David eyed the distance. Ten yards. No more. But weakness slowed him, and Callista was an easy target. Dare he take the chance?
“What’s a few fingers to save the woman you love? A scar or two?” Corey smiled viciously. “And you do love her, don’t you? Why else would a shifter dare show his face within the stronghold of Scathach’s brotherhood? Why else come chasing after her when you know what you’ll face? You’d have to be mad or desperately in love.”
“Maybe I’m both,” David said, rage taking him over.
“You must be, to fall for a penniless nobody like Callista Hawthorne when you’ve had every highborn lady in London panting for your cock like bitches in heat.”
David’s first move caught Corey off guard. His second had the bastard pinned at the edge of the parapet, his wrist caught in David’s steel grip as he slammed the pistol away to be lost in the foam below.
“Maybe because she’s a necromancer and I’m a dead man,” David snarled.
Corey’s eyes grew round in fear as they flicked from David’s grim stare to the deadly crags. “Here’s a deal. You and me. Fifty-fifty. Think of the profits. You’d be wealthy beyond your dreams. Enough money to buy Scathach’s army right out from under her. The Imnada would be safe. You’d be a bloody hero to your people. Adored and revered. Just a few drops. That’s all it would take.”
A hero. The savior of the Imnada. David could go home. Erase his family’s shame. He would no longer be
A smile curved the edge of Corey’s mouth. “Yes, of course. Eighty-twenty. I’ll do all the work, make all the contacts. All I need from you is”—Corey pulled a knife. David twisted aside as the blade slammed along his ribs —“your blood.”
David screamed in pain and rage as he shoved Corey backward over the wall. Arms and legs flailing, the king of the stews flapped at the air before disappearing into the mist clouding the spiked and jagged rocks below.
“The answer is no,” David said, a hand pressed to his side. He tried straightening, but his side burned where Corey’s dagger had gouged a deep score along his rib cage.
Shadows continued to slide free of the rift between death and life, rising like a flock of crows or vultures into the air with a shriek of jubilation. The most frightening passed into Callista herself to settle beneath her skin, see the world through her eyes.
One crow spun away from the screaming flock, diving earthward like an arrow.
Badb stood before him, her cloak of feathers black as the figures passing like shades into the world of men, ghosts tossed on the ill wind, moving outward from the rift. “The door to Annwn stands open and unguarded. Death escapes into life.”
David shook Callista’s shoulders. Stared deep into her eyes, which glowed yellow as the sun. “Come back to me. You must close the door. You must stop the dead from escaping.”
“She is lost within Annwn. As long as she is trapped within the maze, she cannot pass back into life. She cannot close and seal the door. You must do it for her. You must end this now.”
“How?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. He’d seen it happen a million times.
Badb picked up Corey’s fallen knife.
“I won’t kill her,” David argued. “This is not a fate I choose.”
“Look around you. Death gapes like an open wound and through it ride nightmares you can’t hope to imagine.”
“There has to be another way.”
The Fey’s gaze gleamed black as midnight in a face like bone. “You would trade the world for the life of one woman? Corey was right. You are mad.”
“And in love.”
“If you play the craven, it is left to me.” Standing above Callista, Badb gripped the knife, lips drawn back on her pearly teeth, face carved in harsh lines. Raised her arm to strike, paused on a shuddering breath before completing the downstroke, the blade whistling as it descended.
David winced, sweat beading against his temple. A ragged smile broke over his face. “You couldn’t kill her, either.”
Badb swung around, the knife in her fist. “You think this will save her life? You are a fool, shifter. The woman kneeling before you is not Callista. It is her form, but the true woman is trapped within death. Without the soul, the body is naught but a shell. A shade. You have gained nothing.”
“I’ll find her. I’ll bring her back.”
“For this, you must go into death.”
“How do I do that?”
Badb smiled, her face as cold and cruel as winter. “You die.”
Snow swirled to crust Callista’s shoulders and hair, dragged at her feet as drifts piled. By now the cold froze her lungs and every breath came laced with pain. Each step was an effort as her feet turned blue, then white, then black. Her gown was soaked to her waist and she wanted only to sink into the deep, soft white and close her eyes.
Mother had tried to warn her. Don’t stray from the paths. Keep your head or you’ll lose your way. The cold and emptiness found in death are nothing compared to the frozen loneliness of heartbreak.
She’d been right about all of it.
Tears turned to ice against Callista’s cheeks.
Callista lifted her head at the shimmery voice, but all that met her eye was the endless white snow, the endless black trees, and the infinitely circling and twining paths.
The voice sounded like the song of the dead, but deeper, almost cutting. And very familiar. But it couldn’t be. She must be dreaming. Or hallucinating. David couldn’t be here unless . . .
She peered through the blizzard until she glimpsed a wavery blue and silver form like frozen mist, moving toward her. Slowly the mist coalesced into the figure of a man. The sight of his body, tall and broad-shouldered, with a Greek god’s rippled abdomen and corded muscles, pricked at her heart and tightened her hands to fists. But it was his face, hard-jawed and chiseled cheeks, that dragged a sob up through her scraped and frozen throat. Corey had not been kind.
“David,” she whispered, unable to tear her gaze from his eyes, silver as mist, and hollowed with sorrow.
“I told you once I saw my end when I looked in your eyes, and it was not a gentle death.”
“Corey . . .”
“Will never hurt you again.” He reached for her, his touch like ice but the rasp of his fingers familiar enough to clench her heart. She could not bear to look at his other hand, to see the cost of her hesitation in the horrible damage. “You have to find your way back, Callista. Until you do, the door stands open. You’re the only one who can close it.”
She shook her head. “I tried to stop Corey, but the grel and the dead flesh, all of Arawn’s creatures, ignored me in their flight toward the door. You were right. Life beckons them. Compared to the feast that awaits them on the other side, my tiny spark is a crumb. Not worth the trouble.”
“A feast they can’t be allowed to have. Come on. A little farther. Just to the next turning.”
David guided her along the path, but the snow continued to fall, a white, windswept torrent stinging her face and stealing her breath. Her throat ached with every breath, and she groped for orientation within the wild swirl of white and gray. Up. Turn. Turn again. Back down. Left. Right.
“Which way?” he asked.
Nothing looked familiar. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I can’t see. My mind . . . I’m too tired . . .”
“Damn it, Callista. Concentrate.”
Shadows passed her, fleeing toward the open doorway and the heat and fire they would find in life. She struggled to follow, but they moved too fast. A slithering tentacle brushed her face. Another curled around her
