Immortals After Dark 06 - Dark Desires After Dusk

of catastrophes caused by the smallest choice or action.
    “Wait, you said your foster family? Did you have foster brothers and sisters?”
    “I did.” He swallowed. “But they were all murdered by Omort’s army.”
    “Oh, God, Cadeon, I’m so sorry.”
    “Revenants attacked our farmstead.”
    “I read about them. A sorcerer reanimates a corpse, raising it from the dead, right?”
    He nodded. “Since the creature’s already dead, it can’t be killed.”
    “How do you fight them?”
    “Only when you kill the sorcerer can they be destroyed. Which is a problem since Omort can’t be killed by beheading or unnatural heat.”
    She asked, “Do you blame yourself for your foster family’s deaths as well?”
    He gave her a grim nod.
    Her eyes were sad when she said, “You’ve been carrying around all this guilt for nine hundred years? What about the saying time heals all wounds ?”
    He met her gaze. “That one’s a lie.”

    “I want to fight,” he told Rök after she’d fallen asleep. “Get mobilized.”
    “Are you sure? Think of how many ways this attack can get botched up. You’d be risking your brother’s life and your kingdom’s freedom for a woman.”
    “Not just a woman. My woman.” He’d realized tonight that if Holly got hurt on his watch, then he would have done the same thing he’d blamed himself for a thousand times—failing his own.
    “Give me one more night,” Rök said. “We can get to your coordinates in fourteen hours if we have to.”
    Continue to search for the mortal, or go forward? “No, we’re out of time,” Cade said. “I can’t chance it. We’re going to war.”
    After he hung up, Cade joined Holly in bed once more, gazing down at her, sleeping peacefully.
    What was going on in that incredible mind of hers as she turned to him so trustingly? Was she dreaming about warrior codes and formulas?
    Could she be dreaming about him?
    Holly slept deeply, assured he would keep her safe. Stroking the backs of his claws over her arm, he murmured, “I’m going to fight for you.”

40
    W hat the hell do you mean, can’t get up here ?” Cade bellowed into the phone. The deal expired tomorrow. “You’re fucking mercenaries; I’m ready to go to war.”
    “The ice road is completely blown out,” Rök said, having to yell over what sounded like gusting wind. “That’s the only way from here to there.”
    “What about heading west, then coming up north?” Cade paced in the snow, winding around spruce trees.
    “We could, but we’d never make it in time.”
    “Trace the distance—”
    “We can only trace as far as we can see, which is about two feet right now,” Rök said. Cade heard a door slam, and then the background noise dimmed. “The snow drifts have killed visibility. And I’ve already checked on a chopper. It’d take a day just to get one up here.”
    Cade punched a tree.
    “I’m sorry, friend, but you’re on your own. You’ve got to take your female to Groot to get that sword. You don’t have a choice.”
    I do have a bloody choice. Fuck nobility. Fuck selflessness. This isn’t my life. He would turn his back just like before. I want to run with her.
    Cade could find another way to free Rydstrom from Sabine. Then his brother would finally just have to learn how to live without his crown.
    Rök said, “I’m not suggesting that you should actually turn Holly over.”
    “If I even bring her near Groot, I risk her life. I can’t jeopardize her like this. I won’t —”
    “Look, I didn’t want to tell you this, but there’s more on the line than you think. News of Rydstrom’s disappearance and your quest has gotten out. Demons in the kingdom are awaiting your results. Cade, they’re ready to war again.”
    “What do you mean?” Their people had been so brutalized that they had no heart for revolutions.
    “If you can claim that sword, they’ll view it as a sign that a revolt could be possible. The sword has become symbolic now, a rallying point. They want to see that if one half of the Woede is compromised, the other can still take care of business, as it were.”
    As if there weren’t enough pressure…
    “And I have to tell you—the betting’s rampant over whether the black sheep will come through. So here’s the strategy: You’ll have to convince Groot that you’re only there to drop off the goods, get your pay in return, and get out, or he won’t give the sword to you. So convince him, then smite him with his own