Page 237 of May: Bloom & Bane

Ashán, trip us! Sage yells inside our mind. Break a leg, tear a tendon—do something!

“I can’t!” I choke out. My fingers are locked in a death-grip around the scythe. She is an undeniable warmth at the end of a leash that wants nothing more than to drag me to her and open her throat.

The moment we’re clear of the house, my wings answer the call, snapping open behind me. They give a thunderous downstroke, lifting our weight just enough to clear the ground. For one sickening second, I’m rising.

“NO!”

I throw myself back down and catch the nearest thing I can reach—a sugar maple—and I wrap myself around it, arms, shadow and every scrap of will I have left. My skelva gouge the bark, my wings beating furiously as they try to rip me loose. My whole body shudders with the effort it takes not to fly to her.

Ash—Sage pants. How long can you hold this?

I can hold now. I can hold this minute, this hour, maybe more. The mark on my chest gives me leverage, not victory. I am only as strong as my weakest second. One moment where the grief or exhaustion wins. That’s all it takes, and these wings will carry me to her.

I can’t hold this forever. But I can make sure that even when I slip… I cannot fly to her.

The porch door opens, and Damien steps into the yard. He stops dead in his tracks when he sees me.

“Whoa!” He throws his arms wide, taking in all ten-plus feet of my burning-blue form. “You finally did it! You shifted! You absolute—” He strides toward me, beaming like a kid who just caught his best friend mid glow-up. “Ashán, this is incredible, you have to let me⁠—”

He gets close enough to see my face, and his smile falters.

“Ashán?” He approaches slowly. “Why are you holding onto the tree like that?”

“You were right!” I scream. “When you told us Damon didn’t do things by accident. He knew... they all knew.”

“Knew about what?”

“She left, and it—it triggered something.” I shudder against the tree, skelva screaming down the bark as my wings wrench me half a foot up the trunk before I drag myself back down. “My first full shift… and it’s only to—” I can’t finish.

Sage forces the words up through our throat. “Eden’s name is on the blade. The baby’s name⁠—”

Damien’s eyes go wide.

“The curse wants my mate and my—” I sob. “My daughter. It’s going to make me kill them. This mark on my chest is the only thing that has stopped me from doing so already.”

My wings beat again, nearly tearing me loose. I clamp down harder around the trunk.

“Cut them off!” I scream. “CUT THEM OFF!”

Damien flinches backward.

“What? Ashán, no—” He shakes his head. “No, you don’t—you don’t know what you’re asking me. I can’t⁠—”

“You’re the only one here!” Another downstroke wrenches me up the trunk; I scream and haul myself back. “Please, Damien, please, I can’t hold them. They’ll take me to her—I’ll reap her—I’ll reap my baby—I would rather you tear me apart than let me touch a hair on her head, now CUT THEM OFF⁠—”

He crumples, his hands flying to the sides of his head, fingers digging into his long dark hair. He squeezes his eyes shut.

“No,” he whispers. “No no no, not that—I can’t, I can’t cut, I can’t cut. The last time I held a blade—” His shoulders shake as he sinks onto the ground. He rocks back and forth, humming to himself.

“Don’t make me cut,” he chokes. “Please. Don’t make me do it. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t⁠—”

Another monstrous downstroke and the tree gives a horrid crack.

I am losing. The sky is screaming for me.

“Damien!” I roar. “What if this were Winnie?”

The rocking stops. His hands freeze in his hair.