*Ella*
I haven’t had the nerve to paint. It’s been months, honestly. Even after the war, I locked myself in my studio in Crescent Falls and just stared at all of my paintings, several of them unfinished, unable to pick up a paint brush.
But something changed this week. I threw everything into training with Westfall. He helped me hone my powers to a fine edge until I could ignite a single candle with a flick of my fingertip. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? But a week ago I tried it for the first time and ignited the entire room, nearly killing us both. It’s incredible progress, and with the physical training included, I’m beginning to feel more like myself again.
I brush my fingertips over my jeans, smearing paint. I don’t care. I don’t care that I have paint on my face or the cuffs of my sweatshirt, either. I’m painting, and that’s the greatest progress that’s been made at all.
I had to find some way to pass the time and stop my mind from spinning over my last conversation with Ryatt. He’d given me a ring like it meant nothing and left. He literally left Veiled Valley, actually. I haven’t seen him in ten days. The time is passing quickly, thankfully. Every day starts and ends the same. I wake up with the moon still high in the sky and shift, running as far and as long as I can through the mountains until my paws ache and bleed. Then, I go to the training arena and fight with claws, then swords and knives. Then, Westfall trains my powers until I’m so exhausted I can barely stand.
But after only a week, I can wield fire like it’s second nature. I can create shields of mist that radiate crimson light, blocking Westfall’s calculated attacks. I can turn stone to ash, and ash to mist, and mist to nothing at all.
He asked for my tears a few days ago after I let it slip that there’s something strange about them. Westfall knows all about my mother and my brother now. He knows my mom can heal with her tears and create beams of blue and white light. He knows Isaac can shift into a beast form and also spirit himself through space and time, while also manipulating metals and bending them to his will.
The more I told him, the more I realized how different my powers are, and how much I understood Ryatt’s insistence I don’t use them unless I’ve been trained to hone them and get them under control.
I’ve been using this time to do just that, waiting for my mate’s return.
Now, he’s standing behind me telling me he needs to take me back to my family.
“No,” I say, and turn back to my painting.
“Did you not hear me?”
“I did, and no. I’m not going back.”
I swipe my brush across the canvas, moving a glob of brown paint around as I fill in the blank areas on the floor and corners of the room. I’ve been painting a rendition of my old studio today, and I can almost imagine that I’m back there, standing in the center of the room, breathing in the dust, and smelling the acrid, heady scent of paint and the soft rose scent that always hangs in the air around the castle.
Ryatt walks further into the room. It’s dark, the middle of the night, and another storm hugs Veiled Valley in a tight embrace as I try to ignore his presence. My heart rate is already spiking, however. I’ve had ten days to go over everything I should have said to him, every name he deserved to be called. But now all I want to do is touch him and fall into his arms.
I wait for the fight to start, my fingers curling around my paintbrush, but the air in the room shifts and stills as thunder booms overhead.
I gingerly look up at him and see that he’s looking at the paintings I’ve completed over the last week. Wordlessly, he moves toward the stacks of canvases and moves them apart so he can see them better. “I’ve never seen your work in person.”
“Yes, you have. You used to stalk me, remember?”
“I never stalked you.”
“What would you call it, then?”
His shoulders tighten as he takes a breath, keeping his back to me. He holds up a small landscape of Granite Rise.
“That one’s for Amanda,” I say, setting my palette and brush down on the table beside my stool. “She’s been homesick.”
“Granger returned with me.”
I let out the breath I’ve been holding for ten days. Good, Amanda will be happy about that, at least. She’s been a bit of a mess, but Westfall has her spending most of her time in the city beyond the confines of the castle, visiting the schools, shops, and temples as the wife of the Beta.
I’m still wrapping my head around the past few weeks, honestly. Ryatt’s slow inspection of my paintings helps keep me focused on the present, which is a welcome relief.
He moves on from the painting of Granite Rise, thumbing through landscapes and portraits. He stops on an unfinished portrait of Commander Westfall. “Does he know you’re painting him?”
“No. It’s going to be a surprise, so don’t tell him.”
Ryatt finally looks at me over his shoulder, his mouth quirked in a sly smile. “He’s going to hate it.”
I scowl at him. “He won’t. It looks just like him.”
“I never said it didn’t look like him,” he argues, that smile still lingering on his lips.
Heavy silence settles between us. I can’t tell if it’s the threat of lightning from the storm or just the fact that we’re in a room together after ten days that has electricity crackling through the room all around us.
His eyes lock on mine, unreadable emotion behind them.
I cross my arms, waiting. For what, I don’t know. I just know something is coming. There’s a reason he’s here saying I need to go home. After another crushing moment of silence, I say in a lifted, ethereally feminine voice I know will grind his gears, “How was your trip, Your Majesty?”
Ryatt glowers and sets down the painting he’s holding. “Don’t test me right now, Ella.”
“Go away, then. I don’t want to be bothered if you’re just going to stand here and simmer. Say what you need to say to me and then leave, for Goddess’s sake—”
“I’m not good at this,” he says with force, his eyes on the brewing storm beyond the windows.
I suck in a surprised breath. “Good at what?”
He shrugs like his shirt is suddenly too tight, like he wants to crawl out of his skin and disappear. “This,” he says, motioning between us. “Letting… feelings get in the way of what must be done.”
“Oh, you poor, big Alpha baby!” I laugh, and there’s nothing kind in the words. “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you so greatly. I’m sorry I didn’t cower and submit, and that I let you into my bed—”
He stalks toward me, and I immediately hop off the stool, which clatters to the ground as I move like the wind into the bedroom. I’ve done it now. This is the fight I wanted, I guess. It’s not my fault it’s so easy to push all of his buttons. “Ryatt—”
“Do you realize what’s at stake here, Ella?”
“No, actually, because you left—”
“I’m not talking about my lands or my title.” His eyes blaze with so much raw emotion it cuts through the wall I’ve built around my heart over the past few days, causing it to crack. I thought he didn’t care about me at all. I thought whatever had happened between us at the coven had just been… situational, bound to happen because of the mate bond.
But the look in his eyes burns into my very soul. There’s so much pain there, and to my great surprise and heartbreak, fear.
“I can’t lose you,” he says so softly it’s barely audible. “I can’t lose the girl you were when I first met you. I can’t—I can’t use you like I need to defeat my father, Ella. I need to take you home. So much has changed.” He runs his fingers through his hair and shrugs out of his leather vest, letting it fall to the ground as he unhooks his arm guards.
“So, you’d send me away? Risking my own kingdom—”
“He won’t try to attack Crescent Falls again.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “How do you know?”
“Because I’m about to start a war here. The Rogueland packs are going to invade Rifthold in the coming weeks. I’m going to war, Ella, and I’m not coming back.” Every word is laced with promise. I can see it in his eyes as he lowers his gaze to the floor between us. “It’ll give you time to go home and have your brother rally his forces again to defend their territories if I fail.”
“Stop—”
“I’m going to kill him, and it will kill me in the process. It’s the only way.”
“No!” I edge toward him, but his shadows are writhing between us like a shield, preventing me from getting any closer. “Ryatt, I’ve been using my powers. I have them under control, okay? I can fight beside you. We can go to the king together and end him once and for all, for all the pain and anguish he’s inflicted on your people, for your mother—”
“I will not use you as a weapon—”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? I’m the weapon your people have been waiting for, aren’t I? I’m a descendant of the last Firestone Queen, Ryatt. I saw her under the lake. She showed me what I must do and that’s take the mask and use it to defeat your father and his forces—”
“I will not allow it—”
“I’m not asking your permission!” I seethe, snapping my fingers and causing sparks of light to simmer between us. His shadows retreat, but Ryatt doesn’t look the least bit impressed. “I wish I’d been born a normal wolf. That I’d have a normal life, a peaceful one. But I was not born that way, and this is my fate. I came here for a reason, Ryatt. I came here to protect my people, and I did. They can live in peace now because of me, but your people—”
“They are none of your concern—”
“I am their Luna!”
“You’re pregnant,” he says so quietly I almost miss it.
My fire dies out, falling to ash at my feet.
“I’m not.”
He only shakes his head, his eyes finally meeting mine again. The usual silver in his gaze has darkened to steel.
“You couldn’t possibly know that. I’m not due for my cycle for another two weeks—”
“Westfall had a hunch based on the way the house has been guarding you and interrupting your training sessions the last few days. I knew the second I walked into the studio that he was right. Your scent is different, Ella. You’re pregnant, and it’s my fault. I let our mate bond—I let things get out of control. I let my lust get in the way—”
“Your lust?” I choke, tears blurring my vision. “Your lust, Ryatt? Is that all this is? Lust? Can you honestly look me in the eyes and tell me that’s all you feel for me?”
He says nothing for a long time, his eyes locked on the tiles at our feet now shimmering with ash. “You’re at your most powerful now that you’re pregnant. If you fall into my father’s hands, I can’t protect you. I don’t have enough power to protect you and my people at the same time.”
“I can protect myself—”
“I have to take you home to your family, Ella. For your child—”
I back away from him, tears spilling down my cheeks as I wrap my arms around my stomach. “This is our child, Ryatt.”
“It won’t know me.” His eyes meet mine, glistening in the soft light pouring from a chandelier above us. “This is for the best.”
A desperation I’ve never felt before cuts through my body and nearly pulls me to my knees.
“Maatua will be safest for both of you. It’s far enough from the border of the Veil that you’ll be safe, even if I fail. My father won’t know that you’re with child. I’ll make sure of that before—”
“Before you die? Before you sacrifice yourself?” Fury rips through each word. “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll have to rip me from this realm, Ryatt, by force to get me to leave. I am not leaving you!”
“Why? I can’t offer you what you want, Ella.”
“You don’t know what I want—”
“You want a fairy tale!” His voice lifts in a shout that rattles the window panes. “I can’t give you what you want. I can’t be that man you’ve been dreaming of. There is nothing for us here but death, Ella.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“There’s no other way. You deserve so much more—"
“I want you!” I scream, my voice echoing through the room as thunder booms overhead. “I love you.”
Ryatt only stares at me, his chest heaving with each breath. His hands curl into fists at his sides, but I keep my eyes locked on his face, refusing to back down.
“I love you, Ryatt. From the moment we met, I have loved you, and I won’t stop. I can’t. I won’t.”