A crash came from behind us and I whirled in its direction while Marcus continued to watch the approaching hound. I expected to find another one of the hideous slavering beasts attempting to come at us from behind, but the sight that met my eyes sent my blood pumping around my body once again. An even larger dark shadow was making its way at speed through the trees. As it got closer, I felt a sweep of determination and sheer bloody anger roll through me as Devyn strode purposefully across the clearing to us, never taking his eyes off the beast.
“Begone,” he commanded, carrying a great staff in his hand and taking a stance that indicated he knew how to use it. But that was all, no sign of the pack Matthias had supplied with our last remaining gun which might have had more luck than mine.
The hound took its eyes off the feast it had all but picked out seasoning for and took in the Celt, pausing in its approach. Weaving behind a tree, it contemplated the new arrival, its head low as it assessed our flimsily armed reinforcement.
A new sensation pulsed through me,the energy in the natural world responding to my fear. The trees rustled in response and a wind stirred. I shook my head to clear it; there was something off, a strangely distorted note clawing at the edges of the energy, but I let it flow through me. The trees around the beast swayed, just flickers in the dark moving towards it until the creature finally turned tail.
“You couldn’t have pulled that out of the bag a little sooner?” Marcus said drily. But my focus was on one thing only.
“You found us.”
“I’ll always find you,” Devyn growled and, sweeping me up, he captured my lips in an open-mouthed kiss as his tongue thrust in possessively, reassuringly. I pushed away the draining, corrupted energy; it felt wrong, twisted, as it seeped out of me.
He was back. I poured my relief, my stress, my joy into that kiss. Tears leaked out from beneath my lids. We were alive. Against all odds, we were alive.
Devyn finally straightened and gave Marcus a cursory glance. “What happened to you?”
“He tried to cure a forest full of dead people of the illness,” I explained, when Marcus failed to answer.
Devyn raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“And you? I left, you were… you’re still you?”
I paused. He was right to ask.
“Yes, I’m still me.” I thought about it a bit, further examining the effect of the handfast compulsion while Devyn had been gone. “I didn’t want to comply with the Code and head off for the city. It never occurred to me. Perhaps out of the city itself, the handfast is reduced to its core purpose of binding a couple together?
“Good, good.” He nodded.
“What happened to you?” I asked. How had he finally figured out that I hadn’t gone on ahead as Marcus had assured him, but that he had actually deserted us.
“I felt your terror,” he grimaced. “Even at a distance it broke through the enchantment. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said, reaching up to run my hands through his hair, a gesture that was as much for my comfort as for his. “You’re here now.”
His lips thinned in rejection of my reassurance. While I might be okay that he made it back in time, he was less happy that he had been lured away in the first place.
“It wasn’t your fault.” I attempted to dismiss the spell that had drawn him away. “You warned us.”
“Not to believe your eyes, and yet that is exactly what I did. Like a fool.”
Chapter Seven
We made our way down the hill towards the town in the distance. As the sky began to lighten, my chest expanded and I finally pulled in deep breaths again. My feet were burning, my body was sore and stiff as the adrenaline left my system, but we were alive.
“We’ll sleep here,” Devyn announced, pulling abruptly to a halt.
“What?” I asked, stumbling with fatigue as I ordered my weary feet to stop. “But we’re so close.”
“If we go in now, we will announce our presence to the entire city. In a couple of hours, when the gates are open, we can slip in with a lot less fuss.”
“Given the choice of waiting outside with all our friends –” I glanced behind us to the forest we had barely left in our wake, the unnatural sounds that haunted us all night still audible even in the growing dawn “– I’m happy to introduce myself to every person in Oxford as long as we are behind the walls.”
“We wait,” Devyn repeated. “The border alarms may have been triggered by the gunfire. We don’t need the attention that identifying ourselves as the owners of said imperial tech would bring.”
That, it seemed, was that. Marcus offered no argument, wordlessly sliding to the ground. If Devyn wasn’t practically carrying him, Marcus was going no further in his current state anyway. His eyes were closing before the discussion was even concluded. Great.
“All right then. Morning,” I conceded, earning a half smile from Devyn at my begrudging tone at being outflanked.
“Sleep, Cass. It’s been a long night. I’ll keep watch.”
“That’s hardly fair; I’ll take a turn.” But my eyelids were heavy; the brief use of magic had emptied me of my last ounce of strength. My head barely
