And, of course, strong in the Light.
She’d healed Migisi twice now, when Migisi had been too slow in dealing with Luc. This was not the life she’d wanted for her daughter. She stood, watching Claire sleep for a while longer, then shook herself out of it. Soon. She would have to make a decision soon.
She dressed quickly in a long flowing skirt and cotton shirt, and stepped outside just as the sun was peeking over the Eastern horizon.
Another year. She’d reached her forty-fifth year. So often, she’d been sure she would never make it to this point. So many times, she hadn’t wanted to live even another day, let alone another year, or five. It had been nearly twenty years since Luc had walked into her life. Her mind flitted back to that day, to the way she’d hunted him, just as he’d hunted the animals in her woods. Their first words, spoken haltingly. The immediate attraction, as if they’d both been looking for something, and found it in each other, knowing in an instant that this was what they’d been seeking.
How had it all gone so wrong?
She sat on the large log near her front door, a makeshift bench that she often sat on in the mornings, mornings when she would try to tell herself that today would be better, that she could do this.
She felt her own rage and madness at times, and it felt like she was drowning. It was worse when Luc was with her.
And yet, he was all she wanted. Some things never changed.
She heard a twig snap, and, as if she’d conjured him with her thoughts, Luc was there, stepping out of the woods.
Wordlessly, he sat beside her, and Migisi tried to contain her surprise. They didn’t say anything for several long minutes.
“I keep trying to hate you,” Luc finally said. “You’re my destruction. My downfall. You are the end of me, Migisi.”
“So you’ve told me. And you’ve also told me how much you hate me,” she said quietly, eyes still on the horizon.
“I keep hoping that if I say it enough, it’ll be true,” Luc said quietly. “I don’t think this is your fault, though.”
Migisi slid a glance toward him, and he continued. “That Shadow warlock. I saw him last night when I was out checking on the animals. He was walking on the road past our farm, and all he did was smile at me.” He was quiet for a moment. “But you already know this. The question is, why didn’t you tell me? The abuse you’ve taken from me…” he shook his head.
“You threw a few angry words my way.”
“But they hurt you,” he said quietly.
Migisi didn’t answer.
“It was him all along,” Luc pressed.
“What was the point in arguing otherwise? His influence or not, in the end, I was the one who cursed you. Whatever insanity it was that overtook me that night—”
“That’s exactly what I mean. I know what it is to be cursed. This thing that’s happened to you, from that night to now… it struck me when I saw him last night, that we’re cursed together.”
Migisi closed her eyes. She had thought the same thing, many times. His was more visible, but of the two of them, she was arguably the more dangerous. Look at how much damage she’d done the one time she’d utterly lost control. She’d destroyed his life.
“Mine gets worse every day. You know this. What about yours?” Luc asked.
She nodded. She would not tell him about the times that frightened her most. She could not bring herself to admit how bad it truly was. “Mostly, it’s rage. The need to destroy.” She blew out a breath. “Before I came back here, I spent some time living among my people again. I thought they might be able to help.”
“What happened?”
“A few of the teenage males enjoyed strutting around for me. Trying to impress me. They were warned away by the elders, but I think they liked the sense of danger. They knew I was Shadow.” Migisi looked down, bile rising in her throat. “One was a bear shifter. I still don’t know what happened. I left. They followed. I caused… I caused a lot of destruction, and they helped me.”
“Seeing the one turn into a bear triggered something,” Luc said quietly, understanding.
“I suppose. It was the first time I’d seen the shift since we parted ways. I always loved that moment, that instant when you were between man and bear. The rapturous look you’d get on your face when you changed. I saw that in him, too.”
“What else happened?”
“A few weeks later, I came to my senses again. I sent them home. But their time with me changed them. Twisted them. It would have been more merciful if I’d just killed them.”
Luc sat silently. “Your Shadow magic fills me with rage. It is like a sickness. But I do not think I can become any more twisted than I already am.”
“I do not think we’ve seen the extent of the evil my powers can accomplish,” Migisi said softly. She made herself turn to look at him. “I was thinking of the day we met, just before you showed up.”
He watched her, and she continued. “It would have been so much better for everyone if that never would have happened.”
She glanced up again to see Luc’s blue eyes on her. For once, for this moment, at least, there was no insanity there. This was Luc, as she’d known him when things were good. This was the same Luc who had delivered Claire. He was still there, but the moments like this, those moments of clarity amid the storm of his madness, were becoming more fleeting.
“I would agree, except that I have tasted your lips. I have known your body in ways no one, not even your child’s father, has known it, I would guess. I have spent nights in your arms and have lain awake, listening to you breathe.”
“And then I destroyed you,” Migisi said, fighting back tears. Words she’d been desperate to hear, yet she felt unworthy of them.
“The Shadow warlock destroyed me, and you along with me,” Luc corrected. “No, little ghost. We found each other. We lived with and for each other. We were cursed together. We never should have parted ways, because the one constant thread in my life, is you.”
“But I would not have Claire, and you would not have your son,” Migisi reminded him.
“I wish our children had lived,” Luc said quietly.
“I do as well. I think about them all, often.”
Slowly, almost unsurely, Luc reached over and took her hand. At this touch, gentle, so much like the times he’d touched her before, Migisi lost all control of her emotions. Tears coursed down her face and wracking sobs shook her body.
“I hurt you last time,” Luc said, and Migisi shook her head, wiping her face, as she tried to get herself under control. “I did,” he pressed. “I remember the blood, the feel of my claws slicing your flesh. I hurt you,” he repeated, and the anger in his voice was evident.
“I was too slow,” she said.
“You were focused on protecting your child. As it should be,” he said.
“It is getting worse,” Migisi said softly, and he nodded. “Mine is, as well.”
“I know. I saw you standing out in your garden last night. You were like a tree. Not moving. Hours, Migisi. You stood like that for hours.”
Migisi looked at him in shock, then turned away. “You saw?” she whispered.
“I saw. Does it happen often?”
“More often than it once did,” she answered quietly. She looked down at their joined hands, her fingers twined with his. She knew his hands almost as well as she knew her own. Large, calloused, capable of being so gentle it was enough to bring her to tears, and also capable of keeping a family sheltered, protected, and fed.
Hands that had delivered her daughter, safe and sound.
“So we are not getting better,” Luc said quietly, and she looked up, meeting his eyes.
“No. We are not.”
“And I do not believe we will. Do you?”
Migisi shook her head.
He nodded. “I am sending my wife back to her father.” He took a shaky breath. “My wife and my son. They have already seen enough, and she is unhappy here.”
Migisi wond
ered where that would leave Esme, but she kept it to herself.
Luc continued. “Soon, I will be more beast than man. I will not endanger them further. And I will end my life before I threaten you again, or anyone else.”
“Luc,” Migisi whispered.
“I refuse to be trapped as some kind of wild beast. It is better this way. A fall off a cliff, perhaps. A long walk into the lake.”
“No.”
“I am not afraid of dying, Migisi. I am afraid of living as this thing I am becoming.”
Migisi’s mind raced. “Let me think for a while. Promise me you will not do anything like that until I have had time to think around it.”
“There is no way around it. We both know this,” Luc argued.
“Let me think,” she pressed. “I will find a way. Not to break the curse,” she said quickly, seeing that argument on his lips. “I know I cannot. I have been trying for years now. Just… trust me. Give me a little time.”
“Very little time,” Luc said quietly. “You are descending into madness as well. Before long, neither of us will be capable of thinking.”
Chapter Five
Calder pulled into the parking lot of one of the bars in town. He was supposed to be meeting Jon and Bryce there for their weekly night out. They’d stopped going to the local shifter watering hole after the Jack and Sophie incident. He’d seen Jack around a few times, including at Layla and Cara’s father’s funeral, and he’d barely kept his temper in check. He sure the hell wasn’t going to give the bastard any of his money.
He got out of the truck and headed into the bar. His shoulders loosened just a little bit. In all honesty, he was relieved to be away from home for a while. He’d spent every night of the past week sleeping beside Sophie, and every day doing his own thing. She kept telling him he’d be better off if he slept in his own bed, that she knew his bear hated being near her, and she was right. He woke up every morning swearing he would spend that night in his own house, just so he could get a decent night’s sleep.
And yet, when bedtime came around, he found himself on Sophie’s doorstep. She’d stopped refusing to see him, which was a relief. As much as his bear hated Sophie’s Shadow magic, it hated not being with the woman it had claimed as their mate even more. So every night, he held Sophie’s perfect, lush, curvy body against his and the hell began. He hadn’t touched her the way he wanted to. The truth was, he was still full of rage about what had happened. Betrayed. Even though he understood logically that the curse had been to blame for her indiscretion with Jack, he was having a hard time getting past it. He still saw it, too often, the sight of the woman he loved bent over Jack’s desk while he rutted into her like a wild animal from behind.
There were things that needed to be said, but Sophie refused to talk about it. And he knew he was being an asshole withholding himself from her. She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her. He could smell it. He could feel it in the way she arched against him in her sleep. He loved her. He wanted forever with her. But he wasn’t strong enough to be burned by her again, and sex with Sophie was so far beyond just sex… he couldn’t do it.
And aside from the mess that was him and Sophie, there were all the fucking Shadow witches living on her land. His bear hated them almost as much as he did. They were always there, a visible, living, breathing representation of the fact that Sophie was something she’d never wanted to be.
So, yeah. He was relieved to be away from home for a while. He made his way to the bar and ordered his usual after seeing that Bryce and Jon hadn’t arrived yet. He watched the hockey game on the flatscreen over the bar without really seeing it and tried to relax.
His mind wandered to the weird moment he’d had that morning. He’d been bringing more firewood to Sophie’s, bringing more of it from her main pile to the smaller one near the cottage. It had been silent, and he could almost ignore the smell of all of the Shadow witches nearby. He’d looked at the cottage, at the stone foundation, the rough-hewn log walls, the smoke puffing from a fieldstone chimney, and he had this weird moment of seeing himself constructing that same chimney, laying the stones one at a time, fitting them together carefully. Feeling happy, proud.
It had only been a flash, but it had freaked him the hell out. He’d never built anything with stone in his life. His first fear had been that the curse was back, that it was dragging him into insanity again. But he’d immediately discarded it. There was none of the endless hunger, the need to take or destroy. If the curse was back, he would not have been able to resist Sophie.
Just tired and screwed up, he told himself.
He was about to take another drink when he smelled it.
Shadow.
He’d gotten used to the scent of it clinging to him, to his clothing, from all of the time he spent with Sophie, but this was different.
He spun around, expecting, no, hoping, to see the warlock there. He’d be a good person to take all of his rage and frustration out on.
Instead of the dark-haired, stocky warlock, a tall, curvy redhead stood behind him. She gave him a small, sultry smile and walked toward him, hips swaying in a way that Calder forced his eyes away from.
She slid onto the stool beside his.
“Is this seat taken?” she asked in a voice that was a little husky, like smoke and whiskey.
He cleared his throat. “It will be.”
“Ah, well. When whoever you’re waiting for gets here, I’ll move on. Is it a woman?”
“What?”
She laughed, low, the type of sound one usually hears in the bedroom. “Is it a woman you’re meeting here tonight?”
“No.”
She smiled. “All the better.”
“What do you want?” he asked her.
She smiled wider. “Hm. How long do you have?”
He glared at her. “Shadow witch,” he muttered.
“You know what they say about Shadow,” she said with a smirk.
“No, I really don’t. And I don’t want to.”
She gave him a little pout. “Oh, come on. I had a great line worked out and everything.”
“Use it on someone else,” he said, then turned toward the television.
“All that anger, tension,” she murmured, leaning toward him, angling the already-plentiful sight of her cleavage toward him. “I can help you with that, teddy bear.”
He glared at her. “Who are you and what the fuck do you want, lady?”
“I’m someone who could be a very, very good friend. And as to what the fuck I want… well, you said it, not me.”
Please for the love of God, let Jon and Bryce get their asses here now. His bear was freaking out, for a variety of reasons, and only some of them had to do with the fact that the woman leaning toward him was Shadow. It had been too long since he’d had Sophie under him, too long since she’d had him clawing at his back and screaming his name.
He gritted his teeth and kept his eyes away from the witch.
“Come on. At least buy me a drink, huh?” she asked.
“Why don’t you go hit on some other asshole?”
“No, no. None of them will do. They’re nothing, compared to you. I bet you’re amazing,” she added in a voice that made it very, very clear what she thought would be amazing about him.
He took a breath and turned to look at her. “I’ve been trying not to be an asshole and you’re not taking the hint. I’m not interested.”
She smiled. “I think your, mmm, little bear, might not be in total agreement with you on that,” she said, glancing down at his lap.
“Go away.”
She pressed herself up against him. “It could be so. Damn. Good. Think of it. You could take me outside, shove me up against the wall, and get all of that tension out. I have the feeling you like it rough, don’t you? So do I,” she purred.
It was in the next instant that he heard the sweetest, sexiest sound in the world, the one that had every cell in his body thrumming. “If you don’t get away from him I am going to s
cramble your brains so hard you’ll think you’re back in the nineteenth century.”
He spun around and there she was. Sophie stood there looking like heaven with hips in dark jeans that hugged her lush curves, black boots, and a sweater that managed to somehow be proper and stupidly improper at the same time. Her eyes were dark, flashing as she glared at the redhead.
“You,” the redhead hissed.
“Me,” Sophie said. She walked toward them, and he was practically panting. Her body, that crazy mass of curls, the fire in her eyes as she glared at the redhead. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“If you won’t take care of him, I’d be happy to.”
Sophie smiled. “Didn’t get very far, did you?”
Calder couldn’t take his eyes off of Sophie, his woman, his mate. From the redhead’s stony silence, he could only assume she was looking at Sophie, too. Probably not quite as lustily as he was, though.
“How did you know I was here?” the redhead demanded.
It was then that Calder noticed movement behind Sophie as several of the Shadow witches from the meadow crowded in behind her. Like Sophie, they were looking at the redhead like they were ready to rip them apart.
They were sensing Sophie’s moods, it seemed like, he realized. He’d have to warn her about that.
“I have my ways,” Sophie said. “You should stay in the woods.”
The redhead was looking at the other Shadow witches now. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she snarled. “Her? You miserable fuckers,” she spat.
Sophie gave a little shrug. “Something about being drawn to the most powerful Shadow witch, blah, blah, blah. I didn’t really catch it all.” She took another step toward the redhead and crossed her arms. “Nothing happens without me knowing. I am watching every single move you make, Esme.”
Calder stared at the witch. This was Esme? The one who’d kicked Sophie’s ass and threatened her life? For her part, Esme was glaring at Sophie with a murderous look on her face.
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