AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d have to be quick. It would have been easier if I’d just lured him to the barn. But Anson slept like the dead. Sated. Trusting me. I hated myself a little for that too.
I approached his sleeping form, careful not to let my wolf out even a little. Praying he wouldn’t sense what I was about to do. At least not until I’d already started and there was no way he could catch me.
I knelt beside him, holding the Dragonsteel collar in one hand, a length of chain with the other. A cage would have been safer, but this was all I had at hand.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. And I was. I went to him, kissing my way up his chest. Licking the column of his throat. Anson purred beneath me, his luscious mouth beginning to curve in a sultry smile. Heat speared through me as I remembered what he’d done to me last night with those lips. And the lie I’d told him with mine.
I had no choice. They would all die if I didn’t take this chance. I would not let that happen, even if I had to sell my soul to prevent it.
Anson started to rise, his cock swelling again as he dreamt of me. Oh, it would have been so much easier to just give in to all of it. Right then. Right there.
“I love you,” he whispered, and it almost undid me.
Almost.
I struck.
I wound the end of the chain to the base of the thickest oak I could find. Then, before Anson came fully awake, I snapped the collar around his neck.
He growled. His fangs and claws came out, but that was all he could manage before I sank my teeth into his chest.
“Tempest!” he shouted. “What have you done?”
With his blood still in my mouth, I shifted. Before Anson could so much as reach for me, I was too far gone.
Instinct fueled me. I tasted foreign magic. Fae magic. I’d bitten Anson at the exact moment he changed from Anson into X.
This could be for nothing. A theory. A risk. And yet, I knew in my bones this was the place I would find them.
I reached the highest point in Wild Lake. The ridge, just before our lands blended into those belonging to the bear clans. Then, I let out a primal howl, opening the gates to hell.
“I’m here!” I shouted, shifting back. Naked. Dripping with Anson’s blood, I called to them.
“You want me. You’ve always wanted me. So come and get me!”
The sky turned gray. There hadn’t been the slightest hint of rain for days. But now, lightning arced across, dancing at my feet. A whiff of ozone. New magic charged the ground. A hidden door opened.
A portal. A window. Hell was on the other side.
“It took you long enough,” a voice said. Not male or female. Not old nor young. It changed shape. Small first. Just a tiny figure. Then it grew and blocked out what was left of the sun.
The world became purple and gray. I felt my feet lift off the ground. I was flying. Falling. My wolf stirred. I knew in my soul that if I shifted now, they would kill me.
Then, she stepped out of the abyss. For an instant, I thought it was Lissa. Then, with new horror, I understood.
“Tempest,” the fae whispered. So strong. So old. A face formed. Then a body after it. White hair with purple highlights. Gold eyes. A human shape, but the skin had iridescent scales.
All those years. All those nightmares as X haunted me. When I thought he was dead, when I thought his soul had fused with mine, it had. But the glue binding it came from this being. She had been there all along.
Not Lissa. But like her. Her blood. Her…mother. Oh, God. Lissa had sensed it. It’s how she found Anson in the first place. All at once, I felt Lissa’s need. What Anson had represented to her. A link.
I’d been wrong. Foolish. I stood toe to toe with the woman whose daughter I had killed.
“It was you,” I said. But the words came out of her mouth. My voice. My thoughts reflected back to me. My mind turned inside out.
“You,” I said. Time had no meaning. But everything became clear. It was me. I had done this. I thought I had solved a riddle, but I’d only closed a loop.
“Lissa tried to kill me,” I said. “I was only protecting the people I love. I was only trying to protect my own life.”
