“Hey, calm down,” a familiar voice tells me as I kick and thrash and fight to break free. “It’s me.”
I freeze, squinting through the fog to stare into a face that’s every bit as perfect as it is impossible.
“Vane?” My knees give out and I collapse into the warm arms that shouldn’t be here, soaking up the electric tingles I wasn’t supposed to feel again. “You’re dead.”
“I am?”
He takes my face in his hands and tilts my chin up, forcing me to look into his eyes—vivid and blue even in all this darkness and chaos.
I don’t know if this a dream or a delusion—but I know what I want to use it for. I pull his face down to mine and kiss him with every ounce of the love and longing that I’ve held on to all these weeks.
He tastes sweeter than I remember, and the heat between us is more intense, surging through me like a desert storm as I part his lips and kiss him deeper. His sparks burn on my tongue as I let the last parts of myself pass to him—sharing everything. Making him mine.
This is all I want, and if somehow I get to live this dream instead of having it ripped away, I’m never letting go. Never letting fear come between us again.
I hear another explosion and Vane’s hands slide to my shoulders and push me gently away.
We both gasp for breath and I shake with a giddy laugh.
He’s still here.
Still warm and beautiful and—
“We’re in a crapload of trouble—you do realize that, right?” he asks me.
I force my eyes away from his face and realize the fog has cleared enough to show the chaos and destruction all around us.
“I know, I’ll explain later,” Vane says to someone behind me, and I spin around to face the blond warrior, who I realize is a Gale I vaguely remember from my days in training.
“Looks like I get three for the price of one,” Raiden calls, his deep voice echoing around the canyon.
I glance up and find Stormers crouched in the cliffs all around us, holding wind spikes aimed perfectly at our heads. Every possible path is blocked—even the entrance to the Maelstrom—and the air is filled with nothing but scratchy, broken drafts.
Raiden stands between two of his Stormers on the highest foothill, his stance oozing calm and confidence as he studies the three of us.
“I’d surrender now, if I were you,” he warns.
Vane raises his wind spike as Gus sweeps his hair back and hands me the weapon I’d lost. He has another, darker blue spike clutched in his fist.
“You got any ideas?” Vane asks him.
He wipes away the blood that’s streaking down his face from a cut near his eye. “Yeah. We fight.”
CHAPTER 25
VANE
A
huge part of my brain wants to celebrate the fact that AUDRA JUST KISSED ME!!!!!!! But this is so not the time. “I’m being very generous with my patience,” Raiden calls as the Stormers in the cliffs test their aim. “I’d prefer to bring all three of you with me—but I really only need one. So put aside your weapons, lie down on the sand, and spare yourself unnecessary losses.”
“Or you could put down those pathetic things you call wind spikes,” Gus shouts back, holding out the spike I made him so the sunlight shines along the sharp edges, “and spare me from having to pick you off one by one.”
I grab his arm and pull him closer to Audra and me. “It’s probably not a good idea to piss off the guy who could shout a kill order any second.”
Gus wriggles out of my grip. “He’s not going to kill us. He saw what I just did to his beastly Storm thing—he’ll be careful until he sees how powerful we are. And pissing him off is the best way to get him to tell me where my dad is. People get sloppy when they’re angry.”
“Your dad?” Audra interrupts.
Just the sound of her voice makes my heart all race-y. Dude—focus!
“The Stormers took him this morning,” I tell her, surprised at how long ago that feels. “That’s how we found this place. We followed their trail.”
“How long have you been here?” Gus asks Audra. “Did you see where they brought him?”
“I did,” Audra whispers, turning very pale.
Gus grabs her arm. “What? Where is he?”
She’s wobbling so much I have to steady her against me. “What’s wrong?”
“I . . .” Her voice cracks and she takes a deep, shuddering breath. “The Storm—”
“I’ll give you until the count of ten!” Raiden shouts.
Gus leans closer. “We’re running out of time. Where is my dad?”
“Nine!” Raiden calls.
Audra shakes her head, a single tear streaking down her cheek as she holds Gus’s stare. “The Storm that you . . . I watched Raiden make it. He took a prisoner and he tangled him in dark winds and made them swell into a giant mass, like a cocoon. And when the drafts finally unraveled, all that was left was . . .”
I watch all the blood drain from Gus’s face, and I’m sure mine’s doing the same.
So . . . the weird Storm thing with a head and arms.
That was . . .