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Bastard.
“This will never end, my darling one,” he said, creeping tone soft as a lover’s. “Not until you face me yourself. Are you yet brave enough to answer for your trespasses, or will you run away from me again?”
A quake rippled out, then another, and his smile turned brittle as the world started turning again. Tinkling snaps sounded, like ice cracking on a frozen lake. The whistling became more of a feeling, a tightness in her body that signaled impending doom.
Brand’s lids fluttered and a kaleidoscope of hazel hues stared back at her.
“This is it. Do what you must, little moon,” he rasped, his touch gentling for the barest second as he stroked her brow, her jaw. “Please. Save yourself.”
A blink, and he was swallowed by that insidious eternity once more. Back and forth, Brand waging his own internal battle with the beast. All the while, sweetness and violence took turns. A soft brush was followed by raking claws. An embrace twisted into crushing torment. A fist flew into her ribs, then his forehead was pressed to hers.
Lunara steeled herself through the whiplash, through the adoration and abuse, never surrendering her iron hold on his head. Pummeling Brand with her power. Determined to have one last moment of him leading up to the end.
She waited until Brand was in control again. Until his brow furrowed with a silent apology, and his welling tears were a match for hers. Until he curled a lock of her hair around his finger and brought it to his bloodied lips with utter devotion. Until she knew her precious mate was the one hearing her.
“I am yours and you are mine, and I will not let you fall into the darkness.” His promise from months ago, now hers to give. “This heart is yours, remember? I love—”
His eyes went black once more and she unleashed a blood curdling cry, relinquishing all of herself to Illamiata. Deep within, the well sundered with a quaking finality. Its walls crumbled, the infinite depths freed as a tsunami of wind and light and cosmic flame.
And Lunara’s entire being cracked wide fucking open along with it.
A choir rose, furious in their singing. Their chanting squall was as much music as it was screams, demanding justice and vengeance. For wrongs to be made right. And the blaring sound came from her—a conduit for infinite others who’d been waiting eons to bare their misery and rage at the monster before them.
“Cowardice again, I see.” His whisper somehow transcended the chaos.
“Hmm.” The ancient, warbling voice that crawled up her shredded throat, the reply, was not her own. “As ever, you see nothing.”
Breathless, deafening silence descended.
“No matter. We will coalesce regardless, and you will know the full breadth of my displeasure on that most awaited of days.”
Lunara gathered the dregs of her very soul with a huff, giving in to the last of her power as a weak, triumphant smile curled her lips. “Fuck. You.”
Their cataclysmic separation shook the mountainside, Brand wrenched from her hold as they flew apart.
Her tumbling ascent was appropriate, as if the stars hiding behind the afternoon sky were pulling her home. There was no fighting it. No such thing as misting, or calling the particles to ease her way. No such thing as her. Nothing left.
It’s done.
One way or another.
Lunara closed her eyes and accepted her fate.
—Do you feel that, Maggie?—
The crawl of goosebumps over his flesh. The little hairs on his neck standing on end. The way the world screeched to a halt, his body unable to take a breath but not needing it. The knowing, deep inside, that he bore witness to something never meant for his eyes. Something more ancient than he could comprehend.
Oh, aye.
Magnus fucking felt it.
—Any second now. Be ready—
A ball of fire no bigger than his fist sat suspended between Brand and Lunara as they hovered in the air. It pulled itself from their bodies, spinning faster and faster, building up to something catastrophic. The pain of whatever was coming loomed in his ears and the base of his skull. In his heart, where it seemed to bleed as it beat.
—Steel yourself, lad. This’ll not be easy, however it goes—
No, it wouldn’t. Magnus knew that to his marrow.
