Warrior Everlasting (7 page)

Brandon had always been Trey’s hero. Watching him take all that time to teach a neighbor girl to play football, though, raised him to nothing short of a god in Trey’s eyes. And Tate and Liam, ignoring their friends every day so Scout would have someone to play football with? His brothers were a pain, but no other brothers Trey knew would do that.

They were playing touch football several weeks later. Brandon played with them, and some of Trey’s friends from school. Scout never got the ball — if Trey did try to throw it to her, she froze, afraid of all the boys who were about to mock her. Brandon called a time out, and Trey jogged over.

“Scout? You really want these boys to think you’re a scared little girl?” his dad asked.

Scout’s eyes blazed, and her small hands clenched into fists. “I’m not a scared little girl.”

Brandon nodded, standing up and clapping her on the shoulder. “Good girl.”

As he walked away, Trey caught him looking pointedly at Tate and Liam. And then at Trey.

Trey got the message.

The next play, he threw the ball to Scout. She leaped like a cat and snatched the ball out of the air. She landed hard, spun on one foot, and raced for the end zone.

Screaming the entire way.

Tate and Liam raced ahead of her, blocking all the other boys, clearing a path all the way in. The look on her face when she scored that touchdown was something Trey would never, ever forget…

“Trey? Helllo-o-o-o?” Scout was standing next to him, waving her hand in front of his face.

“Where’s the ball?” He jumped, startled out of his own memories. And with awareness came pain. His dad. His brothers. He missed them so much it felt like the pain would eat right through his heart.

“Hey.” Her eyes widened, and she reached a dirty hand up, her thumb brushing away a tear he hadn’t even realized he’d cried. “It’s okay, Trey. Torz ate it. We’ll get another one.”

He half-laughed, half-sobbed. “I miss them, Scout.”

Her face softened and she nodded. “I know.” She slid her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. His hands shook as he pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head.

Don’t give up on me, boys. I’m coming. We’re coming.

Chapter Eight

Ashra paced like a caged beast, snorting and pawing at the ground. It was terrifying, really. Scout watched her, feeding off Ashra’s angry, nervous energy. When Trey stepped on a stick and it cracked; Scout nearly jumped through the roof. If there had been a roof. Which there wasn’t because they were at the mouth of a canyon and…
“Scout. It’s time.”

Scout gulped and looked up at Torz, who had moved silently, unlike his rider who, Scout was sure, was making as much noise as possible. She scowled at Trey, and he grinned at her unapologetically. Did he not feel it? Something would happen today — good or bad, this is where their journey ended. The journey that started with a race across the sky several days ago to save her sister and her parents and his brothers and his parents and pretty much everyone they’d ever met…

Scout swallowed.

But Trey seemed oblivious to it. He ate his weird blue fruit and drank his purified-by-unicorn water, and his hands didn’t even shake.

“Scout, eat. You don’t know when you will have the chance again,”
Ashra snapped.

Scout bounced on her heels. This was like facing Nationals in dance, only ten thousand gazillion times worse. Nervous energy was the same, but Nationals didn’t have the fear of death. Usually.

“Hey.” Trey stopped next to her, pushing fruit into her hand. “Everyone we love is in those cages.”

She took the fruit, biting into it viciously. “Thanks, Trey. That helps so much,” she said sarcastically, waving her fruit at him.

“They need you to not panic. Pull it together, Scout.”

Tough love. She smiled. Somehow, even after all this time, Trey knew what she needed to hear. “Got it. Calming down, sir.” She saluted him and he rolled his eyes, leaving her to take care of Torz.

Trey and Torz had a much different relationship than Scout and Ashra. Ashra was clearly in charge, and Scout just did what she was told. But with Trey and Torz, it was more symbiotic. Trey treated Torz like a beloved friend — brushing weeds off Torz’s back, being within arm’s reach all the time. If Scout was within arm’s reach of Ashra, she usually got knocked sideways by a giant wing.

And it worked, the way things were. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

They moved silently, like ninja unicorns with not-so-ninja-humans on their backs. Out of the canyon, across the valley. The castle sat in what looked like a crater, although Scout was fairly positive Aptavaras had never been hit by a meteor, and she hadn’t seen any indication of volcanoes. Wild mountains rose around it, except for the valley she and her friends were in — it acted as something like a front driveway to the castle. If there were cars to drive… Scout shook her head. Her thoughts were all over the place. She needed to focus.

“We should go up. See if we can get a better view.”
Ashra tossed her head toward the peak closest to the castle. Without waiting to see if anyone agreed with her, her mighty wings snapped out, and she launched herself into the air.

Scout, taken totally by surprise, squealed and grabbed Ashra’s thick neck.
“You think this is funny, don’t you? This little let’s-try-to-throw-Scout-on-the-ground-at-least-twice-a-day thing you do? It’s. Not. Funny.”

Ashra’s snickering bounced around in Scout’s skull.

Torz followed, landing easily on the narrow ledge Ashra had chosen, apparently based on it being the least likely to support their weight. Scout didn’t dare slide off, in case the whole thing collapsed, and she needed Ashra’s wings to save her. She squinted at the castle but couldn’t see much beyond darkness and shadows. She nudged Ashra with her knee. “Use your super-unicorn powers and tell me what you see.”

Ashra snorted indignantly.
“I kill demons with magic from my horn. I made you a magical cloak and a magical scepter. I fly faster than any other Irwarro to ever live. Isn’t that enough for you, Princess?”

Torz rolled his eyes toward them.
“What she’s saying is we don’t have super-sight. We see the same as you.”

“Oh. Well then, why are we up here? I can’t see a thing.” Scout squinted harder. It didn’t help.

Trey chuckled.

“Princess has a point. We need to get closer.”

“And preferably on a ledge that won’t fall apart so we all plummet to our death. Not all of us have wings, you know.”

Ashra leaped into the air, falling through the sky before she snapped her wings open. Scout gasped as the wind stole her breath, waiting until they weren’t about to die to yell at her unicorn. “You did that on purpose!”

“Yes. Yes I did.”

They flew silently through the sky, disappearing in the weird blue mist, only to appear moments later as the low-hanging blue sun caught them. Scout could tell when they came too close to the castle because the smell would hit her. Soul stealers smelled dead. Not just dead, but rotting-in-the-sun-for-days-in-a-closed-container kind of dead. The smell of a thousand of them was enough to nearly knock Scout off her unicorn. She prayed that, as a soul without a body, Lil Bit did
not
have to smell them.

“And what of your parents? Aren’t you concerned that they might be overcome by the toxic odor?”
Ashra asked quietly.

“You’re eavesdropping on my thoughts again, horse.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Scout sighed. “Yes. Of course I’m worried about my parents as well. But if they’re with Lil Bit, they’re happy. Things would only be unbearable for them if I were there and she wasn’t.” Scout’s free hand clapped over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that.

“So the animosity has not faded.”

“The animosity has only had a few days to fade. Animosity is sticky. It takes longer than that.” Scout looked toward the castle they were slowly circling. Her parents were in there somewhere. Waiting for her to save Lil Bit. They wouldn’t care about themselves. They would worry about her, of course, but it would be Lil Bit’s safety that would haunt them. Just like it did her.

Ashra didn’t answer, apparently seeing fit to leave Scout to work out her own emotional problems.

Trey, however, wouldn’t let her forget it. “Scout, your parents love you. You know that, right?”

She glanced over at him as he faded in and out with the mist. Ashra and Torz seemed to like flying just close enough that their wings brushed, which meant Trey was only about fifteen feet away. He looked like he belonged there, with the scepter held easily in his hand, the light breeze messing his already messy hair.
He is so gorgeous
.

She blinked, tearing her eyes from this boy she loved and wouldn’t let herself be with. Not yet. “I know they do.”

Trey wasn’t buying it. “Scout.”

She glanced at him quickly and then away, lest he catch her drooling. “No, I mean it. I know they do.” She shrugged. “They don’t love me as much as Lil Bit, but who would? She’s the golden child. She’s the sweetest kid in the history of the world!
I
don’t love me as much as I love Lil Bit.”

Ashra and Torz were silent, but Scout could feel their attention. It made her nervous.

“They love you just as much as they love her, Scout.”

She shook her head, fingering the ornate winding, twisting designs on the scepter lying across her lap, ready to be used. “They can’t, Trey,” she whispered.

“Why? What is it you think is so wrong with you that no one can love you without all these conditions?” Trey exploded.

She hadn’t realized he was so frustrated that it bordered on anger until too late, and without meaning to, she fed on his emotion. “There’s nothing wrong with me! They can’t love me like they love her because they were there for her, and everyone abandons me, Trey, everyone but Lil Bit.”

Trey frowned, his head tilted barely to the side, like holding his head that way would make her logic easier to grasp and hold on to. “They didn’t abandon you.”

“Yes they did! When Lil Bit was going to all those doctors, my parents were there. Every. Single. Appointment. But when I was in the hospital, they went back to work after a week. They left me in the hospital alone. They abandoned me! Just like you!”

Trey looked like she’d ripped his heart out with her bare hands. His face went white, and Torz faltered in the sky. Trey’s lips compressed into a thin hard line, and he looked away, staring into the blue clouds. “This. Again.”

The anger died in her just as quickly as it had been born. “No, Trey. No. Not this again. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

He cut her off. “Does your back hurt, Scout?”

“No…” she answered slowly.

He shook his head and tapped his knee gently against Torz’s side. “It looks like there’s a ledge over there. We should check it out.”

Torz tipped his wing, and they flew sideways, disappearing in the mist.

“I think you might be part soul stealer.”

Scout hung her head. She wanted to argue, she really did. It was the worst kind of insult. But she couldn’t. “I think I might be, too.”

“Your parents did the best they could, Scout. You can’t love one child more than the other. It isn’t possible. You might not understand that now, but you will one day.”

Scout knew Ashra had had a foal. Only one though. And then a sickening thought occurred to her, and she sucked in a breath. “Ashra. You were pregnant, weren’t you?”

When Ariston had killed Ashra’s mate, and the entire Corste line had died off, Ashra’s foal had also died… and if she’d been pregnant, she would have lost that baby, too.

Ashra didn’t answer, but Scout could feel her pain. “I’m so sorry.”

They flew in silence then, both surrounded and bonded again by their overwhelming pain, until Torz rode up next to them. Trey refused to look at her.

“Behind the castle, I see a ledge very close. I believe we can land there undetected. And I believe we’ll have a decent view inside.”

Ashra nodded and followed him as they swooped low, staying in the mist.

It wasn’t until they were mere feet away that Scout could hear the screams — not the soul stealer’s shrieks, which had been audible for hours, but the screams of the souls. The sound nearly broke her already-cracked heart. “Trey, I didn’t mean—” She started as soon as he was within hearing distance.

But he shook his head without looking at her. “Don’t, Scout. No more lies.”

“I wasn’t lying, Trey. I didn’t mean to hurt you!”

He sighed, finally turning those dark, dark eyes on her. “I know, Scout. That’s what makes it so painful. You aren’t trying to hurt me. You aren’t trying to hold a grudge. But it’s still there, despite everything you’ve done to get past it. That, more than anything else, tells me…” He trailed off and his voice cracked. His entire body shook and her big, tough, never-wavering Trey fought tears. “That tells me you won’t
ever
get past it. There’s no future for us, Scout.”

Chapter Nine

Scout could only stare at Trey. Her already shattered heart, with those few short words, had completely folded in on itself. “But… but you said you would wait, Trey,” she whispered.

“I said I would wait when I thought there was hope. There’s no point—” Trey was cut off as Torz reared backward.

“Incoming!”
the mighty unicorn shrieked, tucking his wing and sliding sideways through the air as the red, glowing eyes of a souled soul stealer appeared in the mist.

Scout grabbed her scepter, feeling Ashra’s power join hers as the orb lit up with bright flames. Unlike Torz, who immediately launched into defensive maneuvers, Ashra was an offensive kind of horse.

“Unicorn.”

She flew straight at the two monsters coming after them. Scout leveled her scepter, bracing herself as it lit up and exploded, shooting flames into the creature’s stomach. It shrieked, and Scout’s hands clapped over her ears as her brain threatened to shatter.