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“Then why?” he whispered.
Why? That was the question indeed. She wished she knew. It’d been days since she’d woken and somehow her memories had only trickled back to her. She didn’t know why, though she desperately wanted to. She couldn’t answer his question, wouldn’t even if she did.
Silence hung between them as they stared at each other. Meira forced her gaze away, this connection they had would be fading soon. The curse couldn’t support anything stronger or longer than the threshold they were already reaching. Even now, the edges of the forest were becoming a blur, the river a wash of grays and blues that reflected the sun without any real details.
Only his face remained crystal clear, and at this distance, she could see the soft fine lines around the corners of his eyes as though this man laughed often. His lashes, as black as his eyes, curled up to touch his thick brows.
“Run, my little rabbit. Run,” Meira said softly before she took her blade and ran it swiftly over his throat.
18
Remis
For the second time, Remis sucked in a terrible aching breath that rattled deep down into his lungs and spit out a mouthful of water. His face was pressed down into the mud, the scent of his own putrid vomit wafting up toward his nose.
A hand rose to touch his throat. The flesh there was cold and covered in goosebumps but entirely intact. He looked down at his fingertips, bare of any blood. Still, he could feel the terrible stinging pain of her blade cutting across his neck and the scrape of her nail as it drew a line down the side of his face. Her touch had sent an unexpected thrill through him. He’d been scared, yes, but he’d also felt the brush of her skin on his all the way to down into the marrow of his bones.
His lungs burned with every breath he took. His vision cleared with each blink but he stared at the spot where she’d stood. There were no footprints, though he could clearly see the shape of his own body where he’d lay. Squinting, he looked up toward the sky. The day was halfway through. How long had he been out? Hours? A day?
He thought of that terrible plunging feeling he’d gotten as he and his friends toppled over the edge of the waterfall. From wherever he’d landed, he couldn’t hear the sound of its cascades any longer. The river must have taken him farther before he somehow washed up on the edge. The fact that he’d survived the fall and still hadn’t somehow drowned in the current was in itself a miracle. He only hoped the miracle included his friends.
Forcing himself to his feet, he grunted at the strain of his sore muscles but found he was otherwise fine. No broken bones and he still had his cloak though everything he wore was still sodden.
“Merritt? Percy?” His voice carried but no one said anything in return. Remis took two cautious steps toward the riverbank, casting a glance one way and then the next hoping for some clue as to where his friends might be. Had they been carried as far as he had? Farther? Or were their bodies somewhere near the waterfall he couldn’t even see any longer?
Desperation flooded him, stinging his eyes. He blinked back the tears that wanted to come, feeling the shame of crying as heavily upon him as though his father was here screaming at him to be a man. He was lost, somewhere between home and Croughton. His friends were quite possibly dead. And all of that went without mentioning that the witch was nearing him every damn hour.
Run, my little rabbit, run.
Her voice was sinfully sensuous and the sound of her threat repeated in his head. No matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t caught a glimpse of her under that hood. Nothing more than the occasional light over her mouth.
He wanted to run. Every instinct he had was screaming for him to get as far away from this place as possible. The witch had been looking around with an intensity that could only suggest she’d been looking for something. How did this damn curse work? Did she somehow know exactly where he was? Or had she recognized this place where he’d washed up?
Too many questions. Not enough answers.
So with nothing left to do, Remis began walking along the river’s edge toward the waterfall, hoping to find his friends, and praying to the universe that they survived. His boots were waterlogged and heavy with each step, his blisters tender all over again, and even after stopping to try and shake the water out of them they still made his movements sluggish.
Occasionally, he called out into the woods, shouting for his friends. No answer came. The longer he went on the more his shoulders hunched forward, the more he shivered and hugged himself to try and stay warm. The sun was making its way across the sky as if it was chasing the end of the day, and Remis felt like he’d hardly traveled any distance at all. If he couldn’t find his friends soon, he’d have to stop and make a fire, get himself out of these clothes.
“Merritt? Percy?” His voice was raw from screaming and swallowing what felt like gallons of river water. “Merritt! Percy!”
A shout echoed through the trees. For a moment, he thought it was only the echo of his own shout but it continued. Not his own voice. He tensed for a moment expecting to see the witch hurtling through the brush with her sword aimed for his throat.
The sound became clearer. It was closer this time.
“Remis?”
Merritt.
Thank fuck.
The soreness that plagued him was easily ignored as a fresh wave of hope came over him. Then he was running, pushing past low branches, and pulling himself through thorn bushes that grabbed at his pants.
“Merritt! Percy!” He raced toward the sound of his friend who echoed his call with one of his own. There was a flash of white that cut through the woods before there was a heavy body crashing into his own.
Merritt's arms wrapped around Remis’ body, holding him tightly as they toppled together into the thick trunk of a tree. The air was knocked from his lungs but he held tightly to his friend.
He pulled away to hold Merritt at arm's length. His clothes were dry, several of the buttons torn from the shirt leaving bits of his chest and stomach exposed in the resulting gaps of fabric. A dark bruise covered half of his face and his lip was crusted over with blood but he didn’t appear to have any other obvious injuries.
