Twenty-nine – 06

Posted on April 15, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]

“You would kill me over him? Your ally, dead, all over a man—a man with no power?”

There was something soft and dangerous in the woman’s voice and it made Matt’s stomach turn.

“If you laid a single finger on him without his permission, it would be my pleasure to dismember you slowly.” There was definitely a tremor in Hecate’s voice, barely audible but undoubtedly there—but Matt wondered if he was the only one who heard it.

He met her gaze and saw fear there. He swallowed hard.

The strange woman—she was familiar somehow, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on why—began to laugh.

A shudder shot through him.

Menhit.

Hecate pressed the blade’s edge a little tighter against Menhit’s throat. “I fail to see what’s so amusing,” she hissed. “Are you going to let me in on the joke?”

“Oh, this is delightful,” Menhit said, her laughter fading even as her smile turned wicked. “He’s one of them.” She looked away from Matt and focused on Hecate, smirking. “Stay your blade, goddess. Your point is made.”

“Really. I’m not quite certain of that, to be frank.” Hecate’s glare hardened for a moment and she hesitated before slowly removing the knife’s edge from Menhit’s throat. She beckoned to Matt with her free hand as she stepped away from Menhit slowly and tucked her weapon away and out of sight.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can—” Matt began, then stopped, the words that he’d intended to follow the statement with dying on his tongue as Hecate looked at him.

The fear was still there in her eyes.

Stay.

His lips thinned and he slowly moved past Menhit to Hecate’s side. The slender woman drew herself up a little straighter as he joined her, like somehow his presence was—

Was what, exactly?

“I shouldn’t have kept going after your friends.”

“It happens a lot more than it doesn’t.”

His hand found hers somehow and squeezed.

“Speak,” Hecate ordered, her glare focused on Menhit. “You clearly garnered some inappropriate level of amusement from his presence here. I would have you explain yourself, and quickly.”

One corner of Menhit’s mouth curved upward in a grin. “I ws just marveling, really. The witch with no weaknesses suddenly finds one amongst her enemies.”

Hecate’s eyes narrowed. “Watch your tongue, little cat, unless you’ve a desire to lose it.”

“And I suppose you’ll be doing me the grand favor of removing it?” Menhit smirked. “You know that they won’t let you keep him—not unless they’re dead already.”

Hecate stiffened. Matt’s stomach dropped.

Do something.

“And if they’re not dead, I should be doing something about making sure you get to keep what you’ve claimed,” Menhit continued, as if she hadn’t noticed the effect she’d had on both of them—though Matt suspected she knew exactly the impact she’d just made.

You have to do something or else they’re all as good as dead.

“I don’t have a quarrel with them any longer,” Hecate said softly. “But do what you will, Menhit. You were going to whether I offered you payment or not.”

“Good on you to realize that.” Beads and shells clacked as Menhit flipped her braids back over her shoulder. “Though I did hope that my actions would be, shall we say, mutually beneficent. They have spent so long being a thorn in your side, those northron princes and the Taliesin. And then of course there’s the Wild Hunt and all.”

Hecate’s teeth ground. She dropped Matt’s hand. “What are you proposing?”

“Simply that I make sure that none of them will be a problem for you ever again,” Menhit said, her tone light but somehow frigid at the same time. “Would that suit you, my lady?”

Shit. Shit, do something. Stop standing like a statute and do something.

“I’ll consider it,” Hecate said. “Now go.”

“And if I don’t? If I want my answer now?”

“Then you’ll have to live with disappointment,” Hecate said, stepping away from Matt and advancing on the other woman. “Now go before I change my mind about having mercy on you.”

Menhit smirked and dropped into an exaggerated curtsey. “As you wish, my lady.”

She turned and walked to a door half-hidden behind a curtain, stepping out and vanishing from sight.

Matt sucked in a breath, not realizing he’d been holding his up until that very moment. Hecate turned toward him, her expression bleak.

“She’s right, isn’t she? They’re not going to let you stay with me.”

“They will as long as I tell them it’s my choice,” Matt said quietly.

Is there really a choice?

She looked down, her eyes sliding shut. A tear welled up, catching on her lashes for a bare moment before sliding down her cheek.

Matt’s throat tightened.

No. No, there’s no choice.

He reached out and brushed away the tear.

“Tell me everything,” he said softly.

Hecate looked up at him, fear and pain warring in her eyes.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“How else am I going to make them understand?”

She smiled a tremulous smile and nodded, another tear chasing the first down her cheek.

Matt put his arms around her and let her cry.

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Twenty-nine – 05

Posted on April 13, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]

Matt found himself feeling oddly bereft as he stared after her. He sat frozen on the edge of the bed, still tasting her against his lips—her kiss, her tears. For a long moment, all he could do was just stare at that open door and the shadows beyond it, shadows that seemed to have swallowed her whole only a few moments after she’d walked out that door.

The way she talked… He shook himself, swallowing hard. His throat was still strangely tight.

Shit. How much of this is me actually being worried about her based on everything I’ve just seen and heard and how much of this is him and his memories and feelings manifesting in me?

Matt knuckled his eyes and exhaled. Maybe it didn’t matter.

Hell, it probably doesn’t matter.

He reached for his boots and tugged them on, expression settling into grim lines. Understanding this—whatever had just happened, whatever was going on with her—was important, maybe even more important than escaping.

Escaping. Shit. I should—

No. No. This is more important and I can’t deny that. I don’t think I want to, either.

The more we know—maybe if we know more, we’ll be able to—

To what?

He growled and stood up. He’d figure that part out later. Right now he knew what he needed to do, even if doing it wasn’t what his friends and family would have expected him to do at the first opportunity.

He walked through the door and into the shadows after Hecate, trying to quell the nausea that rose in his gut, the bile that crept up in his throat.

“There are some things I can’t quite control.”

“Sometimes I just…do things.”

Matt closed his eyes and exhaled a shaky breath.

There was definitely something more going on than any of them had ever had the chance to see—before now, before him.

Did Cíar know?

If he had, Matt suspected he’d never said anything outright. Maybe it hadn’t been as bad back then.

Or maybe Cíar was the only reason she was still alive all these centuries later.

He might have put some kind of bug in Phelan’s ear, or in his sister’s—might have quietly done something that got them to leave her alone.

Hell. Maybe Cíar mac Dúbhshláin had convinced them to give her a pass back then. Maybe that was why Phelan—or any of his allies—had never really made a concerted effort to kill her.

I could be wrong—but I could be right, too.

“Hell,” he breathed, starting to move faster. The hall was just about as dark as it looked, but he could see a light ahead and to the left—probably a corner. He thought he could hear her beyond that corner, hoped it was her he heard beyond that corner.

There was nowhere else she could have gone, logically speaking.

Then again, I quit living in a world where only logical things happened a long time ago.

“Hec—” he stopped short of saying her name as he came to the corner and caught the barest sound of voices.

Someone else was there and talking to Hecate.

Who?

He pressed his shoulder against the corner, brows knitting as he strained to hear the conversation he wasn’t a party to but wanted to hear anyway. One voice was unmistakably Hecate’s. The other felt familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it.

“You haven’t been answering,” the voice he couldn’t place said. It was smooth, like stones polished by the sea, but there was an almost purring undertone to it, one that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck and set a growl rising in his throat. There was something very, very wrong, he knew it down to his bones.

Whoever was talking to Hecate was someone he already didn’t like one bit.

“That would be because I am not the one at your beckon call,” Hecate said, her voice razored at the edges and as cold as ice—painfully different from the way it had sounded only minutes before, when she’d been with him.

It’s like she flipped some kind of switch.

“You waste time and resources,” the first voice said. It was a woman, Matt could tell that much, but a strong one—one very used to getting her way. “Far be it for me to question your precious plans—”

“Then don’t,” Hecate said, cutting off her guest. “Regardless, your services are no longer required.”

There was a pause, then: “Really, now? Has someone else brought you the Taliesin in chains?”

“It’s none of your concern.”

“Oh, I very much think it is my concern, my lady. We had a contract.”

He heard Hecate take a slow, deliberate breath. “And that contract is now complete.”

“You promised me spoils.”

“I promised you a share if there were any.” Was it Matt’s imagination, or was her voice growing a little unsteady? “And only if you played a role in getting me what I wanted. You have done neither. Our business is complete. Now go.”

“No.”

Shit.

Matt squeezed his eyes shut.

Just go back. Just wait for her—or something.

He didn’t listen to the part of himself that was counseling that discretion was the better part of valor. Something deep inside wouldn’t let him—probably the same part of himself that could see the vulnerability in the Hecate, the part that suspected there was far more to the witch-goddess than he and the others had seen.

He stepped around the corner and blinked at the sight of the cocoa-skinned woman dressed in a fitted gown of crimson-dyed cloth, her hair bound in hundreds of slender braids decorated by red and white shells and beads that clacked and rattled as her dark gaze snapped toward him.

“No spoils,” she said softly, her eyes narrowing. “I think you’ve been holding out on me, Hecate.”

Suddenly, there was a knife in Hecate’s hand and a fire blazing in her blue eyes. Her voice came as a low, deadly whisper, the slender blade pressed against the other woman’s throat.

“Touch him and die.”

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Twenty-nine – 04

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]

Her tears fell hot against his cheeks. Matt’s mind reeled.

What the hell is going on?

He couldn’t quite make sense of the storm that had begun inside of him. Had he really loved her in a past life—in his life as Cíar mac Dúbhshláin, during his time as the Ridden Druid? How? When?

There were too many questions, ones with answers that hung just beyond his reach. His thoughts had fragmented, scattered like glass dashed against a hard kitchen floor.

And yet, he didn’t stop kissing her, didn’t push her away when she broke off the kiss. She sobbed and he put his arms around her, heart pounding hard against his ribs.

What the hell am I doing?

“You’re crying,” he said, then mentally kicked himself. Brilliant. Could you have said a stupider thing?

The problem was, he probably could have if he’d been thinking more or less clearly.

Hecate nodded, her face against his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

At least she had the grace to apologize—but what, exactly, was she actually apologizing for? There were a lot of things she could have been apologizing for, and Matt was fairly certain she wasn’t apologizing for everything.

He must have stiffened without realizing it, because she drew back and met his gaze steadily despite her apparent emotion. Hecate reached up to wipe her tears away with a thumb and took a deep breath before she spoke.

“I shouldn’t have kept going after your friends,” she said softly, then slowly stood up. “There are some things I can’t quite control. Sometimes I just…do things, things that if I was thinking clearly, I wouldn’t do. It’s been that way for a long time.” She glanced down. “It happens a lot more than it doesn’t.”

She turned away and started for the door. Matt’s voice lodged in his throat.

I don’t understand.

“I never really wanted to hurt any of you,” she said as she paused by the door. It seemed like it took a great deal of effort for her to turn, to look at him. “I just miss him. I’ve always missed him. He was the only one who ever really made me feel like I was worth something and then I lost him. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.”

Then she was gone, out the door, and he was alone.

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Twenty-nine – 03

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]

Somehow, she seemed different as she stood in the doorway, her pale face illuminated by the warmth of the lamp’s light. Her gaze, usually sharp enough to draw blood, was soft, her eyes crinkling at the edges with something that was almost…fondness?

What the hell?

“You’re awake,” the Hecate said, her voice soft. Even that seemed different, the edges gone, like a blade carefully tucked into its sheathe—or perhaps just wrapped in velvet and set aside.

It was suddenly hard to breathe.

Matt swallowed hard. “Barely,” he managed to say, staring at her. She was dressed in a long skirt, evocative of her supposedly Grecian roots, and a tank top—more modern than he’d ever imagined she’d dress, somehow. Her dark hair was limned in gold in the lamplight, strands catching the light and reflecting like fire, red and gold blazing amidst the dark strands piled into a messy bun.

“I want you to know that I didn’t want it to be like this,” she said, slipping quietly into his room and closing the door behind her. She carried no weapons—no visible ones, anyway—and it didn’t look like she was carrying any keys, either.

Was it possible that door was unlocked?

It wasn’t until she got close that he saw the scars, on her arms, on her neck. They were old, faded and slender, white marks against already pale flesh, but he could tell by looking at them that they had once been deep.

On instinct, he reached to grasp one of her arms, to pull her toward him so he could examine the long scar that ran from her wrist to her elbow, like a razor’s cut that went too deep to be anything but deliberate.

Instead of jerking back, she just stood there quietly, watching his face.

His mind screamed at him to take this chance to get away, the part that wasn’t being overwhelmed by questions, by memories that belonged not to Matt Astoris, but to his soul, the soul that had been Cíar mac Dúbhshláin once upon a time.

“Apotropaia,” he breathed.

Captor, savior, lady, protector, lover, lost and forgotten.

Friend.

The Hecate smiled, and it didn’t make him want to run. It was a sad, wistful smile—a terrifyingly human smile, full of emotion and pain rather than the promise of agony. “You have no idea how long it’s been since I heard that name.”

Matt shivered. “What did you do to yourself?”

A soft laugh escaped her and she put her hand over his, fingers squeezing gently. “Pain does horrible and wonderful things, sweet druid. In this, it did a horrible thing.” She tugged her arm from his grip, then reached up to unconsciously trace the scar on her throat, her gaze growing distant. “And fear did this.”

“Who?” he asked, his voice suddenly hoarse. Matt struggled to make sense of it all. Cíar had somehow loved this woman?

How is that possible—and how did his family never know about that? How—and why—would he keep a secret like that?

And if he really did love her—or the aspect of her that was Apotropaia—why didn’t he ever go back to her after everything that happened?

“The Hunt,” she whispered, slowly sitting down beside him on the bed. “They feared my influence over their illustrious leader.”

“You don’t mean Seamus,” Matt said, his mouth dry.

“No,” the Hecate whispered. “No, I don’t. They tried to kill me. In some ways…in some ways, they actually managed to do it, too.”

Her lips met his and he didn’t stop her.

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Twenty-nine – 02

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]

Matt opened his eyes.

He wasn’t quite certain what he’d expected to see—beyond being surprised to still be alive, he hadn’t really thought much about his situation, not yet.

Maybe I hallucinated the whole thing.

But the ceiling above him was unfamiliar, so he doubted that his experience with the Hecate had been a figment of his imagination. The bed he’d been lying in was strangely comfortable, and the blanket was warm. He sat up slowly.

The room was simple, the walls painted in a pale color, though there were no windows, no real identifying marks. Beyond the bed, there was a small bedside table where a lamp was lit, an easy chair, a dresser, and a desk with a chair. His boots sat near the bed and his jacket had been hung from a hook on the back of the door.

He stared at his wrists, at his ankles.

No ropes, no chains, no nothing. Door’s probably locked, though. She expects me to run, but not to fight.

His eyes fluttered shut. He honestly wasn’t sure what he intended to do.

If it means protecting them, though…

Bile crept up in his throat and he swallowed hard, trying to ignore the sour taste it left in its wake. He had to protect them, to keep them safe—that was the most important thing now, and he’d do whatever it took to make sure that Marin, Thom, his unborn nephew, and all of the others were safe from a particular bitch-goddess’s predations.

The longer I can keep her occupied, the better odds they’ve got of doing one of two things—fortifying our defenses against her, or finding a way to end her once and for all. Whatever happens to me happens.

Matt took a pair of deep breaths and opened his eyes again.

You can handle this.

The door swung open.

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Twenty-nine – 01

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Matt’s point of view, even if it doesn’t actually seem like it.]

His hands were cold, colder than the rest of him, anyway. His world was dark, but far from quiet. He could hear the sound of waves against rocks, against the sand, could hear the gulls calling to each other on the lonely shore. The bark of the tree he leaned against was rough but not uncomfortable and he tilted his head back to rest against it, feeling the breeze against his face and smelling the salt on the wind.

                He could still feel the echo of the spirit that had ridden him, that had subsumed him. There would always be a little piece of that spirit, that anima, grafted onto his own soul. He understood that now. Even as Cíar mac Dúbhshláin had returned to himself, so too would there always be a piece of another within him—and, in some ways, he was grateful for that. He had more strength with that bit that wasn’t his own than he’d had alone. It seemed that way, at least.

                They would come looking for him soon enough—his sister, her husband, the clans. They would come looking and they’d find him soon enough. Perhaps it would be little Ériu that found him, with her voice like the music of finely-wrought silver flutes and the smile he knew she saved for him even without ever seeing it. Finn and Brighíd were going to have their hands full when she was older, especially when it came to men vying for her hand—regardless of whether she was born of their clans or not.

                The orphaned wolf pup that had become inordinately attached to him whined softly, curling into a tighter ball against his hip, tucked beneath the wool of his cloak. He reached down to rub at its ears, a faint smile curving his lips.

                Sometimes he needed this—the quiet, the space, time away. It gave him time to think, to sort through the fragments of memories, the things he could remember from the time he wasn’t himself. Some of it he wanted to remember more than he wanted to forget.

                He felt a breath against his ear.

                “I miss your face,” a woman’s voice said, less a whisper than a rasp, a sound that set his nerves jangling, the pace of his heart suddenly that of a stampeding herd. It was a mix of fear and desire that soured his stomach even as it pushed him to the limit of his control.

                Cíar mac Dúbhshláin opened his eyes and saw nothing, but smelled the scent of her on the wind, his former captor and so much more.

                So much, much more.

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Twenty-eight – 04

Posted on April 1, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This section is from Marin’s point of view.]

There was a quiet rap at the door. For a second, I contemplated not answering, pretending that I was still asleep and hadn’t heard. It wouldn’t do any good, though, and truth be known, I wasn’t sure that I was really up to being alone any more than I was up to having company.

I got up and silently crossed the room, holding a blanket around my shoulders. Neve peeked through the crack when I opened the door and I just barely managed to smile.

“I probably shouldn’t ask if you’re okay,” she said. “I know I wouldn’t be if I was in your shoes. Do you mind if I come in, though? I thought maybe you could use some company.”

I nodded silently and turned away, walking back toward my bed and sinking back down into the nest of covers. Neve followed, tugging the door closed behind herself. She sat down next to me with a quiet sigh, running her hand up and down across her belly.

“Are you okay?” I asked her softly. Somehow, worrying about her was easier than thinking about the discomfort I was in.

“I think I’m better off than you,” she said, working her shoes off and letting them drop to the floor. She’d taken to mostly wearing flats that were almost too big because boots were just too hard to put on and take off again. She inched backwards once she’d dealt with her shoes and leaned against the wall, her expression more than a little concerned as she looked at me. “All I’m dealing with is Phelan and Aoife sniping at each other and my unborn children thinking my bladder is a punching bag.”

I choked on a laugh, eyes tearing up. Neve slid her arms around me as my tears turned to sobs I couldn’t stop, sobs that made my throat close up and my body shake uncontrollably.

“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “I promise, Marin. I promise and swear to you that it’s going to be okay.”

“How can you be so sure?” I gasped between wracking sobs. “Neve, I’m not even sure. I don’t know that he’s going to be okay, that it’s going to be okay, that I haven’t lost him…that he’s not gone forever. I don’t know. How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know all of you and I know your brother.” She drew back to meet my gaze and I stared back at her through my tears. Her expression was grim, but determined—more determined than I could ever remember seeing it before.

“I know your brother,” she repeated softly, “and I know there’s not a goddamned thing that would keep him from coming home. Just wait and see. He’ll be back before you know it—one way or another.”

I knew it wasn’t what she meant, but to me, ‘one way or another’ meant either alive or dead.

She must have seen that in my face because she drew me into another tight hug.

“He’ll be fine,” she whispered into my ear. “Just wait and see, Marin. He’s going to be fine and he’s going to come home to you and Thom and all of the rest of us. There is no universe where that doesn’t happen. I swear it.”

She can’t know that for sure.

Or could she?

I shuddered and she held on tighter.

“I promise you,” she whispered. “On my honor. Everything’s going to be okay. It will. Just wait and see.”

I wanted to believe her the same way I’d wanted to believe Thom. It just wasn’t easy to do.

I wouldn’t—couldn’t—actually believe any of them until I heard it from my brother himself and somehow I doubted that would be happening anytime soon.

But I stayed quiet, let her think I’d believed the words that might have been a lie. I let her comfort me in the only way she knew how, the only way that made sense, and I sat there in her arms until my tears were spent, my throat was raw, and I had nothing left except an aching, empty void inside that only my brother’s voice had a prayer of filling.

I knew I would have to live with that pain until the day he came home.

One way or another.

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Twenty-eight – 03

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post (and chapter) is from Marin’s point of view.]

I slept—slept for hours that felt like days, tormented by dreams that weren’t quite nightmares. I saw my brother, begging me to help him one moment and then willingly walking away with the Hecate a moment later. I saw my son alone, a teenager forgotten by everyone, kneeling next to graves, a dozen graves. I saw J.T. collapsing near the walls, not moving, alone and too still, deathly still. Then there was Phelan on the bridge, an arrow in his chest, blood leaking from his mouth and nose, eyes open and staring sightlessly at the sky.

I woke suddenly and without a sound, my voice locked tight in my throat, barely struggling to win free. I pressed my fist against my mouth, breathing raggedly. The lamp wick had been turned down so only the barest flicker of light illuminated our room.

But I was alone, completely and utterly alone.

My son kicked inside and I uttered a weak, broken sound that might have been a laugh.

Not quite alone.

I rested my hand against my stomach and managed to smile as I felt another kick. It had only been in the past few weeks that I’d begun to feel motion like that and known that it wasn’t just my imagination.

“I want you to know your uncle, sweet boy,” I whispered into the dim, gently rubbing my hand up and down across my distended belly. My knit nightshirt was soft against my skin, soothing and comforting, smelling of lavender and ever so faintly of woodsmoke.

I drew the blankets closer around myself as I sat cross-legged in the bed, staring off into the darkness.

“I want it so badly,” I continued, as if somehow my unborn son could hear and understand the words—would remember the words later, when we were gone and he was what remained of Thom and I, someday a long time from that moment. “I want him to teach you what he’s learned about metalworking, about rocks and the woods and to show you all the things that Thom and I would be too scared to let you know about. That’s an uncle’s job, you know, to let you experience all of the things that your parents wouldn’t because they’re too worried or afraid or strict. I want that for you.”

I fell silent. I wanted that for my son, but I wanted it for my brother just as much.

“He’s going to love you, Lin,” I said, pressing my lips tightly together for a moment. “And you’re going to love him, too.”

Come home to us, Matt. We need you. Come home.

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Twenty-eight – 02

Posted on March 28, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

Thom gathered me up after a few long moments and carried me all the way to our bed. I didn’t bother to struggle, to tell him to put me down. Shock does strange things to people, I guess.

Maybe not so strange. Maybe my reaction was normal. I couldn’t be sure.

Nothing was normal anymore, really, was it?

“It’s going to be okay,” Thom said as he set me on my feet next to our bed and turned away so he could close the door. “I promise you that, Marin. It’s going to be okay—we’re going to find him.”

“How can you be sure?” I whispered as I slowly peeled out of my jacket, mopping my face with the heel of my hand. Everything was wet from sitting out in that misty rain with Phelan, and I was cold, too cold.

“You’ve seen him in our futures, haven’t you?”

My breath hitched. He was right, I had, though not nearly as much as I’d hoped to see him—and my visions had been wrong before. “I’ve seen you dying, too,” I said. “That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It doesn’t mean they’re right.”

Thom turned back, pain in his eyes. I sank down onto the edge of the bed, staring back at him.

“I’ve seen him, too,” Thom said. “Mar, I’ve seen him, too, and I’m going to tell you right now that now is not the time to lose faith in yourself and what you’ve seen.” His voice hitched. “Even if some things are unpleasant, you can’t discount everything. We will find your brother and everything’s going to be fine. We are going to be fine.”

He took my face in his hands and kissed me hard, so hard it took my breath away. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and held on, feeling like I was suddenly drowning—drowning in fear, in desperation, in need, in hopelessness. I was sinking, and he was my port in the storm as much as my little brother always had been.

“We can’t lose him,” I said against his lips. “And I can’t lose you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Thom promised, stroking my hair as he rested his forehead against mine. “I am staying right here with you—now and forever. You will never be alone. I promise you that.”

I shivered at the weight of the words, of the quiet vow he’d made to me.

Now and forever.

“Some things are meant to be,” he continued, his voice soft, gentle but firm. “Matt’s going to be fine. He’s going to come home and he’ll be here—he’ll be here for you, for us, and for our son. I promise you that.”

“How can you be so sure?” The words stuck in my throat, scraping as they escaped. It all hurt—it hurt so much I could barely breathe. I felt a flutter inside, almost as if our baby—our beautiful, precious boy—had felt my distress, was feeling my distress, and felt powerless to comfort me.

I swallowed hard and clutched at his father, my fingers digging hard into the flesh of his shoulders and back. If I’d held on any tighter, I’d have left bruises in the wake of my fingers.

“I want to believe you, Thom,” I said. “I want to believe you so badly.”

“Then do it,” he said, thumbs brushing my cheeks, wiping away my tears. “Believe it, Marin, because it’s the truth. That’s the way it’s going to be. I swear it.”

“I’ll try.” I couldn’t promise that I would. I guess he knew that.

Thom kissed me again, more gently this time.

“Take off your shoes, Mar,” he said as he slowly let go. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”

“You don’t have to,” I told him as I reached down to start unlacing my boots.

“I want to.”

I swallowed hard and nodded.

Somehow, he always seemed to know what I needed, regardless of what I said.

Maybe that was why I loved him so much, why I knew I couldn’t live without him.

Two halves of a whole that should not ever be sundered again.

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Twenty-eight – 01

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Erin M. Klitzke

[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]

Matt’s gone.

If Thom hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t been the one to find out, to tell me, I’m not sure what I would have done, what might have happened. As it was, it was hard to breathe as we walked back toward the tents to break the news to everyone else.

In hindsight, I know that I was in some kind of state of shock in those first few moments, barely able to function or to even recognize where I was, what was happening. I was barely aware of anything beyond a single, solitary thought.

Matt’s gone. My brother’s gone.

Then, a second, traitorous thought crept in: What if you never get him back?

I held onto Thom a little tighter. He pressed a kiss to the side of my head, his nose buried in my hair.

“We’ll find him,” he murmured in my ear. “You know that, right?”

“What if we don’t?” I asked in a whisper. “Thom, what if we don’t?”

He promised me he’d be here. He promised.

Dammit.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered. “Thom, I can’t do this. I can’t face them. I just can’t.”

I can’t handle this. I can’t be strong anymore.

My brother’s gone and that bitch took him.

Thom paused, then glanced at Phelan and Cameron. “Can you guys handle it?” he asked quietly as he wrapped both arms around me and pulled me close again. I huddled in his arms, barely containing my shaking, my sobs.

The Hecate has my brother.

“Yeah,” Cameron said, answering for both of them. “Yeah, we’ll handle it. You should go lie down, Mar. You don’t look so good.”

I didn’t feel so good, but I suppose that went without saying.

“He’s right,” Thom said softly even as Cameron and Phelan moved off, heading for the fire. “Let’s get you into bed, huh?”

“Thom, what am I going to do?” I asked. “What am I going to do if we don’t get him back?”

“We’re going to get him back. Don’t doubt that for a second, Mar. Matt’s coming home. I promise you, he’s coming home—before our son is born. I promise.”

I pressed my face against his shoulder, choking on my sobs. He kissed my temple and just stood there, holding me as I swayed on my feet, light-headed and sick to my stomach.

My brother was gone and I had no idea how to find him.

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