Torrent of Tears (Scourge Survivor Series Book 3)(40)

Tham sat up, his brow pulled tight, the deep furrow between his blue eyes a rare sight. “You need to go, neelan. It’s not safe for you here.”

The warrior’s voice in my mind agreed. I had lingered long enough in fantasy.

Telling myself to wake up, I tried to open my eyes. They wouldn’t open. Whatever it was . . . whoever was inching inside of me had taken hold. I fought against my insides.

No, no, no. This was wrong. Way wrong.

Tham leaned over me, shaking my shoulders. “Wake up, Lexi. Fight.”

My teeth clacked together as Tham shook me harder.

“Go, Lexi. Open your eyes. You must go.”

The slither of icy evil grew as it spread. My vision dimmed, a damp fog covering my mind. I couldn’t breathe, suffocating on the frigid cold as it leached through my lungs into my arms . . . my legs . . . my—

My hands came up as I launched off the bed and landed in a crouch. Wide black eyes fixed on me from a bed the size of a football field. The room was mostly dark, the only light coming from the soft illumination escaping the adjoining bathroom. I sucked oxygen into my heaving lungs. The room was secure. Just me and Coal, sawin’ logs in the guest suite of Rowan’s mansion.

“It’s okay, buddy,” I breathed. In. Out. “Just a bad dream.” I forced myself to straighten, my hands shaking like leaves in a hurricane. I tugged down the front of my shirt and pressed it flat. “Just a bad dream.”

I crawled back under the covers and opened my arms for Coal to cuddle in. Chilled to the marrow, I gave thanks to have my own personal space heater bunking with me. Did all Fire Faery run hot? A few minutes with Coal snuggled against me and my quakes started to settle. After a minute, he pulled back and looked at me. I could read the frustration in his face. He had something to say, but couldn’t get it out there.

“Am I all right?” I asked, taking a guess.

He nodded.

“Yeah. Fine. You? Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

He shook his head, his shaggy ginger hair standing up in every direction like cockerel tails. He still wanted to say something. His lips pressed into a scowl and he growled low in his throat. I propped him up on the pillows and thought about what it must be like to not be able to express myself. No sarcasm. No venting. No way to laugh or yell or tell a joke.

“Do you remember I mentioned my friend, Savage?”

After the confusion drained from his expression, he held his hands wide, then reached high over his head and scowled.

“Yeah, the big, scary warrior who can’t speak.”

He pointed to his mouth and throat, and then shrugged.

“I’m not sure why, exactly. He’s never shared his personal deets and no one has balls big enough to ask.”

He smiled at the mention of balls and I rolled my eyes. “Well, he always wears a spiked dog collar or bandana tied around his throat, but once, after a particularly ugly battle, my sister, Jade, had to take it off so she could heal his neck.”

Coal’s eyebrows disappeared under a fringe of bangs.

“He had a terrible scar from here . . . all the way over to here.” I dragged my fingers across the velvet pile of my mourning band from one side of my throat to the other. “It was a nasty wound. Hamburger. It looked like someone ripped his voice box right out.”

Coal bit on his bottom lip, his gaze locked on mine.

“The reason I brought it up is that when we’re on a mission we need to be able to communicate. The Scourge—that’s our enemy—well, they love to ambush, so a lot of what we do is sneaking around. We communicate what we see and what’s coming at us without using our voices. It doesn’t even matter that Savage can’t speak.”

Coal propped himself onto a spindly arm and rested his head in his palm.

“So, when we’re on a mission, we use hand signals. Some are from something the Modern Realm calls sign language and some we adapted ourselves. I was wondering if that might be something you’d want to learn?”

Cue the bright-eyed head bobbing.

“It’ll be confusing at first, but if we practice, you’ll be able to tell me exactly what you’re thinking.” The hug was all I needed to wipe the last of my unease away. I set him back on his pillow and held up my hands so they caught the light from the bathroom. “Cool. So, here’s an easy one.”



Lying half buried in the rolling plains of an overstuffed duvet and navy satin sheets, I watched Coal’s tiny chest rise and fall, slow and deep. Up. Down. Up. After learning dozens of signs, his eyes had grown so heavy I told him to close them. Two seconds later, he was gone. Now, lost in what I hoped was a kinder world, he was free to be a kid. I, myself, after my last brush with dreamland, might never sleep again.

The crevice of dawn—I think Terran had something with that one—came an hour or so after Coal drifted back to sleep. I’d told him not to panic if he woke up and I was gone. I’d be in the garden working out. After assuring him that he and I were a team now, he relaxed but still made me promise I wouldn’t go anywhere beyond the grounds without him.

I slid out of bed with my plan. Shower. Dress. Back garden.

Except—once I was face-to-face with the stone tile and shiny bathroom fixtures I had no idea how to make the shower work. The mechanics of the nozzles and drain were different from the palace. No matter what I tried, no water came.