Without warning, the tentacle whipped out of the water directly in front of him, snaking forward to slap down on him.

Charles moved aside. He was very tired, and he moved more quickly on four feet than on two. But he was fast enough. He buried the sword, driving it through the tough skin until it was haft deep.

The Singer screamed once more, the tentacle knocked into Charles, and he lost his grip on the sword.

He landed in a crouch. With no forethought at all, he raised up a hand and shouted . . . something. It didn’t feel like he needed a word—just the cry, the sound of his voice.

And a bolt of lightning struck the sword in the center of the old blue stone at the top of the pommel. And the balls of lightning that spun off improbably in all directions knocked Charles off his feet again.

The tentacle, the entire visible upper skin crisped black and smelling like burnt fish, lay limp on the slime-covered mud.

After a while, Charles staggered to his feet. He looked at the tentacle and the twice-blackened sword. Leaving it, he headed back to where his da and Anna still fought to save Tag.

“Change,” growled Da, both of his hands buried in Tag’s bloody fur.

Charles put one hand on his da’s shoulder, releasing all the power at his disposal to Bran’s use. Anna wrapped a hand around Charles’s wrist and did the same. He couldn’t remember if she’d known how to do that, or if the hunting song showed her how.

Tag fought to live now, and that had taken a good deal of effort. Da had a grip on Tag that would, Charles was worried, bind Tag’s soul to his bones if his body gave out before he was able to change and heal.

But Tag wasn’t changing. Da gathered himself for another effort, and Anna put her free hand on Tag’s forehead.

She bent down and whispered in his ear, “We have had enough death this night, you stubborn bastard. Change.”

Charles felt her draw on the power of the hunt, on Charles, and on the Marrok. She did something tricky with her own Omega power, too. “Change.”

Tag changed. It took a very long time. Long enough for the storm-drenched skies to lighten to full morning. Long enough that the rain gentled and the thunderstorm moved off.

“I can see why the FBI thought that Anna ruled us all,” said Da, sitting in the mud. The hunting song had died down to a more subtle thing, but Charles could still feel his da’s amusement trickling through it.

“Is there a reason,” Da asked delicately, “that Anna is using the hunting song to project Queen?”

“Yes.” Anna was staring at the limp tentacle. “It’s not dead. Is it?”

Da sighed. “No.”

* * *

*

THERE WAS ONE more flashlight inside the cave entrance. Leah turned it on and concentrated on her footing as she retraced the way she and Anna had taken earlier.

Memories of Zander flooded back. A gift, she thought bitterly, from the Singer.

Zander had been four when Sherwood came. He’d been a bright-eyed, affectionate child. Her new baby had been colicky. When she lay him belly down across her legs and patted his back to make him more comfortable, Zander would pat his tiny shoulder.

She had loved her children as she had never loved anything else in her life. Of course, back then, she had not remembered how they had been conceived. She remembered now.

She still loved her children.

The flashlight fell on a trail of blood, following it to the man propped up against the side of the cave. The light fell on his face and she looked her fill.

The adult Zander could have been her own father’s double. Line breeding did that. The Singer could supply the spark of life—but required two human vessels to complete the act.

None of that was Zander’s fault.

His eyelids wiggled and then his eyes opened. His mouth moved and she read his lips. Mama.

This was what the Singer had been occupied with while they waited for him to attack them. Memories and music were his powers, not life and death, so keeping Zander alive had taken the Singer time and power.

“I almost told her that the bullets wouldn’t kill you,” Leah said, kicking the Glock out of his hand. He didn’t have the strength yet to use it—but she didn’t know what would happen when the Singer became aware of her here. Maybe he’d be preoccupied with Charles and the sword. “The Singer couldn’t afford to lose you yet. Those new children are not even born—and he cannot leave these caves. Not until he Becomes.”

Becomes something more, she thought. A god. A more powerful being. She thought of the damage that the Singer might cause once free of the caves, and found the determination she needed.

“I thought I could give you a chance.” She knelt beside him and put her hand on his face. Leaning forward, she kissed his forehead at the same time that she unsnapped the sheath he wore on his belt and took out the knife.

* * *

*

ANNA WAS WAITING for her when she came out of the cave. Like Leah, Anna wore her human shape, though she was clothed. The perceptive Omega wolf did not say anything, just walked at Leah’s shoulder. Leah raised her face to the blessed rain so that it could bathe away the evidence of the price she’d paid to kill the Singer.

Bran and Charles both stood up and left Tag to trail after her. Jonesy’s sword rose out of the blackened flesh like a cross on the top of a hill. Crosses made her think of her father, and Leah had the odd thought that she might at last make peace with that memory.

Her father had been weak. He’d believed his god had forsaken him in the wilderness—no matter that all of the choices that had led them there had been his own. It was no wonder that when faced with another god, one that required nothing more difficult than obedience, her father had not even struggled with the decision.

She jumped on top of the tentacle. The weakness in her damaged leg and her inability to use either hand made her wobble. Bran caught her elbow and steadied her. Then he let her go.

It took her a moment to realize that she was going to have to set down the knife before she could pull the sword out. It was truly stuck. Why had Charles felt it necessary to bury the damn thing? But she managed—Bran steadied her again.

Then she shoved her right hand deep into the cut the sword had made. She took a breath and then crushed her son’s heart until it quit trying to beat. She stood up and fumbled because both of her hands were slick with blood, but she managed to get the point of the sword into the cut and shoved it back in.

She jumped down—but would have fallen to her knees if Charles hadn’t held her up. He released her and she took a step, stumbling because sometime in the last few minutes her leg had gone from being painful to not working right. When Bran put his hand on her arm, she jerked it free.

“Okay,” he said, glancing up at the sky. “But we need to get back.”

“Here,” Anna said. And Leah was able to let her daughter-in-law help her, because Anna didn’t make her feel any uncomfortable or hurtful things.

They stopped when Bran quit walking. Then they all turned to look back at the lake and the cross on top of the hill.

Bran looked at Charles.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Charles said. “There’s no reason for it to work again.”

But when Bran didn’t say anything, Charles grunted. Then he raised a hand to the sky and said, in a quiet voice but one that carried power that reminded Leah of the scent of the Singer’s magic, “Now.”

Lightning struck the blade of the sword. And after that, it seemed to Leah as if nothing happened quite as it should have.

The strike should have blown the metal to pieces, she thought. Then she remembered who had built that sword.

Lightning should be instantaneous. A crack and then gone. But the blinding light lingered, emitting a buzzing sound that made the bones of her skull vibrate. She had to look away from the brilliance. Only then the thunder rolled and the ground grew so electric that it bit at Leah’s bare feet.

When the sound was gone, the forest was darker, and it felt so very quiet after the endless thunder that even the wind whistling through the trees seemed like a whisper. Leah looked toward the lake and saw the sword slowly falling over in the ashes that were all that was left of the Singer. And her son.

Leah managed to control her fall so that she simply sat where she’d been standing. But that didn’t work the way she’d expected, either. Because she kept falling until her wet cheek was pressed into the slime-covered mud, and her eyes closed.

She might have fought to stay conscious, but she thought it might be nice, just for a little bit, to quit hurting.

* * *

*

SHERWOOD POST SAT up in his bed and remembered his name.

CHAPTER

14