Furious Fire: Grimm's Circle, Book 8 (15 page)

Swearing, he grabbed a pair of black BDUs and a long-sleeved black shirt—her preferred gear if she was going to have to fight, and moved into the kitchen. “That was my lunch,” he said dryly when he heard the crunch of Cheetos.

“I’m saving you from yourself,” she said. “Luc, you really need to learn to cook.”

He thought about telling her that he’d tried to learn, while she was out of his reach, caught in that healing sleep. He’d tried to learn for her because she’d need food, real food. He’d followed the recipe, done everything it had instructed…and Krell had refused what was supposed to be macaroni and cheese. He’d done okay with a salad. No cooking or baking there, but Sina needed more substantial food after the injury, after the time in stasis.

“I guess you’ll have to teach me,” he said, moving up behind her and pressing a kiss to the back of her neck.

She went quiet, laid a hand on his.

“What is it?” he asked, knowing her moods almost as well as his own by now.

“This is going to be bad, Luc.”

He hugged her close. “We face it together. We do what we have to.”

“I just got my hands on you. I don’t want to lose you yet.”

He turned her, resting his hands on her hips. “Even if we ended up being parted—” he didn’t say killed, because he wouldn’t risk it, “—know that it won’t be forever. We’ll find each other again. I didn’t wait this long to lose you so soon. Now if you’re insistent on leaving, finish stealing my food and get dressed. I’ll make us both a sandwich.”

She showered, dressed, that urgency a constant murmur in the back of her mind.

Luc came striding out of the room where she’d woken, dressed all in black, blades riding in sheaths on his arms, a staff in one hand. He looked like beautiful death.

I’m not losing you so soon
, she promised herself.

Some part of her even believed it.

But there was a heaviness in her heart. Something was horribly, horribly wrong and she could taste the blood. It hung in the air like tears, just waiting to fall.

“We need to find Will,” she said, reaching up to grab her pendant as Luc joined her, turning over the bag that held her weapons. He grabbed the paper bag holding sandwiches from the counter and snapped to Krell.

“He’s been calling me. I’ve been ignoring him.” Luc’s face was unreadable.

Sina processed that, then pushed it aside. She’d think about it later.

For now, she needed…

White light started to burn. She closed her eyes against it instinctively, but she still saw it—that was when she realized the light was in
her
. It was huge, all-consuming.

Urgency guided her.

Just follow it
, something seemed to murmur in her head.
Just follow…

“Follow,” she mumbled, confusion swirling through her.

Will. She needed to find Will. Blindly, she reached out and caught Luc’s hand. “Krell. Get…”

Dimly, she saw Luc reach down, saw him tense.

He said something, but over the rush of wind, the power crackling in her head, she had no idea what he said.

She opened her mouth to ask, but the very air was ripped from her lungs.

Then Sina and Luc went flying.

Chapter Eleven

Twenty people had arrived already and yet more continued to trickle in. Finn knew some of them, but there were a couple he had yet to meet.

Will had gated a couple of the Grimm to the castle. Others had been in Europe and it had only taken hours.

And through it all, the woman who felt like a fire under his skin remained tucked in a room Will had deemed
safe
inside that ruin of a castle.

She stayed there, only rarely venturing out.

Finn had seen her maybe three times in the eighteen hours they’d been there, and once was when he’d stormed into the little cave where she was sitting with her back to the wall. He shoved a sleeping bag and food at her and when she didn’t take them, he put everything on the floor. Over his shoulder, he snapped out an order to eat.

Her caustic reply had been…
“Sure thing…
sweetheart.
”

She’d all but hissed the word at him and it grated along his nerves.

Something about the way she said it had made him pause, almost made him go back in there. Everything
about
her pushed at him, prodded at him and if he had the time, if they were someplace,
any
place but here—any time but now, he might have just given into that madness and tried to figure out why she left him feeling like he’d been rubbed raw.

But now wasn’t the time.

His skin felt hotter, tighter than it ever had and he’d ended up building a bonfire with some of the fallen timber and debris, just so he could expel some of the heat within him.

Some of the others gathered around it. He kept himself apart, studying those he didn’t know. For the most part, Finn had spent his time in North America and the United Kingdom and his ears caught a patois of accents and languages, everything from what sounded like Chinese to Spanish. The Spanish he could follow easy enough. The Chinese, he didn’t understand a word of it but he had to admit, one of the two speakers sort of fascinated him.

Most of the Grimm had died fairly young. The youngest that he knew of was nineteen, but most had been in their twenties to early thirties. A few had been in their forties.

The man who spoke Chinese was a diminutive, wizened creature. His head barely reached Finn’s chest. His eyes were a bright, burning black and he moved with a swiftness that left Finn a little bewildered.

He also all but crackled with power. He’d only met two others who had that kind of mad energy inside them. Will…and Sina.

Sina, who still hadn’t reached out to them.

“He won’t tell you how old he is.”

Glancing away from the old angel, he met Greta’s eyes.

She grinned at him. “I’ve tried to find out. You won’t get an answer, either. Yan doesn’t talk about such things.”

“I wasn’t planning on asking,” Finn said, shrugging. “I just…” He stopped, deciding it was better to eat those words than say them. Sometimes, he could show common sense.

It didn’t seem to matter, though. The man turned his head and looked at them, his gray-white beard neat, his bald head smooth. “Haven’t seen one as old as me, hmmm?” His voice was unaccented and musical.

If he sang, Finn thought, he’d probably make everybody around him cry.

“Ah, no. No, I haven’t.”

“I’m one of a kind.” Then he winked and went back to talking the woman at his side—the one who looked young enough to be his great-great-granddaughter. She gave Finn an appraising stare before looking back at Yan.

“The woman with him is Tomoe. You probably can’t feel her as much because Yan is like a lightning storm, but trust me. She’s strong. She’s older than me, but I’m not sure by how much. A few centuries, at least.”

Finn narrowed his eyes. “Tomoe,” he murmured. That sounded familiar to him. Plus, the swords he could see at her back, and the tanto situated at her waist…maybe. Just maybe.

“You could always go talk to her,” Greta suggested, leaning in close, her voice so low even he could barely make out the words. “Maybe call her sweetheart—see what kind of reaction that gets you.”

Tensing, he turned his head and stared into glinting blue eyes. A smile tugged up the corner of her mouth as she slid a look back over her shoulder toward the ruins. “That was an interesting exchange earlier, Finn. Very, very interesting.”

“There wasn’t an exchange.”

“Hmmm. And that’s why the rage in the air hit me like a sucker punch. Known her long?” Greta fingered the medallion at her neck, staring out over the field, watching as Will moved from one group to the next.

He was drawing closer to them, Finn noticed. Rallying the troops? Polishing up his St. Crispin’s Day speech? “I don’t know her,” he said, trying to pretend he was unaware of Greta’s shrewd study.

Finn thought he’d missed her. Working with Greta had been easy. She’d been one of his earlier trainers and there had been something almost calming about her. He hadn’t felt like every nerve ending was exposed around her and he hadn’t felt like he had to watch every damn thing he said or did for fear of pissing her off and ending up getting his ass chewed by Will again.

Yeah. He’d thought he missed her, but he’d forgotten the way she could all but see inside him. So easily too. Like he wasn’t made of skin and blood and bone, just glass that let her see straight into his soul.

“Yeah.” Greta scoffed at that.

Irritated now, he hooked his thumbs in his pockets and rounded on her. “I don’t,” he said, enunciating each word. “I met her the first time yesterday when she tackled Will as he was gating in and she ended up pulverizing some internal organs in the process. Somehow, it also managed to bloody him.”

Finn smiled a little at
that
memory, but it faded just as fast because he had to remember what happened later. Sighing, he held Greta’s gaze. “I don’t know her.”

“You’re serious.”

“Why the hell is that so hard to believe?” he muttered, edging around her, intent on heading to the cliffs only to stop short when Will lasered a glare at him.

He resisted the urge to snap to attention and fire off a salute—the one-fingered kind, but the tension crackling in the air, the ever-present cloying evil that seemed to grow thicker had him sighing.

“There’s too much there.”

“What?”

Greta came to stop beside him, her eyes confused. “That just doesn’t make sense,” she said softly. “I feel something between you two. Something old—” She hissed abruptly, clapping a hand over the medallion at her neck.

A heartbeat hadn’t passed before Will stood at their sides. “Greta.”

Her eyes narrowed to slits. “What was that for?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Will said, his voice neutral. Then he nodded to her partner who was moving to join them. “Rip and Yan will be leading two units, those who don’t have any distance-fighting abilities. Finn, you’re going to be up top.”

Finn scowled and followed Will’s line of sight. “It’s happening
here
?”

“Something will.” Will’s face closed off, his eyes going distant. He was quiet for a moment and then he shook his head. He looked almost frustrated when he spoke again, “I don’t know what. I need to sit, focus. There’s no time. If Sina would—”

The air around them went tight and hot. The sensation was familiar. Sort of. Finn’s ears felt like they’d pop and his skin started to crackle, itching from the inside out as that electricity gathered in the air.

Shooting a look at Will, he saw that Will’s eyes had gone all silver, not even a pinpoint of a pupil showing and then he was herding Greta and Finn back behind him.

Finn shoved the arm away. “What are you—?”

“Stay back,” Will barked. “Everybody,
back
.”

They didn’t move fast enough for him, even though the Grimm weren’t
slow
. They were flung back, clearing a circle and just in time—a flash of white, and then a jagged, giant maw, all white opened.

A gate
…Finn thought, stunned.

But it was nothing like the portals that Will commanded.

It wasn’t one of the rips a demon sometimes managed to tear open—he’d seen those.

No, this looked like one of Will’s portals. If Will had lost all the skill he had, gotten drunk and decided to see just how badly he could fuck things up.

That thought hadn’t quite finished settling in his head when two dark shadows appeared in the center of that blinding whiteness. No. Three. Hurtling upward at them. Way too fast, and they weren’t walking, either.

It was like a giant had flung them.

The scream ripped from Sina’s throat. It felt like something was ripping her in two—no, it
was
.

Then control it
, a ruthless, cold voice in her head insisted.

Control it
? Half hysterical, she wondered what in the hell it was she was supposed to control.

Learn, or hurt.

Then the voice was gone and she continued to fall, fall…

A hand caught hers, yanked her close.

The familiar body pressed to hers first made her panic. Luc. Luc was there and he was going to…to…

Abruptly her mind cleared and she realized what was happening. She didn’t know
why
. Or
how
. But it was one of the portals. She’d traveled through them thousands of times, always with Will. He handled them so easily, with just a flex of his mind.

Control it
—

That wild power was
her
. And if it was her, then she could damn well control it.

Opening her eyes, she stared around at the bright light, struggling to breathe past the force that seemed to contract and expand around her like the energy wanted to swallow her whole.
You’d choke on me
, she thought sourly as she focused.
Slow
. They had to
slow…

Bit by bit, they did.

Bit, by bit.

The pressure on her body eased.

She tasted blood, though and her ribs, her chest, her back, her everything hurt.

There was a whine—the sound shattered her concentration as she realized what it was. “Krell…”

The sound was ripped from her lips even as she spoke it.

But inside her mind, she heard Luc.
I have him
—that was when she felt the huge presence caught between her and Luc. Furry, warm, trembling. And wet. Bleeding. The poor thing—

Resolute, she focused her mind once more.
Slow. Slow.
And then she focused on yet one more thing.

Will
—

Voices rose around her.

She heard them for one split second, saw the green grass hurtling toward her and she braced herself.

Then…nothing.

A cushion of air seemed to grab them and she heard an awful, sickening crack. Whipping her head around, she stared in shock as the portal imploded on itself.

In the next moment, that cushion of air faded. Just faded and she felt herself sinking to the ground. Blood dripped from her nose. Luc slowly lifted his head. His sightless eyes locked on her face unerringly and he said flatly, “You’re hurt.”

She brushed a hand down the bruises mottling his face. “So are you, Sleeping Beauty.”

Then, taking in a shallow breath and wincing at the pain it caused, she looked up as Will came striding toward them.

Luc was on his feet in the next second and he had a knife in his hand, lunging for Will.

“You son of a bitch!”

Will took the punch.

Sina had never once seen him take a punch and for a second, she was too stunned to do anything but sit there. But as Luc braced to attack again, she shot to her feet and shoved between them. “Stop it!”

Luc barely heard her. “You bastard. You had to know she’d been injured. But you yank us through the expressway from hell. You son of a bitch!” he snarled at Will.

“Luc.” She gripped the front of his shirt, using every bit of strength she had in her body—and it was considerable—to hold him back. “That wasn’t
Will
.”

Her words had no response at first.

Then, slowly, he stopped straining at her hold and lowered his head. One hand came up, cupping her cheek. “What?”

“That was me,” she whispered, something slightly sick moving through her. Turning her head, she looked at Will. “What’s going on?”

Will inclined his head. “I don’t know.”

But there was a flash in his eyes. One that made her wonder.

While Luc cared for his dog, Sina and Will stood at the cliff.

Nobody came near them.

Their hands were linked and she had opened her shields to him. With most of the Grimm, Will didn’t need them to open their minds, but Sina was old, the oldest of them, next to him, and her shields had always been strong. Now, it seemed, they were even stronger.

“Something in stasis changed you,” he said softly.

She didn’t respond. Change inside them, or with any of them, only happened on what she thought of as an
as-needed
basis. She’d woken too soon from stasis, healed and feeling far too well for what had happened. She’d opened a gate, a gift that previously had only been known to Will. Oh, and she was hearing voices.

None of the bruises from that expressway in hell, as Luc had called it, remained and other than being really hungry, Sina felt fine.

She could think of only one reason why she’d gotten this kind of upgrade.

But her mind refused to acknowledge it.

“Don’t worry about stasis. You need to know about the dream. The memory is there. Take it.”

She felt the light brush of his presence whisper in her mind. And then she was falling back into that memory, with him as a bystander.

It was both terribly fast, and horribly slow, and through it all, she saw things she hadn’t noticed. They were on a cliff—and there was a churning ocean at the base of the cliff. On the opposite side, it sloped down into a valley and there, the chasms started. Like she was reliving it all again, images super-imposed over the dream and she found herself tugging her hands from Will. He let her, the connection lingering between them as she looked out, sightlessly, over the ruins and the field of green, sweeping down into a valley.