The Dark Calling (The Arcana Chronicles #5)(38)

Screw him. Screw. Him. I gazed down at my wedding ring. He’d destroyed the one I’d given him; I would trash the one he’d given me. I yanked it off and tossed it away. “How about that, Reaper?”

Joules cried, “Finally!”

Pling.

The faint sound of it hitting the pavement was earsplitting to me. “Nooo!” How could I have? I dropped to my knees, scrabbling through Flash-fried asphalt and patches of snow. “Where is it?” I closed my eyes to sense the sap, my hand moving . . . .

There! Sucking in breaths, I slipped it back on. If I truly decided to take it off, I knew Aric would be lost to me forever.

Kentarch cocked his head. “A motorcycle approaches. The rider won’t have many stores or much fuel. Let’s allow this one to pass.”

“A motorcycle?” The rumbling sound reached me—reminding me of Jack’s arrival at Haven all those months ago. A lifetime ago.

“She probably thinks it’s the hunter,” Joules told Kentarch. “He drove a bike.”

“Who’s the hunter?”

“A human who went by the name of Jack.” Joules, that ass, added, “He was boyfriend number one before the Reaper and Sol. The timeline goes like this: She was boffing Death in a past life, then Jack in this one. Then Death. Then Jack. Then Sol, then Death.”

“Damn it, I was never with Sol! I told you we were just friends.”

As if I hadn’t spoken, Joules said, “Jack was a good bloke. Brave as hell and hardworking. But he died in Richter’s massacre.”

Kentarch frowned at me. “I thought you witnessed that attack, Empress. Did you not see him perish?”

“I did.”

But I’d heard him through Matthew.

But Jack was undefeatable.

The bike’s rumble grew louder. What if? What if? What if?

Kentarch was studying me, as though I were settling some internal wager he’d made about me. Yes, Chariot, I’m crazy. Trouble with the promise of rubble.

I’d just been crawling on the ground to find the Reaper’s wedding ring, and now I was imagining another man returning from the dead.

The motorcycle neared, sounding like it was racing toward some emergency destination. Jack would be racing to find me. “I know it can’t be him, but . . .”

“Hope is a funny thing,” Kentarch finished for me. “When I was once pinned down by poacher gunfire, they called out that they would let me live if I surrendered. I knew they wouldn’t, but I was filled with desperation to see Issa again. My hope lied to me, whispering in my ear, ‘Believe these men, and you will reunite with your wife.’ Tell me, Empress, do you trust the whisper of your hope?”

Did I? I wanted to believe anything that told me Jack lived. But maybe I was too scarred from all the heartache I’d endured to trust my hope. Maybe my hope was slowly dying.

The bike was just around the bend. That creeping fog fanned out in slo-mo, like a blanket in one of those old dryer-sheet commercials.

Joules’s tone grew exasperated. “The hunter’s dead. Finn told us Jack and Selena rode out with the army. We know for a fact that Selena’s toast, and she was always by Jack’s side.” I knew this. “Gabe and me saw that valley. Or what used to be a valley. No one could have survived that. Especially not a mortal. And since this isn’t the second coming of Jack, get ready to face a bogey.”

I tried to stand. Failed. Tried again.

A helmeted rider with a tinted visor emerged from the mist. I squinted to make out his build.

He was tall, muscular. Roughly the same size as Jack.

First instinct? Flag him down. Second instinct? Stay where I was and glare at what was surely a bad guy.

I managed to make it to my feet, and the man turned to me. I tugged my hood down, and we stared at each other as he passed me—

The bike’s front wheel plunged into a pothole. He flew over the handlebars, his body rocketing down the road, the bike skidding along behind him.

I ran for the crash site. The motorcycle was on its side, still running, its front wheel mangled. The rider was laid out nearby.

Kentarch and Joules flanked me, weapons raised.

I dropped down beside the biker, my flickering glyphs reflecting in his visor. My heart beat erratically, my breaths panting bursts. “Please be him, please be him, please be him.” No, my hope hadn’t yet died. Was it about to?

I reached for the visor with shaking hands. I flipped it up.

Jackson Daniel Deveaux.

My Jack was here. “A-alive.” I clutched his shoulders as my gaze greedily took in his face, those broad cheekbones, that rugged jaw, his stubborn chin. “Ah, God, are you okay?” He wore his customary bug-out bag and crossbow.

He opened his gray eyes and blinked at me, then slowly lifted his hand to my face. “Peek?n?” he said. “What the hell are you doing out here?” He yanked off his helmet.

My heart thundered. Dizziness swarmed my head. “Jack? Is it really you?” My balance shifted. With all the grace of a boulder, I toppled forward and sprawled over his chest.





18





I didn’t lose consciousness—I had to stay awake to make sure Jack didn’t disappear again—but my brain seemed to short out.

I felt him lifting me. I heard Joules directing him to our cave, introducing him to Kentarch on the way.