by T. S. Joyce
“You saw Ashlyn,” Asher said in a low snarl. “So you’ve been lying to me. All this time you said there was no one for me. That I was meant to be alone.”
“You knew?” Roman yelled. “Fuck, Asher, seriously? You knew she was our mom?”
“Yes, and I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why not?” Gentry asked.
“Because I made a promise to Odine! I made a promise I couldn’t break. She wasn’t ready, and neither were you two. We were so deep in our hate for each other for so many years, Odine wasn’t going to be the glue for us. She would scatter us to the wind even farther. I had dreams of her when I hit twenty. Memories of our mother. Of Odine. Good ones. Ones that made me yearn for understanding of myself and what happened here. So I returned to Rangeley, and I found her. And she helped me get some control over The Taker.”
“What the fuck is The Taker?” Gentry growled.
Ashlyn slid her hand up Asher’s tense back, then hugged his side, because he was humming with power again, and this basement was too small for a man like him to lose control.
Asher let off a long, steadying breath. “The Taker is my darkness. It’s the part of me that could destroy the world if I’m not perfectly in control all of the time.”
“Holy shit,” Roman muttered, pacing to the door and back.
“Explain Ashlyn,” Asher gritted out to Odine.
With a slow blink, Odine lowered her onyx gaze to Ashlyn’s. And in a voice void of emotion, she uttered, “Ashlyn will be responsible for your death.”
“What?” Ashlyn whispered.
“Yours was the easiest future to read, Asher. Your fate was written in the stars from the moment I held you in my arms for the first time. Your death is soon, and you will die to protect a helpless human from an evil that has been building on the outskirts of Rangeley. You’ve felt it, son. Felt the wolf hunting you. Mila’s waited too long to secure the Bone-Rippers’ loyalty. I see you as an alpha, Asher. It was always you. Your father knew my predictions, and so he went to work. He thought if we changed one thread on the spider web of your destiny, it would alter the makeup entirely. And so he raised Gentry to be alpha because he was convinced if Asher wasn’t ever alpha, Fate would change its course. He put all his focus on pushing Gentry to take over the pack you were destined to rule because if he was alpha, you would never take it from him, and maybe, just maybe, you would live the long life we desperately wanted for you. Roman and Asher, you thought your father didn’t love you, but that was never the case for even a moment. He was just trying to save the son he knew he would lose too soon. It was an obsession, saving Asher, and he died with so many regrets.”
Roman and Asher slid emotion-filled gazes to the darkest corner of the room.
And then, so fast he blurred, Roman picked up an empty mason jar and chucked it at the wall right where they were staring. It exploded into a million tiny shards of glass. “You couldn’t just fucking tell us why you didn’t care about us? Huh? You couldn’t explain you had to build Gentry up? Instead we had to feel worthless for always? For our whole fucking lives?”
“You should’ve told me you saw Ashlyn before,” Asher growled in a voice that couldn’t pass for human.
“And if I did? If I told you there was a mate out there for you? What would you have done? Even if you knew she would be the death of you, what would you have done, my lonely boy?”
Asher rested his back against the wall and scrubbed his hand down his beard, blazing silver eyes locked on Odine. He slid his attention to Ashlyn, and she could see the answer there before he even said it. “I would’ve found her earlier so I could have more time with her.”
“Listen to me, Asher,” Odine demanded. “I still see it so clearly. You will die in the snowy woods of Winter’s Edge, while your brothers and their mates lie bloody in the snow near you. Ashlyn will survive because you will give your life for hers. Before that happens, she’s going to fix you, Asher. She’ll soak up your darkness and leave you weaponless against the storm that is hunting you.”
“Then I’ll leave,” Ashlyn said in a shaky voice. “I’ll be the thread that changes. He can’t give his life for me if I’m not here.”
“But I don’t want you to leave,” Asher gritted out.
“Dude, she’ll kill you,” Roman said, hands on his hips as he glared at his older brother.
“I just got her, Roman! I like how I feel around her. I’ve had her a few days, that’s all. Would you be fine with Mila going? Just cold turkey, cutting off from her, bye Mila? Hmm?” Asher canted his head and arched his blond eyebrows. “Would you?”
Roman wouldn’t meet his eyes anymore, and instead looked down at the floorboards and shook his head. “No.”
Hopeful, Ashlyn said, “Maybe the prediction won’t come true.”
Blaire looked at her with such sympathy in her green eyes. “Odine’s predictions always come true.”
“It’s bullshit,” Asher said, straightening his spine and pacing the back wall. “It’s bullshit! Roman and Gentry get their happily ever after. They were on a collision course from birth, and what did I get? More power than I can manage, power that kept me separate, power that kept me alone, and now that I’ve found someone who makes me happy, and who eases that ache—and it’s a fucking ache—I have to let her go? No.”
“Asher,” Mila whispered.
“No! You want to help, Mila? Go be alpha of the Bone-Rippers. Secure them under you. Bind them. It’s your right, you killed Rhett, go take your place on that throne. I won’t challenge you. I won’t take the pack from you. I don’t even want to be a fucking alpha. Until the day Ashlyn tires of me, I’m keeping her.”
Asher grabbed Ashlyn’s hand and led her up the basement stairs.
“And if she fixes The Taker?” Odine called after him.
“Good, I hope she does. I never wanted it anyway, Mom.”
There was a humming inside of her chest. “Asher?” she asked softly as he tugged her faster up the stairs.
“I feel it, too.”
So it wasn’t his power rattling the house now. Shit! Terror pushed her legs faster as they bolted across the living room and out the front door. But the humming only got louder when they stepped outside, and when Ashlyn looked into the woods, she gasped. Odine stood there, raven-dark hair whipping in the wind as she held her hand out toward them, fingers clawed. There was a blue spark flickering over her palm.
“You’ll see what he really is before you make this choice, Ashlyn,” Odine said over the wind, which was kicking up by the moment.
“Odine, stop!” Asher roared, shoving Ashlyn behind him. There was still another fifteen yards until they reached the truck.
Odine flicked her fingers, and the truck slid sideways, the tires making deep rivets in the black earth under the snow. It rocked to a violent stop at the edge of the woods, and now Odine was yelling words that made no sense. They were guttural sounds and in a language Ashlyn hadn’t a guess at.
“Oh, my gosh,” Ashlyn whispered.
She turned to see Blaire running for her. She looked horrified, her cheeks flushed and her bright green eyes wide. “Ashlyn, run!”
A wall of snow shot straight into the air, blotting out Blaire and the others completely. Ashlyn looked down at her feet where all the snow was disappearing, being sucked into that barrier.
“Shit,” Asher snarled, his head snapping to the side. “Ashlyn, back away.” He dropped to his knees but it didn’t look on purpose, his movements jerky. Black fog was leaking from his skin now in rivers of pitch darkness. His clothes were burning off with it and falling to the ground in wisps of gray ashes. Ashlyn bolted for the edge of the snow wall to run around it and escape, but Odine’s voice grew louder, battling the roaring wind, and the barrier formed a closed circle, trapping Ashlyn inside the center with Asher and Odine.
She reached out and touched the snow, and it burned her finger like fire. With a cry, she yanked her hand back and looked in horror at the bleeding raw skin of he
r fingertips.
When Asher roared in pain, Ashlyn spun around to see his body breaking. That’s all she could think to describe it. The snapping of a bone, and then another and another, echoed above the wind as the fog rolled out of him in thick waves. The snow was gone from the center of the circle, and now she could see the effects of The Taker. The darkness was scorching the earth around Asher’s body. And it was slowly creeping her way.
“Don’t do this,” Asher begged, blazing white eyes on Odine. He was doubled over, and his face was twisted in agony as he fought something Ashlyn couldn’t comprehend.
“She leaves or she dies,” Odine said between chanting.
“You’ll have me kill her? You’ll have me kill my mate? Fuck!” Asher screamed, the veins in his neck straining as he pitched forward, his palms landing hard on the ground. “You’ll have me kill you?” he asked in a strangled voice. “I’ll choose her, Odine. The Taker will choose her, too. Let me up, or you’ll breathe your last breath for this.”
“I love you! You’re my firstborn, my Asher Boy. It’s you above her, you above me.”
Ashlyn whimpered and sidestepped as tendrils of inky mist reached for her ankles. “I’ll leave. I swear I’ll leave, just let him up!”
“Behold the monster you’ve fallen in lust with, sweet Ashlyn,” Odine called. She clenched her fist around the flickering blue flame and twisted her wrist. And in that moment, something horrible exploded from Asher. A black-furred monster with white eyes and razor sharp teeth. One whose coarse, dark hair spiked along his back as he rose from the fog, bigger and bigger until Ashlyn had to arch her neck back to take in the massive body of a beastly wolf.
The mist had reached her, and there was nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. There was a wall of burning snow behind her, and the circle was filled with The Taker.
Ashlyn doubled over the ripping pain in her stomach as the dark pulsed into her body. “Asher,” she choked out.
Asher took his hate-filled gaze off Odine and slid those terrifying white eyes to Ashlyn. And instantly, the pain eased and the fog lifted and hovered just above her skin. Power pulsed from the wolf, and the snow wall blasted outward and disappeared completely. The darkness lifted into the air, concentrating until it wasn’t transparent anymore, but was like black water, churning around the wolf.
Odine stopped her chanting and gasped in the instant before The Taker blasted into her. Blasted through her. Blasted through the woods, leveling every tree behind Odine.
He was going to kill his mother…for her.
“Asher stop!” she screamed, running for the witch, who was down on her knees in the black cloud.
Maybe Odine was dead already, Ashlyn didn’t know. All she knew was she had to try and save her, not because she cared about her, but because, if Asher did this, his soul would be unsalvageable, and he would be lost forever.
From behind her, Blaire and the others were screaming something she couldn’t understand, but she didn’t slow down. She couldn’t. Odine’s breaths were severely numbered right now.
The second before she burst into the fog, she looked over her shoulder at Asher, and what she saw there scared her. His eyes were completely white and full of fury, focused on Odine. He didn’t even react or look at Ashlyn. He was intent on the destruction of the woman who’d tried to hurt her. Asher was the gentlemonster no more.
Ashlyn burst into the fog, expecting immediate pain, but none came. Instead, only a throbbing, humming sensation of great power pulsed against her body as she slid on her knees in the cold dirt and tackled Odine. Ashlyn covered her with her body and gritted her teeth. And then something happened to her. Something she didn’t understand, or know how to control. A wave of energy pulsed out of her body. And she could see it, even without Asher touching her. She could see the blue, growing out from her skin, dancing with the black, mixing, swirling, creating a barrier over her and Odine’s limp body. Please be alive.
A chill-inducing howl lifted into the air, followed by a smattering of pops like gunfire. And then another howl joined, and another, and another, and another.
The Strikers were werewolves. Mother. Fucking. Werewolves. And included in that was Blaire. She approached through the mist, loping along the edge. She was white-furred and fanged, but her eyes were worried and locked on Ashlyn. There was her friend. There was her Blaire, just in a different body. This was why she was in Rangeley. This was why she’d never come home. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t.
Ashlyn cradled Odine to her chest. The woman was shaking, cold perhaps, but at least she was still alive.
The blue was growing and sparking like a storm cloud hiding lightning. It hurt now. Her skin tingled, and her body ached more by the second. Tears streamed down her cheeks as the colors mixed and turned in a slow-moving cyclone around them. The black was disappearing into her blue, darkening it. Darkening her. She was ripping apart, pulling the dark into her. No! That’s not what she wanted. She wanted to stay separate.
Get out of there. It was Asher’s voice in her head. Ashlyn, let her go!
But she couldn’t. Her body was stuck to Odine, and the woman was staring up at her with wide, black eyes. “Don’t hurt my son,” Odine whispered.
But Ashlyn wasn’t trying to hurt him. She was trying to save him. Save his soul from the dark. He wasn’t like Odine. He wasn’t made to be ruthless, or shoulder the burden of infinite power. Didn’t Odine see how tired he was? Didn’t she see the toll? Didn’t she see Ashlyn’s war was with The Taker right now, not with Asher? Didn’t she see how much Ashlyn already loved him? Loved him? Yeah. That felt right. Perfectly right. Love.
With her body feeling like it was breaking apart, Ashlyn looked over her shoulder at Asher, but he was drawing the dark blue fog back into himself, head down, tail lowered, eyes churning with pain. He was trying to protect her, but he was taking some of her with him. Ashlyn stumbled to her feet and swayed, locked her legs to stay upright.
“Enough,” she murmured.
Asher ran for her, his massive black claws digging into the earth. Her legs gave way. Time slowed. In a burst of midnight blue fog, Asher changed into a man and caught her in his strong arms before she hit the ground.
Ashlyn felt a hundred years old. She felt like she hadn’t slept in years. The exhaustion was bone-deep, but she didn’t want to close her eyes yet. Not until she made sure he was still okay, still with her, still salvageable.
Asher searched her face with eyes that darkened from white to frost blue. “What did you do?”
“I saved your soul,” she whispered. But she’d heard Odine’s prediction, and now she’d created one of the threads in the spider web of his fate by warring with The Taker. “I saved your soul, and I killed you.”
And before she closed her eyes and gave into the exhaustion, she realized something heartbreaking.
She was going to have to leave him to save his life.
Chapter Thirteen
“You didn’t cure me, Ashlyn.” It was the first thing Asher had said to her since this morning. In fact, it was the first time he’d even looked at her. He’d driven her back to Hunter Cove Inn in silence, staring straight ahead like she didn’t exist at all. And then, as soon as he dropped her and the others off, he drove away. He ran again.
And when he’d returned after being gone all day, he’d asked to talk to her here, in the bar his father had owned.
Ashlyn looked around Winter’s Edge. The tavern was almost ready for the Grand Opening, all the permits were in, the liquor license secured, every dust mote had been evicted, every glass washed, every seat was ready for a patron. All that was left was to hang some old pictures Asher’s dad used to have hanging on the walls, and put the Grand Opening sign over the door. “Tomorrow, we should have this place totally ready.”
“I won’t be here.”
She dried the last shot glass and set it in the row with the others. At his admission, she huffed a soft laugh and shook her head. “You ever gonna stop—”
&n
bsp; “I’m not running. Not this time. I’m hunting.”
Ashlyn frowned and leaned her elbows on the bar as he took the stool on the other side. “Hunting what?”
“Evil.”
“The wolf Odine said was after you?”
His eyes flashed silver as he nodded his head. “I can hear what you’re thinking, Ashlyn. You’re going to leave me.” He looked sick as he said those last words.
“We just met—”
“Don’t do that. It’s such a human thing to say.”
“Well, I’m human.”
Asher gritted his teeth so hard his jaw worked under his blond whiskers. “The Taker is still there, still so fucking easy for me to reach, still hungry. Odine was wrong. You didn’t fix that part of me. You just…changed it a little. I don’t feel so…heavy. We need to talk about what you saw.”
“The wolf?”
“Yeah.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He rested his arms on the bar before he unscrewed the cap of a shaker and dumped a pile of salt onto the shining counter. And then he sketched a quick wolf with the tip of his finger.
“When you told me the things you are, I didn’t pay attention to the wolf one. I thought it was a turn of phrase. I thought you meant you were a predator of some sort, not a real wolf. Asher…”
“I know. He’s a lot to accept.”
“All of this is.”
“So is this the freak out you scheduled into your phone?” His silver eyes flashed to her. His lip was quirked up in the smallest smile, but it faded the second he saw her face, and then he dropped his attention back to the salt.
This wasn’t a joke. This was life and death. His death.
“You disappeared on me today, and do you know how I spent that time? With Blaire and Mila in ten-ten, crying my eyes out, hugging a pillow on the couch that smelled like you, staring into the fireplace while those two girls, those two werewolves, explained everything that’s happened in Rangeley. And right inside the front door stood two Striker brothers who looked relaxed enough, but I wasn’t fooled. Roman and Gentry were there to make sure I didn’t leave. They were standing guard against me. And I get it. I’m human. I’m other. I’m a threat if I ever outed you or your people. I would never, but they don’t know me well enough to trust me completely. Not like Blaire does. So I know everything now, Asher. Blaire made sure I wasn’t left in the dark about anything. She told me what happened to her. She also told me if you bite me, I’ll die.”