Or perhaps you did see it and never cared because you had become the same through your need for revenge. The baby has changed something inside you. You are no longer the same as him.
She jerked in his arms as the voice sounded in her head, a voice she’d not heard for centuries and one she’d longed to hear ever since she’d seen her disappear in a blaze of heavenly fire. ‘Morghanna?’
Cain stilled just before his lips touched hers. ‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing.’
He tipped his head to the side and observed her for a long moment as she tried not to cringe from him. ‘You are thinking of your sister. Why?’
‘I always think of my sister. It is revenge for her that has driven me all these years.’
‘But why mention her now?’
Her mind scrambled but could come up with nothing but the truth. ‘I thought I heard her voice in my head.’
‘Did you now? And what did she say?’
‘What she always says. She wants her revenge.’
His lips curled into a cruel smile. ‘Yes. Although revenge for your sister isn’t the central goal. It never was.’
‘What are you talking about? It’s all I’ve ever wanted. All I’ve ever fought for. I want the Were gone, dead, scattered to dust, all evidence of their existence wiped from this world. The Darkness promised to help me do it.’
His gaze was on her, the same smile fixed to his lips making him look like a painted picture of an angel. ‘That was never the Darkness’ goal. He wanted back into the Were. It was the closest he had ever been to having a body of his own. He was simply using you and your need for revenge as a way to get back what your sister and her friends had stolen from him.’
‘No. That’s not true.’
‘You know it is.’ His smile widened as he reached out and caressed her cheek. ‘Silly Morrigan. So caught up in your own hatred that you failed to see you were being used just as you used others.’
‘It’s not true! The Darkness loves me. He would never betray me like that.’ She’d begun to tremble again, but this time not from nausea. Despite her words, she knew he was right. The Darkness had used her and it was using her, and her baby, one final time.
‘Oh, it wasn’t a betrayal,’ he answered, cutting into her thoughts. ‘You wanted the pact destroyed and he was happy to support you in that goal, because it meant he would get what he wanted—the ability to take over the Were once more and act through them in their animal form. He didn’t want them destroyed. They were the only creatures on this earth he could enter into without destroying their bodies after a while.’
‘He entered into me. And you. He hasn’t destroyed either of us.’
‘It’s not the same. He can’t control us. We are not his creatures in the same way the Were were. And even the way he took over them wasn’t truly fulfilling. He longed to be whole again, to find a way around the punishment wrought on him by the gods for his hubris in loving one of them. They tore him apart, made him so much less than he was, and so he thought he must remain. Which was why he wanted to get back into the Were. Why he wanted you to destroy the pact.’ Cain’s eyes glittered as he grasped her arms, fingers digging into her flesh. ‘But we have changed that for him once and for all. We have done what no other has managed to do in the history of the Darkness’ existence. We’ve given him hope to be what he once was.’ His hand shifted down to cover the small mound of her stomach. ‘This child, the child you and I have made, makes the Were’s importance to him insignificant. The Darkness will be the child and the child will be him. Isn’t it magnificent?’
‘But what of the Were? What of my revenge?’
‘Oh, you will get that, don’t you worry. The Were and their covens will bow down to our son or be destroyed.’
She knew they wouldn’t bow down, which meant they would be destroyed. For some strange reason, it didn’t give her the satisfaction she thought it should. Even so, she asked, ‘You promise?’
He simply smiled and then bent down and took her mouth in a kiss that was hunger and violence and passion and madness entwined. And as she kissed him back, tearing the clothes from his back and letting him take her against the wall, instead of the exuberance of finally getting everything she’d ever hoped for singing in her head, she heard nothing but her sister’s sobbing.
It hurt her more than it should have.
Chapter 17
‘Shelley!’
Adam’s voice rang all around him as he screamed her name, reaching out to her, trying to stop the pressure that was pushing him back through the door, away from the woman he loved. He could see her face disappearing as the light grew brighter around him, the pain and sorrow in her eyes as she forced him from her. He wanted to stop her, to stay with her, to chase that pain and sorrow away, to make her laugh, to have the only tears she ever shed be ones of joy, not sorrow.
But she was too strong and he couldn’t fight the power of her as she pushed him away from her. The light flared and for a moment he was blinded and falling.
Then he stopped and the light faded.
He was standing in a darkened place, alone. Still reaching for Shelley. ‘Fuck.’ His outstretched hand dropped to his side. ‘Why, Shelley? Why did you push me away?’ His shout echoed back to him, hidden barbs of truth underlying the echoes as they folded over him, fading away.
She didn’t want him. She’d never wanted him. She had no use for him in her life. He’d always known that. But by the moon, he’d never wanted to admit it because the truth was, he wanted her. He needed her. He loved her. And he couldn’t stop. Shit, he’d fucking tried to stop. He’d tried so hard. Especially as she wasn’t his mate. But it was hopeless. He loved her and she never would love him. She didn’t even want him by her side as her Shadow. He really had to stop torturing himself and give up on her as she’d given up on him.
‘She has never given up on you, Adam.’
He didn’t bother to turn around to face the woman who stood behind him. ‘She pushed me away.’
‘She did it for you. You would have died if you’d stayed there. She knew that.’
‘How could she know that?’
‘Are you forgetting she is the banshee? She could feel the truth of it rising inside her. It’s why she helped me and used her power to push you into this place with me. It was for your own good.’
‘My good? What use is that if I can’t be there to help her? I might as well be dead.’
A soft hand touched his arm, but he still refused to turn around. ‘You have given her everything she needs to become who she must be. She would never have got this far without you. But she must go the rest of the distance herself. You cannot help her with her personal journey. Just as she can’t help you with yours.’
He looked down at his hands. ‘She saw past my bullshit and saw me as I truly am. She’s helped me learn so much about my Trickster side and what that means. She’s helped me feel like I truly belong, that I have value within the pack. That I’m not simply a joke.’
‘Yes. She did. But as she now must travel her path alone, so must you. By making you come here, Shelley is only helping you to fulfil your destiny, Adam. Do not be too harsh on her.’
He hissed out a breath. ‘I don’t blame her. I would never blame her. I was blaming myself. For not being enough.’
‘She would not want you to do that, would she, Adam? Just as you would never want her to blame herself for not being enough.’
‘She is more than enough.’ He spun to face her. ‘Don’t ever say she isn’t enough.’
Morghanna Cantrae smiled up at him, hands splayed out in a gesture of acquiescence. ‘I would never do such a thing. Shelley is all she is meant to be and now that you are not there to baby her, she might just grow into her potential.’
‘Baby her! I’ve never babied her.’
‘What I meant was that you have both been acting as shields for each other against the world and your place in it. Now it is time for you both to follow your own paths
; to create your own shields by truly becoming who and what you are meant to be. Only then can you return to each other and truly be worthy of the love you hide from each other and the world.’
‘She doesn’t love me.’
She smiled at him. ‘That is a lie you tell yourself because it makes things easier. Because it stops you from truly opening up and allowing the mating bond to become.’
‘She isn’t my mate.’
Morghanna shook her head. ‘Of course she is. There is nobody else who could ever be mated to you. You know this at your core. Your wolf certainly knows this. Without you there to get in the way, it has already begun to link itself to her.’
‘It’s done what? How?’
She turned and began to walk away from him, forcing him to follow. ‘How or what do not matter. All that matters is what is and what is to become.’
‘Christ, you’re as bad as Arianrhod talking in riddles.’
She flashed him a grin. ‘Thank you.’
‘It wasn’t a compliment.’
She chuckled. ‘It is if I take it as one.’ She looked up at him, having to crane her head right back to look up into his eyes. She was a tiny, dainty thing, all cascading dark hair and violet eyes, but despite her dainty appearance, she wasn’t fragile. Power radiated off her in waves that pushed and pulled at him at once.
‘What makes you think you know so much about me and how I feel?’
‘I have been waiting for you since long before your birth. The moment you sprang to life inside your mother’s womb, I began watching you. And I am not the only one. Those of us who have been fighting the Darkness and the powers behind it for eons have been watching you, encouraging your Trickster side, trying to make you see the worth of who you truly are.’
‘You did a rotten job of it.’
‘Did we?’
‘Yes. Before Shelley and Skye and Bron came into our lives, I thought I was pretty much useless in the pack. The only ones who believed in me were my family and even then, they often lost patience with me. I was too much of a joker. Never took anything seriously. So nobody ever took me seriously.’
‘But they did come into your life. Who do you think was behind ensuring their path to you and your pack?’ The smug expression on her face faded to be replaced with a desperate kind of anger and regret. ‘I only wish I could have done more to stop the Darkness taking so much from you all. I wish I could have torn it from my sister and cast it into the void where it truly belongs.’ She shook her head, her violet eyes wells of sadness. ‘I could not. I do not have that kind of power. I am not supposed to choose those who are to live and those who die. Who death comes to is not my ability to control—I was only ever a harbinger of it.’
‘What?’ It took a moment for her words to sink in. ‘You’re a banshee?’
‘No. Nothing so powerful. I am a medium and a seer of death. That is all.’
‘Then if you can’t control death, how did you tie death into your curse?’
She looked down, and he could have sworn she looked ashamed. ‘In my anger, I let the Darkness into my words. I wanted those who had hurt me and mine to feel my pain and the Darkness answered my call.’
‘You used dark magic? But I thought you were the Goddess’ creature.’
‘I am.’ She looked back up at him, a little crease in between her brow. ‘Your mistake, Adam, has always been that you think your actions make you who you are, but that is not true.’ She reached out and touched his chest, her fingers splaying over his heart. ‘Our actions are only part of the story. It is what is in here,’ her fingers pressed in a little, ‘that truly guides what you are. I made a mistake, but that one mistake is not the sum of my being. Just as your ability to make people laugh and feel happy isn’t the sum of yours. You have so much more to offer than that.’ She pulled her hand away. ‘Which is why you are here. And if you’ve finished sulking because Shelley did what she had to and sent you here with me, then we can get on with teaching what you must know to help your mate, your brother, your pack and your coven destroy the Darkness and its minions once and for all.’
‘One of those minions is your sister. You would kill your own sister?’
She stopped walking and turned to face him again. ‘I do not wish to kill my sister, but I would save my family. River and Skye are my descendants. They are my blood. I would not see them or their progeny destroyed because my sister thinks she needs to gain revenge for my death. I gained my own revenge, much to my never-ending shame. I tried to make her see that allowing such evil into her heart was not the way to deal with her grief, but she would not listen. She still does not listen.’
‘What do you mean she still doesn’t listen? Are you in communication with her?’
‘Of course I try to communicate with her. She is my sister and I do not wish to give up on her, despite all she has done.’ She pressed her lips together. ‘But I am also prepared to sacrifice her if that is what must be.’ She waved her hand in an impatient, chopping motion. ‘We are wasting time. We must go.’
‘Go? I only just got here.’
‘This is only a transition place known as the God’s Hall.’ She held her hand out. ‘Take my hand. I am about to drop the shield from around us. You might find it disorienting to see the truth of where we are.’
He swallowed loudly and took her hand. A dark curtain fell from around him and he was standing on nothing in a field of stars. ‘Holy shit,’ he whispered, beginning to wobble as the stars moved across the endless sky around him. It was dizzyingly immense, its vastness too much for him to take in. He’d heard of astronauts suffering from a strange kind of vertigo when taking their first steps into space with nothing between them and infinity except their space suit and the tether tying them to their ship; no up, no down, no right or left, no gravity, nothing to shape their world or give them a sense of who they were and where they stood in the scheme of things. He’d never been able to imagine the sensation. Until now.
‘I’m going to fall.’
‘You will not fall.’ Morghanna’s hand tightened on his, acting as an anchor. He tore his gaze away from the endless night sky around him and looked down at the hand that was the only thing stopping him from flying off into infinity and being lost forever.
‘How are we standing here?’ Was he standing? Or was he hanging?
‘Let go of your preconceptions of your corporeal body. You have learned to walk through walls or sink down through the floor or fly through a ceiling. You have learned to close your eyes and think of someone and find yourself at their side in an instant. Time and place and space have no true meaning to a spirit such as yourself.’
‘And you? What about you?’
She smiled, the violet in her eyes twinkling with the starlight mirrored in their depths. ‘Have you not guessed it already? I am like you. I was taken from the earth before I ever truly died. I was hit by Goddess Lightning before the flames could take me, but the effect was the same as what happened to you when you were hit with Warlock Lightning. My spirit was separated from my body in a way that was similar to a Shade, but without the true severing that is done by the dark deed needed to create a Shade.’
He looked around, but the sensation of falling and floating off, of being pulled and pushed at the same time, washed over him again, so he looked back at their joined hands. ‘So, if you’re like me, where’s your body?’
‘My body is lying somewhere safe, healed as yours is not.’
‘Then why didn’t you go back to your body and show your sister that you were alive and well and stop all this from happening in the first place?’
She sighed. ‘Time moves very differently here from earth. What seemed only a moment to me was years to my sister. By the time my body was healed and I realised I had a choice to return to my body if I wished it, it was too late. Morrigan was already too far down the path that has led her here and would not have turned from it even if I had shown up in front of her. The Darkness would have made her believe I was a trick, es
pecially as my body is now full of Goddess light. It does not exactly look normal anymore. And I realised I had to stay like this because only in this form could I truly help.’
‘But you can go back to your body if you wish.’
‘No. Once I could, but recently I made a bargain and my body is no longer mine to have.’
‘What bargain? With who?’
Her gaze was intense on him for a long moment, a small smile on her lips. ‘The one I made to get back to you. The gods do not give free passes to travel between one plane and the next. They required a major sacrifice for what I requested and so I gave it.’
‘You gave your life to come and get me? But why?’
‘My life was over long ago. My husband and son are long gone. There was nothing to return to. Besides, all that matters is the task the Goddess set before me.’
‘But what happens once you are finished with this? Do you just continue to go on as you are?’
‘No. Once I am done here, I will have to make my way to the well of souls to be reincarnated into another life.’
‘And what about your body?’
‘It will die.’
Adam’s breath stuttered in his chest. ‘Is that what will happen to me?’
She paused, face creasing with withheld grief. ‘Your situation is very different from mine. The bargain I made allows you to move from one plane to the next freely. However, it does not guarantee you will be able to get back to your body at the end of this. That will entirely depend on if we are ultimately successful or not.’ She touched his arm. ‘And much of our success is dependent on you learning what you need to learn about your powers.’
He stared at her, words lost to him, and then said, ‘So, if I do what you ask, you’ll allow me to go back to my pack. To Shelley.’
‘It is not quite as simple as that …’
‘Of course not.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘But yes, of course. You will go back. It is essential.’
‘Essential?’
‘Yes. You must be with Shelley. You must deepen your bond with her. You must show her your love. It is of the utmost importance.’
Wolf Bound Page 21