by Elle Boon
The being inside him must have realized she wasn’t scared, allowing Raydon to surface. “Lula, what’re...what’re you doing? They...she, hell, I don’t know who’s inside me, but she says whatever you’re going to do will kill the both of us.” He struggled against the bindings.
Sky gasped, her hand grasping River’s arm. “They’re lying to him. If there’s more than one in his head, then she’s opened him to more than just her presence. Lula will know what she’s doing, trust her.”
“Sky, that’s not just my brother, he’s my twin. We’ve shared our entire lives. Can you honestly gamble his life on...I mean, I know Lula is powerful and all, but how do we know she can do what she says?” Fuck, he couldn’t allow his brother to risk his life alone.
“Rest easy, wolfie, I’d never harm one of Jennaveve’s people. Now, hush, you’re giving me a tumor.” Lula’s voice popped into their shared link, something nobody should be able to do.
Raydon’s eyes flickered, the pupils become a slit similar to a snake. “You will suffer if you do what I think you’re about to do, Lula dragon.”
Lula waved her hand, smoke moved from the pot over Raydon. “Ah, lookie there. You trying to be all scary and all. Newsflash, snakypoo, I’ve seen scary and heard scarier. A wittle sucker like you and your lot are a blip to ones such as us. Oh, did you think I came alone? Tsk tsk tsk, silly boys, you brought your C team, when we always bring our A team,” she laughed, then allowed the smoke to float over Raydon, encompassing his entire frame.
“LulaBell, what did I tell you about playing with your food before eating it?”
Sky turned at the new voice behind them, barely stopping River from shoving her behind him. “That’s Lula’s mama. She’s here to help.”
“Why thank you, Sky. Nice to see you finally mated these two. Och, we need to get those parasites out of the prone one though. They’re not fit for the earthbound.” Belle in her smaller dragon form, walked past them, her tail flicking back and forth, making River lift Sky out of the way of the lashing tip. “Ah, wolfie, I’d not truly injure you, or especially your mate. I like you.”
River noticed how she didn’t say she would injure him at all, but that was a splitting of hairs, surely. A roar rent the air and then Raydon was collapsing back onto the ground.
“What the everlovingfuck was that?” he asked, trying to see around the huge dragon and Lula.
A clicking sound was his answer. “Sky, Lula needs your help. Come here quickly, but leave the wolf.”
“The fuck,” River argued.
Belle turned her head, huge dragon eyes blinked back at them. “You will stay where you are and not disturb us.”
The second she uttered the words, he felt as if bands of steel wrapped around him. “Belle, don’t you fucking do this to me.”
“Silence,” Belle muttered.
Sky looked back at him, mouthing the word sorry. He tried to reach her through their link but came up against a wall. Thoughts of being fooled, of what they, the dragons and the reptile like being could be doing to his brother and their mate. His wolf pushed forward, growling, forcing his way out of his skin.
“Oh my goddess, they’re killing him. What do you need me to do?” Sky asked, dropping to her knees next to Raydon.
“Lula can not give anymore of herself to anyone, but you have some dragon in you. Give him some of your blood. It will save him.” Belle moved her hands over Raydon’s body, a writhing mass moved in and out of him, reminding her of smoke and mirrors.
“If I give him my blood and they’re still in there, won’t that revitalize them?”
Belle gave a roar, then pulled the two ghostly beings out. “Do it now if you want to save him,” she ordered then disappeared.
Raydon gasped, his eyes opened then the color began to drain from him.
“I can give him some,” Lula offered.
Sky took a closer look at Lula, seeing for the first time that the female didn’t look as robust as she’d looked just hours ago. “No, he’s mine.” She shifted her finger, allowing a claw to form, allowing her to slice a thin line across her wrist. A growl came from behind her. River’s anguish pushed at her almost breaking her focus. “Raydon, don’t you leave us,” she cried and lifted his head into her lap, allowing her blood to flow into his mouth. Gah, she wasn’t sure what she thought of sharing blood, was glad they weren’t vampires or wolpires. Just as she thought the last, Raydon sealed his lips around the wound and sucked, making her entire body light up. “Oh, fuck,” she swore.
“Yeah, I think that’s what the Fey Queen said.” Lula moved away. “I think I’ll just release, oh, good boy. Now, put those fangs away, wolfie.”
Sky looked behind her, her body on fire as Raydon took her blood. “River, he’s fine. Come here.”
River’s lips pulled back in a snarl.
“Lula, your mother blocked him from moving and speaking. Fix him,” she cried.
“Jenna,” Lula yelled. “Get your Fey ass out here.”
“You have really gotten a potty mouth on you, LulaBell. Hello, Sky, or should I call you hellmouth like your mates? Enough, Raydon.” Jenna touched his head and he released Sky. “Speak and be good, or your normal self, River. See, I’m learning.” Jenna sat down next to Sky. “Ah, I’ve missed these woods. Doesn’t it smell—” she stopped and sniffed. “Hold that thought.” She got up, brushed her butt off, and spun in a slow circle. The air picked up, sparkles floating down around them. “There, now isn’t that better? There’s never too much glitter, I always say. Am I right?”
Raydon sat up, wrapped his arms around Sky, and breathed deeply. “So, I might’ve made a rash decision.”
“Do you think?” Sky elbowed him.
“In his defense, I didn’t think Stella, who by the way is still alive and kicking where my mother took her, even though she deserves to die but that’s neither hear nor there. Anyhoo, I don’t think she’s truly your sister, but that’s something we’ll need to speak with your parents about.” Lula sat next to Sky and leaned back on her arms, crossing her feet as she stared up through the trees. “Where was I? Oh, right...Stella wasn’t alone when she came into you, but the parasite, aka the sucker queen, was a hitchhiker. I’m sure she has some official awesome name, but sucker beotch works for me. Your parents basically made a deal with the devil, or no, not the devil because that would be Creed’s daddy and ain’t nobody got time for that one.”
Sky put her head on Raydon’s shoulder. “Seriously, all this makes sense if you just follow the threads.”
“Jenna, explain to these lesser beings. I’m exhausted,” Lula said with a careless wave of her hand.
“Why yes, my dear. I shall do your bidding. Basically, Sky had two beings hiding inside her. Both were allowed the right to come back here, at a certain point in time, which was brokered by her parents at Sky’s birth. I’m assuming, when Sky was near death, they thought it was the perfect time to call your sister back. In their defense, they weren’t prepared to give Sky up when she was alive and well, but as you lie at deaths door, all was fair in their minds. Of course, they didn’t know we’d be fixing you, or that Lula would be putting a part of herself inside Sky either. Lula, you and I need to have a talk, though, dear.” Jenna got up, her hand held out to Lula.
“Ah man, am I in trouble?” Lula took Jenna’s hand.
Fear skated down Sky’s spine. “Do you need to do your thing and take the part of you out of me?”
River shifted from wolf to man, his steps sure and filled with so much anger she could feel it pushing at her. “No, she can’t take it out of you, or you die.”
Raydon jumped to his feet, swaying slightly. “Over my dead body.”
Jenna held her hand up. “Everyone, calm the fuckity fuck down. You don’t want me to call my bestie, or my wolpire mates, ‘cause I totally will. I’m a hormonal woman whose breasts are filled with milk, and I’m feeling my babies need to be fed shortly, so just calm the fuck down,” she yelled.
“Jenna,
are you boobs gonna leak all over? They make bras that fix that,” Lula offered.
The Fey Queen pinned Lula with her no nonsense glare. “I’m going to be the one speaking, and you four are going to listen. Lula, you’re to go home to Fey and recharge. I’ve got healers there waiting to make sure you get what you need to be back at one hundred percent, since you seem bent on giving little nuggets of yourself to all who need, which I thank you for.” A tear fell from her right eye. “Sky, you are a worthy female, who suffered much. Again, I failed you at a time that I shouldn’t have.”
“No you didn’t. Jenna, you are not the all and powerful. My parents did this, not you. You’ve given us all so much, and you need to quit being so hard on yourself. Besides, you’re a mother. Can you imagine doing what mine did to me, to your children?”
“Never!” Jenna’s body vibrated.
Sky nodded, then found herself wrapped in Jenna’s arms. “Thank you for my life, for my second chance.”
“I feel different,” Raydon spoke, breaking them apart.
Lula put her hand on his forehead. “That’s my dragon blood, but you’re not gonna have my dragon in you.”
Raydon shivered. “Not that I don’t love Sky and all that she is and think you’re great, but I didn’t want to become a wolfagon.”
Jenna turned to them. “A wolfagon?”
Sky grinned. “I figured if you put a wolf and a dragon together, they’d be a wolfagon.”
Lula stomped her foot. “Why not a dragolf?” She tilted her head. “I guess the other sounds better, but dragons are mightier.”
“Back to the problem at hand. Your parents. If they have a door to the soul suckers, which isn’t their formal name by the way, then we need to shut it down.” Jenna swept her hair back and fanned her face.
The air stirred, making the hair on Sky’s arms stand up. “Ah, we’ve got company.”
“Jennaveve Cordell, what the hell do you think you’re doing running off? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in?” Lucas Cordell appeared behind Jenna, his twin striding next to him, each man holding a baby.
“What if there was danger, and the two of you brought our children in the middle of it? Bad daddies,” Jenna admonished, then cooed as the little girl in Lucas’s arms babbled with her arms out for her mother. The other slept soundly in Damien’s arms.
Lucas snorted, passing his little bundle over to Jenna who instantly lowered her dress and began nursing the little girl. “Newsflash, my love, we know everything. Well, Ezra there said all was fine, and since our father has had him trailing you without any of us knowing, we knew you were safe. This time.” He ran his hand over the baby’s head, staring down at mother and child with so much love Sky had to look away.
“Beep beep, back up. Ezra is following me? Ezraaaa,” she yelled, making the baby whimper. “Sssh, sorry, little one. See what you made me do, Ezra.” She eyed the big vampire soldier who appeared from thin air.
“Niall is gonna shit kittens when he finds out so many strangers have invaded his territory,” River growled.
“Niall already knows, and I don’t shit kittens. Cordells, good to see you. Ezra, thank you for watching over Jenna.” Niall nodded toward the men.
Sky raised her hand. “Can we please get back to the terrible parents who may or may not allow my wicked sister to hop back into me?”
“The chimera can only take over your soul if you are weakened. Now that you’re at full strength and not allowing the connection, she can not do so. However, if your parents know of another, or if they orchestrate the death or injury of another, they can create the gateway. The only way to defeat her, your sister, is to go where she is and destroy her.” Ezra pinned Sky with a hard stare.
“No, she’s my twin. I can’t kill her,” Sky denied.
“Would you rather she return in another body and kill you or those you love? That is what will happen. She’s had a taste of freedom. There’s no way she’ll be satisfied with life there in the Yokai Hebi Sekai Realm.” Ezra kicked the dirt around where Raydon had been on the ground.
“Is that the name of the soul suckers world?” Sky asked.
Ezra nodded. “It is translated to mean The Spirit of the Snake World.”
Raydon didn’t want to think of what that meant for its inhabitants, or what that would imply for what had been inside his body. Hell, he wanted to shift into his wolf and take a dip into the nearest river to wash the thought of a snake slithering through him. “Does that mean they’re like snake people?”
“That’s where you make a mistake, thinking they have any humanity. The beings aren’t human at all. Your sister, she is no longer human. Her soul went there and was consumed by them. If your parents were promised anything by them, they were lied to. The Hebi will come here and leave nothing but ruin on this world,” he said softly.
“You lie. Our daughter, our beloved Stella is on the other side of the veil, waiting to be reborn. If you’d have just died, she’d be here, in your body like she should’ve been. Why can’t you just die already?”
Sky turned at the sound of her mother’s voice. “You made a pact with something worse than the devil, for what? A child who died in your womb? You want to point fingers, mother? Why don’t you point them at yourself, or maybe father, or at Keith, the alpha you allowed to do whatever he wanted as long as he gave you what you wanted. Oh, don’t think I don’t know about your side deal with him, I know so much more than I did, thanks to my visit with your dear Stella. She was very forthcoming.” Sky walked toward her parents, hatred pulsing off of them in waves.
“We did what we had to survive. You should thank us. Look at you, whoring it with two mangy wolves who are...” Sky cut her mother’s words off with a vicious grip to her throat.
“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you. Cordell, you might want to take your children home. It might get messy around here.” She didn’t turn from the woman who’d given her life. The woman many said she resembled showed no sign of caring for Sky, and she knew without a doubt she would offer Sky up to the Hebi or even Satan himself, if it gave them what they wanted. “Why could you never love me? What did I ever do that was so awful? I was a baby, the same as Stella?”
Her father spat on the ground but didn’t make a move toward her. “You were his. Stella was mine.”
Sky froze, her fingers tightened. “That’s not true.” She couldn’t be Keith’s daughter. He was going to make her his whore. He...goddess, no. Taryn was his daughter. She’d suffered because of who she was. If Keith had known she was his, he’d have...
“You’re lying,” she whispered.
Nova, Sky’s mother laughed. “Our mother never lies, much.”
The husky voice shocked Sky, giving the other being a chance to toss Sky away.
“Nova, what the hell’s going on?” Hank asked.
Sky wanted to tell her father to shut the hell up but remembered he wasn’t her father, probably. “So, mommy dearest let you piggyback into her this time? How’s it feel, going from my young body, to her older one?” They were shifters, and as such, her mother looked more like her older sister. However, she’d learned taunting tended to piss people off, which then made them make mistakes.
“Aw, you’re cute. This, is an upgrade from the one I’ve been rocking for hundreds of years, sister dearest. Oh, did you forget time moves differently on other realms. So, while your puny little mind is all of twenty-five, mine is hundreds of years old. I’ve amassed more knowledge than you’ll ever have the chance to. Now, if you’d like, we can do this the easy way.”
Sky rolled her eyes. “Good goddess, someone needs to fix their lisp. Jenna, can you fix that? Or is that something she’ll be stuck with?”
“Yeah, I’m afraid we can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Sorry, not sorry. Now, I’m gonna need you to woop your sissy’s ass so I can nurse my other nugget, mkay?”
“Ah, itsss the Fey bitch. You think you’re invincible, but you’re not. We will decimate this...”<
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“Blah blah blah, shut it snake breath. I’ve got babies to feed.”
Sky looked over her shoulder, smiling at Jenna, which clearly was a stupid move. Her sister, mother, gah, it was hard to keep track of who was who in the land of the body snatchers, tackled her. She rolled with the female, her hand wrapping in the bun, her mother preferred, to keep her from biting Sky’s throat out. “My, what big teeth you have, mother.” They rolled again, coming to a stop by a pair of black loafers. Sky punched her mother in the face, wincing at the sound of crunching bone. Her dad reached for her, the movement in her peripheral had her flipping backward, losing a few strands of hair in the process.
“End this Sky,” River ordered.
She winked, happy to find he and Raydon had captured her father. Her father didn’t fight them, while she and the being in her mother’s body circled one another.
“You know, I used to close my eyes and wish it all away. I imagined I was you with beautiful clouds hanging over me. I’d rest my head on my arms and let my thoughts take me away from where I was but then reality would intrude. Want to know about my reality, Sky Sky?”
“Would you like me to pull a violin out and play a tune for you? In Jenna’s words, sorry not sorry. It wasn’t my fault, you crazy bitch.” She dodged left when a spear flew through the air, instinct telling her it was coming. “I used to dream I had a sister. I wanted one so badly that I imagined what she’d look like. Never did I dream she’d look like my mother though.” Sky released a blast of fire, catching the being by surprise.
“Do you know there’s no color in Yokai Hebi Sekai. We’d get visitors who thought they could leave, but we’d keep them just so we could see through their eyes for a time, but their colors would eventually fade to gray. If you could turn back time, would you save me Sky?”
The mesmerizing way her mother began moving had Sky freezing in place. “I...what?”
“Don’t listen to her. Look at us, Sky?” River growled.