*Isaac*Blood drips down from my temple where a gash runs from my forehead to my chin, right over the bridge of my nose. It’s not healing with the usual speed my powers award me. I’m not like my mother. I can’t heal others. But my body rapidly heals itself…. At least, it should have by now. The young warrior, Emmet, one of the six survivors I found after the battle in the plains, crouches beside me while we watch an enemy encampment from a large, jagged rock on the base of the mountains. Both of us are drenched in blood–most of it belonging to others–and sweat, filth, and dirt from the forest. It’s impossible to keep track of time when the whole forest is under a spell of pure darkness, but I’d guess we’d been out here for days now, watching, waiting to strike. Emmet, a boy of fifteen, had snuck out of his home and joined the cause illegally. Too young to shift, some would have thought he’d been helpless during the battle. But when I found him, he’d been wielding his great-grandfa
*Maddox*These Goddess forsaken kids of mine. “He pulled a sword on me, Isla. A sword!” I shrug my leathers over my shoulders and fix my mate with a look that mimics her own–something made of steel and ice cold. “It’s been three days since Ella and Maddy took off after him. I’m going. I’m bringing Cassian with me.”“He had his arm bitten clean off–”“He is just fine,” I say through gritted teeth, knowing the direction this conversation is about to go. Isla, beautiful and convincing as always, has no intentions of hearing me out. She had no intentions of doing so yesterday–when I showed up at the castle expecting to find her and Ella safe and sound. Instead, after two days securing a perimeter around Moorn after the battle on the plains that had wiped out half of our territory’s warriors, and left a third of those remaining severely injured, I found her going toe-to-toe with Trinity. For twenty four years, they’d been friends, best friends, but Isla had murder in her eyes when I fou
*Maddy*“Maddy!” The voice comes again, louder than the first time. I rise to my feet, my legs tingling from lack of use. The fire in the cave shudders out on a phantom wind. I bristle against the sudden chill, my hands trembling as I feel along the cave wall toward the entrance. It’s nearly pitch black. I’ve never been anywhere so dark and empty, especially with no moonlight illuminating the outside world, let alone the cave entrance. I take a moment to feel over my clothes. They’re not mine, and I’m wearing something thin and rough. A man’s shirt, I realize, that brushes just over my knees. My legs prickle from the cold–and the knowledge that someone had to undress and then redress me. I make it to the cave’s entrance and stand, my bare toes curling over cold stone. I glance behind me into the inky darkness and shiver, deciding maybe I’m better off outside than I am trying to maneuver around the cave again with Mystica’s magic fire and her ghostly company. Had I imagined everyth
*Maddy*Isla told me to stay here. I should, I definitely should. Do I really want to see Isaac get killed, or allow himself to get killed because he thinks it’ll save his people? We never had a chance to figure this out together. One moment we were married, the next he was gone, and I had to untangle the matted threads of this mess myself. Hell, Ella knew a whole lot and never said a thing. I’m kind of mad at her. I don’t understand why she’d hide this from me. Me! The person who married her glowing, winged beast of a brother. Did she think he didn’t tell me about what he could do, what he was? I huff a breath as I crouch in the grass. I can’t see anything from down here, but I can hear the sounds of battle not far from where Isla told me to stay put. I bend a piece of grass, weaving it through my fingers as I debate my next move. Stay, and hide like a coward, keeping my fingers crossed that my mate, my husband, comes out of this alive, or go and see to that myself?I’m a part of
*Isaac*Whatever dreamlike state I’ve been suspended in lifts, replaced by soft, golden light. I open sore eyes and blink away the blurriness, that dreamscape replaced by the rippling, swirling mural of florals painted on the ceiling in my bedroom. My bedroom back home at the castle. I don’t move. I’m not sure if I’m actually here, or if this is another trick of my mind. The last several weeks don’t seem real at all. Not the war, not the battles, not the unrelenting darkness that swallowed my lands whole. But there is sunlight here. It warms the sheets around me and my skin. My chest is bare, and I glance down and see a ray of golden light full of dust that shimmers like silver stars. I raise a hand and turn it back and forth in the light, watching the dust swirl around my fingers in a dizzying dance. She turns in her chair by the window, her wine-red hair cascading loose down her back. She stands, those stormy, dark blue eyes wide. Her cream-colored silk robe catches the light, i
*Maddy*Several days have passed since Isaac woke up. I’m still processing it—him coming back from a coma, and the aftermath of the war. Everything seems too peaceful. The sudden shift from pre-war times when there was nothing but tension in the air to now feels too abrupt. The war ended before it began, really. A few weeks seems like nothing in the grand scheme of things. The past three months have been the hardest part about it. I basically just floated around the castle like a ghost, a shell of myself, praying to the Goddess every second I could spare to bring him back to me–to us. I rest my hands on my belly as I walk barefoot through the castle. It’s quiet here today. Ben and Emery went back to the Obsidian Temple territory several weeks ago to rebuild. Trinity and Rosie are back in Moorn with Elijah. Cassian practices daily at the training grounds on the far side of the village to learn to better move his wolf with only three legs, and Isla and Maddox tend to keep to themselv
*Maddy* I watch as Ella walks up the stairs to her studio. She stands at the door for a moment, a door that’s been locked and charmed so that anyone who touches it gets zapped by a painful, bone crushing magic. We all learned our lesson the hard way with that one and spent a good deal of time having Isla tend our wounds. I should turn away and leave her alone, but curiosity gets the best of me as I watch her close her eyes, her mouth moving but totally silent. Soft red light ripples through the woodgrain of the door before fading completely. She turns the knob and slips inside, the door closing and locking behind her. I sigh with relief. Something about knowing Ella is tucked away in her studio with her paints, brushes, and canvases sets my heart at ease. Like everything is suddenly right in the world, and I can breathe again. Even though I know that’s not the case. Not at all. I linger at the bottom of the stairs to the tower that houses her studio for a moment, though, the su
*Maddy* The ballroom is totally transformed from floor to ceiling. The finest flowers in the kingdom stand in large, marble vases resting on tables covered in light blue tableclothes. Champagne flows, poured into crystal flutes, and graceful string music fills the air, rising above the chatter. I walk through the crowd, which parts to allow me to pass. I smile and bob my head at the people who bow and curtsey to me, their cheeks going pink as I meet their eyes. The fact that Isla and I were able to put this event together in a little under a week is a miracle in itself, and all over that surrounding villages and large cities beyond, similar celebrations are taking place to honor the dead and celebrate the victory of the war. Tonight’s celebration is specificaly for Isaac, my king, and my mate. My ivory gown of silk and satin trails behind me as I walk through the ballroom, stopping to chat with the Alphas and Lunas who’ve assembled. An overlay of silver stars flows from my ste