Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
“Attack him!” Ditch ordered.
He tensed in readiness—
But the Riders stepped aside. Waved him on. Let him pass.
Understanding rang through her like a death knell. A coup. Conniving Rosewyn hadn’t been able to dethrone Ditch herself, so she’d schemed for a Lykae to do the dirty work.
Rosewyn had fed her to a wolf.
“You treacherous little worms!” she screamed. Enrage not a demon. “I swear on every hell that ever spat me out I’ll peel your minds apart! I’ll save you for last, Banehand!”
Thane’s beast loosed a triumphant howl and plunged deeper into the Witchwood. Branches whipped past, roots tearing under his feet.
“Where are you taking me, you mindless brute?” she snapped, even as dread sank its claws into her gut.
He didn’t slow. Couldn’t acknowledge her.
This creature had a destination. A purpose. A monster driven by Instinct.
She feared she knew exactly what it intended.
“If you force me from the Skein, I will hate you across worlds. You don’t understand. I must be here. I must rule and stop the All-Battle! If I leave, the Skein burns.”
The last chance of the immortals neared, and no one knew this but her!
“Thane, stop! Stop!” Her horns gouged his shoulder again. Her tail and claws dug for purchase.
He ran harder, the world hazy from his speed. They cleared the tree line. The ground dropped away and rose again in jagged shelves.
She slammed her fist against his implacable chest. “Damn you, wolf, listen to me.” Her voice cracked, its raw tone foreign to her ears. “I have never begged for anything in my life, but I’m begging now. Please. Fight for control. Sway your beast. I will do anything you want. I will surrender as your mate. Just don’t force me from here. All will die without me.”
Her words vanished in the wind, carried away with his heaving breaths and low snarls.
The beast tearing her from everything did not care—not about her destiny or wants, only his own. His strides lengthened even more, brutal and relentless, hammering forward.
Toward Mount Nothrior.
Toward the portal.
Toward a world that was not theirs.
***
Meera
Alone. Stunned.
Lowell just left me. She watched as he sped away, slowly lost to the mist.
Her staggered mind kept picturing the excitement she’d seen in his glowing blue eyes. Kept picturing how his beast had begun to surface and how she—idiot that she was—had believed it’d arisen for her.
Bile rose. This moment of discovery had been fated since he was born, and he’d been taking a witch’s virginity and making her orgasm when it’d happened.
Fate had a diabolical sense of humor.
Meera would feel the scorch of her release forever, because with one interrupted connection, Lowell had ruined her for other males. Even as grief wrapped around her like a shroud, her body still hummed for him. Always would.
She’d thought he loved her. Thought they were making love. She’d believed. Instead of making love, they’d fucked, and it’d been so lackluster in his mind, he hadn’t even finished.
The male she loved had recoiled from her like poison.
Her heart shattered into pieces so brittle she could never repair them.
She folded to her knees, hands trembling against her face as sobs shook her ribs. A wail bubbled up from her throat and died on the cold air.
Hope died with it.
In its place, something dark took shape, pain souring into a venomous bloom that wanted to consume every flicker of light.
But not her palms. Their glow reached even past her squeezed tight eyelids. She blinked them open to find her hands boiling with brightness, her power manifesting as never seen. She felt it spilling out into the Skein, infecting the night even more than before, stoking the fury of others.
War would follow.
Good.
Her despair had twisted into hatred, and in that hatred, she found clarity. Earlier she’d wondered how she could live without Lowell. She’d wondered what could buoy her. Now she knew.
These beautiful infuriations.
Her mother had warned that either Meera would control her power, or it would control her.
Correct.
She’d taught Meera to fear wrath without reason. No more. Because Meera had nothing left to lose.
Let the Skein tear itself apart. Let old resentments ignite. Let the land burn clean of broken dreams.
She rose as if emerging from a chrysalis with a vow upon her lips: “I promise myself to the coming war against the Lykae.” She would train. She would unravel wolves from the inside out. She would confess everything to the high priestess—about Lowell, Rosewyn, her own mistakes—and beg for Ditch’s mercy. Then she would earn the right to wield her wrath on those that deserved it.
And her compact with Hecate—I will never bear my own babes…if I can have the male I love—would be honored. He’d only been in Meera’s grasp for a brief moment, but she had indeed had him.
The covenant had been bound; she would bear no children.
Instead she would guide and tend to her infuriations, becoming Meera the Wrath Mother.