chapter 15
Mila gasped as she witnessed Frenzy’s slow descent into madness. He was talking to thin air, holding out his arms and shushing softly, over and over again.
“What have you done to him?” she growled, twirling on the advancing shadow, whose eyes twinkled with mirth.
Opaque eyes turned back toward her. “I’ve given him his heart’s desire.”
Adrenaline speeding thick and hot all throughout her, Mila tried to shield Frenzy from the shadow’s gaze as best she could. “I am his heart’s desire. He told me. He bonded with me. We’ve become one.”
The shadow scoffed as the slit of her mouth curled upward into a snarl. “Is that what you think? You poor, pathetic soul. What he sees now is his Adrianna.” She practically purred the name.
It was like a punch to Mila’s gut, because she’d seen the vision. Seen the love shining in Frenzy’s eyes for that woman. The woman he felt such guilt for, the one for whose murder he blamed himself.
“No.” She shook her head, trying in vain to deny it.
The shadow tossed her head back. “You truly are a worthless creature, aren’t you?”
Being stubborn, she lifted her chin high as she tried to hang on to Frenzy’s arm, but he kept tugging it away from her, following the invisible Adrianna around the room.
“A vision can only work if the soul desires it to be so,” the shadow taunted.
Heat prickled the corners of Mila’s eyes because a horrible realization was dawning on her. She didn’t trust the shadow as far as she could toss it, but she’d known how torn up Frenzy was about Adrianna’s death, how the nagging feeling was always in the back of her mind that he cared more for the ghost of Adrianna than he ever had for her.
“The bastard is correct,” the shadow continued. “I cannot kill him. Death controls life, but,” she hissed, undulating her neck like a hypnotic cobra, “I could not get to you with death in the way. This isn’t hard, little seer. It won’t even hurt. Won’t you come to me?”
The cadence of her voice, the dulcet, shivery tone of it, it did something to Mila. Washed away the fear hammering away inside her veins. Made her claws retract and the panicking need for flight or fight dissipate.
And now when she stared at the shadow, she didn’t see a nightmarish sight of sagging skin and a slit for a mouth. Instead, there was a voluptuous woman garbed in a diaphanous gown of midnight, with long black hair hanging well past her waist, full, plump lips and a curvaceous figure. She was beautiful and exotic and Mila began to wonder how it was that she’d always feared this creature.
“Do you not want to see your gran? Your mum again, little seer?” The shadow curved her finger in a beckoning gesture, luring her further in.
Throat squeezing tight, and not trusting herself to speak, Mila could only nod. And like magic they appeared before her just as they’d last been.
Gran was wearing a blue slip dress that fell past her knees. Her snow-white hair pulled up into a fashionable bun. Kind, crinkly brown eyes smiled back at her. “Ach, wee one, ’tis good ta see you again,” she said, and it dragged tears to Mila’s eyes, made her throat clog up.
Taking a stuttering breath, Mila nodded. “And you, Gran.”
“Mila,” her mum’s sweet, sweet voice echoed through Mila’s head. Salt-and-pepper hair was swept back into a ponytail. Her jeans and red blouse hugged her slim body to perfection. Her mum had always been conscious of appearance, practical, but beautiful in a classic and timeless way.
“Mum!” she squealed and let the tears drop finally. “I thought I’d never see you two again. After that night, when the shadow…” Just saying the name caused her heart to pound again and an awful nagging to prick away at her.
“Nay, lass, nay.” Gran held up a soothing hand and, stepping in to Mila, she wrapped frail arms around her neck, breaking her out in an immediate wash of goose bumps. “The shadow isna so bad as all that. She’s been good to us. She only wants what’s best for the—”
A strange sensation began filling Mila’s limbs, like she was slowly being leached of energy. The first faint fluttering of tiredness filled her bones. She shook her head. “But I thought you said to stay away from the shadow, that it would kill us all. I saw you die, Mum. Saw it take you up in its tentacles and suck you dry. I saw—”
Gran’s smile was sweet, full of joy and suppressed laughter. “A vision, lass. Only a vision. It wasn’t truth. The shadow’s been protecting us. Guiding us, teaching us how to properly use our powers to their fullest potential.”
Head beginning to feel a little fuzzy, Mila tried to understand what her gran was saying. How was it possible? All her life her mum and gran had warned her to never let the shadow get her. Now they were saying that it was okay?
Why was it so hard to focus? Vision blurring slightly, she shook her head as her stomach began to churn with something close to anxiety. But how? Why? Wasn’t this what she’d always wanted? Her gran and her mum back again? Their love, their arms wrapped around her one last time?
“Mum?”
“Hmm?” Eyes so similar to her own smiled up at her. “Yes, lovie?”
“Is Da still alive?” Why had she asked that question? She’d wanted to ask her mum for a hug, wanted to ask her if she loved her, not that. Not about Da. But something was bothering her, nagging at her.
“Of course he is, love.” She tsked as if Mila were a silly thing. “He lives in Ireland, as you well know.”
She blinked, because it wasn’t true. If these were the true spirits of her relatives, they should know that.
Heart raging in her ears, the vision of gran and mum wavered. “Mum,” she said softly.
“Yes?”
Suddenly, as if listening to noise through a tunnel, she heard a horrible slurping noise, a buzzing that drowned out the happy smiles on her family’s faces.
“Da’s dead.”
Mum’s smile wilted, the beautiful amber eyes became hard as cut glass, and then Gran burst out with a horrible, grating sound of laughter.
* * *
Frenzy had his arms wrapped around Adrianna, inhaling her scent of roses, when another scent intruded. Fresh earth and a sharp burst of frost. It was powerful and all-consuming and filled his heart with such need that Adrianna wavered in his arms.
Her wide eyes grew large. “Frenzy?” She clutched at his back. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me, don’t leave me. You cannot leave me!” she snarled.
And all at once he knew this wasn’t his Adrianna. His Adrianna was gone and buried. He’d mourned her loss, he’d let her go. He’d moved on and fallen in love with the woman who shared his soul.
“Mila,” he whispered, and it was like someone took a hammer to a sheet of glass.
The ghost in his arms shattered into a ball of light. All at once the cabin was restored, as was the reality of their situation.
The shadow was stretched throughout every crevice of the one-room cabin. Pulsing tentacles of darkness were wrapped around his lover’s body, one shoved down her throat as a glimmering, golden radiance emanated from within Mila’s mouth.
The creature was pulling out her soul.
“Mila!” he cried, rushing toward her.
But the shadow was everywhere. It hissed as it looked up at him with glowing red eyes. “You should have stayed down, reaper! Now you’ll get to watch her die.” And then a thick wave slammed into him, tossing him against the farthest wall and knocking the air out of his lungs.
Panting, he grabbed hold of his chest as the pain radiated like a spider’s web throughout his limbs. The darkness held him down in a choking, punishing grip.
At first Mila wasn’t struggling, she was lax in the creature’s arms, but after a second he began to notice her twitching and jerking, as if coming to her senses. The shadow returned its attention back to her, letting off some of the pressure bearing down on him.
Knowing he didn’t have much time, he frantically searched around for something, anything, to distract it, when he spotted the box, lying not ten inches in front of him.
He couldn’t move too fast; if he did he feared the shadow would become aware of what he was trying to do. Inching his fingers painfully slow across the floor, he felt like it took an eternity rather than the few seconds it did to latch on to the cold piece of wood.
Clutching it in his hands, it dawned on him: it was finally over. All he had to do was open the box.
Snapping it open with fumbling fingers, he shoved the box into the bit of shadow that held him pinned to the ground.
Nothing happened.
The lid was open; the wood was still cold. Fear slammed a tight fist into his gut.
And as much as he wanted to roar to the heavens and go insane with his need to reach his woman, he shoved the panic down and tried to think it through. Lise had insisted many times that Mila had to be the one to do it. Maybe the magic within the box would only respond to the touch of a seer.
The thought gave him hope. Not much, but enough to realize that maybe there was still a chance.
Frenzy winced as Mila’s screams cut through his skull. Her eyes were open and she was crying as she struggled to free herself of the shadow’s hold.
“Mila!” he roared again.
This time she turned her eyes to him. They were wide and frantic.
The sight was horrible, and one that would live with him forever. He saw her clutched tight to the shadow, a good five feet off the ground as a thick, shadowy tentacle snaked deeper and deeper down her throat.
He was going to lose her. Trying to wiggle himself free of the shadow’s absolute hold and not being able to, no matter how hard he tried or how he maneuvered, he knew there was only one way. He’d not be able to hand the box to Mila himself, nor could he throw it—the shadow could snatch it out of the air or swat it out of his reach.
He’d have to send it through a rift in time and into her hands directly. He’d never done anything like this before, and it made his hands slick with sweat, his throat dry, and his fingers numb. What if it didn’t work? They’d traveled through time to get here; Lise had fixed the tampering the queen had done, but what if he couldn’t do it?
Mila twitched, her fight was growing weaker.
Knowing he had no other recourse and, running out of time, he tore open a rift in the fabric of time and shoved the box inside. Squeezing his eyes shut, he focused all his energy on sending it directly into her hands.
He pictured the tunnel—the endless expanse of swirling blue and silver, the dimensions of the box, the color—pictured the lid open, pictured him slicing through the fabric of time right in front of Mila’s hands.
Frenzy focused all of himself into that image, going into a trancelike state as he stared at the space in front of Mila’s hands, willing the box to appear, willing the shadow’s demise.
Blood trickled down his nose as his body began to convulsively jerk. To open a tear in time he had to physically do it: be there, slice his hand through the rift.
He couldn’t do that this time, but if he didn’t make it happen Mila would die. His beautiful, wild woman. Closing his eyes, he willed everything within him to do it.
With one final gasp, a giant rift tore open in a blinding flash of blue around Mila’s hands. At first his heart sank because nothing appeared, and just as his vision threatened to give out, he saw the black box.
Then the room spun and he passed out.
* * *
It took a second for her muddled brain to process what’d just happened. There’d been a blinding flash of blue, and she’d felt something hard. But unlike all the other times, when it’d been cold, this time the box was blazing hot.
A visible ripple moved through the shadow as it seemed to suddenly become aware of what Mila held.
Her strength almost gone, Mila slammed the box into the heart of darkness.
A keening cry echoed like an unholy scream all around them. A wash of blinding ivory poured like molten metal through the shadow, tearing holes into the fabric of its being.
It immediately let her go. She dropped with a loud thunk to the floor below, body trembling and coated in sweat.
Hair plastered to the sides of her neck, she could barely see, her vision was so cloudy. Nothing mattered to her now except getting to Frenzy’s side. But her legs were weak, so she dragged herself along the floor, feeling by touch along the way for his body.
The shadow had very nearly drained her.
The room shook like an earthquake was ripping through it. Wherever the white light touched the shadow burned away. It was gathering into its body, forming a tight ball as it strove to get away from the incinerating light.
Her knee bumped into something hard but soft. With a gravel-filled cry, she gathered Frenzy into her arms, resting his head on her knees as she petted his hair over and over. “Baby, baby, can you hear me? I’m all right, I’m okay,” she whispered lovingly, never wanting to let him go.
His body was nice and warm, his breathing even. Hopefully he was okay. Bending over, she peppered his face with kisses, so grateful to be alive, to be with him.
“I love you, Frenzy. No matter what, I don’t care if you still love Adrianna more. I don’t care. You’re all I want, and I’m never going to—”
“Love Adrianna more?” he groaned, finally opening a molten silver eye.
With a cry of joy, she swept in, gathering his lips to hers. Everything inside her hurt—every bone, every organ, it all throbbed. Hell, even the blood moving through her veins hurt, but he was alive and so was she, and right now, that was all that mattered.
With a low moan, he gently pulled her away. “Mila, it almost killed you. I didn’t think it would work, didn’t think I’d save you…”
A final piercing scream blasted through the room, a swirling tempest of wind exploded the windows, pinging shards of glass against their bodies.
With a hiss, he tucked Mila into his body, shielding her as best he could. Finally, there was silence. Heavy and full.
“Is it over?” she whispered.
Almost afraid to believe it, Frenzy looked around. The box was sitting on the floor. The lid was shut, but now it gleamed a bright, almost fluorescent white.
Kissing the crown of her head, he said, “I think it is.”
Not ready to let her go, but knowing she’d want to see it for herself, he helped her sit up. Her face was a mass of scratches. She should have healed quickly because of the blood she’d drunk from him not even an hour ago. But the shadow had taken so much from her. Her skin was ashen, her hair limp.
“What are those glowing things all over the floor?” she whispered, cutting off his inspection of her.
Frowning, he looked to where she pointed, and his bony hand immediately throbbed. She must have sensed it, because she glanced down at it where it rested on the crook of her elbow. There were at least ten glowing golden blobs.
“Those are the souls it had trapped within it,” he said softly.
She sucked in a sharp breath. “My…my gran and mum?”
Rubbing his brow, knowing he’d have to attend to those souls soon, he nodded. “I’m sure they’re there.”
Scooting back on her knees, she crawled over to one of the orbs and stared down at it longingly. “Which ones, Frenzy?”
Every muscle in his body ached as he slowly worked his way to his feet. Coming to rest beside her, he kneeled, resting his arms on his lap. “Do you really want to know?”
Turning to him, eyes so wide and earnest, he couldn’t refrain from tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. Wanting to touch her so badly, to wrap her in his arms and hold on to her for eternity.
She nodded and locked her small hand around his wrist. “Aye.”
Smiling, because he loved her brogue, loved when he’d see the sparkle of excitement dance in her eyes, loved when she moaned and breathed his name…in short, he loved everything about this woman.
“Then come here,” he ordered, holding out his bony hand for hers.
She didn’t hesitate, simply slipped her hand into his and together they reached into the first orb.
A memory surfaced of a chubby, freckle-faced child as she danced through a field of sunflowers. A woman in a sundress stood on the curve of the hill, shading her eyes with a loving look tugging on her full, plump lips.
“Mila, you’ll ruin your dress,” the woman admonished with a smile in her words.
The beautiful little girl twirled in the field, holding her arms out to her side as she skipped back to her mother. “I love you, Mum,” the little girl whispered as she jumped into her arms and planted a big, wet kiss onto the corner of her mum’s cheek.
The woman laughed and hugged her tighter. “As I will always love you, my wild little hellion.”
The image faded, but continued to echo with the glow and warmth of so much love. Mila sobbed and Frenzy tugged her into his side.
“Does she know I’m here?” she hiccupped, peering into Frenzy’s eyes with hope shining in her own.
Patting her back, he kissed her head. “Souls know, love. They know.”
Giving him a weepy smile, she nodded. “She said good-bye, didn’t she?”
Swallowing the tears clogging his own throat, he nodded.
Running her fingers lovingly across the orb one final time, she nodded. “Take them home, Frenzy.”
Standing, bringing her up with him, he was hesitant to let her go even though he knew the danger was passed.
“Do you want to come with me?” he asked.
“I can go?”
* * *
Nuzzling the side of her face, inhaling her heady scent deep into his lungs, he poured out his heart. “Mila, I’ve never loved anyone,” he stressed, “the way I love you. I’ve never split my soul with another. We can only do that once. When a reaper finds his mate, his true mate, he is bonded to her for an eternity. You are all I want, all I’ll ever want. When the shadow showed me Adrianna, I did not stay in the vision because I loved her. I stayed because I was telling her good-bye. I let her go.”
Her tiny little sobs pierced his heart. Her nails dug into his back and it was a sharp, sizzling pain, but it also felt good. Because he was alive and so was she, and that was all he wanted.
“I love you, Frenzy. More than my own life. More than anything.”
Rubbing his knuckles along her cheekbone, he shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t traded yourself to the queen. I’m so sorry, Mila. Fifteen years of servitude—”
“Is nothing when you have an eternity,” she finished for him, liquid amber eyes hypnotizing him. “I would do it all over again to make sure I never lose you. I’ve fought alone for so long. I’m tired. I don’t want to be alone anymore. I just want you, Frenzy.”
Heart so full it felt it might burst from his chest, he took her lips in a slow lingering kiss. When they finally came up for air, she laughed.
“I’m finally home, Frenzy. No matter where I go or who I’m with, as long as you’re there, I’m home.”
They didn’t speak again until after they’d taken the souls to their afterlife. The final soul was actually the remnants of Mila the shadow had managed to suck out before being destroyed. It’d slipped back into her body with the happy joy of a puppy greeting her master.
In the cabin they made slow, beautiful love. Their eyes speaking louder than any words about their bond and affection. Pledging themselves to each other eternally.
Later, as the moon was full in the sky and they lay entwined in one another’s arms, they talked about the night. About the death of the shadow.
“You know, the only thing that keeps bothering me,” he said, “is why it didn’t work when I tried to use it on her.”
Mila chuckled, trailing her fingers along the ridges of his abdomen. “Maybe there are some mysteries in life that’ll never be explained.”
It might have bothered him, if it mattered. But Mila was right, there were some things in life that well enough was well enough.
“I love you, woman,” he growled, rolling on top of her, letting her feel the hardness of his body once again.
Her eyes widened and her sultry laugh filled all the empty places in his soul. “I love you too, death. Forever and ever and ever…”