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Carole Cummings

Wil’s power like Dallin had; they hadn’t stood inside it and felt Wil wield it; they hadn’t looked at it with inward eyes and seen, understood—
known
. Dallin had. Dallin did. He wouldn’t be taking this kind of chance, else.

Of course, that surety hadn’t prevented him from dousing the fire in the cave down to coals. He’d taken all the guns and ammunition out and entrusted them to Shaw that first night they’d got here. Dallin may be sure, but he wasn’t going to take stupid chances.

He closed his eyes, laid his brow to Wil’s, took a long, deep breath before pulling back again. “Wil, look at me.”

He waited for a moment, but Wil only kept sitting there, eyes squeezed tight, breath thin and fast. Reluctantly, Dallin slid his hands down to Wil’s shoulders, shook just a little and firmed his tone. “Open your eyes and
look
at me, Wil.” With obvious unwillingness, Wil slitted his eyes, squinted at Dallin against the dim light. Dallin waited until Wil’s gaze was semi-steady and locked with his—liquid and shifting and over-bright with that eerie light, and pulsing at Dallin,
painpainpainpain
—and Dallin firmed his grip on Wil’s shoulders, asked: “Do you trust me?”

Because if he didn’t, it was all pretty pointless, and not just this, but everything.

Wil shut his eyes again, thin tears squeezing out the corners, and he slumped, leaned in to rest his head to Dallin’s chest. “Yes,” he whispered.

Dallin blew out a sigh before he could help himself.

“Then do as I say, all right? Let it in then push it out—at
me
, only at me. Not everything, just the pain. It won’t hurt me, I promise.”

“And what happens if it does?” Wil mumbled into Dallin’s shirt.

“Then I expect you to choose yourself, like you’ve been alleging you would,” Dallin told him, dropped a 379

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brief, soft kiss to his head, gave his shoulders a squeeze and pushed him back to sit somewhat upright. “What’ll it be, Wil? Are you a man of your word, or was it all talk?”

Wil’s face twisted into a snarling scowl. “You’re crap at manipulation,” he muttered angrily, but nonetheless nodded consent.

Crap or not, it had apparently worked.

“All right,” Dallin sighed. “Good.” Cheered and relieved beyond sense, despite the fact that he’d just talked Wil into turning what Dallin knew to be almost boundless and pretty damned potent power directly at him. It didn’t matter—this was right, Dallin
knew
it was right, and he’d stopped caring quite a while ago just how he knew anything. If he had anything that could be called magic in him, it was this. “Do it now,” he told Wil. “Let it in and then send it out, but do it quick. It’s going to hurt like a bugger until you push it at me, so don’t hesitate, all right? Just the pain, not the rest.”

“Just the pain,” Wil dared to wrench open his eyes, level his riotous gaze with Dallin’s. “You’re
sure
?”

Dallin cracked a small smirk. “Do I look like I don’t know what I’m doing?”

Amazingly, Wil smiled back—small and weak and fleeting, but there. “I don’t think Guardians are supposed to be so cocky.”

Prideful
, Calder had called Dallin, and arrogant and possessive, too, while he’d been at it. Dallin half-admitted the potential truth to it, though not to Calder. He might have even allowed the arguments to sway him, if he wasn’t so deep-down
sure
.

“It’ll work, Wil, trust me, all right?” Dallin kept his grip on Wil’s shoulders, braced himself. “Do it now.”

All he could do was watch as Wil closed his eyes again, tensing even more in Dallin’s hands. Dallin could feel the reluctance, the fear… the shift as Wil tentatively unlocked 380

Carole Cummings

whatever was trying and failing to keep everything at bay, extended a shaky reach—

A scream, anguished and wrenching, as it all flooded at Wil, excruciating and overwhelming. Wil balled in on himself, flung his arms over his head and screamed again.

Bloody
damn
, this place was powerful—it fair reeked with it—Dallin could feel the edges of what was pounding in on Wil, like invisible iron filings scattering at him like he was a magnet. Sharding right into his mind and his soul, splitting and rending beneath its almighty weight.

“Don’t hold on to it, Wil, push it away.”

Dallin could feel the flow of it all, could feel the thrum and shudder, but not the pain, just Wil’s anguish beneath it. Could feel him frantically trying to weed through the threads of it, sort them and shove them away from himself. Sliding down into a state that was near-senseless—a wounded animal, mindlessly trying to lash out and curl in at the same time, screaming to make its throat bleed.

“Damn it, Wil, you didn’t listen to me before and you ended up lost, now don’t—”

“
Fuck off
!” A snarling shriek, hoarse and
this close
to hysterical.

The smoldering bones of the fire flared once again to life, spat and roared, whooshed out and up. Shaw yelped a bit and reached a hand out.

“Don’t touch him!” Dallin ordered. That was all he needed—Wil’s mind was ready to snap, the pain was that great, and in this basic, wounded-animal state, he might take out whoever got near him. Dallin didn’t want to think about the sorrow and guilt Wil would have to deal with afterward if he somehow managed to kill Shaw.

“
Wil
!” Dallin shook—harder than before. “Wil, listen to me. Don’t hold onto it, don’t try and sort it—just push it, right at me, I won’t let anything happen, I promise, just send the pain—”

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Jerked abruptly back and away, like a great hand had just reached out and shoved him in the chest. It knocked the wind out of him—he couldn’t even let loose a small yip—as he was thrown backward with a force that hurled him across the small cave. His back slammed to curved rock, strength like he’d never felt driving him right into the cave’s wall, compressing him between immovable granite and mind-numbing power.

Oh, fuck, this isn’t just big—it’s bloody
huge
!

Dallin took it all, let down every barrier and let it flow over them, let it drive into his body and his mind, seep into the cracks and fill them up. His body instinctively tried to double over with the pain, but he was pinned, like a bug to a cork.
Mother help me—is this what he’s been
feeling all this time? How could he stand it?
Breath was just a memory; his chest was caving beneath the force of it all.

Out the corner of his eye, Dallin saw the fire climbing up the wall of the cave, heard the rumble of thunder, then he was deaf and blind, unable to move, to claw air into burning lungs. Still, he let it wash into him, took it all and invited more.

He could feel Wil inside it, distant and still confused, but sanity was returning, relief was slowly taking the place of agony. Dallin reached, set himself like a baldachin beneath the onslaught, showed Wil the channels and showed him how to use them. Was swamped by the bald grace of Wil’s reprieve when the stanchions held. Part of Dallin smiled, smug and satisfied—
Ha! Fuck you, Calder,
told you I knew what I was doing
—the rest of him saw the dark void of oblivion beckoning.

Let it come.

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Carole Cummings

“Dallin!” A sharp shake and a near-snarl. “
Dallin
Brayden
!” A smack this time, right to his ribs; it smarted good, but if Dallin had the breath, he would’ve snorted.

“You son of a bitch, you promised, you
swore
, I trusted you, you said—”

“I

said
,” Dallin wheezed, propped on his hands and knees, head hanging, lungs wrenching and gasping, “not to hold it back and to…” He had to pause to catch his breath. “…and to do it
quick
.”

Wil went loose against him. “Bloody
hell
,” he breathed, leaned down and dipped his head beside Dallin’s, careful not to lean too hard lest he knock Dallin over, but leaning in just the same. His hand tightened on Dallin’s shoulder, and he blew out a long, shaky breath. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Dallin lifted his head, squinted up into Wil’s worried face, marked the lack of even the smallest drop of blood, the color to his cheeks, and sagged. He let Wil help him lean back and plant himself semi-steadily on his arse on the floor of the cave. “Now you know how I feel,” was all he said. His eyes went first to the fire: blazing again, but banked lower than an inferno, thank the Mother. He checked what little sky he could see through the cave’s mouth next: still blue and cloudless with no threatening rumbles muttering in the distance. Though, when his eye drifted groundward, he noted a few too many loiterers standing about the cave’s entrance, mere paces away, anxious whispers flitting amongst them, and gazes all trying to pierce through the gloom inside. Dallin trusted they weren’t getting much of a view. He dismissed them, blinked about, saw Shaw right beside Wil—one hand still on Dallin, and one resting lightly between Wil’s shoulder-blades, support and comfort.

Dallin gripped Wil’s arm, looked closely when Wil peered back just as intently. There was still some bit of 383

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worry in Wil’s gaze, and he was still pale and drawn, but color was creeping steadily back into his cheeks, and his eyes were no longer wild and filled with pain and feral power—just green.

“All right?” Dallin asked.

Wil gave him a look that was halfway between wonder and exasperation. “
Yes
, I’m all right. Are
you
?”

Dallin had to think about it for a moment. “A bit of a headache, but yeah.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re sure? It’s all…” His hand waved about. “It’s holding?”

He didn’t really have to ask—he could feel it, like a low hum thrumming somewhere at the bottom of his spine—

but it made him feel better when Wil nodded and smiled.

“I don’t know quite what it is, but yes, it’s holding,” he assured Dallin. “C’mon, let’s get you over there where it’s a little more comfortable.”

Dallin let Wil and Shaw help him up, though he didn’t feel at all wobbly—just that bit of a headache—but his back was likely going to hurt like hell later. He was already on his feet, trying to stretch his shoulders a little beneath all the hands, when he noticed that were a few too many of them. He turned, frowning, and found that… that boy, that… Calder’s kin… what the hell was his name?

“Hunter,” Dallin rasped, “what the hell are you doing here?”

The lad blinked, wide-eyed. “I…” He turned, waved confusedly at the mouth of the cave, where a pewter cup lay in a pool of what was likely the tea he was supposed to bring Wil.

How long had he been standing there? How much had he seen, and how much of it did he plan to report to the others? And how much did Dallin really care about what Hunter did or who he told?

“If Calder put you on us to spy,” Dallin said steadily,

“you needn’t bother. You’ll find I’m not quite as secretive 384

Carole Cummings

as he would apparently like. All you have to do is ask.”

“Spy?” Hunter looked genuinely confused, genuinely…

hurt. He shook his head, adamant. “I would… no, I never—”

“Leave him alone,” Wil scolded, still a little shaky, but apparently gaining back his equilibrium, along with his snark. “He’s not his uncle. He means well.” He leaned in close, dipped his voice. “He bloody worships you, y’know. Have a care.”

Dallin frowned, peered at Wil with a lift of his eyebrows, and then turned the look on Hunter with barely suppressed suspicion.
Worships
. Dallin didn’t quite know how to take that one, and had absolutely nothing to say to it, so he didn’t even try. Instead, he looked back at Wil.

“Uncle?”

“Well…” Wil shrugged, flicked his glance away. “I just assumed. Here, let’s get you over there and sit you down.”

It was the aversion of the gaze that made Dallin pause.

No you didn’t. You know. And he didn’t tell you, did
he?

‘I could feel it. I can still feel it. All of them.’

Dallin wondered just exactly what Wil had seen, and how much. Wondered what all that knowing might do to a person’s head.

“You assumed correctly,” Hunter put in with a dip of his head and an uncertain tilt of a smile. Annoyingly, he followed along as Dallin shrugged off his helpers and sat himself down on the rumpled bedroll. “I am the son of Garrick Calder, brother to Barret Calder.”

Dallin refrained from asking if Garrick was still alive and if they should be expecting him to show up and get underfoot, as well, and if there were any more Calders running about the place, waiting to pop up and not go away.

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“And are you close?” Wil’s question was quiet. He didn’t look at Hunter as he folded himself down beside Dallin.

Dallin saw Shaw catch the tone, frown a little, but Shaw kept silent, merely leaned himself against the stone of the cave’s wall. He folded his arms across his chest and watched. It had been necessary to fill Shaw in on quite a lot of Wil’s history after he’d more-or-less sort of commandeered Wil’s horse and joined them in their escape from Chester, but Dallin didn’t remember telling him about Wil’s non-encounter with Wilfred Calder. Perhaps Shaw was in the process of twigging to the coincidence of the names now, or perhaps Calder himself had filled him in.

Hunter shifted an uncomfortable shrug. “Our families shared
inhíredes
.” He paused, brow creased in thought, expression brightening when he settled on the right word:

“Household,” he translated for Wil.

“So…” Wil looked down, tugging at his fingers like they were too close to his hands. “You would have grown up with his son, then.”

Dallin was very careful to keep himself from sighing and rolling his eyes. This insistence of Wil’s on seeking rebuke and snatching at guilt that didn’t belong to him was getting wearisome.

Hunter’s eyes had gone round, cautiously eager. “You have seen Wilfred?”

“I…” Wil stuttered into silence, shut his eyes and rubbed at his brow.