by Brynn Burke
He can’t have her.
I would rather die than have her go through anything else with that man.
She turns ready to take off, but I grab her by the fur.
“Don’t. Don’t do this. I can’t have him take you, not again. You don’t realize how powerful he truly is, and I don’t want you dying either. Please.”
She shifts her body towards mine, looking at me directly in my eyes.
“For once in my life I am not afraid. I feel strong. Stronger than I did when I first met you and at the time, I felt like I could do anything. You asking this of me is selfish. I need this, Wyatt. I need to come face to face with the man who has hurt me in far more ways than you could possibly imagine… actually you can imagine can’t you. Did you face your Master or Mistress, Wyatt? Did you seek revenge for what was done to you?”
I remain silent.
She is right, how could I ask this of her when I faced my demon and killed her.
That’s all I could think about after all those years doing whatever it is that she asked.
She speaks up again and rubs up her body all over mine. Placing her scent on me, claiming me, showing me affection.
“I love that you care for me, Wyatt. I know you’re not wanting to see me come to harm, but this is one thing I need to do. Now you can either come with me and support my decision standing by my side, or I go alone… either way I’m going.”
My lady has spoken.
“Let’s go,” I say to her out loud while hoping, wishing, and praying that this outcome goes as she plans.
If it doesn’t… I don’t even know what will come of it, but I know I will never be the same.
God help us all.
20
Killian
I see Oksana go flying in the air and I am two seconds from going after her, but I see Wyatt take off in her direction. I turn my head, ready to take on the next asshole who decides to try and go after my mate, but I see an all blacked out vehicle pull up and immediately, I know who the hell it is…
Archer Addison.
Dear old dad.
Never fails to show up at the worst possible moment… actually this entire thing is his god damn fault, so he is exactly the person I need to take my anger out on.
I transport over to the vehicle just as the man of the hour steps out, readjusting his pressed suit. I never understood why he is the way he is, and I am never going to figure it out, but him wearing a suit while the people I am with are fighting for their lives… yeah… what a piece of shit.
“The fuck are you doing here, Archer?” I say to him full of bitterness “Look around, don’t you see all the trouble you are already causing?”
“Killian, I told you to find my god damn slave and instead you take her for yourself? Do you know how disappointed I was to find out from my men that you were with my sweet little Rabbit and haven’t brought her back to me?” He makes a clicking sound with his tongue and shakes his head. How after so many years he can make me feel like a failure, like I am a little boy again getting reprimanded. No, not this time. I told myself that I was done with this man, now I am about to give him a harsh reality check.
“Don’t you even fucking dare, Father. Do you know what you have done? You rape my god damn mate. Not a mate like all the woman you’ve collected over the years… you took my true mate and raped her, abused her, hurt her. You made her your plaything. You are the vilest of scum that has ever existed. I understand that we have never had a normal relationship… and we never will, not after I watched you murder my mother in cold blood.” I see his eyes go from wide to even wider, almost bulging right out of his head. “Yeah… you never knew that I was in the room, did you? I was so terrified I could barely breathe. At the time you were a god to me. I worshipped the ground you walked on and that is when I saw who you really were. Now… before any of these people I’m with take notice of your presence here, you need to get inside that vehicle of yours and leave before I kill you myself and I shit you not… that is really something I have been just dying to do.”
I see he’s not paying any attention to any of the words leaving my mouth. His soul focus is directed towards Hadley fighting over in the distance. She is taking on two vampires and a lion shifter like she was made for this world. She is holding her own and I can honestly say that I am proud of her. I know how important she is to Oksana so therefore she is important to me as well and nothing is ever going to happen to her on my watch.
I get in Archer’s face and wrap my hand around his throat, lifting him up into the air. Finally getting his attention, I speak as clear as day.
“Did you not fucking hear me? I told you to leave and take the god damn hounds along with you. You are going to leave, and I am never to see you again. You will not think of Oksana and you will most definitely never look at her sister ever again.” After I am done speaking, I shove him forcefully into the car hoping to get some sort of acknowledgement from him, but his gaze is still focused on Hadley.
No fucking way.
I pull back my free arm and with as much force as I can muster, I punch him right in the stomach, and then knee him in the balls. He keels over coughing and clearly in pain. Good. I want to see the fucker suffer.
“Apparently you did not hear what I just fucking said to you. Call off your men and get the hell out of here. Do I make myself clear?”
I hear panting coming from just behind me and I know… I just know it is the one person who I really did not want to get view of Archer.
I turn around and see that I was right in my assumptions.
Even though she is standing behind me on all fours, this is indeed Oksana.
Her coloring is something that I have never seen before.
She is half black and half white. One eye yellow and one eye red. Larger than even the twins are while in shifted form. Her canines are long and the saliva dripping from her mouth makes her all the more ferocious.
I step to the side. There is nothing I can do… I tried to tell Archer to leave in order to prevent Oksana with coming face to face with her tormentor, but he just didn’t listen and honestly, I am happy that I am not going to be the one to end him. As much as I want to, what he has done to her is far beyond what he has done to me. This is her fight and I am going to let her have him.
Moving aside is all the approval she needs because she transports right up to him biting down on his arm.
I look at the wound and see that his normal vampire healing is not working, and I smirk at him.
“Karma sure is a bitch,” I state while he holds his arm, looking down at his wound.
“Now, Dad, I think you need to go get that looked at. Better be quick… I do believe the clock is ticking.”
He gives a nod once, snaps his fingers and then gets in his car. Before he leaves, he rolls down the window.
“This, my son… is not over.”
The vehicle is speeding off out of sight and the minions fighting seem to have disappeared.
Everyone gathers together around the spot I am currently standing in.
I look behind me and see Oksana has shifted back to her human form, crouched in on herself.
“You okay?” I ask her, full of concern.
“I think so. My wolf… she wants to tear him apart, but I told her no. It was hard to resist her pull, but we came to an understanding. She told me that biting him would make him suffer far more than any suffering he has caused me or any other person.” She lowers her head and Elliot speaks up.
“You’re right about that Oksana,” he says on a breathless laugh.
“What do you mean?” She asks confused.
I lean down and pick her up, placing her on her feet.
“You just signed his death warrant. A direwolves bite is toxic to our kind.”
“I have bitten you though,” she exclaims, and I never thought about that. She’s right, she has bitten me quite a few times and not once did I ever stop to think about the consequences. It all just felt very natural, ha
ving your mate claim you all the ways she has. I believe it is because she is my mate that I can handle her bite without dying.
“That you have,” I agree with her and her cheeks start to turn pink.
A few moments go by in silence and Hadley speaks up, “What next?”
“Now we go to Otherworld,” Lynx states, a smirk dragging across his face.
“I can’t just leave. I have obligations here… a job.”
“It will be like no time has passed at all here, when you return you can fulfill your obligations. My people. Your kingdom, they need to two of you.” He says looking at both Oksana and then Hadley.
Hadley thinks about it for a minute.
“Okay. How do we get there?”
“We go a few miles north, and that is where I will open the portal.”
One situation handled, now we have another and none of us know what to expect except Lynx.
I just hope to god this isn’t a bad fucking decision on our part.
21
Archer
Sister?
Sister?
How did I miss this aspect the whole entire time?
Why did I not put the pieces together sooner?
No wonder I felt such anger when I was with my Rabbit. No wonder hurting that girl brought me joy. I always wondered what it was in her blood that made me such an addict. It wasn’t her at all, rather the blood running through her veins. The same blood that she shares with her sister.
When I told my son that this wasn’t over, I meant it. I am not going to die like this, I refuse to die like this. No one gets to determine when and how I die except for me.
I look down at the wound that I know without a doubt is going to kill me slowly. It’s festering, putrefying and for once in centuries I feel as if I am human. I will become weak, sick, my body will slowly give out within a matter of days. This is just unacceptable.
What most people don’t know is that you can cure a bite such as this. You just need to drink the blood of the person whose has bitten you in the first place.
I know after everything done to Rabbit, she will never help save my life. For fucks sake, she’s the one who bit me in the first place. But her sister… now that is a completely different story. She will have no choice considering the fact that she is my mate. If I die, she’ll feel it and she will feel it for the rest of her life just like I feel Olivia’s death, haunting me, plaguing me. No matter how much I hated the bitch, she was still my mate and if it weren’t for the fact I was so old, strong enough to go through the madness… I probably would have died right along side of her.
Funny how life works right? Both father and son having mates that are both from the same family… the universe clearly thinks it’s hilarious to fuck me over by fating me to my precious little slave’s sister.
You know… I just thought it was a coincidence that Oksana looked almost identical to Olivia, which it absolutely possible, but it could also mean that Oliva is somehow related to these two. She must have been in the same family line, not exactly direct family but either Oliva is a descendant or vice versa.
Nonetheless I can’t overlook the fact that in my life I have two fucking mates. It’s unheard of, and if it has happened, I would have learned of it in one of my many scribes, books or tomes stashed away in my secret library stashed away in my study.
Then it hits me… if this girl is my Rabbit’s sister that means…
“Stop the vehicle!” I shout, actually it’s more of a demand not that I care what the driver actually thinks.
The vehicle comes to a jarring halt. Waiting for his next directions.
“Turn the vehicle around. Go back.”
The only thing I keep thinking about is that I can not let my son… his mate… my mate out of my sight. If my assumptions are correct and Oksana is indeed from Otherworld… they may have a way back in and if that is true, I have a way back as well.
I was alive when they closed the portals. Alive when they closed the outside world out, never to gain entry ever again. In my eyes King Lucius is and most likely still is a selfish goddamn bastard. Promising to wait until all his people were back within the world but sadly it was all pretty little lies.
King Lucius… to say the two of us didn’t like each other is a complete understatement… back in the day we would send assassins after one another hoping that for once their out smart one of us resulting in death. It was a tireless and endless game that never resulted in what we wanted. I was fine with him coming after me… but when he came after my sister because he couldn’t get to me… well he crossed the line.
Killing my sister… revenge is so close. I need to be healed and I need the passage. I know for a fact they are going to take notice when I jump through the portal after them, but they will think me weak and maybe I’ll even let them take me as a prisoner if it makes them feel better.
It will give me time to be with my mate. I would be able to observe her, gain her trust, make her want to save me.
I smile a little to myself.
Everything I want, I will get.
I am Archer Addison of course.
I always get exactly what I want.
Epilogue
Oksana
Stepping through the portal from Earth to Otherworld makes me nauseous, sick even.
It’s a swirling vortex of darkness that makes my head feel clouded and dizzy.
Umph.
I land in a heaping pile of bodies.
I don’t think any one of us lands gracefully… well maybe Lynx did since this is his area of expertise.
Oh, and add winded on top of all the other things I feel in this moment of time.
I take a second to be able to catch my breath, closing my eyes, hoping that it will stop the fact that the world is spinning a million miles an hour.
“Oksana, are you okay?” I hear Hadley’s ask.
I peek an eye open to let her know I am alright but what I see causes both of my eyes to fly open gasping.
“What in the…” Hadley is still Hadley. As gorgeous as she always been. I think the changes that have occurred have made her even more so. Her hair is still dark as night but now has streaks of lilac and a plum like color. Her ears are now pointed, same as Lynx and her eyes are the brightest of green. She has an iridescent tattoo going up her arm, up under her t-shirt looking like a vine with small unbloomed flower buds.
“I’m taking it that my appearance has changed as well?” I just nod my head.
“Please tell me I don’t have an obnoxious new hair color.” I bring my hands up to my mouth and giggle a little bit. “You have got to be fucking kidding me! What color?” She huffs out, stomping a foot.
“Purple. Two different shades of purple.”
Letting out an irritated breath she says, “Anything is better than blue. I really didn’t want to look like a fucking Smurf.”
Hesitantly I ask, “And mine?”
“Pink… and black.”
“Black?”
I grab my hair pulling it forward and see that I do in fact have all three of those colors. As much black as I have blonde.
I hear coughing from the direction we were all just laying in a pile of bodies at. Every single person I am with turns their head in that direction.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me!” Killian says out loud approaching Monster who clearly has followed us through the portal.
I am closer to him, about to seriously fuck him up when Hadley’s arm stops me.
“Don’t. He is already suffering, no need to cause him any other harm,” Hadley states.
Monster looks at her and murmurs, “Thank you.”
“Don’t you dare thank me. I don’t know you and clearly, I don’t have any desire to either. I know something has happened between you and Oksana and I am far from fucking stupid. You even look at her and I will kill you myself. Don’t fucking test me,” she spits all of this while walking up to him, poking him in his chest as she spoke every word to emphasize it.<
br />
Hadley pulls a pair of handcuffs out of the inside of her shirt, clearly stashing a few things in her sports bra for safe keeping. She roughly cuffs his hands together in the metal and after she is done restraining him. She kicks his legs out from underneath him and he falls to the ground.
Killian laughs out right. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
Hadley ignores him and turns to Lynx, “What nex-”
Her question is cut off by arrows being shot in our direction. As soon as they hit the ground, they explode causing this powder like stuff to enter the air surrounding us. We should probably be taking cover, but my vision starts to blur and when I walk it’s staggered like the world is moving quickly beneath my feet.
I make it to Hadley and grab her hand as we both fumble to the ground.
I can’t lose her, not again.
As the substance enters the air, I know it’s only a matter of time before it completely takes me out. Hadley is trying to stay strong, I can see it in her eyes except they keep closing for long moment and opening like she is trying to force her eyes to continue opening.
“We’ll be okay, Hadley. I promise.” I soothingly say to her before her eyes close for good.
My eyes start to do the same. Closing for long moments, but I’m ready. I want to get a good look at the person whose done this to us so I can remember his face.
It takes too long for the culprit to come forth and as I open my eyes the last time, I see four legs standing right in front of me.
They were not legs at all, but hooves rather.
Then the black oasis consumes me, dragging me deep within its darkest dungeon.
Heart’s Desire
Otherworld
Book #3
Brynn Burke
Coming Spring 2019
Prologue
Calico
King Lucius sent word a couple days ago that he requested an audience.
I hated that man, hated him more than I hate half the men in my crew.
At least with them, I knew that they were nothing but scum and were always in it for themselves… well that, and the gold.