Cole
Misty slides out of bed, uneasy on her feet. She paces a few steps, stretching her arms over her head with a sigh.
I watch, and wait, for her answer. I’m not totally sure why I asked if she wanted to try to shift. Maybe it’s because I’m actively plotting a way to get her out, and if my plan fails, she’s going to need to run.
“I’m not ready,” she says, matter-of-factly.
“That’s fine.”
She looks down at her hands. “I don’t feel any changes yet. Nothing. Is that normal?”
I sit on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, that’s perfectly normal. Most wolves don’t come into their shifter powers until the day of their twenty-first birthday, sometimes a few days before, or a few days after,” I remind her.
She sighs, picking at the fabric of her pale cream nightgown. It hugs her body in a way that has my mouth going dry, but I force myself to ignore those feelings and focus on our conversation instead.
My wolf has other priorities, however. She turns into the lamplight, which highlights her naked figure behind the gown, and I feel the urge to grab her and pin her to the bed–or shift.
I close my eyes, desperate to calm down, when she says, “Both of my brothers came into their wolves as teenagers. So did my dad.”
“What about your mom?”
She sighs, shrugging. “I think she was… normal, but she lost her wolf for a while.”
“Do you feel anything like–urges?”
“What kind of urges?”
I open my eyes to Misty closing in on me with short, timid steps, still clutching her nightgown.
Where do I begin? I almost ask if she feels what I feel. That pull. That tingling, overwhelming sensation all throughout my body when she’s near, but I… can’t.
Not when she’s looking at me like this, her pupils widening and cheeks going rosy.
I rise, clearing my throat. I can be stronger than this. I can fight the thoughts screaming at me to keep her, to turn this fight against Richard into a fight for her, for not just her future, but ours.
That’s not fair to even consider.
She reaches for me, but I edge past her, heading for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk.”
“Can–can I come?”
I nod, motioning her forward. Barefoot, she pads toward me, looking unsure and a little confused as I grip her fingers and lead her through my apartment and into the quiet, darkened hallways of what was once a busy castle.
Misty’s footsteps beside me are silent, but mine echo through the darkened corridors.
“Where are we going?” she whispers.
I shrug. “You haven’t had a formal tour. We could do that now.”
“Is it safe?”
I sigh. That’s a very good question with a complicated answer. “Right now, it’s just me and you, so it’s about as safe as it could be.”
“Did Georgia really leave?” She swallows hard.
I glance down at her. I wonder how much she remembers from the night she healed Lacey, broke her curse, and then slipped into a frozen stupor.
Memories of what she’d said to me in the bathtub sprint through my mind. I think I’m pregnant.
She hasn’t said a word about it since.
I walk her through the ball room, which is dark and bathed in blue light as lightning cracks through the sky, illuminating the ceiling height windows and domed, glass ceiling.
“Georgia, Luke, Declan, and his mother left a few hours ago. Marcella, as well.”
She nods like she’s internally digesting this news, but her eyes shine with mingled grief and understanding. “How did you get them out?”
“You mentioned catacombs,” I begin, leading her into the formal dining hall where a sweeping mural replaces the glass ceiling. “You’re right about them. They exist, and they connect the major cities in Tarsian. Georgia is traveling through them right now, I suspect.” I explain that the catacombs beneath Oasia connect to a crude tunnel system that stretches for nearly forty miles, with an even cruder rail system to shorten the trip.
She’s well versed in the history of Eastonia being not only a protohistory major but a member of one of the royal families. Still, her eyes shine with unease as we cross into the kitchen, which is empty and sterile.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
“Can you even cook?”
I roll my lower lip between my teeth, shaking my head. “Never learned.”
She leans on the massive kitchen island, giving me the softest of smiles. “Me neither. I guess, since you dismissed your entire staff, or they’re cursed, we’ll just have to starve.”
“Lavender’s still here. She wouldn’t let that happen to us.”
“Why didn’t she leave with Marcella?”
I motion for her to follow. We leave the kitchen, maneuver through a network of servants’ hallways, and reach a set of large, ornate doors.
I hesitate, my hand curled around the door knob.
Her hand rests on my back. I feel the slight pinch of her healing powers fluttering over my skin beneath my shirt.
“I’m all right, Misty.”
She pulls her hand away, tucking it behind her back. “I can’t control it. Whenever I touch you, my powers ignite. I can’t help it.”
“You need to train those powers so you have full control over them.”
“Well, maybe if I hadn’t been so rudely kidnapped, I would have had a chance over Solstice break,” she murmurs.
I look down at her, fighting a smile. “Abducted.”
She rolls her eyes but gives me a cat-eyed smirk, for whatever reason, I feel the strength to open the door into the throne room.
Lightning splits the sky overhead, showering light through the glass ceiling. Misty follows me, looking skyward, her lips parted in amazement.
But then her gaze falls on the twin thrones on the far side of the room and the once-white tiles now stained a dark brown only a few feet away.
She stops walking. I keep going, turning around after I’ve put a sizable distance between us.
“This is where it happened, isn’t it?” Her voice carries through a crash of thunder. “Adrian and Elsbeth died here.”
“They did.” My voice echoes as rain pounds against the glass, sending a hum through the throne room.
“I–I saw that moment. You had a nightmare in the car. I was there with you.”
I’m not sure what to say. She steps toward me, her hands outstretched.
“It was the worst day of my life,” I admit, curling my hands into fists to stop from feeling the blood on them like I’m still kneeling here, holding Adrian to my chest. But my grip loosens when Misty’s eyes flicker with faint light, her hands still outstretched. “What are you doing? Misty?”
Light flows from her fingertips–gentle and mist like, curling in steady streams that illuminate the room.
Figures appear from the mist, thrumming with sparkling light. Elsbeth and Adrian standing side by side, their voices muffled and dreamlike as a third figure approaches.
It’s me.
I step out of my way, watching as my likeness approaches my friends. I remember this moment. Adrian and Elsbeth tell me that they’re having a baby. Marcella is on the way.
My likeness picks Elsbeth up and spins her in a circle, light flying through the air in glimmering sparks.
I slowly turn to Misty. Tears stain her cheeks, but she gives me a weak smile before grimacing, sending her powers flaring across the room.
Children of mist and light dart across the tiles. Trees made of the same magic appear as me–when I was a child–chasing my older brother through the woods toward the village I grew up in the mountains outside Tarsian.
I whirl as more memories ignite. Me, graduating from TU. Me, stepping into the hospital in Crescent City for my first shift during my residency. Me, kneeling by the fire and handing Annabel a solstice present–that leather messenger bag I bought when she started her schooling to become a teacher.
Me, walking past Misty, seeing her for the first time, feeling the mate bond snap into place.
Me, finding her again at the Arcane Umbra party, kissing her, feeling so desperate and broken knowing it was too late to save her.
Me, desperate to get her out. Me, losing my mind trying to heal her after those order members nearly killed her.
Overwhelmed, I turn to Misty, tears in my eyes. Her eyes glow with power.
The magic images fade, turning to specks of light that bounce around my feet.
“I don’t–don’t know how I did that,” she stammers, sucking back a sob. “I’m sorry–I’m so sorry, Cole, I shouldn’t have.”
I run to her, scooping her into my arms. Thunder booms overhead, followed by crackling lightning that bathes us in blue as I kneel with her in my arms.
She caresses my face, pressing her nose to mine. “I hate this.”
“I know.” I have to fight for the words. “Misty, I’m sorry.”
She runs her fingers through my hair, choking back a sob before pressing her mouth to mine. “Let’s leave. Right now,” she says against my lips, desperation lacing each word. “Both of us.”
“I can’t,” I rasp, closing my eyes against the pain spreading through my chest. “I can’t leave my kingdom behind.”
“But you’ve done enough!” Her voice sounds so broken.
“I’m the Alpha King.”
“You never wanted to be!”
“Misty,” I breathe against her cheek, pressing her body against mine. Her trembling kiss shatters my heart.
I’ll never forgive the Goddess for this–for thrusting us together when I was already on borrowed time. For giving me her for so little time.
Misty deepens the kiss. My body answers, a groan leaving my lips as she grinds her hips against mine.
That other force takes over. That need I haven’t been able to control. My wolf begs to mark her, to knot her, to claim her as mine.
Her nails claw the back of my neck before drifting into my hair. My hands drop from her hips to her thighs, bunching up her dress until I feel her warm, soft skin under my touch and squeeze.
She lets out a soft, needy moan that rewires my brain, and I’m instantly lost to the need to be inside of her.
I lay her against the tiles, covering her body with mine.
She breathes sharply as she fumbles with my belt and zipper, but in a matter of seconds I’m nudging her legs apart, my pants and boxers pooling around my knees, and pulling her panties to the side.
She arches off the floor, my name leaving her lips in a sharp gasp as I bury myself to the hilt, her inner muscles squeezing me so tight I lose the ability to breathe.
“Gods,” I pant, groaning sharply as I thrust into her again, slipping an arm under her lower back to tilt her hips toward me.
The new angle has me coming unglued immediately.
She pulls me down, her mouth crushed against mine. I pin her leg against my hip and grind into her until she gasps and moans, taking shallow breaths. Noises I’ll dream about later, when she’s long gone, safe again with her family.
Her orgasm rips through her, leaving her trembling and shuddering in my arms. I pull her close, forcing myself to savor this moment, this feeling, the way she’s undoing the horrible memories of the throne room and giving me a sense of peace I haven’t felt since the day my world fell to pieces.
I come undone with her arms wrapped around my neck.
Those fine threads binding us, threads she can’t feel yet, sing with both satisfaction and the crushing heartbreak of knowing this is the last time I’ll be with my mate like this.
She’s limp and panting in my arms when I pull out, reaching down to right her nightgown. I mouth three words into her hair before kissing her, long and slow.
She’s leaving in a few days. Her–and our child.
I failed to protect her from that.
I can’t let her stay. It was never an option.
Neither is me going with her.
This is it. This is all we get.
I carry my mate to bed.