As Nikolai met her intent gaze, he suddenly had problems drawing breath. “What is coming is after me, not you.”
“You saved us.”
He’d also almost killed them. “You should stay here.”
She tilted her head as though considering. “I think I’d rather go with you.”
“You don’t have to come with me.”
She straightened from Lucas’s side, her gaze steady. “Yeah. I think I do.”
He swallowed, and glanced down to Lucas.
The woman followed his gaze. “We can make a stretcher for him until he wakes up.”
“I can carry him.”No.Wait a minute. She was taking a leap of faith that he didn’t deserve. Nikolai didn’t have time to explain it all, but she had to know. “I am responsible for almost killing Lucas. And you. I don’t understand the hows, or whys—but I am the monster here. You need to let me go.”
Her eyes acknowledged his admission, he saw the flicker of fear, of uncertainty. But then her gaze moved to where Mai peeked from beneath his hair, her little nose waving.
The woman who was really a Dragon straightened, and said, “My name is Aria.”
Incredulous, he heard himself say, “I’m Nikolai.”
“Well, Nikolai. I suggest you pick up Lucas. So we can get the hell outta here.”
14
As she and Nikolai picked their way past the dead Dires lying on the stairs, the knot in Aria’s gut twisted ever tighter. Nikolai had called himself a monster. When he’d admitted his role in these deaths, her mind had quailed, but her heart had leaped to his defense. As though it felt compelled, regardless of what he had done.
He had driven Demeti away, after all. And the Dire bodies throughout the building were the Torshin’s minions. Hardly innocent in this entire affair.
She told herself that Nikolai’s role in almost killing Lucas was more nebulous than his obvious efforts to save him. The emotions that periodically coursed through her—she’d never felt anything like that. They filled every void and threatened to take her beyond where she knew she should go.
That Nikolai could emit that, and tap into such energy elevated him far beyond the ordinary mortal. And it reminded her of her dream. Of the black Unicorn, with the flowing gray mane and tail, and the mesmerizing eyes.
If Nikolai was real, was the Unicorn real too?
As they continued to weave their way through the dead Dires lying throughout the building, the big guy carried Lucas like the young man weighed nothing at all. She’d scrounged a pair of pants for the Morph, but with Nikolai swaying impatiently from one foot to the other, hadn’t taken the time to get him a shirt, too.
The pants were a light fabric that clung to Lucas. Spots of blood had seeped through it. Whatever had cut him had been used all over his body. Most injuries had now healed, leaving scars in their wake, but the deepest ones still bled. Did Morphs heal as rapidly as other shifters? She didn’t know.
Aria tried not to see the dead forms they passed as anything other than obstacles to be navigated. But there were an awful lot of them.
Demeti was a monster. She had no trouble casting the Torshin in that role. His was a deliberate kind of evil, using his power to dominate and cause pain. But she told herself that Nikolai was different.
Why did she think his role in this had been defensive? It was her instinct, that was all, and she could be completely wrong. He could have been rivals with Demeti and had now taken over the Torshin’s power base.
Was she making excuses for Nikolai? If so, why?
They moved down a hall on the main level, and it opened to the large front foyer. The house was huge enough to be a hotel. But it was silent now. Everyone had either run away—or died.
The front door stood ajar, as though some had fled in a hurry. The dim light beyond was filtered, partially blocked by something that dipped and swayed in a breeze.
They emerged from the doorway into the dawn, stepping onto ground that crunched underfoot. Everything looked brown and dry. Half-rotten stumps showed where trees had been cleared away, and the forest rose only fifty feet from the building. The trees were three stories tall, but their branches spread much wider than their height. So much so that the weight often carried them to the ground, where they rooted, and sprouted new trunks.
As Nikolai set Lucas down on the steps and straightened to stare, Aria followed his gaze with equal parts fascination and horror. The growth had led to a weird, interlocked type of forest, with trunks and branches as much horizontal as vertical. A significant amount of the horizontal was at ground level, and much of it was submerged in a bog. Smaller plants had colonized every horizontal surface, creating a living wall of foliage. And everything was festooned with moss and other, fungi-like, growths.
Her horror was because death was everywhere she looked. Instead of the usual plethora of green one would assume from a healthy forest, the trees, mosses, and plants were withered and brown. Even the fungi looked desiccated, and the forest around the house was ominously silent.
