Lucan would get the thread. He would get that power, even if he would die in the process. It had become his sole obsession. He turned to go, but said over his shoulder, “Lower the shield. Allow my brother’s friends in.”
ROANE
He trailed behind The Immortal. She kept going, past the first battlegrounds and farther down the beach. The Mother Wolf was killed, but the line that led them to Jacith still existed. He didn’t know how that was, but he didn’t question it. The less he thought, the better, but he couldn’t stop waves of grief from crashing over him. They came one at a time and every one was suffocating. He couldn’t breathe so he kept going, sometimes blindly. He kept going. This thing, whatever she was, continued ahead. He knew she was aware of the suffering inside of him, but she paid him no attention.
“It is not because I do not care.” She paused, and turned so she could see him from one eye.
He stopped, but he said nothing.
She kept going, “It’s because there was no other way. You don’t comprehend it. No one does.”
“Comprehend what?”
“My existence.”
They were coming to a waterfall. Roane heard the water falling earlier, but the sound was nearly deafening now, even to him. Still, he could hear her fine as she walked around a pile of large boulders. They were setting out on the bank, and as she circled them, he saw there was a trail that led underneath the waterfall.
“He’s undergound.” Her words came back to him, and he understood. Jacith was beneath everything. He was in the cave below the waterfall. The Hunter in him was telling him to pull back, proceed with caution, but The Immortal didn’t have the same instincts. She walked freely without a care for herself. She spoke with the same freedom, speaking loudly, “Since I was created, I was always contained and hidden within a human. My creator did that because humans were thought to have the compassion to restrict me. That wasn’t true. What they had to restrict me was their weakness. I couldn’t exist if they did, and since it was their body, they were the host. They contained me. All that changed with Lucan and his coven. They weren’t pulling me free of Davy. They were changing her. She was turning into something that wasn’t human anymore. When that happened, I was able to get a foothold in her. I’ve been steadily gaining a foothold in her ever since.”
She dipped underneath the water and held a hand up. There was nothing hanging to be lit, but small bursts of fire floated in the air, lighting their way.
He asked as he followed, stepping onto the damp rock path, “What did you mean before? What is it that no one understands?”
She paused. Just beyond her shoulder, the light was brighter as if they were about to step into a large opening in the cave. A low baritone voice was chanting in there, and Roane could feel the magic all around him. It was thick, sending shivers up and down his back. The hair on his neck stood up, but this was The Immortal’s show. If she wasn’t worried, he didn’t think he needed to be.
Or he hoped.
Her eyes flicked over his face before the corner of her lip lifted up. “It was never about me becoming one with Davy. It was either me . . . or her. That was the question. Always.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t exist if she did.”
She waited, letting that statement linger.
Roane cocked his head to the side. His frown deepened. But that would mean . . . Understanding and horror dawned on him at the same time. “You—you were planning this the whole time.” He felt gutted.
Her slight grin turned smug and she stepped around the corner into the larger open area. “You are right.” Her gaze trailed to the man chanting in the middle of the cave.
Roane couldn’t move forward. Everything in him was locked in place. He needed to run, but he was the Hunter. He was a vampire. He was Lucas Roane. He did not run, but right there, in the realization that The Immortal had been planning this move all along, he knew survival meant running.
He jerked around, as if he were actually going to go. He tried making himself . . . He couldn’t.
The Immortal laughed. It was a soft graze against his ears and he winced, instantly hating the sound. “You’ve been looking for Jacith. You said it was because he was the only one equal to you, but . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to say the rest. His gut was saying otherwise. One didn’t seek out their enemies first. No. One would seek out an ally first, and she’d been seeking out the sorcerer since she came to be.
This wasn’t enemy territory to her.
She wasn’t cowering. She wasn’t sneaking. She wasn’t even being cautious.