LIAM (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 2) (16 page)

“Tie his head up. Let’s aim for that windpipe of his. I’m tired of listening to him mumble,” Pic yelled.

They used some sort of woven leather to bind my head to the tree so I stared at the underside of the leaves. The twang of a bow and the sharp pierce of an arrow was first, straight through my throat. I garbled as I struggled to breathe around it.

Over and over, they shot me in the neck, and I waited for the heart shot, but it never came. And I finally understood, that even now, this wasn’t so much an execution as torture. They were going to push my body to its limits over and over until they grew tired. I kept my teeth clamped shut, the only rebellion I could give as the space I could draw breath through narrowed with each arrow twang and thud into my flesh.

Lion let out a cry and it was cut off mid-sound. I couldn’t move, couldn’t see if he’d had his head taken. Was I alone? Panic curled up through me as I struggled to breathe.

My grandfather leaned in, his mouth next to my ear. “I’ll only say this once, grandson. When the darkness takes you, you might want to listen to the vampire. He’s got a truth for you that you need to hear.”

I couldn’t breathe, my heart hammered in desperation as I fought vainly against the chains, unable to do more than clink them together. The leaves above my head seemed to grow larger, darkening from green to black as they fluttered down and covered my face, stealing away the last of my breath.

“Rylee.” Her name was the last silent word on my lips. I was wrong. I wasn’t a Guardian. I knew death. I’d seen it before.

And it had come for me a second time.

A LAUGH I KNEW
all too well rumbled through the air. I blinked and looked around me. I stood in front of the tree my body was still chained to, head tied back, neck full of at least two quivers of arrows. A sense of unreality flowed over me.

“Pride, it will get you every time
.”
Faris’s voice wasn’t really his voice. I knew he’d moved on and crossed the Veil, but could still hear him as clear as if he stood next to me.

There was movement on my right side and I spun, and found myself staring at Faris, like a mirror reflection. Blond hair, bright blue eyes, I knew his face almost as well as I knew my own. Hell, I’d been trapped in his body for almost a year now between the time I’d shared it with him and the time since he’d been burned out.

“What do you mean? How the fuck am I being prideful?” I asked, not angry, just confused.

He shook his head with an exaggerated slowness, walked over to the tree where his body,
his
real body, slumped. Blue eyes lifted to mine. “I told you once that you were wrong. That dying for love wasn’t the true sacrifice. I would have lived for her, if I could have. But you, you love to throw it all away, like dying shows how much you care.” He snorted and patted the top of his head. The slumped one.

My jaw ticked, and somehow I knew that wherever we were, I had my body back. I could feel it in the movement of the muscles, the way my hands clenched into fists. Small differences, but they were there. And every day they reminded me that I was not in my own body.

“You think I don’t want to live?”

Faris laughed and shook his head. “Yes and no. You were a cop for a long time. Trained to take a bullet for someone else, trained to give until it hurt, to sacrifice yourself for the higher good. But there comes a point where you have to know that being a martyr won’t work any longer.”

I wanted to snap at him that I wasn’t a martyr. But he was the second person to use that word and I wondered if it had some merit. The wolf in me rumbled, almost as if he were laughing at me too. Fine then, three people thought I was being a martyr.

I struggled to push the anger down, and I managed. Barely. “I’m listening,” I said.

“Well, shit, that’s a first.” Faris grinned and made a waving motion with his hand as if to encompass all the trees. “You know where you are right now?”

I shook my head. “No. Should I?”

His eyebrows shot up. “Really, you don’t even have a suspicion?”

If I was seeing Faris . . . did that mean I was dead? If that was the case, why the hell would he care to give me a lecture. But then, if that was true, where was Alex? And Erik, Blaz, all those we’d lost along the way? Why just Faris?

“You’re currently
mostly
dead, Liam. While not fully decapitated, they punched you full of enough arrows to take you right to the brink.” He touched one of the arrows, brushing his hand over the brightly colored feathers in the fletch.

“So what, then? You’re just here to gloat?” I raised both eyebrows. Griffin had said to listen to the vampire, and I was trying. But Faris made things difficult on a good day, and it hadn’t been even close to a good day so far.

He laughed. “I’m not the one who gets to hold her every night, Liam. You are the one who should be gloating.”

I took three strides so we were nose to nose. “I thought we were past this, blood sucker.”

He shrugged, but there was laughter in his eyes. This was just another one of his damn games. I backed up. “If I die, then I’m stuck here with you, and I will make your afterlife less than pleasant.”

“Oh, well, we wouldn’t want that then, would we?” He rolled his eyes.

I realized we were talking in circles. And that I was being an ass as much as he was. I closed my eyes and drew in a slow breath. “If you can help me, then help me.”

“Ah, well, seeing as I liked my body when it was mine, I think I will help you.”

I opened my eyes and he was no longer laughing.

“It’s
your
body, Liam. Not mine. Your voice, your power, your soul . . . all of those are what animate it. Not mine. A body is just a shell, does it really matter that it was mine before? That’s your problem. You got a second chance, something most people don’t get when it comes to life and death. And you can’t embrace it because you hated me so much, you pull away from the body?”

Fuck, I hated it when he was right. I didn’t have time for this shit, I had to get back. I had to get Mai the help she needed and get her to Rylee.

“Oh no, you don’t get to skip out on this conversation. That’s the thing about dying—or in your case—almost dying. We can stand here all day and until we hash this out, you’re in limbo.”

But to admit it to Faris that he was right? Gods, it was like swallowing gravel and then trying to speak around the rocks. “I hated you for so long. Sharing your body was easier than having it to myself; sharing your body meant it wasn’t fully mine. I could still pretend I was me and not you.”

His eyes lit up and a grin slipped over his lips. “You want to share again?”

I stared at him, knowing a part of Rylee loved him, that he connected with her on a different level than I had. Insecurities I’d been ignoring roared to the front of my brain. On a visceral level, I knew I was being a fool. But apparently Rylee wasn’t the only one who couldn’t figure out her new life.

My jaw flexed and ticked as I struggled to work through the multitude of thoughts rushing through me.

“Say it, Wolf. Say the words.”

I gritted my teeth, holding my mouth against the traitorous syllables. In a blink, Faris was beside me, whispering the thoughts that chased me out of my dreams.

“What if she’s happy she has my body to fuck now? That secretly, she wanted me more all along? That you were always second to my first?” He said the exact things I could not.

I closed my eyes, but I couldn’t hide the truth from Faris. He slapped a hand on my shoulder, steadying me as my guts rolled with horror that he said it out loud, the secrets I kept even from myself. Men didn’t talk about shit like this. They did not talk emotions and fears.

“Here’s the deal, you idiot.” He shook me lightly. “She could have lived a life with me, but she wouldn’t have remained the vibrant woman she is. You are, no matter what body you are currently residing in, her heart. Even I know that. I might hate it, but it’s the truth. And because I love her, I want her to be happy.”

I was on my knees, not remembering when I’d gone down. Faris was crouched in front of me. “I find it amusing this has you so torn up,” he said.

“Of course, you do, you’re a fucking bastard.”

He laughed. “I knew both my parents, thank you very much.”

I snorted. “Fine, so I’m an insecure idiot. That doesn’t help me with my current situation.” I waved at the body pinned to the tree.

“Really, I have to spell it out for you?” He quirked an eyebrow. “Here it is. Your wolf is a Guardian. And you . . . are being a pussy.”

I burst out laughing. “Are you serious?”

His eyes weren’t laughing now. “How many times have you actually let the wolf out, that you’ve truly let the power rage? Not since I took that collar off you. Since then you’ve always held back.”

That had been . . . not a particularly good time. I put a hand to my neck, feeling the metal as if it were still there. The collar Milly had placed on me had held my wolf in check, and when the collar was removed the wolf roared forward, taking me over completely. I’d killed witches at a rate that had a bounty on my head in no time.

“That’s too dangerous. I can’t control him,” I said, and the wolf in me snarled.

“That’s your problem.” He tapped me on the chest. “Stop trying to control him, stop trying to make that body,” he pointed back to the tree, “yours, as if it isn’t already. You treat it as if it isn’t and that’s your problem. You
are
the wolf. He isn’t separate. That body is
yours
now, it isn’t mine.”

The scene in front of me wavered and I choked, hands going to my neck. I couldn’t breathe.

Faris stared at me. “Your decision. You either live for her. Or you die for her. Which is it going to be, Wolf? I’ll tell you now, one of them is easier than the other. And one will allow you to live and grant you more time with Rylee, while the other, well, the other will spell your death.”

A lesson from Faris was not what I’d been expecting, not in the least, but . . . the truth seared through me. To offer up my life for her was a sacrifice worth giving if it was needed . . . but to throw myself on the sword because I was insecure in my life . . . that was a different thing altogether.

“Fight for her, Wolf.” His words came from far away. “Fight for her.”

My whole body spasmed against the chains and I struggled to breathe around the multitude of arrows. No, the arrows didn’t belong there . . . I thought about how my flesh should have been healing. I was a Guardian. I was
not
going to die like this.

The arrows slowly, inexorably, pushed out of my skin, plunking one at a time, falling to the ground, sticking in my clothes, but falling. Each removal gave me room to breathe, gave my heart a reason to beat. The last arrow fell and a few slow tears leaked from my eyes streaking down my cheeks. My eyes, not Faris’s.

“So, Wolf, you decided to join us?” Lion said. I couldn’t see him. My head was still strapped to the tree, so I stared at the underside of the leaves, watching a few fall toward me. There was no sound of ogres, no shuffle of feet or weapons.

“They’re gone, if you’re wondering.” Lion grunted. “Though I doubt that bodes well in our favor. They were still talking about a barbeque as they wandered away.”

I ignored him, focusing on my body, listening to the pain, feeling the wounds heal over, my skin sealing up faster than it had before. Faster, because I now knew my purpose. I was a Guardian, not only of Rylee and our pack, not only of the triplets, but if I truly listened to the words of my soul, I was a Guardian of the world.

With that acknowledgement, strength rushed through me, my muscles filled with it, and I snapped my head forward, breaking the leather straps as though they were made of tissue paper.

Lion let out a low laugh. “I think I might stick around to see this after all.”

I turned my head to see him still chained to his tree. “Doesn’t look like you have much choice but to stick around.” My voice was raspy, torn up by the arrows . . . but it was mine. I wiggled my fingers, twisting them to wrap around the chains. Chains, just like leather straps, could be broken. I grabbed hold tightly and pulled with all I had. The metal screeched, giving slowly with a cry like a wounded animal. The links popped and gave, and the tree groaned as the metal bit into the flesh of the bark.