Thea Harrison: Serpent's Kiss

He took a deep breath and shook his head. No. I haven’t forgiven him for the last conversation we had. I also think he’s yanking everybody’s chain right now. I don’t believe he would let me go back and pick up my duties as his First with you as my mate. He would always wonder if having you in my life skewed my motives, and he would be right. Maybe he and I can repair our friendship over time, but for now I think the only thing you and I can really do is start somewhere fresh and new.

She smiled up at him. What in the world are we going to do with ourselves? The thought of the unknown was exhilarating and frightening. There was her good friend again, the spook house/ roller coaster.

Rune’s face lightened and he smiled back. I have no clue. It’s going to be fun to figure it all out.

As long as they could buy themselves time.

She squeezed his hands. I have a few things I need to say to a couple of people.

She watched as he struggled with himself. There were too many Powerful and dangerous people around, and they had skated too close to the edge for him to let go of her easily. But he had to know it was not a good thing to try to hold on to her too tightly, because his grip loosened. All right.

She turned and walked over to her wayward children, Rhoswen and the Nightkind King. They stared as she approached, noting the changes in her hair and dress. Julian asked in a low voice, “Did you really do it? Did you find a cure?”

Carling let her gaze travel over Julian’s rough, intelligent features one last time. They had been close friends once, long ago, and political partners for far longer. He was another one like Rune, an alpha male born to command. Perhaps she had simply ruled him for too long. Maybe like Rune and Dragos, when this anger of hers had died down, they could achieve peace, but she wasn’t going to hold her breath.

“That question may grow to haunt you over the next thousand years or so,” she said. “But you’re going to have to find your own salvation.”

She turned her attention to Rhoswen, who grew more and more agitated under her steady regard. “You went straight to Julian, didn’t you?” she murmured, low enough to keep her words from everyone else but not so low that Julian couldn’t hear. “What did you tell him—how unstable I’d become, how dangerous I was, how it made no sense that I would send my most loyal and devoted servant away and latch on to that manipulative Wyr? I know what you told him. You told him everything he wanted to hear to justify doing the things he did. Then you told the same things to the tribunal.”

Rhoswen straightened and held her head high, while her eyes glittered with angry tears. “I spoke my truth.”

Carling’s contemptuous expression never wavered. “What a poisonous little snake you turned out to be,” she said softly. There were too many fractures in Rhoswen’s behavior. Carling no longer believed the younger Vampyre was stable. If they were anywhere else, Carling would have taken her head. But Rhoswen was not worth breaking the laws of sanctuary over. Carling and Rune had come too far, through too much, to throw it all away.

As she turned away, she said to Julian, “She’s your problem now.”

She watched Julian’s face undergo a drastic change even as she felt a sharp stabbing pain in her back. She arched and tried to turn away, to keep the blade that was sliding into her body from striking a critical, mortal blow to her heart.

But then Rhoswen’s arm came around her neck. The other Vampyre was so much younger than she, so much slower and weaker, but Rhoswen didn’t have to hold her in place for long. She just had to hold her in place for long enough.

“I loved you,” Rhoswen hissed in her ear. “I gave you everything.”

The blow hit home.

Rune , Carling said, and even though he was twenty feet away talking with two Councillors, he could still hear her.

He spun. The shock and horror that filled his face and emotions saddened her terribly.

She still had so many things to say to him. She reached toward him and watched her own hand dissolve.

She still had so many things . . .

Rune , Carling said.

And he turned to see the tip of a short sword burst through her chest, just like the spear he had once watched burst through her father’s body. Behind her, Rhoswen was crying even as she thrust the sword. Julian had lunged forward, but there was nothing the Nightkind King or anyone else could do.

All Carling had time to say was his name. She looked so sad, so loving, and it was Carling that looked that way. That was his look; that look was for him.

She had shone so brightly, for so long. Then she crumbled to dust. And everything in Rune’s fierce, remarkable soul began to scream.

Every little thing is going to be all right.

Except sometimes it wasn’t, Bob. Sometimes things got so fucked up you couldn’t even send them home in a body bag.

Screaming.

Wait, I’m confused.

Hasn’t she died yet? Why have you not gone back to save her?

Have you seen Schrödinger’s Cat? Like Schrödinger’s Cat, I am both dead and alive.

Screaming.

I cannot live in this universe. I cannot live this way.

If you die, I will find you.

I will never leave you. I will never let you go. I will not let you fall, or fail. I will always come for you if you leave, always find you if you’re lost.

Always.

Each moment in time was the tiniest of things, the most precious of things. Each moment held the potential for change, a turnaround that led to a different page. It rested on a singular point that was so precise, it would be so easy to lose track of that one miniscule place, that single moment, in the infinite cascade of all the other moments in time. Each turnaround melted away, as every moment in the present slipped into the past.

Every moment slipped away until he reached back, not too far, just far enough, reached for the last definitive place when she was there instead of not there , and he threw all of his screaming soul at her.

And there it was.

The keystroke password to an unbreakable code.

As Carling turned away from Rhoswen, she said to Julian, “She’s your problem now.”

And suddenly the golden monster was in front of her. He was right there , even though Rune also stood twenty feet away talking to two Councillors.

The golden monster contained a nightmare that was so far beyond emotion, it whited out Carling’s senses. He yanked her to him while at the same time he lashed out with all his killing claws extended.

Rhoswen fell, her body in ribbons. Everyone in the clearing spun around to stare as she crumbled to dust, until all that was left was the short sword that had fallen from her hand.

Rune sank to his knees, dragging Carling down with him. He clenched her so tightly that if she had been human she would have been in trouble. His body shook with convulsive shudders. He breathed in great sobbing gulps of air, like a drowning victim who had just been rescued. Other than that, he made no sound.

“Rune,” Carling said. She framed his wet face in both hands. He wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at something else. He wore an expression of someone looking at damnation. She dared a quick sidelong glance around. Everyone was staring either at them or the place where Rhoswen had stood. Julian strode over to pick up the sword. He looked furious.

The other Rune had disappeared. Had she imagined what she had seen?

“It’s all right,” Rune whispered. “It’s all right now.”

“Bloody hell,” Dragos muttered from across the clearing. “I don’t know what the fuck that was, but something definitely happened.”