‘You said I had to be mated with Shelley to be able to do my part. We’re not fully mated.’
‘The bond is strong enough. You will make it work.’
He sighed. ‘You hold a lot of hope in my ability to do what you wish me to do.’ He felt the weight of it on his shoulders, pressing down on the joy of making love to Shelley, of the hope he had to mate with her, of his anger at that joy being manipulated and used even for the most righteous of reasons. ‘This could all still go to shit. What if I’m not as strong as you think?’
‘As I said, it does not matter what I believe. Only what you believe.’ She smiled, a Mona Lisa smile that made his skin shiver with some unknown fear. ‘Now, it is time you go back. The powers are building and you must help prepare the Nexus so she is ready to bind all the powers of the living and dead together.’
‘How am I supposed to do that? I’m not a Warlock.’
‘No, but you can give her this.’ She waved her hand and a stone appeared in his palm. It was many-faced, like a well-cut diamond, but green, like Eloise’s power. At its heart was the electric blue of Skye’s power, the warm orange-gold of Bron’s, the amethyst of Shelley’s and a brilliant, dazzling red he’d never seen before. On the larger face, there was a design carved into it—a dot inside a triangle inside a square.
‘What’s this?’
‘It is the Goddess stone. It was created at her birth and is tied to her as she is tied to this earth. It has the powers of the elements, of healing, of the living and the dead. Shelley will be able to find the spell in her family’s grimoire that will help weld this to the Nexus.’
‘Why would that be in Shelley’s family’s grimoire?’
‘A distant relative, a medium with the power of foresight, wrote down what she saw so that Shelley would have that information when the time was right. The Goddess ensured she saw what needed to be done at this future point. The spell is essential. With the Goddess Stone welded to her flesh and soul, the Nexus will be able to stand at the centre of the triumvirate’s power and channel it and the pack’s heart to the ley lines of the earth and wield that power to expel the Darkness from the earth for good.’
‘How will she know how to wield the power and the ley lines? She’s barely had time to do any training.’
‘The stone will tell her once it is part of her. What is in her nature will do the rest.’
‘I thought you said that this wouldn’t happen until Samhain when the veils between worlds are blurred.’
‘Yes. It is almost Samhain.’
‘What?’
‘I told you time here moves differently. Shelley was with you for over a week.’
‘What?’ he said again. ‘The others must have been frantic about her.’
‘They were worried, but Bron was able to sense she was astral travelling, and assumed she was following a lead from one of the diaries. They were angry she did not inform them of her intentions. They gave her a rather amusing lecture when she woke up.’
‘Did she tell them what had happened?’
‘What do you think?’
No. She would never tell anyone about what they’d shared. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘The Goddess has been keeping an eye on things. She shares some of what she learns with me.’ She looked up at the sky. ‘Our discussion is over. Days have passed as we talked.’
‘Shit. What do I have to do?’ His fingers tightened around the stone. ‘Surely getting this stone to Eloise and helping Shelley find the spell isn’t everything?’
‘Be a conduit for Shelley. You already know how to do that. Use your bond with her to funnel the powers she will have to pull from the veil into yourself for the Nexus to use. She will have to drop all her shields, but your new abilities will be able to act as a shield to protect her in part from the death she will feel and enable her to channel it in the way that is needed without becoming overwhelmed.’
‘Okay. But is it just me and the coven?’
‘No. You and River and Jason and Iain, the mates of the triumvirate and the Nexus, are all bound together through your pack bond, but also through your mating with the most powerful coven there has ever been. You make up the four points that will protect them all as you give them power.’
He opened his fingers and looked down at the stone. ‘We’re the square carved here.’
‘Yes. And they are the triangle and the Nexus stands in the middle, taking power from you all.’
‘Won’t that amount of power kill her?’
‘No. The stone will allow her to expel it into the earth to manipulate the ley lines. Besides, the conduit can also run the other way. If the power does prove too much at the end, the mating bonds will allow you Were to take the power and expel it into all the Were.’
‘But we’re not bonded to other Were.’
‘Ah, but you are. You have always intermarried between the packs to keep the bloodlines strong. Just as strong are the bonds of friendship with the McClunes and other packs, They too have bonds of blood and friendship with other packs—it is a stone dropped into a pond. The power will flow to every Were on the planet and safeguard the covens. That is why it was so important that you solidified the bond with Shelley, so she would have a protector bonded to her like the others are bonded to their mates. Even without the mating complete, the bond is already enough. We can finally do what the Goddess has longed to do for a millennium. We can banish the Darkness and live our lives free.’
‘You needed all of us?’
‘Yes. The Goddess has spent a thousand years weaving this fate so it would come to pass. And finally, we are going to see it to fruition. All I have sacrificed, all that my blood has sacrificed, will be worth it if we can manage this great feat. And I know we can, for we must. There is no other alternative. We cannot let the Darkness be born into the world. Your concerns about your mating with Shelley will not matter if it does, because it will bring forth all the evil in the world, including the darkest parts of all of you, and you will not care about anyone but yourself. You would happily destroy Shelley to use her power for the Darkness and she would do the same to you.’
‘That could never happen.’
Her face blanched. ‘I did not believe it either. Not until the Goddess showed me what would happen in the future if the Darkness truly made it into the world. As I will now show you.’ She waved her hand and the air trembled in front of them, light sparking into a widening sphere, so bright that he had to shield his eyes.
The light in the sphere faded and an image wavered, then cleared.
It was the packhouse in Red Hill, but not as he’d ever seen it. Half of it was burning, the other half gone, the orchards and fields beyond it destroyed, fires still burning across the hills. Cries filled the air, echoing and distant, the evidence of battles still being waged in the distance. The sparks of Witch and Warlock Lightning flared, followed by explosions and the pop of gunfire. Battle howls split the air. Were fighting Were. ‘Fucking hell,’ he breathed. ‘This can’t be.’
‘It can. If the Darkness gets its way. This and worse will tear the world apart. Watch.’
The scene changed. The smoking wreck of a house—the house that Iain had designed as a front to cover the caves below—smouldered before him, its massive metal doors a twisted mess on the floor. In front of the doors was a pile of something … oh god! … bodies! Were bodies, some half changed, others fully changed, others in their human form, all dead and mangled. He recognised faces and fur colour. Members of their pack, the McClunes, friends and family. His stomach lurched as he saw a small hand at the edge curled around a dead puppy. ‘Tom.’ He reached towards his little nephew, but his hand only passed through the image, which wavered like water.
When it cleared, the image had changed. Shelley stood atop of the pile of bodies, her golden hair black with dried blood, violet-blue eyes vividly purple and swirling with dark madness. She wore some kind of black diaphanous robe that swirled wildly back from her body as she lifted her ha
nd and pointed to something in front of her. Wings rose from her shoulders, blacker than night, only visible because of the purple sparks of power chasing along their edges. She laughed, the sound tinged with insanity. ‘I am banshee. I am death. Woe to all those who I see.’
Something moved in the night behind her. A Were leapt towards her. Blue lightning, edged with black, tore from the edge of the image, lighting up the Were in mid-leap. The lightning tore a hole through the centre of the Were’s chest and lit up his face enough for Adam to see who it was. ‘Jason!’ he cried as his brother hit the ground, killed by his own mate who now walked into view. ‘Skye. No.’ In her eyes, he could see the same edge of dark-tinged insanity that infested Shelley. Behind her came Bron and Eloise. Each of them were lit up with their black-tinged power, each of them touched by madness. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’
Shelley turned to face them. ‘Thank you, my sister.’
‘My pleasure, sister. The filth will infest us no more.’
‘Speaking of which,’ Bron turned and Eloise waved her hand forward. ‘We caught these trying to save those who had fled through the caves.’
Iain. Gareth. Patrick.
Shelley waved her hand. ‘Why do you bring them here? They are already dead.’
‘I thought the Beast might have some fun with them.’
Shelley shrugged. ‘I care little how they meet their death. Do what you will.’
Bron flicked her hand and a creature pounded into the scene. River. But it wasn’t River. He had become the Beast again. The look he gave Bron was the one a slave gives their master—desperate dependence, not the love and devotion of a mate. Bron smiled a cold smile. ‘They are yours, Beast.’
The Beast leapt at them, claws slashing. Iain and Gareth and Patrick tried to defend themselves, but Eloise waved her hand and her power shot out, holding them in place as the Beast tore them to shreds. Skye and Bron and Eloise laughed.
‘Enough. Enough,’ Adam said, his voice breaking, but the scene continued.
Shelley turned from the murder of those she’d once cared for. Her wings flapped and it seemed she was about to take off, when there was a cry from behind her and something shot out of the darkness of the caves and hit one wing. Blood sprayed. Shelley toppled backwards, disappearing behind the pile of bodies. The vision shifted to show her as she rolled across the floor. Her wings snarled on the shards of twisted metal of the destroyed doors. She tried to rip them free, but every move tore shreds from them, feathers and blood falling to the floor. Screaming in rage, she lay still, chest heaving, eyes wide with pain and madness.
A figure stalked out of the darkness towards her. Tall and dark-haired and full of hatred and rage. He came to stand over the banshee version of Shelley, a crossbow in his hands that sparked with magic. The banshee-Shelley’s eyes lit up as she met his gaze.
‘Finally, you have come for me, my love.’
Adam watched, horrified, as a raging and grief-fuelled version of himself snarled at her. ‘I am not your love. I will never be your love.’
The banshee-Shelley smiled, a smile that almost looked like her own sad smile. ‘Ah, but you are wrong. Our love will bind us together even in death.’
‘That is the last word of death you will ever speak.’
‘It is the only one that counts,’ she said, just before he shot a magic-fuelled bolt through her heart. She jerked, the light in her eyes flaring. The Adam in the vision lifted his head and howled to the sky. Behind him, there was a howl of rage and blue, orange and green lightning tinged with black hit him at once, lighting him up. He cried out, a sound of pain-filled triumph, and then he fell forward on top of Shelley. Her arms moved to embrace him and she whispered in his ear, ‘See. I told you I would be the death of you.’ The light left her eyes and she lay there, still and silent, staring blankly up at the storming sky.
Adam tore his gaze away as the image wavered and faded. He bent double and vomited.
‘I’m sorry I had to show you that. I wish I’d never seen it either. But it is necessary if you are to truly comprehend what we face.’
He lifted his head to see Morghanna, paler even than when she had appeared to him as a ghost in the living plane. ‘It can’t be true. Mate would never turn on mate.’
‘They would when love is twisted into hate. At the moment, all of them have the power of the light in them, but their power can be corrupted by the dark given the right circumstances. Shelley in particular. Her power and the banshee skirt on the edges of the veil, neither light nor dark, subject to both, but influenced by her will and her will alone.’
‘Her will is strong.’
‘Yes, but not strong enough to survive the visions she will have to endure if the Darkness succeeds. Her fear of insanity will become a reality and when it does, the banshee will rise inside her as a dark force instead of a light one. It will take over and become the vessel of death the Darkness wants her to be. Skye and Bron and Eloise will be drawn down into that darkness with her, no matter how they might fight it, because their power is too intimately entwined with hers. Her insanity will become theirs. Her visions of death will be meted out by their hands, ensuring those visions become reality. The banshee sees the possibility of this even now, is whispering its warning to Shelley even as we speak. It’s why she believes that insanity is coming, although she doesn’t comprehend it’s tied into the success of what we do here. And she can’t know. You can’t tell her. That would be too much of a burden for her to bear at this juncture. She already has so little faith in herself.’
‘Oh Christ. Why are you telling me?’
‘Because you must know. You must use all that you are to ensure our success, to save your pack, your coven, your mate.’
‘Of course, I will.’
‘I know.’ She looked back at where the vision had been. ‘What I showed you here is only the tip of the iceberg. The Darkness will corrupt everything if he is born into Morrigan’s baby. Everywhere becomes a battle ground between all supernatural beings and the humans. Nothing is sacred and nobody is safe.’
Adam straightened slowly. ‘That can never come to pass.’
‘You understand now what must be done and why.’
‘Yes. I will do whatever I have to do to ensure that never comes to pass.’
‘Good. Because despite what the Goddess wants for all of you, I think we all might have to sacrifice ourselves to ensure the future. Do you understand?’
Adam nodded. He understood. He was more than prepared to sacrifice himself to stop the Darkness. But there was one thing he wouldn’t do—he wouldn’t sacrifice Shelley. She must survive. It was essential. And for her to survive, and be happy, she must have her friends with her. And their mates. And the pack. They would keep her safe and sane and happy, even if he wasn’t there to ensure it.
And because he was the Trickster, he would make sure that came to pass. Morghanna told him that was his birthright. Now, he would use it.
Chapter 22
Morrigan winced as the baby kicked her in the ribs. He was so strong and already grown so big. Cain said he would be born on Samhain, and at first she’d thought it impossible—even for magical beings, gestation was still nine months. But this pregnancy wasn’t a usual pregnancy, as Cain had said over and over, and she knew the baby would be born on Samhain like he insisted. When that happened, the Darkness would cast aside the baby’s soul, killing everything he was meant to be, and turn her child into a vessel of pure evil.
She could never let that happen.
Something had changed in her over the last few months as the baby grew inside her. It had been so subtle at first that she’d never even noticed until one day, when Cain was crowing about what would happen on Samhain, the evil he intended to wreak on the Were and their covens, she’d been sick at the thought of causing that kind of death and pain. She’d clutched her bulging stomach with both hands, as if she could protect her baby from the avaricious gaze of the man she’d once thought to rule but who had somehow come to r
ule her, and she’d known he was wrong.
They were wrong.
She couldn’t let this come to pass. Couldn’t let him and Darkness use her baby like this. Her baby deserved to live, soul intact, and be whoever nature had meant him to be at that magical moment of creation.
She couldn’t let the Darkness kill the possibilities within her son. She just couldn’t. Not even if it meant gaining her revenge. That revenge seemed so overblown now, an insane dream she’d woken from and was now trying to shake off.
She would never have gone so far without the influence of the Darkness. Now that influence had gone. The Darkness had left her body the moment the baby came into being. The baby was too pure, created from the light of the Nexus power Cain had stolen from Eloise. Cain had thought it was their magic they’d used, but he was wrong. They practiced the blackest magic; life could not be created from magic seated in death and pain. But even if it hadn’t been created by the Nexus’ pure magic, the Darkness couldn’t have stayed. It was everything opposite to creation, so its presence would have killed the baby growing in her womb. So the Darkness had left. And with it gone, she’d begun to see clearly for the first time in centuries, and was horrified by what she had done.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered to her baby, hand stroking over her stomach. ‘I can’t take back what I’ve done, but I can change what I do in the future. I won’t let them use you. I won’t let them turn you into a horror like your father and me. You will have a better life; the kind of life Morghanna’s children had despite my meddling. I promise.’
She had to get away from Cain. She had to find some way to stop the Darkness from entering her baby at its birth. She didn’t have long—Samhain was only a few days away. Oh Goddess, what was she going to do?
Her mind roiled as fear and uncertainty washed over her. She had no one to turn to and it was all her fault. She’d used her people and never shown them a thread of loyalty, treating them like dirt to be trod on if she so wished. They’d so easily turned to Cain when he had come into his power. The only one of them who might have helped her had run away and was now taken in by the Were and their powerful coven.
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