounted to nothing. Distantly, he knew Kianna would say that was the story of his sex life, but the humor was lost to him.
He knew the face from his dreams.
Tenn.
The one who had been sent to kill him. The one who had already killed one of the Kin.
The one who wanted to steal Aidan’s immortality.
“What...is he doing here?”
He could barely speak. Not through the pain and blood in his throat, not through the cold that lanced through his chest. Even though he was so close to the fire it should burn him, even though he was pooled in sweat, he’d never been colder in his life.
Pain shot through him again, a punch to the chest, and he seized into himself, trying to curl into a ball. And failing miserably.
“He’s here to save the world,” Kianna said. Barely audible through his pain. “And apparently to find you.”
“To...to kill me.”
“Doubtful,” she replied. “Seems like he wants to help. Fat lot of good it’s done you.”
Help.
Tenn couldn’t help him. No one could help him. Tenn wanted to kill him. To keep him from gaining power.
Kianna reached over, placed a tentative hand on his shoulder.
“How you feeling, Aidan?” She actually sounded like she meant it, like she was concerned, and that—even more than the pain, even more than the cold that burned where the Sphere of Fire should be—told him he was screwed.
Like oil, his dream spilled through his consciousness, sticky and black.
Tomás’s disdain. Tomás’s curse.
“I’m dying,” Aidan whispered.
He couldn’t help it. The moment the words left his lips, he started to cry.
Tears dripped from his eyes like the blood he’d shed. He was dying. He was dying.
Faintly, he remembered the power he’d wielded. Remembered burning through Jeremiah like tissue paper, remembered burning through London like a spark in the brush.
He remembered the power, and with that memory came another twist of pain, making him shake and cry even harder.
He’d leveled London. Channeled all the power Calum’s Sphere had held, and it had burned through him like a wildfire, searing through his insides and leaving him a shell of ash and ice.
“We’re all dying,” Kianna said. “The lucky ones are already dead.”
He hated that he heard the waver in her voice. Hated that he could feel her fear. Not of him, but for him. It wasn’t a switch he was okay with.
“You don’t understand—”
“I know that you leveled most of London. I may not use magic, but I know that’s enough to make anyone feel like shit. I also know you spent the last few days getting tortured, which probably doesn’t help any. You need to rest, Aidan. You’ll be fighting again soon.”
“I can’t—”
“You’re awake.”
The words made Aidan’s chest even colder.
He stared past the fire, to the boy who should have been sleeping on the other side.
Their eyes met, and despite everything, Aidan felt it.
An ember, sparked.
CHAPTER SIX
TENN
Sparks flared in Tenn’s chest the moment their eyes met. He’d heard the two of them talking. He’d tried to fall back asleep. But something kept him close to consciousness. An awareness of the boy’s presence.
A need.
And with Jarrett sleeping in the other room, that need was not something Tenn had anticipated.
He watched the way Aidan’s lips moved, the way light glinted off his piercing. Watched the sweat bead and drip on his forehead. He even kept quiet when Aidan started to sob, shaking in the blankets as if in the depths of a snowstorm.
The Sphere of Water echoed Aidan’s pain, churning in Tenn’s gut with an agony he couldn’t quite place. Loss. But something even deeper than that.
Like holding food in your hands while starving, but being too close to death to eat.
The pain twisted through Tenn’s veins, but he forced it down. He’d had years to learn how to handle Water’s dangerous undercurrent. Or, try to handle. He wanted nothing more than to walk over and soothe Aidan. To open to Earth and heal the cuts, the brands. To make him better. The fact that he couldn’t do any of those things made the need stronger.
You can’t be trusted around broken birds.
Jarrett’s words stilled any movement, cut Tenn off at the ankles.
So he stayed there, eyes half-shut, trying not to eavesdrop while Kianna soothed her friend and Aidan fell apart only a few feet away.
It was its own unique agony.
When he realized they were talking about him, however, he couldn’t keep up the charade.
“You’re awake,” he said, as if it was the first thing he wanted to say to the boy he’d spent the last two weeks waiting to find.
Aidan jolted, his eyes going wide—a rabbit staring down a gun’s barrel—before narrowing with anger. No, not anger—something darker. A long-standing hatred. The kind born of fear. The Violet Sage was right. Aidan was scared of him.
How was the boy already terrified of him, when they had only just met?
The moment the thought crossed his mind, another, more sinister image arose: Tomás. Had the incubus been poisoning Aidan’s mind, turning Aidan against him? What hope did Tenn have of convincing Aidan to trust him? Tomás was far more persuasive than Tenn could ever be.
Aidan didn’t speak for the longest time. He stared across the flames, and for the briefest moment, with the flicker of fire across his face, he looked monstrous. Sharp eyes, a cold sneer, as bitter as any bloodling. He will serve life, or he will serve death. Then the light shifted, and Aidan looked himself again.
Water lurched in Tenn’s stomach: the pain in Aidan was nearly tangible, and it ached within Tenn like a bruise.
Tenn pushed himself up to sitting. Slowly. Like he was trying to calm a cornered cat.
“I’m Tenn.”
“I know,” Aidan replied. Again, the narrowing of the eyes. The timbre in his voice that expected the worst.
There were a thousand questions Tenn wanted to ask in that moment, but for some reason he couldn’t speak. None of them seemed right. Especially not with Aidan like this.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked instead.
Aidan grunted. “The fuck does it look like?”
Despite the bravado in his voice, Aidan shuddered and squeezed his eyes tight. Took a deep, shaking breath. It sounded like a wheeze.
“Why are you here?” Aidan asked.
“To find you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The truth of the words hung heavy in the air. Jarrett’s warning from earlier ran through Tenn’s mind, along with that of the Violet Sage. He was supposed to help Aidan. But if he didn’t work fast, Aidan would become his enemy. Either that, or he could do what Jarrett wanted and kill the boy while he was down.
Tenn would much rather try to save him. He had to. Murder wasn’t in his nature. Trouble was, that still didn’t answer why Aidan was important. Just as Tenn didn’t know why he was important to all of this.
Aidan broke the silence with an angry chuckle.
“Great,” he muttered. “Just great.”
He rolled over, his back to Tenn.
“At least get me another blanket,” he said. “I’m bloody well freezing.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AIDAN
Aidan awoke shivering.
The fire still burned before him and Kianna still sat guard at his side, but even their combined heat wasn’t enough to curb the chill in his bones. He’d barely slept, and whatever dreams he’d had were nightmarish at best. Thankfully, he couldn’t remember a single one.
