Misty
I snatch Addy from Kenna’s arms and break into a sprint, Aviva hot on my heels. Kenna’s voice behind us, calling out to her kids, fades as I burst through the doors of the pack house and race across the village.
The healer’s cottage rises ahead, but my lungs are burning when I finally reach the front door, which is ajar, and shove my way inside.
The smell of herbs and spices hangs in the air… but that’s it. The cottage is totally empty.
“Hello?” I shout, clutching Addy for dear life as dread overwhelms my senses. “Cole?!”
Aviva skids to a stop behind me, panting. “Where are the guys?”
“I have no idea,” I tell her, scanning the room. There’s a single door along the wall, tucked between two ceiling height bookshelves full of jars and small wooden boxes likely filled with more herbs.
Aviva hisses in frustration and turns for the door, murmuring something about finding Ryan and Evander, and leaves me in the cottage alone.
I step toward the worktable, noticing the fine coating of dust and ash covering its surface. I extend a trembling hand, calling on my powers. My mist expands over the table, but instead of forming the figures of my brother, my mate, and Evander, the faint pale blue fractals of light just flow over the surface, drifting over the table like a wave crashing against a shore wall.
Confused, I lift my hand, spreading my powers throughout the room, finding nothing but magical barriers.
Kyra isn’t just a witch. She’s a spectacular one.
Wards. She put up wards throughout the entire cottage. The door, especially, off the far wall, is completely warded against my powers of mist.
I lower my hand, my blood thumping and pounding in my ears as an uneasy, absolutely unsettling feeling echoes through my veins.
Addy coos against my chest. I pat his back, my nostrils flaring as my powers try to break through her wards, causing a sizzling, metallic scent to spice the air. It’s not working. Everything that I am is telling me I need to find a way through that door.
Because she has Cole in there. I can feel it.
I dig deep, deeper than I’ve let myself go, reaching for those powers I’ve kept locked away since the war. Powers I’ve used only once, when I shattered the Gate of the Gods.
A faint click echoes through the room and her wards fall.
I gasp for breath. Addy whines against my shoulder, sensing something’s wrong. I cradle him, tucking him into the confines of my robe as I barrel toward the door, gripping the handle, feeling Kyra’s wards burning away as I yank it open.
Cole’s on the ground–passed out cold.
“Cole? Cole!” I take a single step toward him before something hard and solid hits the side of my face, and I careen toward the ground with my infant son in my arms. My vision blurs, going black around the edges as I sway, reaching my free hand out to grab anything I can to stop my fall, but I land with a crunch into the side of what I think is a bed frame, smacking my head even harder against one of the posts.
Addy screams. My entire body tingles as I beg my powers to react, but another blow to my head has me face down on the ground beside my mate, clutching our baby to my chest and trying to curl my body around him to protect him from strike after strike.
A snarl erupts nearby and the beating stops.
“Put it down,” Ryan’s voice booms, his scent filling the room. “Now.” Cold, calm fury laces the words–a brutal warning. He’s not fucking around.
I sense Evander’s sudden presence in the way the air feels like it just dropped ten degrees.
Faint screams and shouts of alarm drift into the cottage from beyond its stone walls, coming in the direction of the pack house. I try to open my eyes, but my vision is still blurry and doubled, and my bloody hair is covering my face, making it impossible to see the scene around me. My healing powers begin to ignite, causing a numbness to coast over my skin, up my neck, as it knits my broken, bleeding head back together.
“Give me the book,” Kyra snarls. “I know someone here has it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ryan replies sharply. “Back the fuck up and kneel–”
Kyra laughs high and pitched, “I don’t kneel for wolves. You’ll kneel for me, however, once my hellhound is finished killing off your pack. Give me the book I seek, or you and your filthy, half-breed pack members will die. I’ll dance on their bones and make you watch, because that will be all that’s left–”
Metal sings at the same moment I lift my head, peering through clumps of my hair at the scene playing out before me. Kyra’s standing with a very large, very heavy looking stick with my blood and hair plastered to it. Ryan’s only a few feet away but just out of sight.
“WHERE IS THE BOOK!?” she screams.
“Call off your beast,” Evander snarls. I painfully turn my head to look at him and find him holding a long blade.
She points the stick at Cole, who looks terrible, his face beaten to a pulp. “He was supposed to bring it to me. He lied, saying it’s destroyed. I know it’s hidden somewhere, and I’ll kill him, his bitch mate, and their child if it’s not handed over.”
“You’re looking for The Book of Whispers,” Evander drawls, sounding bored. “Why?”
With Kyra distracted, I reach for Cole, my fingertips resting on his cheek. I let my healing powers flow while yanking on our bond, pulling those fine threads binding us together.
What did she do to him?
Kyra only laughs in response to Evander’s question, shaking her head. “You must be the Ghost everyone whispers about. But you’re more than that, aren’t you, fox?” She giggles girlishly, a sound that makes my skin crawl. The tension in the air is so thick I could cut it with a knife. “The father of the first Firestone witch born in over three thousand years. What an honor. What a mystery.”
I can feel Evander’s simmering rage. “Call off your beast.”
“No,” she replies pointedly. “ I will not. These mutts are getting what they deserve. All of you should have perished in the war, you know. Ah, what a dream that would have been–the rebirth of the era of the witches, sans the shifter filth, of course. Tell me, because I’m dreadfully curious, how does it feel knowing that your own daughter will rise as queen and usher in that era herself one day, when she realizes how disgusting and vile you creatures are, especially you, hybrid scum.”
“That’s enough,” Ryan snarls, but Kyra laughs again.
“The Kings of Eastonia don’t get enough credit for what they did, how they handled the shifter infestation that the Firestones let happen. And you, Alpha, child from a land of peace and prosperity… you should have stayed there. Your father should have minded his business all those years ago. Your aunt should have never left her gilded castle in Crescent Falls. That’s where you all belong. Not here. Eastonia is for witches only, and once I succeed, there will be nothing but witches left, and all the shifters will be dead, or better yet, hellhounds… our slaves, forevermore.”
“Kill her,” I rasp, lifting my head a little more. “Ryan, Ev–kill her now.”
Cole groans. I grasp his shoulder. But Kyra turns to me, hatred in her eyes. “You… where is the book?”
“Get the fuck away from us,” I snarl, and she makes the mistake of lifting her stick.
Ryan lunges, tackling her to the ground in an explosion of splintered woods and fabric as they crash through a dresser. Evander grabs me, pulling me upright, his hand caressing the top of Addy’s head. Addy is purple with rage from being pinned but otherwise whole.
“Go to the lake. That’s where Kenna and the kids are.”
“Cole–”
“I’ll take care of–”
Ryan stands, swaying, pulling pieces of wood from his chest and arms. “We have a problem.”
Kyra isn’t lying lifeless on the ground like I expected. She’s… nowhere to be found.
“She can spirit?” I gasp, panic erupting through my body.
Evander lets me go and shifts into his wolf form, tearing through the cottage.
Ryan grabs my arm. “Stay here.”
“Ryan–”
Cole rolls onto his side, coughing painfully. I drop to my knees as Ryan races out of the cottage, the sound of his clothes shredding echoing toward me, followed by a roar I’ve only heard once–during battle–when I saw that giant, terrifying beast form of his.
“Cole?” Oh, my Goddess, Cole, look at me?” I clutch his face, tears streaming down my cheeks. Cole’s eyes meet mine, and he sighs, bowing his head ever so slightly. “Misty, I need to explain–”
“What happened?”
“You were right about her. She–she tried to poison me. I caught onto what she was doing here. I questioned the sickness that went around and she–I started having headaches that reminded me of what being under the control of Richard's powers.”
“You should have told me.”
“I wanted to, but I physically couldn’t,” he breathes, rising to his knees. He takes Addy from my arms and gives him a once over before his eyes meet mine again. “I am so sorry–”
“Don’t,” I whisper, leaning forward, resting my forehead against his. “Not now. We’ve been through worse. We’re fine.”
He shakes his head. “I haven’t been honest with you about how I was feeling after the war.”
“I know. Neither was I. We’re fucked up.”
“We’re fucked up,” he echoes. “I just wanted to protect you. I thought coming back would be good for us both. I was wrong.”
I close my eyes, choking on a sob. “We were being called to come back. I understand that now.” I look at him, smoothing his curls away from his face, which is now, thankfully, fully healed. “Where is the book?”
“I hid it. She has no idea it’s not the original. She thinks the real Book of Whispers survived. I guessed what she was after quickly, during our first few days here when her stories stopped adding up. She isn’t a healer.”
“She’s a monster.”
A sharp, cold wind thunders through the cottage. Darkness swallows the sky even though it’s morning. Chills cover my entire body as I look up, the room settling into total, unnerving silence.
The world seems to stop.
“Oh, no,” I whisper, meeting Cole’s eyes. “Oh, no, no, no–”
“What?”
“Kenna,” I rasp. “Kenna’s–Kenna’s using her powers right now–”
The ground jerks then shakes violently. Cole grabs me, covering me with his body as books fall from shelves, and jars of herbs and potions crash to the ground. Glass shatters all around us as the shaking grows so violent my teeth clack together.
Through the mind-link, I hear Ryan calling out for Aviva. I hear Kenna screaming in rage and terror… screaming Maeve’s name.
And then the world goes silent again, and the shaking ceases.
Cole looks up as the sun begins to stream through breaks in the stone walls, casting speckles of light across the floor, reflecting off thousands of shards of glass.