*Ella*
Ryatt’s eyes are so full of heat my toes curl in my boots as I look up at him, trying to maintain the scowl on my face. He leans in close, whispering in my ear, “Did I not just come inside of you only a few hours ago?”
A shiver runs down my spine and blooms across my belly. I fight the urge to close my eyes as his breath dusts over my skin, his lips brushing against my ear.
“I plan to do that again tonight, Princess.” His hand slides down my belly. “You’re not drinking a single drop of wine from now on.”
“What makes you think I’m not on a contraceptive tonic?” I grind out, and it takes all of my energy to do so. I’m melting into a puddle at his touch and the raw, heated tone of his voice. I’m also exceedingly thankful for the cloak of unnatural darkness around us. Hopefully no one can see, or hear, what he’s saying and doing to me right now, especially as his hand slides lower and into the folds of my cloak.
“You’re not,” he says with finality. “I would have smelled it on you.” His lips brush over my neck as his hand slides over the silken dress I’m wearing beneath the cloak.
I’d been right about him being a possessive, protective, insatiable time bomb. He bunches up my dress and slides his hand between my thighs as he presses me against a tree. He lets his breath out in a groan when he feels how wet I am for him, and how I’m not wearing underwear.
“Where are your panties?” he teases, sliding two fingers inside of me. I rise up on my toes and bite down my lip to stop from crying out. Over his shoulder, I can see his men walking toward the lake, to where fires have been lit along the shore. We’re alone. He could fuck me against this tree and no one would see. “I want to bury myself inside of you, Ella. I want to feel you come–”
My eyes roll back as he pumps his fingers, his thumb pressing against my clit. I clutch his waist as I teeter on the edge of losing control entirely, but I choke out, “Ryatt, we can’t, someone will see–”
“I don’t care–”
“You will care,” I rasp, then shove him away the second I hear gravel crunching somewhere nearby. The folds of my cloak cover my body again and my dress falls back down to my ankles. I’m panting, my cheeks burning with heated desire as I hold his gaze.
That cloudy, hungry look in his eyes snaps as he watches a group of people walk out of the unearthly moonless darkness.
His hand flies to his knife belt.
“Stop it right now!” I hiss, watching the group pass out of the corner of my eye. It’s women, and children, and a few young men–no older than teenagers.
Ryatt’s nostrils flare as he eyes lock on the group like they’re a threat to my life.
“Ryatt!” I snap, shoving him again. “What’s wrong with you?”
I don’t even need to ask. I already know the answer. His possessiveness has everything to do with the fact he just bedded his mate for the first time, not because of love, or because he cares for me. He claimed me. That wolf inside of him doesn’t want anyone else even looking in my direction. It wants me, and it wants me to be bred. It’s just biology. That’s all.
And now Ryatt’s brooding. Now he’s a volatile force of nature, more than he was before.
I swat him in the chest, and he jerks back to reality. “What?” he says, teeth bared.
“Just leave. Go back to your men.” I swish the folds of my cloak around my legs and shove past him toward the trail.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to go find Amanda, and you’re going to leave me the hell alone!”
Well, this is going great already. I can’t help but feel a sting of disappointment as I hurry down the darkened trail, no moonlight to guide my way. He doesn’t want me drinking because, in his fevered, sex-fueled mind he’s trying to get me pregnant. It has nothing to do with wanting a child with me, rather that he wants to own me, to use me.
I’m his mate, after all. I’m his, whether I like it or not.
And I do like it, which is a hard pill to swallow. Our physical connection is something I hadn’t realized existed. I figured we’d eventually grow to at least respect one another, maybe have a child or two together to carry on his line… but falling for him? Him falling for me?
It would break my heart to fall for him knowing he might not be able to return that affection and continuously keep me locked up at arm's length.
I shake the thought from my mind as I near the lake, the fires the only source of light as the shadow of the earth sucks the light from the moon above. All I know for sure is that Amanda and Granger are being led to a cave nearby, but it’s hard to see the mountains that line either side of the lake in the pitch black.
Ryatt doesn’t follow as I reach the shore–the lake nearly black and smooth as glass. The fires along the shore reflect on the water in swirls of amber and crimson. I find myself locked in place for several minutes staring into the reflection of the flames, like they’re calling to me.
I look up at the moon, which has nearly succumbed to the eclipse. A hush falls over the lake as the last ray of moonlight disappears, and the moon glows a deep, rich crimson.
Even the fires have gone silent.
A strange peace falls over my shoulders, my body snagging with sudden relief. It’s like I’ve been weighed down by my powers for ages, and as the Goddess sleeps–according to legend–I find my reprieve from powers of my own.
Why did I walk down here? I can’t remember what I’d been doing. My mind is… empty, peaceful, and still.
“The fox agreed to this,” says a soft voice beside me, her whispered words drifting through the still air. “So did the wolf. He didn’t want her to go alone, or with anyone else.”
I slowly turn to the voice–a voice like music–and stare into the shadow of a woman wearing a brilliant white cloak. Her hood covers most of her face until she turns slightly, the reflection of the fire igniting an incredibly intricate mask made of pure crystal. Her eyes are nearly the color of the crystal–white, and glassy.
If I were capable of feeling anything, I would have reared back.
The woman tilts her head and peers at me. Her mask has no hole for a month, or nose. Only her eyes can be seen, and they hold my gaze. “You are so loved. Even before your mother knew of your existence, sister. You were loved like no one has been loved before.”
A milky white hand with long, skinny fingers reaches toward me, parting my cloak. She touches my chest, but I barely feel it.
“You’ve left your necklace behind. Why?”
She pulls her hand away, and I reach up on impulse to clutch the necklace that no longer hangs against my neck. The necklace Mystica left for me upon her death, before I’d even been born. I lick dry lips and say, “I left it in Maatua. I felt like it belonged there, in my old kingdom. I don’t know why, but I knew I couldn’t bring it with me.”
“You left it for someone to keep them safe,” she says, nodding to herself as she turns toward the water. “Someone not yet born.”
A shiver of understanding licks up my spine. “My nephew. I’ll never know him.” Tears prick my eyes.
“You must trust in fate, sister. Fate drives all. It sees all. It hears all. Like this lake, for example.” She stretches arm toward the water, specks of light drifting from her fingertips. They land in the water, floating on the surface before sinking down, down, down like the lake is depthless. “This place is the most sacred in all of our lands. This was the home of the High Luna of Eastonia.” She turns to me again, her mask a light in the pure darkness around us.
“Who was she?”
“She was the second of the beasts who stood by the Goddess’s side. She followed the bond here, to her mate, and became queen. She built a dream for her followers that shattered long after her death. She wore many masks, like you. She used her power to keep the gods trapped here in check. When she died, her cities and her secrets were buried with her, sealed off and kept hidden. Fate repeats itself, sister.” She looks up, watching the eclipse. All around us, the silence breaks to the sound of drums. Voices lifted in an ancient song that sings to my soul blur my senses.
“What am I supposed to do?” I ask, praying she understands the depth of my question. Why am I here? What have I been destined to do? Why am I needed to defeat Ryatt’s father?
A few people nearby have taken several steps into the water.
“It’s begun,” the woman says in a breath. “Now the veil is the thinnest it’ll ever be, and the water is the strongest conduit between our realm, and the realm of the dead, and all the lands of the living between it. Go, sister, and find the answers you seek in its depths.”
My heart is in my throat as I take the first steps into the water. It’s warm–startlingly so, just like the beaches on Maatua. My cloak falls from my shoulders in a phantom wind as I’m pulled home, like this very lake touches the shores of Maatua on the other side.
I feel a slight tug on the mate bond as I dive in head first and disappear below the water’s surface.
Down, down, down. I’ve always been a strong swimmer. No current, no matter how violent, could overpower me. Down, down, down, further and further, until I’m suspended and weightless. Then I wait, and I listen.
Muffled beating of drums. Fading voices lifted in song. I feel like someone’s hand is sliding into mine, but I’m alone. I feel the warmth of a fire, and the press of cave walls covered in crystal.
Granger is speaking to Amanda, telling her it’s all right. She squeezes his hand and says she’s sorry they have to do this.
He says he’s not sorry and places a hand on her lower back.
I squeeze my eyes closed against the water, against the pressure, as I picture Ryatt by the shore, his fists clenched as his men fan out around him. He waits for me to return. He knows I will, but still, he worries he’s lost me again.
Isaac and Maddy are here in an embrace, that precious baby between them as he shows her the falls for the first time.
I choke on a sob that’s silent underwater as I open my eyes.
Then I go still as the first glimpse of the returning moon shifts overhead, illuminating a great, sweeping city lost to time and buried beneath what feels like fathoms of water. Towers spiral toward the surface of the lake but fall short. Roadways and houses and shops light up in the returning moonlight, and then… there it is. A palace. A balcony overlooking a once great city.
I see her as if in a dream–The High Luna in her mask made of Moonstone, a mask of ultimate power. She raises a hand, letting red light flow through her fingers in a final goodbye.
My lungs burn as I watch this trick of my mind play out.
But now I know why I’m here and what I must do to save Ryatt’s people, and my own, from his father. I know how to save Hannah. I know how to bring Cassian here.
“Isaac,” I say as my own power surges, drifting from my body in tendrils of crimson light, sending shockwaves through the depths. “I’m okay. I’m home.”
My power mingles with the moonlight as I push myself toward the surface, my lungs screaming in agony.
I know what I must do.
I know who has the mask.
The mask is the answer to everything.
I break the surface, choking and sputtering water as my power glides over the water and funnels onto the shore, lighting it up as bright as the returning moon.
I turn, treading water, and see Ryatt standing there, staring at me. His men drop to their knees, bowing their heads.
My mate draws his sword of shadows, and kneels to his queen.