by Renee George
She shrugged. “Kindness and gratitude never worsened a situation.”
The woman chuckled. “You are not as I expected, Emma.”
“You expected me?”
“Yes, Emma. I’ve been expecting you for a hundred years.”
Keir felt Emma stiffen. She leaned forward and peered at the witch. “Why do you look so familiar? I swear I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
The witch stood up and crossed the room. Keir went on alert but didn’t move against her. She’d been cordial up to this point, and she was powerful enough that if she’d wanted to hurt either of them, she could have while they slept.
Emma suddenly jerked her hand from Keir’s. She shook her head, disbelief written all over her expression. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“What?” Keir asked. “What is it?”
“Lucinda Mowry.”
The woman raised a brow. “Excellent, little thief.”
****
Emma couldn’t hide her shock, and considering she’d been trained all her life to adjust to surprises, it was saying something that this one threw her for a loop. “I’m so confused right now.”
“You know this witch?”
“Well, a version of her. One where she’s blonde, rich, has a kick ass art collection, and a mean-as-hell vault.”
“Now I’m confused.”
“She was the woman I was robbing when I ended up in this world.”
“Ah,” Keir said. “The mysterious door and key.”
“It cost a lot of magic to gain access between worlds.” She danced her fingers along the braid. “Twice.”
“You’ve only traveled to my world twice?” Emma shook her head. “I know that’s wrong. Lucinda Mowry is a billionaire who has her fingers in a lot of pies. I studied the shit out of her life, and the work she’s done cannot magically happen without someone driving the ship.”
“I didn’t mean me, child,” The woman resembling Mowry said. “Technically, Lucinda is my golem. I have used her from time to time.”
“Isn’t a golem a figure made from clay that is brought to life to protect its maker?” Emma asked.
“Any inanimate matter will do in a golem’s creation. But I didn’t use her for protection. I created her so I could watch you grow. I gave her a piece of my soul to give her life, but I also gave her free will on earth for when I wasn’t projecting myself into her body, and she used it to our advantage. ”
“You’re a psychic witch?” Keir shouldered forward, angling his body between Emma and the woman. “I saw you perform elemental magic.”
“I’m psychic, elemental, and spiritual, wolf. I am all three and more.”
“I’m more confused than when this conversation first started.” Emma stood up and stretched her legs. “First things first. You’ve been watching me? Why?”
“I think that would be obvious.”
“Hit me over the head with the knowledge stick, lady. I need a little more information.”
“I sent you to that world, and it was time to bring you back.”
“You… I… What? You sent me there?” Emma vigorously shook her head. “I was born there. Born in the small city of Columbia, Missouri. Moved around through the foster care system until Mike Bana took me in to raise. I can’t have come from this world.”
“You are here now.”
Emma opened her mouth then shut it. What could she say to the woman to dispute her? The fact that she was in a place with magic and werewolves were real pretty much spoke to the possibility that anything was possible. “Why?” Emma asked again. “If I was from this world then why send me there?”
The woman’s expression softened. “You were born under a blood moon and named Emmaline Wallen Lockside. Your mother is Aerina Lockside and your father is Wallen Bodyn, San fe Sang ambassador of the wolfkind and best friend of Domiscin Luer D’San.”
“Wallen Bodyn? His twin brother Willen raised me after my parent’s death.” He looked at Emma as if searching her for answers. “It can’t be. Aerina is the witch queen. No wolfkind would dare to mate with a witch.”
“Have you not mated with a witch, Keir D’San?”
Emma’s body went rigid. “None of this is true. How can it be true?”
“It’s not,” Keir said. “Wallen was executed by the witches. He would never ally himself with the queen of our enemy. Besides, if it were a true mating, Aerina would have died with Wallen.”
“The choosing, as you call it, is robust in your kind, and when Wallen’s biology chose me, we chose to make our mating real. The breaking of our bond with his death nearly killed me.” She shook her head, her eyes distant. “She often prayed it would. But she survived. Most likely due to her spirit magic.” The witch cast her pale eyes on Keir. “Self-preservation is a strong instinct. And you are wrong on another account. We weren’t always enemies.” Her brow pinched with sorrow. “Wallen loved your father, Keir. He talked about Luer D’San often.”
“How do you know this?” Emma asked.
“Because I’m Aerina Lockside.” She stepped closer to Emma. “Your mother.”
Keir launched himself at the woman. She went down without a fight. “Kill me, wolf, if you must, but know that I am your only hope for peace.”
“Your people slaughtered my parents.”
“Yes.”
Emma’s heart wrenched. She could hear the pain in Keir’s words and the resolution in Aerina’s. Her mom. Could it really be true? Was this woman her mother? “Please, Keir,” Emma pleaded. “Don’t hurt her.”
Her words did the trick. Keir eased up on the arm pinning Aerina by the throat.
“Why did you send me away?” Emma asked.
“I couldn’t keep you safe. You were the last part of Wallen I had, and if my father had known you were born alive, he would have killed you.”
“Why now? Why not bring me back sooner? It’s been twenty-five years!” All her years of suppressed frustration and anger at being abandoned surfaced. “How could you just leave me like that?”
“It’s been a hundred years in this world Emma. I’ve suffered as much as you, but for a longer amount of time. I couldn’t bring you back until my father was dead. Until I could kill him.”
“You killed the king?” Keir asked. He still held Aerina down, but his anger had ebbed.
“It took nearly a century to become powerful enough, but yes, I avenged my mate’s death.” She gestured to the small room. “It took me that long to gather enough vine to cover this cottage. Mine and Wallen’s.”
“You made a witch trap,” Keir said, awe in his voice. “For your own father.”
“He was a monster.” She sat up from the floor when Keir stood. “He didn’t kill Wallen because we’d fallen in love, he killed him because we produced a child. Or what he called, a mistake of nature. He believed witches and wolves were not just different races, but different species, so when I became pregnant, he considered me and my unborn child to be abominations. Wallen fought with my father so that I could escape.” She looked around the room. “Here. To our secret place in the woods.” She placed the flat of her palm on her chest. “His death nearly crippled me.” Aerina looked to Emma. “You were the only reason I fought to stay alive.”
Emma’s heart shattered for Aerina. She remembered what if felt like to just imagine never seeing Keir again. To actually lose him would be death for her. “So, I’m both a witch and werewolf? How does that even work?”
“I can see you are mated, child.” Aerina gave her a small smile. “I think you know exactly how it works.”
“Oh.” The heat of blush crept up Emma’s face. “I’m an idiot.”
“How do we bring about peace?” Keir asked.
“I am the queen of my people. You are the alpha of yours. We sit. We talk. We make a pact and enforce it. The way it used to be.”
“You realize that you might be the only person around who knows what our lives were like before the war.”
“Are you saying my mo
m is older than dirt?”
Aerina gave Emma a dry look, and for a moment, Emma thought she might get an overdue scolding. Instead, Aerina laughed. It sounded like music. “I am older than dirt,” Aerina agreed. She nodded to Keir. “What say you, wolf? You are already mated with my daughter. We might as well talk peace.”
“Agreed,” Keir said.
Emma got a warm fuzzy watching Keir and Aerina talk. Just a couple of days earlier she had neither a mom nor a boyfriend, and now she had both. She walked to the window as they hammered out the details of the plan. Multicolored flowers carpeted the wide open plain surrounded by a wall of trees. “I’m going to step out for some air while you two handle the political BS.” Really, she needed a minute alone to reconcile everything she thought she knew with everything she’d learned.
“It’s not safe. There are witches still searching for me.”
Aerina shook her head. “This place is warded from my people. They couldn’t find it if they were standing three feet away.”
“Sweet,” Emma said. “I won’t go far.”
The crisp air smelled of apples and sunshine. Emma eased her bare feet into the cool morning grass, laughing as the blades tickled her toes. Two days earlier she’d been a thief. A lowly, albeit awesome, criminal. Today she was a princess and an alpha’s mate. What had Keir called it? His domiscina.
Near the tree line, Emma stooped down to pick a yellow and pink, multi-petaled flower. It had a scent similar to wisteria but looked almost like a chrysanthemum. She picked several more. They would brighten the small cabin.
“What a week,” Emma said.
“It’s not over yet,” a voice responded. Emma barely had time to turn her head, when a large hairy fist punched her in the face.
Chapter Thirteen
“What the hell, Amile?” Toland said. He leaned down to check for a pulse on the girl his sister-in-law had knocked out. “Keir has claimed this one as mate. He won’t thank you for injuring her.”
“Where is Keir?” Amile asked. “How do we know he went looking for her? Maybe something else happened to him? Maybe she did something to our domiscin.” Amile’s lip curled as she pointed an accusatory finger at Emma.
“Regardless,” Toland said. “Her fate is not ours to determine.”
“You’re weak, Tol.” She spat on the ground. “Thad should have been the alpha’s second, not you. The fact that Keir chose you means he’s weak as well.”
“You overstep, Amile.” He scooped the girl into his arms. “There is smoke rising from the cottage over there. Check it out, but use caution.”
A hatred he’d never seen flashed in Amile’s eyes. Why hadn’t he noticed her jealousy before now?
“Damn witches,” Amile muttered. “I have to do everything myself.”
With his hands full, Toland couldn’t move fast enough to avoid Amile’s blade. It stabbed into his ribcage on the left side and pierced his heart. The pain drove him to his knees, and Emma rolled from his grasp. The girl moaned, but it was hard to worry about her as blood filled his lungs. He tried to yank out the knife, but it was wedged into the bone.
Amile grabbed Emma by the hair, and Emma screamed as she began to drag her toward the cottage. “Keir D’San,” the wolfkind female yelled. “I have your mate.”
When Keir walked out the door, Amile shook Emma like a rag doll, forcing him to stop in his tracks. Toland rose to his knees, using what little he had left to force himself to his friend’s aid. He had managed only a few feet before he collapsed to the ground again. His last thoughts were of Lis. Of love. Of regret.
****
Keir watched with horror as Amile yanked Emma around. “Stay inside,” he told Aerina. “If Amile sees a witch, I don’t know what she’ll do. I can’t risk Emma.”
“I can kill her and end this now.”
“She is Thadeus Bodyn’s mate.”
“Willen’s child?”
“Yes. And if you kill Amile, he’ll die with her. He won’t survive like you.”
The stoic queen pursed her lips but then gave Keir a curt nod. “If it comes down to Wallen’s nephew or his child, I will choose Emma.”
Keir swallowed the lump in his throat. “Same here. But for now, let me try and talk her down.”
Aerina hid from view when Keir opened the door. He stepped out onto the porch. “Let her go, Amile. She isn’t your enemy.”
“Stay where you are or I’ll break her pretty little neck,” she warned. “Why won’t you just die, Keir D’San. Those stupid witches can’t do anything right.”
“You’re the traitor?” The revelation shocked him. He knew it had to be someone close to him, but he’d never suspected any of his inner circle. “All this time. Why, Amile? Why have you turned on your own people?”
“The witches sit in their high towers while we eat dirt and sleep shit.” She snarled. “I am no traitor, Domiscin. You are. You don’t deserve to be our alpha.”
“And you do? Is that what you want, Amile? You want to be domiscin of the San fe Sang?”
“You’re a fool, Keir. A short-sighted fool. Thadeus is more alpha than you’ll ever be.” She yanked Emma up and wrapped her forearm around her neck. Keir’s mate struggled to free herself from Amile’s grasp. “The fact that you would leave your people without a word in the middle of the night to chase this stranger, someone who is not one of us, that you would claim her as your mate, makes you unfit to lead.”
“Tol!” A man roared. It was Thadeus. He knelt beside his brother’s listless body. “Amile,” he shouted. “Who did this? Who?”
Jaylinn and Mika exited the woods next. They stopped abruptly when they saw Thadeus and Toland on the ground. Amile turned to her mate, her face stricken with his grief.
“This is Keir’s fault,” she shouted. “He’s killed Toland.” She tightened her hold on Emma’s neck as if to dare him to say different.
“He’s still alive,” Thadeus shouted. “But barely. I fear the blade punctured his heart as well as his lungs. We have to get him to Lis.”
“He’ll never survive the trip,” she said quietly to Keir. “And now that I know this beast is your mate, all I have to do is kill her, and you’ll be dead as well.”
“Don’t do this, Amile. Thadeus will never forgive you.”
“I’m his mate. He’ll believe what I tell him.”
Suddenly, Amile dropped hard onto her knees, her grip on Emma slacked as the smaller woman slipped out of her grasp. Amile grabbed her head and wailed.
Aerina walked out then. “What are you doing to her?” Keir asked, horrified at her blood-curdling cries.
“I’m doing nothing,” Aerina said. “Emma has taken matters into her own hands.”
Keir stared at Emma, who was now levitating two feet off the ground, her honey-colored hair blazing with blue fire as she focused on the warrior woman.
Thadeus bellowed with pain as he collapsed to the ground. Emma was killing Amile, and the mate bond would take Thadeus with her.
“Careful, wolf,” Aerina said. “Her magic is unlike anything else in this world. It is a combination of elemental, psychic, and spiritual. I cannot predict what will happen if you touch her. The magnitude of her power is greater than all the witches in my kingdom combined.”
Keir approached her the way he would a hot coal. “Emma,” he said. “Let her go.”
Emma’s eyes blazed with rage. Amile’s eyes bugged as she clutched her neck, fighting to breathe.
“You’re killing her, my love,” Keir said softly.
“She deserves to die,” Emma said.
“I agree, but Thadeus doesn’t. He is my friend, and he is her mate. If you kill Amile, Thadeus will die too.”
“She tried to do that to us,” Emma protested. “She would have killed me to kill you.”
“Let her go, sweetheart.”
“I don’t know how,” Emma said. “It’s too strong.”
“What’s too strong?”
“My rage,” she answered quietly befo
re focusing all of her energy back to Amile.
****
Emma felt as if she’d been plugged into a nuclear reactor and was feeding on all its energy at once. Her skin felt cold even as her mind burned with fury. This woman had tried to kill her. Kill her mate. She’d betrayed her own kind, and for what? More control? More power?
“Please, love. Let her go,” Keir said again.
Emma tried again to stop what she was doing to Amile, but she couldn’t find an off switch. Hell, the on switch had been flicked by accident. “I don’t know how. I can’t stop.” The force of magic roared through her body. Keir stepped between her and her prey. “Don’t get in the way, Keir.”
“I can’t let you do this, Emma. This isn’t you.”
Tears leaked down her face, an involuntary response to the power coursing through her veins. “Help me,” Emma said. This time, not a prayer to someone unknown, but a plea for her mother to step in. “Help me stop.”
“Bring your wolf, daughter.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are half me, Emmaline, but you are also half your father’s child. Let go of the magic and welcome the wolf.”
Emma remembered Keir’s shift into his animal form. She thought about how his bones had bent and cracked and reshaped. How fur had sprouted thick along his golden skin. How his amber eyes had blinked up at her. She thought about the smell of his musk, earthy and natural.
Her body jerked as she dropped to the ground, writhing as her insides broke apart and reformed. When she could stand, she stood on four legs and gave her fur a shake. She felt Keir’s love then. His thoughts joined with hers in a soothing song of harmony. They were one. Mated. This was how it was meant to be. The anger fled as his love filled her up. In moments, she was back in human form again.
Aerina was standing over Amile, keeping watch on the treacherous warrior woman.
“Your friend,” Emma said. “We have to help him.” She ran toward the fallen men, ignoring the protests as she slid next to Toland, Keir on her heels.
“He won’t survive,” Jaylinn said. “He’s lost too much blood, and his pulse is thready.”
Emma had taken an anatomy class in high school and tried to remember the parts of the lungs and the heart, but other than a general idea of how they worked, she couldn’t remember specifics. Where his brother had pulled out the blade, Emma stuck her fingers in the hole.