*Maddy*
Isla told me to stay here. I should, I definitely should. Do I really want to see Isaac get killed, or allow himself to get killed because he thinks it’ll save his people?
We never had a chance to figure this out together. One moment we were married, the next he was gone, and I had to untangle the matted threads of this mess myself.
Hell, Ella knew a whole lot and never said a thing.
I’m kind of mad at her. I don’t understand why she’d hide this from me. Me! The person who married her glowing, winged beast of a brother. Did she think he didn’t tell me about what he could do, what he was?
I huff a breath as I crouch in the grass. I can’t see anything from down here, but I can hear the sounds of battle not far from where Isla told me to stay put. I bend a piece of grass, weaving it through my fingers as I debate my next move. Stay, and hide like a coward, keeping my fingers crossed that my mate, my husband, comes out of this alive, or go and see to that myself?
I’m a part of this somehow, aren’t I? If that mystical book had stayed put in the library, maybe I would’ve figured it all out by now and know what to do.
I don’t have time to ponder my options. Every second that passes is a second less that I have with Isaac.
I haven’t told him I love him. He has no idea I’m pregnant. We didn’t have enough time together, and if I don’t act, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
I stand on wobble, half frozen legs and walk through grass that stands higher than my head until I break free and step into a clearing littered with bodies…so many bodies. Bodies of wolves, of men, pieces of them…
Nausea coils through my body like a dark snake, suffocating me, making me want to turn, to run and close my eyes.
But then I see him, his body illuminating the clearing like a beacon home. He’s not in his beast form, but something close, something between the Isaac I know intimately and the mythical creature he was born to play as a debt owed to the Goddess who saved his life, and that of his mother.
In his human form, he wields a sword that is likely as long as I am tall. His skin, normally a deep, golden tan from the sun, shines like a polished opal, dusted with the starlight that is missing overhead. Every move he makes is graceful and skilled. Everything his sword touches turnes to ash.
I fall to my knees, unable to catch my breath as he cuts through enemy after enemy. The collared beasts are not like regular wolves, and Isaac’s men–his few remaining warriors–are at an obvious disadvantage in their wolf forms. The enemy wolves move like the wind, appearing and reappearing, and I watch as arrows fly, swords slice, and the occasional jaw rips into flesh.
It’s utter chaos.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
I never want to again.
I turn from Isaac and see a dark wolf hurdling forward toward Isla’s smaller wolf form. An enemy has her pinned to the ground by the neck. I know the wolf charging toward her is Maddox. I feel it in my bones even before he tears the wolf from her and shreds it into pieces so fine I doubt we’d be able to find anything left behind.
There’s dozens of royal army warriors–both in human and wolf form–battling. Survivors, I realize. Those able to shift with their injuries have done so, but many fight with swords and knives despite their bandages and slings.
Cassian’s missing arm hasn’t slowed him down a bit. His red wolf darts in my peripheral on three strong, able legs, while he tears into three enemies at once, their collars bouncing into the grass before they can disappear again.
I fold my hands in my lap as I kneel at the edge of the clearing and watch, unable to form a rational thought, unable to breathe or comprehend what I’m seeing, what I’m feeling, what I’m supposed to do.
The clearing stills, a hush drifting over the men and women fighting for their lives and the lives of others, and the enemies that are still alive begin to retreat, yelping and whimpering as something heavy and dark slithers into the clearing.
It’s nothing tangible. I can’t see it. But I can feel it. Magic.
“KANE!” Isaac roars, his glow ebbing out like a dying ember. “WHERE IS MY WIFE!”
I open my mouth to scream to him that I am here, but a choked sob is all I can muster. Isaac looks… he looks like something out of a nightmare, like everything good has been stripped from him until he is laid bare.
I feel eyes on me, and blink, finding several people and wolves looking in my direction, stunned.
“Maddy?” Isaac snaps, his voice sharper than the sword he just dropped on the ground the moment his eyes met mine. He doesn’t move.
“Yes?” I reply curtly, unsure what else to say.
The look of surprise on his face makes my heart quicken and my blood heat. He starts running to me, that look of stone-cold death evaporating.
“My legs are numb,” I force out, trying to stand. “I’ve been kneeling for Goddess knows how long, I’m freezing–” Tears stream down my face as he launches himself at him, tackling me to the ground.
“Isaac!” Isla snaps, her voice cutting through the muffled chatter rising all around us. “Be careful with her, please–” She comes into view, her naked body shielded by Maddox’s coat, which hits her knees. Maddox is at her side in his wolf form, and Cassian hobbles into view behind them.
I ignore them all and take my mate's face between my hands and kiss him like his touch gives me life.
“Why are you here?”
“I came for you,” I whisper, brushing a single tear from his cheek. He looks down at me, his eyes taking in every curve and angle of my face, but then he drops his head to my neck.
“You smell different.”
“I’m–”
A muffled cry of agony splits the air around us, and Isaac pulls away, leaping to his feet as a group enters the clearing, dragging several men with gilded collars and dark robes with them.
Oh, Goddess. “Isaac, wait!” I call out, but he’s already moving swifter than the wind, drawing up his sword to meet Kane in battle, finally.
Kane leads the group, his face void of emotion. He looks around the clearing before settling his gaze on Isaac, who is now flanked by his warriors.
Isla crouches beside me, trying to see if I’m all right, but I push her away and get to my feet.
“This ends now.” Isaac comes to a stop only a few feet away from Kane, who just looks at him with a blank expression. “My kingdom will not fall, not to you, or anyone else.”
Why isn’t Kane–Ryatt–this man barely older than Isaac himself, explaining the truth? That they are on the same side?
Was Mystica wrong? Is there something he wants?
“Where is she?” he asks Isaac, his voice level and cool. “I need to see her, face to face, before this goes any further.”
“Who?” Isaac grinds out.
“Ella, of course.”
An audible intake of air stretches the clearing as people gasp. Isla goes rigid beside me, Maddox’s fur standing on end as he steps in front of us to guard us, and to put distance between us and the two kings.
Well, Isaac is a king. I’m still not sure what Kane is.
“My sister,” Isaac growls, his grip on his sword tightening. “No.”
“She was here. I could feel her here, near the rift. You haven’t seen her?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ask your mate, Alpha King.” Kane’s mouth lifts in a sneer that sends ripples of anxiety down my spine.
Isaac slowly turns his head in my direction before snapping it back to Kane, advancing on him a step, then another. “Don’t even look in her direction,” he snaps. “Call off your armies and leave this place.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Then we finish this, now.”
“Claws or swords?” Kane taunts. Isaac’s eyes glow with the primal urge to kill, and I know in an instance it’s all over.
“Stop!” I cry out, but neither are listening to me. Isaac begins to glow again, snakes of pearlescent magic rippling over the ground around him. He’s going to shift. He’s going to turn into that beast. He’s going to throw himself into death without realizing none of this has to happen, that it shouldn’t have happened to begin with. “KANE!” I scream, running forward, but Maddox blocks me from advancing any further. “STOP!”
“GET HER OUT OF HERE, NOW!” Isaac bellows, and then I feel Isla’s trembling hands on me, pulling me back.
I shake out of her grip, choking on a sob as I dart past Maddox, slipping and falling hard on my knees, but I’m up again in an instant. Something dark mingles with Isaac’s light, twin forces forged from the same ancient magic that created our world. Isaac and Ryatt. Two kings, two thrones, two kingdoms so wholly unlike.
Both fighting to protect their people.
But Kane isn’t the enemy. Isaac doesn’t know. How could he know?
“Isaac!” I cry as the clearing erupts into chaos once more, Kane’s men joining the fight. I duck as two wolves coast over my head and land in a heap of snarling fur behind me, teeth clacking and tearing. “Stop!” I scream, running to him, ignoring the fray and the danger I’m putting myself in. I won’t let him die. I can’t live without him. He is my mate, the father of my child, the man that I love.
“It’s Ella!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “She is the one. She is the second beast. She is the one who will save the kingdom, Isaac!” He can’t hear me over the sound of battle. I can’t see him or Kane now, not through the glow and shadows wrapping around them, their bodies moving so swiftly I can’t tell who is who. Even Isla’s light can't separate them.
And me? I’m nothing. I am just a girl, powerless, and desperate, spurred into action by love.
“Isaac!” I beg, falling to my knees again as the clearing whispers with death and violence. “I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant, and I can’t do this without you. Please, listen to me!”
Someone comes up beside me, gently taking my elbow and helping me to my feet. A very tall, very blond man with striking green eyes looks down at me and wordlessly leads me away, and I’m too stunned to react as he ignores Isla’s screaming protests and shoves me in her direction.
My world is crashing down at my feet.
And then I see her.
She’s standing there at the edge of the clearing, her face shadowed and eyes gleaming in the darkness. She moves a hand, and the air is practically sucked from the area, a suffocating silence taking the place of the final battle of the war. Everything stops, time slowing to a crawl.
Ella steps forward, past her parents, past me, and walks with her held high toward Isaac and Kane, stepping through that magic barrier, and standing between them.
I watch, unable to find my breath, as she lays a hand on Isaac’s chest. She pushes him an inch, then another, then turns to Kane, and moves her hand ever so slightly, and times spins out of control for several seconds.
I fall into Isla’s arms, and she falls to the ground, catching us both. All around us, people and wolves are swaying, like we’ve been blanketed in magic and had it abruptly lifted.
And it was Ella who did it, summoned it, just like Luna Queen Cressenda had done when she came to the castle decades ago to warn the family that this would happen.
I watch through heavy, hooded eyes as Ella speaks to Kane. He reaches for her, but she shakes her head once, and he drops his hand.
“I’m not ready,” she says softly, or maybe I’m imagining it. “Call off his army.”
“I cannot.”
“If I give myself to you, will you do it?”
Isaac staggers backward, and only then do I see the dagger in his side. I groan in agony, pitching forward and rushing to him, Isla hot on my heels.
“I’ll try,” Kane says, and his voice is a whisper, like I’m hearing it in a dream. But my mind is incapable of processing anything past my mate on the ground, blood seeping into the dry grass and his eyes toward the starless sky, unseeing.
“Oh, Goddess, no,” I whimper, my hands trembling as I lay them on his chest.
Isla is sobbing, turning his head from side to side as she tries to wake him up, her tears falling onto his face, his lips.
“No, Isaac,” I say, shaking my head. “No, this isn’t happening, you’re not doing this.”
“Go now,” Ella says somewhere behind us. “Do not return.”
“You know what you are now, don’t you?” Kane asks her.
“Leave me.”
“I didn’t want this for you,” Kane replies.
“Isaac?” I say, louder, my voice drowning out the mates behind me. I take Isaac’s hand and press it to my belly, pressing hard. “This is your baby. This baby is ours, and I can’t–I can’t do this without you, please! Oh, Goddess, please!”
I feel his fingers curl slightly, like he’s trying to pull me forward, and then he stills, his mouth parting just a touch.
And above the mountains, a gleam spreads through the sky. Muted stars glimmer back to life, but faint. The first inklings of moonlight drift over Isaac’s face as he takes a shuddering breath, and then goes limp, just as Ella falls to the ground beside him.