Chapter 14

Impossible. He’d looked everywhere for his sire, and now the monstrous bear returned, with the town and mesa at risk and Rita in the way?

Thor wanted to push her farther back, but the creek was rising fast. Still just above knee deep, but he couldn’t carry her, not while standing against the murderous creature between them and the Domingo truck. And even if he sent her to the opposite bank, any grizzly could cross that water in a few leaps, and if she slipped…

The current might be just strong enough to tumble her, and the edge of the cliff was far too close.

The glow of the fire was higher now too, not high enough breach the spires, but the red light was a warning. In the baleful gloam, his father paced toward the water.

“Stay here.” Thor flattened one hand behind him—as if he could hold her in place—while he stepped down into the creek. The cold water wicked up his jeans but couldn’t even touch the heat of his anger.

No beast, no man, would threaten everything he loved.

“Thor,” she breathed, the sound of his name cutting out when the grizzly rose onto its hind legs, easily eleven feet tall, its jaws parting as it exhaled a menacing huff.

His throat tightened, remembering those teeth around his neck, choking him into submission, killing his bear, ending his chance to be king.

Leaving him free to be with the beautiful witch behind him.

He stopped, the creek tugging hard at his legs as if urging him back to Rita. “Leave,” he told the beast as he eased the pickax off his belt loop. “There’s nothing left for you here.”

A deep rumbling rattled his bones, but he refused to be intimidated by… Wait, that wasn’t his sire’s growl. It came from much lower.

“Thor,” Rita repeated more urgently. “The spell. The water is coming. You have to widen the crack in the rim.”

He glared at the bear. “I can’t leave you—”

Her hand settled lightly on his shoulder as she stepped up behind him, elevated by the rock. “Save us.”

He shuddered under the grip of her fingers. “I will…” And then he realized she was talking to his father.

“You made a terrible choice,” she said to the beast, her voice carrying over the distant thunder that wasn’t dying away. “A wrong one. And you ruined your clan and your heir. Do the right thing now. And it’s a simple thing. Dig. As if everything depends on it.” She nudged at Thor’s shoulder. “Go. Hurry. Before the wave gets here.”

He took a slow, sidling step toward the edge of the cliff. The pulsing glow of the fire was matched by gusts of heat, but his legs—and every vertebrae up his spine—were so cold.

To his shock, the grizzly matched his steps along the shore, away from Rita. He strode faster, kicking up a bow wave in front of him, and the bear followed.

Jogging through the water, he kept one eye on the lurking bear and the other on the edge of the cliff. The ragged rim of basalt spires ranged like broken teeth against the backlight of the encroaching fire—the mouth of a vicious beast with hell in its throat.

He found the notch he’d already made, now obviously too trivial. Imagining the spout of the flask when Rita had poured the charmed rose water, he swung the pickax hard, knocking away a chunk of basalt. The creek poured eagerly through the widened path, but the hole let a crimson gleam shine back into the flow.

Which meant the flames were leaping ever higher.

On the other side of the stream, the grizzly watched him a moment before coming closer. Close enough for him to smell the heavy musk of its fur even over the competing scents of water and burning desert. Its amber stare met his as it reached forward with huge, curving claws. Claws that had been poised to gut him—

The bear ripped away a chunk of rock. Bigger around than Thor’s chest, the hexagon column tumbled away into the red-tinted darkness. Together, they smashed at the stone until the water was gushing over the cliff.

The creek was above his knees now, pushing hard, and since he wasn’t quite sure where the edge was anymore, he waded toward his father. Although he kept the pickax balanced in his hands. “Thank you, but if you think—”

A deep roar interrupted him.

“Thor!” Rita’s voice was a tiny cry in the maelstrom.

As he whirled to face her, she gestured wildly upstream. Where a crescent of gleaming silver swung toward them like a scimitar.

The charmed water was answering her call with a vengeance.

While he’d been digging with his sire, she’d slid down from the inundated stepping stone where she’d tied the spell bag and had crossed the creek. But now he was on the wrong side of the swelling stream from her. He strode toward her, but the bear growled, even its great voice barely loud enough to rise above the rushing groan of water over gravel and slickrock, reverberating through the crystalline basalt.

The beast jolted toward him, clearly intending to cut him off from a fool’s run across the churning foam. But he couldn’t let her wait out the flood in the desert darkness, not by herself.

She waved at him again—gesturing for him to stay, like a bad dog—both hands off her crutches as if she could push him back physically. Of course she’d be fine. The water would go down and he could cross over to her. She retreated from the restless surge of the rising waterline, leaning down just long enough to grab the shovel he’d left on the bank in favor of the pickax.

Reluctantly, he stepped back too, watching her. The crest of the wave was almost upon them. Though he and his father had chipped an impressive chunk out of the basalt rim, the creek bed was still relatively shallow; before the wave could funnel down the cliff face toward the fire it would wash over the slickrock, and they needed to be out of the way.

The silver scimitar swung toward them.

He’d seen flashfloods before, every spring, but this one wasn’t anything like that. Instead of brown muck thick with debris, this wave was pure water, the bow touched with glimmering magic. Pride flashed in him, brighter than the charm—his Rita had conjured this.

Like she’d charmed a feeling out of him he’d never believed he’d find.

Across the stream, he met her gaze. She’d retreated higher, taking a perch on an outcropping of stone that had entrapped enough dirt below it to sprout an oak. Years ago, the tree had been struck by lightning, splitting the trunk in two. Half had survived and rose up out of the shattered half like a creature emerging from its shed skin. In the pale gleam of the onrushing water to one side and red glow of the rising fire on the other, with the branches—living and dead—spread wide to either side, Margarita Wick was an elemental princess who had bewitched his heart.

The wave swept past them.

So much water, though not as endless as the need for her washing through his veins with every beat of his heart. The obsidian flow, streaked with glimmers of silver, flooded across slickrock, gushing toward the spires.

By comparison, the notch in the rim was not enough. The flood began to back up, washing toward him and his father, forcing them back. It swept around Rita’s viewpoint.

Though she was high and dry, the oak rooted below her had its feet in the flood. The rushing current snatched at the trailing branches, tugging them toward the edge of the cliff. The living wood groaned as leaves were torn loose and swirled away.

A crack, louder than a peal of thunder, ricocheted across the mesa. The dead half of the oak swiveled into the pull of the water, the skeletal branches grasping at the scrub and grasses on the bank as if trying to hold itself in place. The old wood peeled away in chunks of bark, and the fracturing of smaller branches crackled like static.

Over the cacophony, Rita’s cry was a tiny thing.

“Hold on!” he shouted back, bounding out knee deep into the flow. His father splashed behind him.

She had a grip on one of the outstretched greenwood branches, but she was leaning precariously over the racing current. To look toward the cliff’s edge. She waved frantically, as if she could actually push the floating oak away. He saw immediately how the flotsam would plug the spout they’d made, choking off the force of water they needed to fountain over the rim.

Though her gesture was clear to him, it had no magical effect on the tree. And there was no time for a new spell.

Clambering down from her perch, she raced toward the problem, abandoning one crutch and using his shovel instead.

Because of course she did.

His heart slammed in his chest, like a wild thing desperate to go after her. And he didn’t hesitate to follow.

Tightening his hold on the pickax, he raced toward the cliff’s edge. The dead oak had fetched up against the basalt outcroppings, the half-trunk grinding over the slickrock on his side of the stream. The blocked wave was backing up deeper, and he quickly found himself up to his knees. He stumbled over a submerged rock and almost went down, barely catching himself against the ruthless tug of the current.

If Rita took a bad step—

“Get back,” he hollered, though he knew he was wasting his breath.

Sure enough, she reached the crown of branches hung up on her bank and started whacking at the dead wood. Weathered gray twigs scattered around her—the sharp points of the splinters winking scarlet from the ominously brighter glow reaching above the spires.

If they didn’t clear the block and free the flood, the wildfire would jump the rim and rage unhindered across the mesa.

His father lumbered past him, swift and sure in his four-footed shape. One swipe of griz claws took a huge chunk out of the old wood, and the beast swung its head to stare over its humped shoulder at Thor.

With a muttered curse, he splashed forward to join his sire.

Together, they chopped at the grounded trunk with claws and pickax. The swirling waters filled with floating wood chips, and the relentless draw of the current grabbed at their legs, weaker with every passing second as the water spread out ineffectually. The charmed wave was waning. In another minute, there wouldn’t be enough force to flood the fire…

With a deafening roar, the grizzly reared up. Straightening its forelegs, it brought both sets of killer claws down on the trunk where they’d been hacking. A thousand pounds of angry king bear smashed the oak and ripped loose its mooring.

Thor shoved hard, keeping the chewed-up trunk from catching on the rocks. The logjam began to swing out of the way. All the water in the bottlenecked pool rushed toward the wider opening.

But the crown of branches clung stubbornly to the far shore. At some point, Rita had broken the shovel—the handle and shattered shaft were tossed up on the rocks, the scoop presumably somewhere down in the water—and she was wielding her remaining crutch like a scythe, clearing every little anchor. The battered metal caught glints of silver and crimson with every blow.

Not a witch or a princess—a warrior queen with her unlikely sword, fighting for her chosen land.

Thor pounded toward her, the suddenly renewed rush of water trying to push him downstream.

Before he reached her, she stomped through a clinging branch—

And the oak broke free.

She glanced up when he called out, a victorious smile bright on her lips—

Just as the sweep of a far branch caught her behind the knees.

He choked on the last gasp of her name as she vanished under the water. She must’ve been standing on a submerged rock, the flow invisibly deep beneath her.

The thigh-deep wave slowed him, and she popped up before he could scream again. She paddled at the surface—she was a strong swimmer, he knew—but the rotating oak clawed out at her, catching at her clothes and hair, dragging her under again.

Every nerve in him screaming even as he saved his breath, he ripped through the spikes of branches that tore through his shirt and pierced his biceps and shoulders.

And found nothing of her, no silky locks, no soft curves. Just the grit of rock and the icy-cold water. His skin burned from oak talons, his muscles burned from chopping, his heart burned at the fear of losing her.

He dove toward the spires, letting the flood speed him. The charmed wave crashed over the notch, and from below, a booming, demonic hiss erupted as the water hit the flames. Ash and steam exploded over the rim, spreading a deep fog across the rapidly emptying pool.

The water bleeding over the spires, taking Rita with it…

He would cork the notch with his body—let the damned fire burn everything—to catch her. But as he waded-swam toward the edge of the cliff, a flash of glistening darkness in the white fog caught his eye. Rita thrashed through the flood, her auburn hair and green eyes as black as his from the water and pupil-dilating fear. She grabbed at the ragged rock, but her fingers slipped off the wet stone as the tide sucked her away.

She screamed his name, her gaze meeting his as the last pulse of the charmed wave bore her over the jagged spires into the dying fire below.