Dead of Winter (15 page)

He gazed at me with infinite patience. “Never again,
sievā
.”

I stared into his eyes, that soul-deep sense of connection sweeping over me. Oh, dear gods, I . . . believed him.

I had to defuse this situation before anyone got hurt. The trues! But Matthew couldn't paint his blood on Death's lethal skin. Could I use the Gamekeeper's blood? I ran to Matthew.

He was already slashing his arm. “True-hearted,” he whispered. “For now.”

I drew my forefinger across his wound, then hurried to Aric.

“Don't you feckin' do it, Empress!” Before I could reach Death, Joules fired again.

Aric deflected, his voice booming in the night: “I begin to tire of this, Tower.”

“Aric, let me paint your hand!”

He sheathed his sword and dismounted with that eerie grace. Spurs ringing, he strode to me and removed one spiked gauntlet.

“Nooo!”
Joules yelled.

I drew a red line across Aric's icons.

At the touch, he shuddered with bliss, lids gone heavy, eyes ablaze.

“Get away!” Jack had broken free from Gabriel, was fearlessly charging for Aric. Jack's bravery was like a living thing inside him—always wanting to be freed.

“Stop!” I rushed to head him off, but he shoved me behind his back, standing up to Aric. The two were about the same height, gazes locked.

“You can't fight Death,” I cried. “He's part of the trues.”

“I'm not Arcana,” Jack bit out.

“Drunk and no sword?” Aric sneered. “This isn't even sporting.”

Jack tensed, all his muscles swelling. Because he was about to attack. He smiled a chilling smile. I'd seen it before.
An animal baring its teeth.
He was about to launch himself at Death, his anvil-like fists swinging.

“Jack, you can't hit him! You can't touch his skin and survive! The only reason he's facing you with no helmet is to bait you.” I turned to Aric. “If you hurt him,
you
will pay!”

He donned his gauntlet. “I have no intention of aggressing anyone here, love. I arrive on a simple errand, now that you've completed yours.”

“Errand?”

In a casual tone, he said, “I've come to take my wife home.”

Jack's head jerked back as if he'd been struck with a sledgehammer.

A guttural bellow erupted from his chest. He swung for Death.

I screamed, but Aric blocked the hit with his armored wrist.

The knight stared into Jack's eyes. “I always recognize a death wish. Do you want to die, mortal? I can oblige you.”

Death wish? “Stop this!” I tried to get between them. “You can't touch him!”

Jack's bruised face was red with rage. “Might be worth it just to knock that snide look off your face!”

“The Empress is right. One touch is all it takes. Well, at least for everyone but her.” He gazed down at me. “As was meant to be,
sievā
.” He seemed amused by all this, as if he'd just arrived at festivities.

In a blur, Jack's hand shot up, a pistol pointed at Aric's head.

My chest contracted, lungs robbed of air.

Aric had accelerated healing, but even he wouldn't survive a bullet to the brain. If anything happened to him . . . Now that I knew he hadn't come here to hurt me, confusing feelings overwhelmed me.

Panic, that sense of protectiveness, an ache in my heart—

Jack cocked the weapon, pressing the barrel against Aric's forehead. “One reason.”

While I struggled to breathe, Aric's gaze reluctantly moved from me to Jack. And still, Death looked amused. “Because she'll never forgive you for it.”

“Take him out, hunter!” Joules yelled. “Pull the bloody trigger!”

I laid my hand on Jack's arm. “Put down the gun.” Nothing. “If you do this, we can never come back from it.”

On the razor's edge, he turned to me. “What the hell is he talking about? Wife?
WIFE? 
”

“It's complicated,” I repeated.

That muscle ticked in his jaw. “I can goddamn keep up, Evangeline!”

“I will explain everything to you, if you come with me back to the tent.” If Jack shot Aric, they would both be dead to me. Tears pricked my eyes. “P-please, I'm asking you to do this for me.”

“You expect me to let him loose in my camp? Do you give a damn that he wants to kill me?”

“He won't.”

“How can you be so sure?”

I gazed at Aric as I said, “If he hurts you in any way, he knows I will
never
stop hating him.” Back to Jack. “Please. Talk to me—away from here.”

He must've heard the dread in my voice. Finally, he uncocked the gun, lowering it. He cast Aric a murderous look, then stormed away. I followed, glaring at the knight over my shoulder.

He gave me a gallant bow, self-satisfied smile in place. He knew his strike had already found its target.

“What the fuck?” Jack paced the tent, hitting that flask like nobody's business. He could barely look at me, hadn't managed more than cursing.

“I told you that Death and I had a history.” With shaking hands, I pulled the tent flap aside, peeking out.

Aric was cooling down Thanatos, his creepy white stallion. The
red-eyed beast looked like a cross between an Arabian—and a tank. It even had its own black armor.

Cyclops snacked nearby.
Crunch. Crunch.

From a distance, the other Arcana gawked at Death—Tess especially seemed entranced by his divine good looks—but their attention didn't appear to disturb him in the least.

I tensed when Matthew wandered over to Aric. The last I'd heard, Matthew had broken ranks, reneging on some deal the two had made.

But he and Death talked calmly. What could they be discussing?

“Christ, Evie, you can't take your eyes off him?”

I closed the flap, then headed for Matthew's cot.

“How much history can you and the Reaper have? You never met him before three months ago.”

I sat with my hands folded. They wouldn't stop shaking. The fear I'd felt for Aric bewildered me. “We were together in a past life.”

“Dis-moi la vérité! ”
Tell me the truth!

“I am. Arcana are reincarnated.”

His mouth opened, then closed.

“Whoever wins gets to live as an immortal. The rest of us reincarnate for each game. Death has won the last three, so he's lived all this time. But I have memories of being with him.”

Pacing, pacing. “That bastard ain't acting like this is a past thing! You sleep with him?”

“You have to understand: I thought you and I were over.”

Jack's eyes grew
crazed
. “Did you—sleep—with him?”

“No, but I was . . . with him.” The night he'd saved me from Ogen, I'd decided to have sex with Aric. But I hadn't gone through with it.

“I ain't hearing this!” Jack heaved in breaths, like he couldn't get enough air.

“I believed I'd never see you again. But then I couldn't stop thinking about my promise to you, to give you a chance to reach me. So I didn't
go any further with him. I told him I was going to get your side of the story about everything.”

Jack tipped that flask up, swiping his sleeve over his mouth. “I'm out here, nearly dying every day trying to find you or make it safer for you. And you were almost screwing the man who nearly killed me!”

“I can't explain what it was like when I found out about your lies. It was like something broke in me.” I thumped my chest. “
Died
in me. I felt so betrayed by you. By Matthew too. Then I learned that in a past game, I married Death. I tried to poison him—on our wedding night. In another game, I got him to trust me again, then struck once more.”

Jack slowed his pacing. “Then you were with him this time out of guilt?”

At one point with Aric, I'd thought of it as
penance
. At another point, I'd been rocked by our connection. “I don't know.”

“You came back here—for me. You told me you loved me! Was that just bullshit?”

“No!” I pinched my temples. My nagging headache had turned into a pounding migraine.

“You love that bastard?”

“I care about him. If not for you, I probably would.” And if not for his
deal
.

“You always liked the rich ones.” Jack's pacing and drinking resumed at full speed. “The blue bloods. Figures you'd go for a knight.”

“That's not fair!”

“I can't even wrap my mind around this! He abducted you. You think he's not here to do it again? Maybe you want him to?”

“He can't force me away. I have my powers back.”

“That's right—he stole your powers for months, and you reward him. He tried to kill me and your friends, and you reward him. Damn, Evie, where's your loyalty?”

“What about Selena? Have you forgotten that she planned to take me down the night we met her? If you hadn't been there, I would be dead. Beheaded.”

I guessed all that had been swept under the rug. “Things change, Jack. This game makes us all villains at some time or another. And besides that, Aric didn't
try
to kill any of you. Ogen demolished the mountain. Death could have ambushed us earlier.”

“Why didn't he?”

“I think deep down he hoped I wouldn't be evil. He knew I would never forgive him if any of you died. He considered taking you out in the mine, but didn't.”

“You believe he could've? You got a lot of confidence in him.”

“He's
Death
—killing is second nature to him.” Some would say first nature. “I used my arsenal against him, fighting with everything in me. And I couldn't defeat him.”

“But you still let him kiss you? Touch you?” His voice was whiskey roughened, his accent thicker. “Even when I thought you were lost to me, I never turned to another!”

Another. Selena. Jack was telling me he'd never gotten with her. Yet Selena had admitted, “Things between us are different.”

“I've had cause to hate in my life; I never hated like I do Death.” Aric had said the same about him. “How can I not kill him?” Jack had hit his limit.

I was nearing mine as well. Just over a week ago, the Devil had strangled me. “Pretty meat,” he'd sneered as his drool had coated my face. I put my head in my hands. “I need to slow down, just long enough to think.” I wished Tess could make time stand still.

“We doan get that luxury. Not since that bastard showed up here. We got a grenade in our camp, with the pin pulled.”

On the road, Jack had taught me about grenades:
Once you pull the pin, a grenade is not your friend.

“What do you want from me, Evie?”

“I want you two not to fight each other. To give me time to sort through things.” I met his eyes. “I'm asking you not to hurt him.”

“I can't . . . I can't do this now, no. You're fucking gutting me.” He
rubbed that bandage. “I'd had this hope of being with you again, only thing keeping me goan.” He gazed past me. “But now, can't even look at you.”

“Please try to see this from—”

A yell sounded across the camp.

Great. What had Death done now?

When Jack and I ran outside, we found Aric standing by his horse. Matthew was no longer with him.

Jack eyed the knight with a withering hatred; steady and still, Aric kept his gaze locked on me—

“She's gone! She's been taken!”

“Was that Finn?” I asked.

Jack made for the Magician's tent, while I tried to keep up.

Inside, Finn sat on his cot, Matthew beside him. By the light of the low fire, I couldn't tell which boy looked worse.

Gabriel, Joules, and Tess rushed in right after us.

“What happened here, podna?” Jack asked Finn. “Tell me nice and slow.”

“Selena was taken! Two soldiers did it. I walked in on one of them giving her an injection. His partner sneaked up behind me and shot me up. I just came to.”

Gabriel's wings snapped open. “How did they get her out of the fort?”

“You tell me,” Finn said, baffled.

“We suspected we had traitors planted in this camp.” Jack bit out a vile curse in French. “How long ago was this?”

“Five or six hours?” Finn turned to me. “Right when I was going
under, one of them was bitching about the wolf guarding you. I think you were also a target.”

“
Whose
target?” Jack said.

I feared I knew. “It might be General Milovníci. The Lovers told us they wanted to take me and Selena north to someone they called ‘the First.' Maybe they meant their father?” The thought nauseated me as much as it had last night.

“I can catch them by air,” Gabriel said, “before they reach the other half of the army.”