Andrea Cremer - Bloodrose

“I will,” Shay said.

Nev gave Shay a quick nod before he and Mason shifted back into wolf form, leaving us with Bryn and Ansel.

Bryn couldn’t manage to say anything. She kept looking at me and at Shay, sniffling and wiping her eyes. She tried to get words out but couldn’t catch her breath between sobs. Finally she threw up her hands, grabbed Shay, and kissed him on the cheek. Then she shifted into a bronze wolf and bolted away from us.

Ansel’s hands were shoved in his pockets. He kicked the floor, shaking his head.

“You deserve to be with the pack more than I do.”

“Don’t be an ass.” Shay pulled Ansel into a hug. “You’re right where you should be.”

Ansel gripped Shay tight, murmuring something too low for me to hear. Shay gave him a weak smile.

“I’ll see you soon,” Ansel said to me. And then he was bounding away from us.

Shay was watching me closely. I raised my eyebrow at the strange expression etched on his face. He looked like he was trying not to laugh.

“What did he say to you?”

“He said I couldn’t stay with the Searchers.” Shay grinned. “Because I’m the only one who can keep you from picking on him.”

“I do not pick on him,” I said, returning his smile. “Unless he deserves it.”

“Shay!” Anika called to us from in front of the fireplace.

“I guess I can’t put this off any longer.” Shay began to turn away.

I grasped his arm, pulling him back. I stretched my arms around his neck, molding my body against his. When I kissed him, I let everything I’d ever held back pour into my embrace. I needed Shay to know what I felt, what I wanted, why I was so afraid of letting him go. His hands slid up my back, pressing into my shoulder blades.

I let my mouth linger on his, until I had to pull away.

He traced the shape of my lips with his fingers. “Thank you for saving me.”

“I didn’t save you,” I said. “You were the one who banished the Harbinger.”

He leaned in, brushing a soft kiss against my mouth. “I wasn’t talking about today.”

The gazes of the assembled Searchers were fixed on Shay as we walked together to meet Anika.

“You’ll need the Elemental Cross.” She gestured to the swords on Shay’s back.

“What do I do?” Shay asked her.

“Hold the swords aloft, so they create the mark of the Scion,” she said. “And speak these words until it is finished: obtineo porta. ”

“Obtineo porta,” he murmured.

A sliver of green light appeared in the depths of the fireplace, like an enormous eyelid had briefly slid open.

Shay looked at Anika. “It’s still there, isn’t it?”

She nodded, glancing at the stone structure, which had gone dark again. “That is why this must be done.”

Shay squared his shoulders.

The Searchers in the library fell silent, watching as Shay moved toward the hidden Rift.

Shay held the swords at arm’s length. The earth and air sword he held vertically, while the water and fire sword crossed the first blade horizontally. He drew a slow breath and paused, turning to look at me.

I walked up beside him, laying my hand on his back just below his neck so my fingertips brushed the cross tattoo on his skin. He shivered.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You have to,” I said, but each of my heartbeats hit slow and heavy in my chest, like a stake being pounded into the ground with a sledge.

“I can’t leave you, Calla.”

I closed my eyes, knowing what he felt because the same grief clawed at my heart. I’d already lost someone I loved today and in the next minute I might lose another. But what else could we do?

The world created by the Keepers had been forged from greed and cruelty. It wasn’t a world we could suffer to exist, no matter what the cost.

I forced my eyes open and found Shay’s winter moss irises gleaming softly. Leaning forward, I pressed my lips onto his tattoo. “I love you.”

I splayed my fingers wider on his back, hoping that somehow touching him would make the universe hear my plea-to have Shay’s wolf essence win out over the human one. If it didn’t… I would be alone.

I’d have my pack, but would I stay with them? If Shay didn’t come with me, I was already envisioning what would happen. I would become a lone wolf, wandering, solitary. My father would remain the alpha of my packmates, as he’d always been.

Maybe that was the way things were meant to be.

“Calla.” Shay’s brow was furrowed. He could see the goose bumps running up and down my arms, the way my muscles were trembling.

“I love you,” I whispered one last time, slowly backing away from him toward the spill of night air and the beckoning howls of my pack. “Close the Rift.”

I’D ALWAYS WELCOMED WAR,but when the last battle ends, what life is left for a warrior?

Shay faced the emptiness of the fireplace. He turned the swords slowly while he chanted. And then, where there had been nothing, the darkness began to move. Shadows clung to the Elemental Cross, gripping the blades, pulling Shay forward. When the swords had marked a quarter turn, Shay froze. The darkness became solid, locking the cross in place, but within the ebony shadows glimmered a soft light, opalescent like twinkling stars.

The light streamed over the swords, touching Shay’s fingers and making him shudder. Like glimmering ribbons, it twined around his arms and chest. When the light coursed over his neck and met my fingers, the sparkling tendrils began to claim my body too.

The light grew brighter until I could see nothing-not even Shay, though I still felt my fingers on his neck-nothing but the pale, shimmering air around me. Air that was alive with power.

I thought it would hurt. Ansel said having the wolf torn from him was like being ripped apart and burned.

But I didn’t hurt. Not at all. There was no pain. Only a sense of lightness, giddy and dizzying, like flight-of a burden that didn’t belong to me being lifted.

Suddenly I knew the truth and the lights surrounding me exploded.

I am free.

SABINE SHIVERED,wishing she’d borrowed that sweater Ethan had offered her. Sunlight filtered through the scaffolding that ran along the edge of Rowan Estate, but the tarps hanging between the outside world and the library couldn’t keep out December’s cold. And the space heaters just weren’t cutting it.

She sealed another box with packing tape, scrawling the words History-17th century in black marker across the top. Almost all the books she’d packed so far seemed to be history. Really old history. Weren’t there any interesting books around here?

“Aren’t you finished yet?” Ethan strolled into the library. “Why are all these books still lying around?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” She carried the box over to the growing stack that would be taken back to the Academy to be cataloged and stored. “That way I can still like you.”

Ethan laughed. She walked over to him, rubbing her arms. He frowned, shrugging off his long leather jacket, and put it around her shoulders.

“You should have taken that sweater.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, snuggling into the body heat still warming the inside of his coat. “You were right. Be happy about it. Next time I’ll be right.”