Cole
“Undo it,” I tell him. “Take the curse back and reinstate order.”
He purses his lips to a thin line, confused. “But, Cole, I can’t. It’s not something you can just… stop. Think about it. Use that big brain of yours. Do you see this place? Tarsian is so much bigger than the rest of Eastonia. Riches beyond belief lay below the sand. There used to be mines and forges here, mines that pulled silver and moonstone from the ground and forges that turned that into magic. Yet, in our time, the magic is hoarded by the royals–the Allied Kings.” He sweeps his hand toward the battle. “But not anymore. Once I open the gate, it’s over. This world will be no more. You can come with me, Cole. Be a god instead of a king.”
“You can’t, Richard. You failed. Misty is safe, with her family. You needed her to do this.”
He smiles a bit sadly, but his eyes flare with mischief. “Yes, she is. Such a shame, really. It would have been easier to do it with her help. Quicker, less leg work for me.” He opens the book as his eyes flare with magic like never before. I swear his very soul is sucked from his body as the pages flip to its very center. The text brightens with green magic, highlighting a specific, very lengthy spell.
“You did a fine job of hiding your bond with the princess,” he says in a voice that sounds so unlike his own. It’s deeper, and crackles as his words are pulled into the book.
I raise my sword, glancing at his army, which has… stilled, completely. Confusion echoes through the advancing armies as Richard’s forces fall silent and stiff as stone.
“But she messed up during your aptly timed rejection,” he cackles. “You’re still bound to her. You have an echo of her soul inside your chest.”
I resist the urge to back away. I raise my sword higher, prepared to strike, but something feels… wrong.
“I can simply… use your mate bond to open the gate. It’s the most powerful magic of all, of course.”
His army turns toward us and races over the sand at an impossible rate of speed. The sound of the armies bursting back into action deafens me, but it’s not the noise forcing me to my knees. Richard begins the spell. Something cruel and powerful that I immediately feel in my bones.
Flashes of light catch my attention. I try to break from Richard’s hold and look toward the battle, where another bright, furious light erupts.
I feel her.
She’s here, running toward me.
Something sharp splits my chest in two. It’s not my heart breaking. It’s not our bond snapping back in place.
It’s a massive knife glowing with green power piercing my armor.
I nearly drop my sword as the sand starts to lift all around me, and I’m sucked into a sudden void appearing just beyond my body.
“COLE!” Misty screams, sprinting in my direction, shifting mid-step.
My arm trembles as I raise my sword, screaming as I try to send it slashing toward Richard.
* * *
Misty
Cole’s sword splits the air. Moonlight fans around him, highlighting the massive blade sticking out of the middle of his chest. I’m sprinting in my wolf form, watching in desperation as he tries to send his sword toward Richard, but Richard’s reading from the Book of Whispers, his magic flaring through the air, through the battle taking place all around us. Cole’s arm gives out, dropping the sword.
I shift back to my usual form, my armor of mist surrounding my body, and create twin blades with that same magic, swinging my arms out as cursed warriors charge me from the sides.
I can’t look away from Cole. He’s fighting hard, trying to stay on his feet and retrieve his sword. He sways, gripping the blade sticking in his chest. I scream in terror when he pulls it free, blood spraying, but Richard is still reading from the book and…
The Gate of the Gods starts to rise like a swirling black vortex. It’s nothing but aether–a shadow, blocking out the moonlight.
My powers rage in answer–sensing something wholly wrong.
I’m distracted and knocked to the ground by another cursed warrior, a young woman wearing a tattered dress. She’s stuck between her human and wolf form, her teeth and claws elongated and her legs and arms bent at odd angles. She snaps her jaws at me, spraying drool, as I fight to hold her off. She pins me to the ground with unbelievable strength. My twin blades dissolve nearby, reabsorbed by my powers.
A golden arrow slices through her head.
I gape, screaming in disgust when her dead body falls on top of mine. The arrow whizzes back in the direction it came. I follow it, watching as Aviva leaps in the air and catches it. She’s coated in blood, a furious, murderous look on her face. “Get up, Misty!”
She darts ahead of me, screaming Ryan’s name while sending her arrow flying, and while she waits for it to return to her, brought back by its magic, she wields blades and slices through the stampede of cursed wolves storming in our direction.
I’m up on my feet and running in an instant, shifting as I leap off a fallen body and race toward Cole again.
He picks up his sword, but Richard’s magic brings him to his knees again.
My heart lurches as Cole clutches his chest, trying to push past the power radiating between him and Richard, and rise.
I scream his name down the sliver of mate bond we have left as I weave through the battle in my wolf form.
I’m knocked down, tossed to the side. I shift back to my human form on instinct, landing on my back and rolling across the sand. Four cursed sets of eyes land on me, racing in my direction.
A large, brown wolf with dark blue eyes tackles them all to the ground like dominos.
“Sydney!” I rasp as he disappears over the edge of a sand dune, falling out of sight. I scramble to my feet, swarmed by more cursed wolves.
This is impossible. There’re so many of them. They don’t stay down, either. Tears blur my vision as I’m pushed further away from Cole and the… the fucking portal Richard’s opening. Panic and doubt blur my senses. I’m knocked to the ground again. Teeth yank on my arm, trying to bite through my armor. My power flickers, dissolving some of the armor.
“No,” I tell myself, bitter rage flaring to life. “No!”
My magic erupts in a rush of bright life. Wolves scatter, shoved away as my powers sizzle the sand–so hot it turns to glass.
“Nice,” I whisper, hopping to my feet. I’ll add that trick to my arsenal.
But the mind-link erupts. Sydney’s badly hurt. Sarah’s desperately looking for him. Ryan found Aviva, and they’re looking for me.
Ryatt and Ella are separated, trying to use their powers against the curse–which is now spreading into their armies.
My dad, and my grandpa, are totally silent, though.
“Where’s Grandma?” I shout through the mind-link, but my voice is lost in a sea of noise.
My light gave me a path–a way out of the fray. I shift, sprinting as fast as I can toward Cole. He’s a quarter mile away. That’s too far. I don’t have enough time to reach him.
I skirt past enemies racing toward me. I shift back and forth, brandishing weapons of mist, slicing through cursed bodies without a hint of remorse.
I tell myself not to feel any of this yet. Not the guilt. Not the pain from shifting and my lack of training. Nothing.
I feel nothing but rage as I gain ground on Cole. He’s crumpled over, kneeling in front of Richard while Richard–uses him to open the gate.
Something insanely large and dark as night charges toward me in the distance. It bursts through a swarm of cursed warriors, sending them flying through the air.
And at its side is Aviva in her wolf form.
I watch in awe as Aviva leaps in her wolf, shifting mid-flight. She grabs the shoulder of the beast racing toward me and soars off his back, sending her arrow flying before pulling her blades and disappearing in the center of a massive horde of cursed warriors.
The beast charges through it, and within seconds, Aviva appears again as her wolf, her bow attached to her back halter.
My heart races as the beast and the greatest warrior in our history turn to fall in step with me.
‘We gave you some room to get to him. You gotta get there, now! ‘Aviva’s voice bounces through my head.
‘Is that my brother?!’ I shout back through the mind-link as the big, terrifying… hellhound type beast races away from us, charging over a group of cursed wolves.
‘We’ll talk about it later,’ Aviva rasps. ‘Stay with me!’
She careens to the side. I follow, my lungs begging for me to stop. My muscles scream in agony but I don’t listen. We’re so, so close.
‘COLE!’ I scream. ‘Don’t give up. Please, don’t give up! I’m here!’
He slowly turns his face. I wonder if he can see us racing toward him. He’s never seen my wolf, but I like to think that he's looking at me now, and it’s the reason he screams against what must be excruciating pain and grabs his sword. He sways as we gain ground, only a hundred yards away. The power coming from the portal is so intense. I can feel it in my powers, my very bones. My soul. Goddess, it hurts.
Cole swings his sword with all of the strength he has left.
It slices through Richard’s shoulder, through his chest, at the same moment a golden arrow pierces Richard’s skull.
Oh, my Goddess, he’s dead.
A new found urgency tears me forward, the pain in my body dissolving to nothing but adrenaline. I topple out of my wolf form as Cole kneels, doubling over his knees. Richard erupts in green light, the book falling to the ground in a puff of sand.
But the gate is still swirling, still roaring with magic that shouldn’t exist. It’s beckoning me. Voices erupt in my ears. Images I can’t decipher rip through my vision, momentarily blinding me.
But my legs are still moving. I’m running as fast as I can.
Cole needs to–to destroy the book. I feel it in my soul. That’s what happens next.
Call it instinct, but I yank the diamond free from the neck, sending it flying in his direction. My powers lock the diamond in the hilt of a blade of blue mist.
I scream his name to get his attention.
Cole’s beautiful, gray eyes meet mine. Blood coats his sandy armor. Too much blood.
“DO IT!” I scream, falling to my knees and quickly rising, racing for him.
He catches the blade and in one single action, stabs the book. The diamond flares with pale power. A boom shakes the ground. The gate quakes, ripples of dark power distorting the moonlight, but it remains–sucking the power from my body like it’s pulling me toward it.
Cole falls face first in the sand, limp.
A scream rips out of my soul.
I leap the last few to him but feel myself… drifting.
Aviva screams my name, but I’m pulled into the void, the sounds of battle fading to nothing but soul-crushing silence.