Mate Bond
Page 73

Kenzie’s eyes popped open. Sure sounded like Ryan.
Brigid was alert, peering into the warm darkness. “I hear,” she said. “Resist. Do not go to it.”
“I’m stuck!” Ryan yelled. “In lots of mud. Sucking me down. I need someone with longer arms than mine. Mom, what is wrong with you?”
Kenzie took a few steps into the trees, the darkness closing around her like a glove. She heard things out there, faint snarls, saw a flash of red eyes.
Ryan’s voice cut through the night. “Shit, what is that? I thought Dad said zombies weren’t real.”
Kenzie’s heart pounded as she quickened her pace.
“Aw, man, this would never happen to Harry Dresden.” Ryan coughed. “No, wait, this would totally happen to him.”
Kenzie ran forward. “Ryan! Keep talking. I’m on my way!”
Brigid dashed after her. “No. Kenzie!”
The Fae woman, surprisingly fast, seized her by the arm. Kenzie shook her off, and the mists closed around them both.
Kenzie almost fell into the bog that opened at her feet. Only Brigid grabbing her again kept Kenzie from plunging straight into it.
Ryan was up to his neck in mud and goo, both hands wrapped around a low-hanging branch. His eyes were round, his face frozen with fear. When he saw Kenzie, tears trickled down his cheeks, cutting through black filth.
“Hold on to me,” Kenzie said swiftly to Brigid.
Not waiting for Brigid to answer, Kenzie threw herself on her belly and inched forward into the bog. Brigid’s strong fingers gripped her ankles, the Fae woman cursing in her Celtic-sounding language.
“Let go of the branch,” Kenzie commanded Ryan as she began to sink into softer ground. “Grab my hand.”
Ryan didn’t want to release his desperate hold of the overhanging limb. He was terrified, and the distance between it and Kenzie’s hands was a stretch.
“You can make it,” Kenzie told him. “It’s like jumping up and grabbing the zip line as it goes down. Don’t think I didn’t see you do that.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Ryan said, voice breaking. “They dared me, and I’m leader’s son. I had to.”
“I know. But I saw you succeed. You jumped up and grabbed that bar and rode it down. This is the same thing.”
It wasn’t at all the same, but Kenzie didn’t know what else to say to him. If she inched any farther, she’d be diving face-first into the bog. Then Brigid would have to find a way to haul them both out before they drowned.
“Come on, son,” Kenzie said, voice shaking. “Let’s get out of here, find your dad, and then kick some anthropology professor ass.”
Ryan sucked in a breath, coughing when mud came with it. He threw himself forward, let go of the branch, and scrabbled frantically for Kenzie’s hands.
He missed one; Kenzie caught him with the other. Her arm jarred with the impact, her aching fingers wanting to jerk open.
Kenzie made herself clamp down on Ryan’s wrist. She swung her other arm around and fixed her hold on the back of his neck, his scruff if he’d been wolf. She hauled him up, the bog releasing him slowly, slowly.
The mud sucked at him greedily, not wanting to let go of a life. Kenzie didn’t think a patch of mud could be sentient—then again, around here, who knew?
With a boiling, sucking sound, the bog abruptly released Ryan. The sudden lack of resistance sent Kenzie rolling backward, Ryan in her arms.
She sat up, clinging to him and bawling like a baby. Kenzie rocked him, her son, her precious cub, who was real, filthy, and stinking like rotting vegetation.
“It’s okay.” Ryan patted Kenzie, though he was sniffling back tears himself. “I’m all right, Mom. We’re all right. What took you so long?”
Brigid was down on one knee next to them. “She thought you were an illusion. This place is full of them.”
Ryan lifted his head and stared at Brigid with wet eyes. “Hey, did you know there was a Fae next to us? I’ve never seen one before.” He wrinkled his nose. “Do they all smell this bad?”
Brigid frowned, her long braids touching Ryan as she leaned to him. “You have no room to speak, young offspring.”
“You don’t, you know,” Kenzie said to Ryan, holding him close again. “You stink something terrible.”
Ryan looked offended, and Kenzie started crying again. This was her son; he was alive and with her. Hope broke through her despair, and her heart warmed anew. They’d get through this. And home. They had to.
* * *
Bowman kept moving because he knew that if he stopped, he’d die. Having both Kenzie and his son ripped from him had made the world grow surreal, outlines flowing and blurring into unimportant shapes.
Voices around him were hollow as his Shifters continued to search for a way into the mists.
Gil, horrified: “I couldn’t hold on to him. Something yanked him from me. I’m so sorry.”
Cade: “Eric called. His trackers are en route.”
Bowman had heard his phone ring but hadn’t had the strength to answer it. Eric would know to call Bowman’s second if Bowman didn’t respond.
Jamie: “What do you want us to do with all this stuff?”
There was a pile of Turner’s crap everywhere. “Keep going through it,” Bowman heard himself say. “There might be something to tell us how to get in to save Kenzie.”
He was running out of belief. All he knew was that Turner had somehow managed to trap his mate and cub, and he might never see them again. Bowman couldn’t face that—everything in him wanted to stop and howl, unceasing, until he died.
I’m here. I love you, her voice had called in his dreams.
I love you, Kenzie, came his answer, fierce and from his gut. I love you with everything I am, everything I have.
Why the hell didn’t I tell you that before?
Because he was dumb-ass stupid, that was why. Bowman had been so fixed on the fucking mate bond, and on proving that he and Kenzie could hold Shiftertown together without it, that he had never acknowledged what she truly was to him.
Everything.
“I think I know why Ryan so easily went in.” Cristian stood next to Bowman, his voice way too calm. “He picked up the sword and understood its connection to the mists. When he dropped the sword inside, it called to him, compelling Ryan to it.” He fixed Bowman with a steady gaze from his wolf-gold eyes. “Ryan is very special. It could be that he will be picked at the next Choosing.”