Capturing Caroline (6 page)

He reached the
orchard and lifted his nose to the wind, searching for her scent.
There.

Following the
distinctive smell of Magica, which had a touch more metal than
earth, he found Jessa cowering in the low branches of an apple
tree. Her dark eyes peered down at him with mistrust.

Shifting back,
he reached up and touched her hand. “Jessa, I’m Torrent. We met
many years ago. Do you remember me?”

Her eyes
searched his face. She’d aged since he’d first met her. Her long,
tangled hair hung around her dirty face and just beginning to get a
touch of gray. Laugh lines creased the edges of her dark brown
eyes. “Torrent. Yes, I remember you.”

“I came to take
you to my home. Logan is already there. We have food waiting, a
bath—”

“How do you
know it’s safe?” she whispered, her gaze darting around her.

That question
alarmed him. The Lycaon stayed concealed from the Magica by a joint
magickal boundary maintained by Magica. These Magica sympathizers
had an organization called the Sifta. “Jessa, are the boundaries
still up?” His voice was sharp with concern.

“At the time I
fled, yes. Torrent, the Magica found us. They raided my house,
arrested two of the members of my group of Sifta.” She shook her
head and gasped as though about to burst into tears. “I don’t know
if they discovered only my group or all the groups. Right now, I’d
trust nothing.”

Well, that was
not good news.

He reached up
to her. “Come with me now. My home would be very hard to find even
if all the boundaries were down.” But the town wouldn’t be hard to
find. He would need to mentally communicate with Rafian and Lucus
to have scouts sent out immediately. If the boundaries were down,
the town would need to be evacuated as soon as possible.

She took his
hand and jumped out of the tree.

“I’m going to
shift and you climb onto my back. It’s the fastest way to get
home.”

Shaking, she
nodded, still glancing around. Her clothes were like rags on her
and she was about as thin as Logan. “I’m freezing.” Her teeth
chattered.

“I know you’ve
had a hard time. We’ll get you food, a bath, medical treatment and
sleep. Only then will we talk about what’s happened. All
right?”

She nodded.

He shifted and
she climbed onto his back, held on, and he took off for home.

* * * *

Caroline
watched Logan finish off his third bowl of stew. She thought she
should probably tell him to take it easy, he’d get sick, but she
didn’t have the heart. He was even hungrier than she and Torrent
had been.

Glancing up at
her, he sopped up the remnants of the stew with a bit of bread.
“You came through the veil, didn’t you?”

“Yes, a little
over a week ago.”

“Apart from the
war, you’ll like it here. All the mates do.”

“Well, war,
yes, there is that.” She gave a little laugh. “I spent the first
week in a Magica jail, so I haven’t seen much of your Lycaon part
of the world yet. But my sisters are here and they seem to love
it.”

His expression
illuminated. “You’re Kaitlyn and Paige’s sister!”

“Yes.”

His eyes grew
serious and his voice lowered. “And Torrent’s mate.”

“Yes.” She
paused “Everyone seems to know about this prophecy thing.”

“And he’s your
only
mate. You only have
one
.”

All this talk
of mates, especially multiple ones, still put her on edge. “So they
tell me.”

“That’s very
strange, to have only one mate.”

“They tell me
that, too.”

“You’re famous
around here. I mean, because you’re Torrent’s.”

She opened her
mouth to snap that she wasn’t
anyone’s
, but the poor guy had
been through too much to deserve the sharp side of her tongue. She
let it slide.

He pushed the
perfectly cleaned bowl away, glanced at the pot, but didn’t ask for
more. Thank goodness, since they’d soon have another person to
feed. “You and Torrent were in the prison together? That explains a
lot. The chaos you and he created in your escape was the only
reason I was able to get Jessa out of the city.”

“Well…I’m glad
we could help out?”

He threw his
head back and laughed. “Gods of the Veil, it’s good to be
home.”

The door opened
and Torrent walked in, dressed once again in the clothes he’d been
wearing. A middle-aged woman, looking hungry, dirty, and bedraggled
followed him.

Caroline rose
and went to her. She looked exhausted. “You must be Jessa.”

“Yes, Torrent
told me your name is Caroline.”

“Yes. Come and
sit. I heated some stew for you.”

“Oh, thank the
deities. I haven’t eaten for days.” Her pale, drawn face and the
way her gaze seized on the stove was testament to that.

Caroline rushed
over and spooned up a large serving into a bowl. Behind her Logan
and Jessa were hugging and speaking in low tones. She brought the
bowl to Jessa, who thanked her, sank into a chair and began eating
like a starved animal.

“I apologize,”
Jessa whispered with shame once she came up for air. Her cheeks had
colored under the dirt.

Torrent leaned
against the kitchen wall. “Never apologize. It was just a couple
days ago that Caroline and I were doing the same thing.”

While Jessa
finished her meal, they talked about what each of the couples had
been through in the last couple of weeks. Logan and Jessa’s story
surpassed theirs in danger and deprivation. They’d been hiding in
the woods from pursuing Magica for over two weeks.

Finally Jessa
finished eating and sighed. Leaning back in her chair, she touched
her stomach. “That’s so much better.”

“What will be
truly better is getting cleaned up and sleeping for a couple days,”
answered Caroline. “That was pretty much heaven for me.”

Jessa tilted
her head to the side. “Heaven?”

“It’s a human
concept,” said Logan. “A paradise you go to when you die.”

Caroline
understood that the Lycaon had studied human culture and customs
closely. Of course the Magica would not bother with such a thing.
That made something occur to her. “Hey! I understand why the Lycaon
speak my language, but why do you speak English, Jessa?”

The older woman
smiled at her. “We are not speaking English, Caroline.”

“What?”

“It’s a
function of being pulled through the veil,” said Torrent in a
calming voice, like she would freak out at any moment. “We’re all
speaking Lycaon, but your brain is processing it as English.”

“Okay, that’s
just—” She put her hand to her head. “You know, I’m just going to
forget I heard that.”

Jessa laughed.
“You are quite charming, Caroline. A good match for our
Torrent.”

Caroline looked
up to find Torrent smiling at her, though there was a heated,
hungry look in his eyes.

“Now, I have
things I need to tell you and it can’t wait until I’ve rested.”

“It can,” Logan
insisted. “You need to sleep or you’ll get sick. It’s amazing
you’ve made it this long.”

She shook her
head. “No, this is too important. Torrent needs to know these
things and it’s more significant than my life.”

“All right,”
prompted Torrent. “I see I can’t sway you. Tell me what I need to
know, and then you can go rest.”

She gazed up at
Torrent with large, pretty dark eyes that were moistening with
emotion. “I have worked my whole life, as my parents before me and
their parents before them, to bring some kind of peace between the
Lycaon and the Magica. Barring peace, we worked to protect the
Lycaon from the Magica’s savage tendencies. Centuries and centuries
of bloodshed only make it clear that there will never be a peace,
nor safety for the Lycaon.” She paused, drawing a steady breath.
“So myself and the other Magica Sifta rebels have done the only
thing we know how, we have devised a way to break reality itself
and split our worlds forever.”

“What?”
breathed Torrent. “How can that be?” He straightened from where he
leaned against the wall. “How can you have the ability to do
something so powerful?”

“What I am
about to tell you no Lycaon save Logan has ever been told before.
What we did, create this magickal switch, took us generations to
accomplish. It wasn’t easy and many sacrifices were made to see it
done. This is great and deep magick, magick of the kind that ripped
us from the human world so long ago.”

“So,
you
are the mystical Powers-That-Be?” asked Caroline. So much for
Lycaon spirituality.

She smiled. “My
ancestors were, yes.”

Torrent pushed
a hand through his hair. “This is incredible. It was the Magica all
along.”

“Is this the
same kind of magick that pulls part-blood Lycaon mates through the
veil?” asked Caroline.

Torrent looked
at her in surprise, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him.

“Yes.” Jessa
smiled. “Consider it a gift, of sorts. The Magica created the
Lycaon and then tried to kill off the entire race. In order to
ensure the Lycaon’s survival, Magica rebels from a time now long
forgotten, created a pull between the worlds. It’s a magickal
magnet, drawing mates together.”

If the
possibility of splitting reality wasn’t on the table, Caroline
might have pointed out that the “magickal magnet” created a whole
lot of chaos for some families. It might bring soul mates
together…but it also created heartbreak. Having family members
vanish without a trace wasn’t a pain that was easily erased for
those left behind.

Caroline
cleared her throat. “I’ve watched more than my fair share of
science fiction and splitting reality is dangerous. I’m right,
aren’t I?”

“A very good
point, although I don’t know what this ‘science fiction’ is,” Jessa
answered. “The switch we have created is safe, located in the heart
of Titan, but does require a rather large sacrifice to make it
work.” She paused and looked at Torrent. “A blood sacrifice. It has
been keyed to one of Torrent’s ancestors. It works by his DNA.”

Torrent looked
at Caroline and held her gaze, hesitating for a moment before he
answered, “I understand.”

“Wait a minute.
No!” Caroline walked over to stand next to Torrent, as if she could
protect him. “You’re saying….what? That the magick requires the
sacrifice of Torrent’s life to work?”

Jessa nodded
sadly. “The sacrifice is a life…and a love never fully realized.
The sacrifice is not only his life but your mate bond. Life and
love.”

“Well,” she
shot back sarcastically, “as long as it’s only that much.”

Torrent put a
calming hand on her shoulder. “Think of it, everlasting peace for
the Lycaon.

My people would
never again need to fear, never need to run, never need to
fight.”

“But you’d be—”
She choked on the words, amazed at the sudden flood of emotion into
her eyes and throat. “You’d be dead.”

He turned her
toward him and drew her against his chest. She buried her face in
his shoulder and fought a sudden uncharacteristic urge to cry. “And
you’d be safe,” he whispered into her hair.

* * * *

"I don't care
if I'm being selfish. I don't want you to sacrifice your life for
the good of your people!”

“I’m staring
right now at the rigid set of your shoulders and the firm line of
your chin. I care for you so much, but, Caroline, do you hear
yourself?"

She crossed her
arms over her chest. "Yes. And I don't care how I sound."

Torrent sighed.
"I've known for a long time this was to be my fate."

"Your fate
sucks."

"I think so
too."

Everyone had
left. Jessa and Logan had gone into town. Apparently Logan had a
house in the heart of the town. She had a feeling that he and Jessa
had grown very close during their ordeal, or they'd been close
before it, maybe.

"So, I'm to be
stuck here without you. Living where? Here, I guess, right? All
alone. Seeing everything that reminds me of you, expecting you to
walk back in through that door." Her voice cracked. "I sound
petulant right now. I know I do. But you've got the easy part.
You'll be dead. I'm the one who will be forced to live without
you."

Torrent crossed
the kitchen and pulled her against him. "I'm so sorry," he murmured
into her hair.

She pushed him
away. "Why did the Magica even bring me over? They must have known
this would happen. Why couldn't they have just left me in
ignorance, never knowing I even had a soul mate. This is just
cruel. To you and me, both."

"You heard her,
it's a sacrifice of life and love. Anyway, you don't mean what you
say. If you had stayed in the human world, you never would have
known what happened to your sisters."

She stalked
away from him, into the living room. He was right, but she wanted
to stay pissed.

He followed
her. "I said I was sorry you were pulled through, but I'm not. I
would take knowing you and losing you over never having known you
at all."

There was an
odd note of hurt in his voice. It was sort of crazy how a big,
strong warrior like Torrent could seem so tough, yet be oddly
vulnerable where she was concerned.

Hell, it just
made her love him more.

She stood with
her back to him. Her shoulders slumped. "I'm ranting because I'm
mad, but you know I feel the same way."

"Do I? We
haven't known each other for long."

She turned and
walked into his arms. "We've known each other forever."

She couldn’t
deny it any longer. Her feelings for Torrent trumped all logic, but
remained true. They were soul mates, damn it all to hell.

Torrent walked
down the street of his village. There were thirteen villages in
Lycaon Territory, all scattered in the deep wilderness, hopefully
beyond the reach of the Magica.