Red (17 page)

“Run!” Ethan grabbed one of my arms.

Tobias grabbed the other one. “Run faster!”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ethan

If I’d had time and she wasn’t so feral, I would have picked Kia up and carried her back to the castle. As it was, Tobias and I held on to her so tightly her feet were barely touching the ground. Moss girls were unpredictable. They’d probably stay and fight the wendigo for knocking one of their sisters out of a tree.

Probably.

There were no guarantees in the forest.

The sounds of a battle trailed us, and it went against all of my training not to turn around and go back. I still wanted a piece of that wendigo.

“Don’t even think about it,” Tobias said before I’d even realized that my steps had slowed. He knew me better than anyone else, and I owed him a debt. He could have left the castle. He’d graduated last year, and he had a job. He could get his own place. Hell, he could move to the city and never look back. But he wouldn’t. Not while I was still here. He wouldn’t leave me alone, and I couldn’t drop out and run away because it would leave the others vulnerable. And now that Colt was injured, Justine would have to fight all that much harder to keep herself and her siblings out of the Trials. And the day they turned eighteen, Justin would go through it without her. She was buying time, like her mother, but it was the best she could do.

There was a sharp cry from somewhere behind us. Tree branches tangled together, creating knots. The moss girls were closing the forest. We didn’t have much time.

We pushed through the blizzard, cold air slapping the backs of our throats as we gasped. We didn’t let go of Kia, even when branches and boughs scraped at our faces. We ducked our heads and kept going. The trees bent over like gnarled old women, cackling and cracking their dry bones. A pine bough slapped the cut on my temple, and I hissed in pain.

Tobias and I used our last burst of energy and adrenaline to drag Kia and then toss her into the white field on the edge of the forest. She landed half buried on her back, blinking at us as we slid in beside her. Tobias and I exchanged a glance, waiting for some kind of hysterical reaction—tears or, more likely in her case, a foul-mouthed tirade.

“I’m freezing my ass off,” she said instead. “And there’s snow in my ears. Let’s get inside.”

We limped on frozen, tingling feet into the pool house. The ice in my hair melted into cold water, running down the back of my neck. Kia gave a violent shiver.

“If you do that again, I’ll kick your sorry ass,” Tobias told me calmly before going back to his room.

The anger and vengeance searing through me fizzled. I ached all over, and I was so tired of the Cabal and the forest and the training grounds. I reached for Kia’s hand. Her fingers were warm.

I took her to my room, and I went straight to the fireplace and lit the wood stacked inside. It was stuffed with twists of paper and pinecones. I pulled off my wet shirt. She glanced at my bare chest, glanced away. I went into the bathroom and put on dry clothes.

When I came back, Kia was sitting on the floor, the firelight playing over her face. “That was insane, right? Even for this place?” She shook her head. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.” I sat next to her, pressing a towel to the cut on my temple. “Ethan, that thing could have killed you.”

“I’m harder to kill than that.” I tried not to let frustration choke me. I’d been so close, twice now. I’d looked into the wendigo’s haunted, strangely human eyes. I should have killed it by now.

“It knew your name.”

“Most of the creatures know our names,” I told her, pulling the towel away. Since the bleeding seemed to have stopped, I tossed it aside. The cut stung, but I didn’t have a headache. I’d caught most of the fall on my left arm. “At least the sentient ones. We’re not exactly popular.”

“I can’t think why.” She drew her legs up, resting her forehead on her knees. Her hair was twisted over one shoulder, leaving her nape bare and delicate. I traced my thumb over her top vertebrae. She leaned into my touch a little. I wasn’t sure if she even realized what she was doing. “Do you think the wendigo is behind those hikers going missing?”

“Yes.”

“But you can’t be sure.”

“Bears don’t leave a severed arm behind.”

“Ew.”

“When it attacked the car, you said it looked at you through the windshield, right?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes. And again through the pool house window.” She paused. “Are you saying it’s targeting me?”

“Maybe.”

“But why?” she asked. “How could I have pissed off an ice monster? And one that specifically knows your name?”

“Good question.”

“Does that mean it used to be a person? Are wendigos born or made?”

“Another excellent question.”

“I’ve noticed we have a lot of those.”

“And very few answers.”

“I noticed that, too.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kia

I woke up slowly, trying to remember why I was sleeping on the floor. The fire was down to smoldering red coals behind the ornate iron grate. The snow was pretty and soft at the window, and there was a blanket over me. Ethan must have put it there. I wondered if I’d fallen asleep midsentence. All I wanted to do was lie there and listen to the whispers and moans of the blizzard and the pop of the firewood.

Except that Ethan didn’t sound right.

He was sprawled on his back beside me. His eyes were closed, but as I shoved off the blanket and shifted closer, I could see them fluttering like butterfly wings. “Ethan,” I said. My voice sounded odd in the quiet room, echoing as if we were in a cave.

His eyelids flickered faster, and then he moaned as if he was in pain. There was sweat on his forehead and curling his hair into a lock over his left eyebrow. It made him seem younger, more vulnerable. Especially when it became clear that he was in the jaws of a nightmare. “Ethan, wake up.” He jerked, making a strange guttural sound in the back of his throat, but he didn’t wake up. I reached out to shake his shoulder firmly. “Ethan, you have to—”

My finger barely brushed him. His eyes opened so abruptly I flinched. He wasn’t entirely present; part of him was still dreaming in some corner of his mind. He didn’t recognize me, except to assume I was a threat.

This was not good, considering how many ways he could kill me.

I realized that too late. I was already flipping through the air. I landed on the floor on the other side of him as he leaned over me, arm across my throat, teeth bared. And they’d laughed at me for assuming he was the werewolf. He looked more feral right now than Sloane ever could.

“Ethan,” I wheezed, tugging on his wrist. “Ethan, it’s me.”

He was still, predatory. Who knew what horrible monster he was seeing when he looked at me? He was pressed so close I could see the spikes of his eyelashes, the faint stubble along his jaw. So I did what I always did when I felt trapped. Well,
one
of the things I always did, since fire wouldn’t answer me in the castle.

I kneed him right between the legs.

He blocked with his own knee, pressing harder on my windpipe. My breath clogged somewhere in my throat, far from my lungs, where it would do me some good. I couldn’t get enough momentum or range of motion for a good punch. I tried what Abby used to do to me when I was little and in trouble—I’d hazard a guess she’d have done the same thing to Ethan, billionaire boss’s son or not—I twisted his ear as hard as I could and yanked.

Ethan recoiled, cursing. His arm came off my throat. He rested his hands on either side of my head and blinked at me, confused. “Kia? What’s going on?”

I gasped, taking big breaths. “Remind me not to wake you up unless I have a very long stick to poke you with.” I swallowed, grateful it didn’t hurt. “Preferably a sharp one.”

“Oh, God,” he said, looking faintly green. “Did I hurt you? What did I do?” He launched off me. He scrambled closer to the fire, as far from me as he could get. “I’m so sorry.”

I sat up, massaging my neck. “I’m okay. You were having a nightmare.”

He shoved his hair off his face, looking haunted. And hunted. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “You shouldn’t wake me. I have…reflexes.”

I snorted. “No shit, Sherlock.” I nudged him gently with my foot when he sat there looking freaked out. “I’m fine. Really.”

“Next time, ignore me.”

I shook my head. “Next time I’ll throw something at your head.”

He quirked half a smile. “Deal.”

I moved closer to him. He radiated tension, and I could all but feel the burn of adrenaline rising off his skin. “Are
you
okay?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“Wow, you’re a bad liar.”

He shot me a funny look. “I’m an excellent liar.”

“How do you figure?”

“You thought I didn’t like you, didn’t you?” he asked quietly. “You have no idea how many times I think of you. How often I want to kiss you.”

As fast as that, Ethan went from hunted to hunter.

The snow piled against the windowsills, the wind tapped on the walls. We were outside of time, held safe in a little burrow of darkness and warmth, far from reality. He didn’t smile, didn’t tell me I was pretty like most boys did when they were alone in the dark with a girl. He leaned in, fingers grazing up my arms until I shivered. They tangled in my hair, just as his breath tangled with mine.

His mouth was sweet and hot, and he kissed me as if there was nothing else in the world. I kissed him back, falling into the blanket as he pressed against me. I smelled the smoke on his skin from the fire he’d built. He kissed my neck, my jaw, my ear until I grabbed his face and moved his mouth back to mine. He smiled against my lips. I touched his tongue with mine. His hands moved up my waist, his thumbs resting on my rib cage.

The kiss went dark and beautiful, necessary.

In the stone fireplace, the flames flared up into the chimney. The sudden light and heat had us pulling apart. I stared at the fire, then at Ethan. My palms didn’t itch. “I thought you said that couldn’t happen.”

“It can’t,” he said, watching the flickering light. “The wards must be down.”

I put my hands behind my back. “For how long?”

“A few minutes at most.” I scooted back. “What’s up, Alcott?”

“I’m dangerous,” I said miserably, thinking of burning roses and Riley. The scars on my arms hurt.

“Kia, I once wrestled a yeti.”

“Well, aren’t you macho?” I snorted back. “Fire isn’t a creature you can fight, Ethan. It always wins.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said quietly, invading my personal space. When I went to slide away, he blocked me, casually resting his arms on either side of my hips. “You’re afraid of yourself. Talk about a fight you’ll never win.”

I looked at him bleakly. “You’re not afraid of yourself sometimes? I’ve seen what you can do.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged, appearing far more interested in my bottom lip than his violent and unusual childhood. “But I’m not afraid of you.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention,” I muttered.

“Oh, I think I have,” he replied, his mouth a whisper away from mine. “I see the burns on your arms, the way you clench your hands into fists when you’re nervous or angry. The way you push people away.” He smiled against my lips. “So push me away, Kia.”

We stayed there in a tableau of longing and need until I gave in. Until I kissed him, gently, hesitantly, waiting for fire to burn between us. I slid my hands under the hem of his shirt, and his skin was warm and smooth, his chest as sculpted and scarred as one would expect from someone who had once wrestled a yeti. I might have purred. I’d have to kill him later if he teased me about it. We stayed there, losing track of everything but each other until an alarm beeped in his bedroom.

He lifted his head reluctantly. “Security shift is changing. They’ll do a sweep.” He kissed me again. “We should stop.”

“Okay,” I agreed before our tongues touched. He wasn’t the only one who could be distracting. His hands tightened in my hair. I stroked the warm skin of his back.

He groaned, forcing himself off of me. “You have to get out of here. Dad can’t know.”

At the mention of his father, the moment broke.

I pushed to my feet, lips tingling. “Fine.”

He kissed me again at the door, so deeply that I had to grab the wall. “You asked me if I hate my dad?”

I nodded, breathless. He smiled, brushing his lips over mine so gently it tickled. “I’ve never hated him more than at this moment.”

The door closed between us.

…

I spent the morning idly flipping through comic books, trying to make sense of the last couple of weeks and trying not to obsess over the cages in the zoo, especially the one painted with a firebird. I looked up the story of the firebird and found it was a good-luck sign from a Russian fairy tale.

It was a miracle that Ethan was as normal as he was. It was hard to imagine Summer in this world. The girl in the pretty dress and glittery earrings from Ethan’s photo looked too delicate to fight manticores and wendigos.

The photo.

I sat up, my stomach clenching nervously. I remembered the beast chasing me in the forest, the feel of ice and iron closing over me, of Ethan hunting in the woods and blackened lips at my car window. The way it seemed to target me. The crystal beads trapped in its white hair.

I knew who the wendigo was.

And I knew exactly where she was going.

Ethan.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ethan

There wasn’t much time. Kia and I hadn’t decided the best way to get her out of the castle, beyond a few sleepovers in Sloane’s dorm room. Until then, there were two concrete things I could do to help protect her.

Kill the wendigo.

And take apart the cage meant for her capture with my bare hands.

I hurried through the woods toward the zoo. Smoke drifted on the cold air from one of the barrel fires burning to keep the guards warm. The electric fencing had been fixed, and it buzzed unpleasantly as I punched in my code. The creatures were mostly asleep, conserving warmth. I went straight down the shoveled path to the red cage. The thought of Kia locked inside made adrenaline fire through my system.

I reached for the crowbar and the tools I’d brought with me in an old gym bag. The cameras faced away, since this cage was empty. As much as I wanted to smash it apart with the crowbar, I’d have to restrain myself. Better to weaken it subtly, so that no one realized we were onto them. I loosened the screws on the hinges first, then stepped back to survey the crucial structural points. The bars were too solid to tamper with. The back wall was metal, as was the floor. Kia would have been able to burn through wood eventually. Anger made my mouth taste like iron.

“Ethan?”

I spun around, slipping the screwdriver in the back of my jeans, under my coat. “Dad! You’re back.” He was standing in the path, the troll making obscene gestures in his cage behind him. The hippogriff gave a cry like a wounded eagle. “Are you the game warden tonight?”

“Someone has to keep order.” He nodded, smiling. “Animals are pretty quiet tonight, though. Too cold, I guess.”

“I guess,” I agreed. I had to distract him. The door to the cage creaked open on its hinges behind me.

“Well, that makes it easy,” he said.

Right before he shoved me and swung the door shut, locking me inside.

I hit the back wall hard but managed to keep my footing. I grabbed the bars, staring at him. “Is this some sort of joke? I don’t have time for more training.”

“Believe me, Ethan. This is for your own good.”

I shook the bars, even though I knew I couldn’t loosen them. Dread mixed with a new surge of adrenaline, making everything sharp. I could smell his cologne, hay from the Pegasus pen, and the rotting fish the troll hid in the corner of his cage. “Dad. Let me out of here.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. It’s better this way. Someone will be back to let you out in a few hours. We need to give Justine a chance to shine.”

I went cold, fingers numb around the steel bars. “Justine hasn’t changed her mind.”

“No, she’s just scared. She needs a push. So does that little girlfriend of yours. A fiery one, isn’t she?”

“What does this have to do with Kia?”

“She has remarkable gifts. I admit I wasn’t entirely sure at first. The wards played havoc with my attempts to get any real evidence, but it was worth it. I saw what I needed to see, and then the firebird confirmed it.”

“You can’t cage her like one of your beasts.”

“She’ll be an asset to the Cabal. She’ll be one of us, son. You might actually have a future together that way.”

“I’ll kill you before I let you make her into one of your monsters.”

“I’m helping to keep her safe, too. A girl like that, powers like that.” His eyes were cold, warning. “She needs to be protected, don’t you think? To be the kind of champion you insist we should be?”

“You can’t lock her up in here!”

He shook his head. “I have no intention of doing that. Really, Ethan, you need to work on strategy. The cage was never meant for her.”

My bones felt like daggers under my skin. If I could have turned myself into a weapon I would have. “What are you talking about?”

“The cage is for you,” he said. “To keep you out of the way. You needed a push, too,” he said before walking away. “Sit tight, my boy. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“Hey!” I yelled after him. “Get me the hell out of here!”

He didn’t look back.

“You can’t be serious! Dad!”

He’d tricked us. He was going to try Justine despite her determination to protect Ariel. And he was going to force the Trials on Kia, despite the fact that she was utterly untrained and there was a wendigo out there who’d already tried to kill her. Fury made me feel invincible, completely at one with my stark surroundings. The world was all light and shadows, clean and simple, no complications. Ironically, the training he’d forced on me was about to be used against him. And I wouldn’t just stop the Trials—I’d take down the entire Cabal and burn the forest to the ground if I had to.

Shrieks and growls and cackling bounced off the metal walls of my cage. I tested the door hinges. I hadn’t had a chance to loosen them enough to give me a real advantage. I couldn’t get through the bars or the metal walls. And I couldn’t go under.

So I’d have to go up.

I used my contraband screwdriver to take out all the screws and pry the hinges off the ceiling. My hands were white with cold and scratched all to hell by the time I’d made progress enough to get out. I stuck my arms through the bars in one corner and swung myself up, kicking at the roof. The metal groaned. Guards would be coming out to investigate any minute now.

I kicked harder. Finally there was enough of an opening that I could pull myself through, ripping gouges along my arms and sides. I slid down the back wall and went to crouch behind the generator shed, taking inventory of my situation.

I had a screwdriver for a weapon, plus the knife in my boot. The electric fence was charged and Dad would have switched the security system to accept my code coming in but not going out. I was out of the small cage but still trapped in the bigger one.

The metal grid overhead buzzed with electricity. I didn’t have time to hack the system or break open the gates. Already the silent alarm would be flashing in the guards’ gatehouse. If nothing else, they’d want to see why all of the creatures were freaking out around me. If I let a few loose, it would buy me enough time to short the fencing and get the hell out of here.

I went to the yeth hound pen first. I’d fed him enough raw meat that he was used to me. Occasionally he even pressed again the bars to have his ears rubbed. I unlocked the troll’s cage next, and he was barging through the door before I’d even leaped out of the way. He crashed between the enclosures, roaring. I pulled myself up onto the roof of the nearest cage as a guard followed the troll’s burst to freedom. I leaped from cage to cage, shadowing him.

He found the troll eating buckets of deer entrails from the feeding station. He lifted his rifle and fired two tranquilizer darts. I dropped in front of the guard and elbowed him in the face. I grabbed his tranq gun and used it on the second guard, now shouting at me from the doorway of the gatehouse. When he slumped over, I pushed my way past him to the computers and reinstated my code as the master code. The gates swung open.

Behind me the yeth hound barked at me once, then lifted his leg and peed on the prone guard. I kept running. I passed bags of bloody meat hanging in the trees. The forest was one giant trap, waiting to close around us.

“Ethan.”

For a brief confusing moment, the voice was familiar.