Biting back my pride, I parted my lips to say--
"Oi, bait, c'mere!" Joules called from the cave entrance. "You're on deck. We've got a live one, so leg it down to the road."
Was I relieved to be interrupted or pissed? Both.
Aric said, "You're in a cave, near a road. Not even out of the foothills yet? I'll be sure to direct Fauna's most vicious predators to your vicinity."
"Whatever, Death." My emotions catapulted to the seething anger side of the drunk-ex spectrum. "You could have had everything you've ever wanted. But you're letting your fucking cook control you. Remember that." I disconnected the call and pocketed the phone in my coat just before Joules came into view.
"Were you talking to the Reaper?" His skin sparked with irritation.
"Moment of weakness. Won't happen again."
"How come you can call him, but I can't talk to Gabe?" Joules probably missed him as much as I missed Aric. Or, rather, the old Aric.
"Because you have a temper that Gabriel will know how to needle. He could get you to spill our plans." Such as they were: find Circe before we starved.
"I don't have a bloody feckin' temper!" Our gazes darted as his voice echoed off the cave walls. Lowering his tone, he said, "Just come on with you. Tarch heard an engine a ways down the road. I got a good feeling about this one."
I rose, then reeled on my feet. Joules grabbed my arm and squired me out of the cave.
Not far in the distance stretched the lightning-lit road. Tendrils of fog floated a dozen or so feet above the pavement. Kentarch already lay in wait behind the truck, his knife ready. He took one look at me and said, "You should have drunk the blood."
I nearly stumbled when Joules released me to hide.
"For feck's sake, this'll only work if you can stand up straight. Otherwise they'll think you've got the plague." He himself leaned on his javelin as if it were a walking stick.
Kentarch said, "Mentally will yourself to remain upright for five more minutes. Remember: Your mind has dominion over your body."
I flipped him off. Sometimes I wanted to strangle Tarch too.
I blundered out onto the road. As I waited, I replayed my call with Aric. Back in the golden days of our relationship, that bastard had said we should communicate. Maybe he should have divulged that he was carrying some mega-baggage from our past!
Instead, he'd told me he was a planet off axis. Apparently he'd found his two-thousand-year-old groove again and was spinning right along.
Screw him. Screw. Him. I gazed down at my wedding ring. He'd destroyed the one I'd given him; I would trash the one he'd given me. I yanked it off and tossed it away. "How about that, Reaper?"
Joules cried, "Finally!"
Pling.
The faint sound of it hitting the pavement was earsplitting to me. "Nooo!" How could I have? I dropped to my knees, scrabbling through Flash-fried asphalt and patches of snow. "Where is it?" I closed my eyes to sense the sap, my hand moving . . . .
There! Sucking in breaths, I slipped it back on. If I truly decided to take it off, I knew Aric would be lost to me forever.
Kentarch cocked his head. "A motorcycle approaches. The rider won't have many stores or much fuel. Let's allow this one to pass."
"A motorcycle?" The rumbling sound reached me--reminding me of Jack's arrival at Haven all those months ago. A lifetime ago.
"She probably thinks it's the hunter," Joules told Kentarch. "He drove a bike."
"Who's the hunter?"
"A human who went by the name of Jack." Joules, that ass, added, "He was boyfriend number one before the Reaper and Sol. The timeline goes like this: She was boffing Death in a past life, then Jack in this one. Then Death. Then Jack. Then Sol, then Death."
"Damn it, I was never with Sol! I told you we were just friends."
As if I hadn't spoken, Joules said, "Jack was a good bloke. Brave as hell and hardworking. But he died in Richter's massacre."
Kentarch frowned at me. "I thought you witnessed that attack, Empress. Did you not see him perish?"
"I did."
But I'd heard him through Matthew.
But Jack was undefeatable.
The bike's rumble grew louder. What if? What if? What if?
Kentarch was studying me, as though I were settling some internal wager he'd made about me. Yes, Chariot, I'm crazy. Trouble with the promise of rubble.
I'd just been crawling on the ground to find the Reaper's wedding ring, and now I was imagining another man returning from the dead.
The motorcycle neared, sounding like it was racing toward some emergency destination. Jack would be racing to find me. "I know it can't be him, but . . ."
"Hope is a funny thing," Kentarch finished for me. "When I was once pinned down by poacher gunfire, they called out that they would let me live if I surrendered. I knew they wouldn't, but I was filled with desperation to see Issa again. My hope lied to me, whispering in my ear, 'Believe these men, and you will reunite with your wife.' Tell me, Empress, do you trust the whisper of your hope?"
Did I? I wanted to believe anything that told me Jack lived. But maybe I was too scarred from all the heartache I'd endured to trust my hope. Maybe my hope was slowly dying.
The bike was just around the bend. That creeping fog fanned out in slo-mo, like a blanket in one of those old dryer-sheet commercials.
Joules's tone grew exasperated. "The hunter's dead. Finn told us Jack and Selena rode out with the army. We know for a fact that Selena's toast, and she was always by Jack's side." I knew this. "Gabe and me saw that valley. Or what used to be a valley. No one could have survived that. Especially not a mortal. And since this isn't the second coming of Jack, get ready to face a bogey."
I tried to stand. Failed. Tried again.
A helmeted rider with a tinted visor emerged from the mist. I squinted to make out his build.
He was tall, muscular. Roughly the same size as Jack.
First instinct? Flag him down. Second instinct? Stay where I was and glare at what was surely a bad guy.
I managed to make it to my feet, and the man turned to me. I tugged my hood down, and we stared at each other as he passed me--
The bike's front wheel plunged into a pothole. He flew over the handlebars, his body rocketing down the road, the bike skidding along behind him.
I ran for the crash site. The motorcycle was on its side, still running, its front wheel mangled. The rider was laid out nearby.
Kentarch and Joules flanked me, weapons raised.
I dropped down beside the biker, my flickering glyphs reflecting in his visor. My heart beat erratically, my breaths panting bursts. "Please be him, please be him, please be him." No, my hope hadn't yet died. Was it about to?
I reached for the visor with shaking hands. I flipped it up.
Jackson Daniel Deveaux.
My Jack was here. "A-alive." I clutched his shoulders as my gaze greedily took in his face, those broad cheekbones, that rugged jaw, his stubborn chin. "Ah, God, are you okay?" He wore his customary bug-out bag and crossbow.
He opened his gray eyes and blinked at me, then slowly lifted his hand to my face. "Peekon?" he said. "What the hell are you doing out here?" He yanked off his helmet.
My heart thundered. Dizziness swarmed my head. "Jack? Is it really you?" My balance shifted. With all the grace of a boulder, I toppled forward and sprawled over his chest.
18
I didn't lose consciousness--I had to stay awake to make sure Jack didn't disappear again--but my brain seemed to short out.
I felt him lifting me. I heard Joules directing him to our cave, introducing him to Kentarch on the way.
Inside, Jack gently laid me down next to the fire. "When's the last time you guys ate?"
Joules said, "'Bout to ask if you had any grub."
"Non. The leather of my belt's starting to look good."
Need to see him! I blinked open my eyes. "You . . . you're alive. H-how? I saw you . . . I watched you die." Tears streamed down my cheeks, blurring my vision. I swiped angrily at them. Nothing could mar the sight of Jack.
He'd lost weight--was as leanly muscled as Aric now. "I'm here." Sitting beside me, he took my hand and brought it to his lips. "Selena saved my life. She sensed the Emperor seconds before he struck and shoved me into an abandoned mine."
My God. "She protected you till the end."
"Ouais. She did." Jack pulled a canteen from his bug-out bag. "Here, bebe." Unscrewing the top, he lifted it to my lips. "Why're you out in the Ash? You're supposed to be safe in Dominija's castle."
I drank. "How did you know that?"
"Coo-yon told me."
"Where is he?" No longer could I blame Matthew for letting Jack die.
"We were on the road together for a spell, but he split."
"Then why didn't he tell me you were alive?"
"Richter was in the area, so coo-yon didn't want to turn on the Arcana radio to contact you. Didn't want to give anyone's location away. Plus, it wasn't a sure thing that I would pull through."
"That close?"
Stoic nod. "He told me that Death saved you from Richter. So where's Dominija?" Jack's gaze slid over my wedding ring. His brows drew together, and raw pain filled his gray eyes.