by S. L. Morgan
“You could have, but you keep forgetting,” he dragged out the last word like a song. “You gave me the power—your power.”
That’s when a low growl came from behind Demon-Dom, and it only seemed to humor the demon. “Looks like a little wolf came out from behind your fear.”
The restraint lifted from my head, and I looked behind the demon to see my wolf, crouched and baring her teeth at him. Oddly, her eyes were my brown color, but she looked badass and ready to at least die trying to kill the creep.
I watched Demon-Dom wave its hand and throw my wolf across the room like she was a stuffed animal.
“That was almost frightening,” it said, turning back to me.
I exhaled, going farther into my mind. I had to hold onto the fact that if Vannah and Ethan were at the cabin that I was about to spend the last of my shifter days in, they were picking up that their friend was losing the battle between good and evil.
Reach out to them! I mentally ordered myself. I felt a jolt of power wash through my inner being. My wolf was still knocked out, but the power I was picking up on was stronger than this demon who was ready to take the last of who I was away from me.
To my greatest relief, Demon Dom’s eyes were wide, and I scented the fear it held in that instant. A low snarl that gave me a bone-chilling shiver came from behind the demon.
WTH, please tell me I didn’t manage to lock a hell hound up in my mind too.
“You don’t have her, I do.” Demon Dom’s voice lowered into a dark, evil tone. “You’re too late.”
I glanced over. I had to have imagined this salvation because it was Dom’s black wolf, and it had the vivid blue eyes of my wolf. I’d have thought this was part of this Demon-Dom’s next step of mental invasion, but the wolf never once looked at me.
It was in kill mode, and it slowly walked over to where my wolf was lying unconscious after being slammed up against the wall of this creepy room in my memories.
The black wolf never took its eyes off Demon-Dom as it ran its snout over the side of my wolf. Its appearance looked like the wolf of anyone’s nightmares. Red, blue, and silver energy swirls radiated above every part of the massive black wolf’s body.
“You’re not real,” Demon Dom said. “There’s no way it happened or will happen.”
The wolf’s head sank low to the ground as it prowled toward Demon-Dom. It was salivating, and growls were ripping from its chest. The thing literally looked like it could’ve been a freaking hell hound given its furious and lethal nature toward Demon-Dom.
The restraints lifted and disappeared as soon as the wolf lunged and went for Demon-Dom’s throat. They rolled into an aggressive fight, and the wolf was relentless even through yelps of pain that came from both the demon and the wolf.
I jumped from the table and glanced down, mentally willing those fireballs to appear in both my palms. Pink, purple, blue, and silver balls of lightning energy formed up and sparked like popping flames. I ran toward the demon only to have the wolf bare its teeth at me to back off. My inner thoughts led me to bring the energy to my wolf and revive her. Once the energy was absorbed into my wolf, she rose up, powerful and larger than I ever remembered her being. Holy hell, what was going down in my mind?
“Draw it out!” Ethan’s dangerous, lethal voice mentally ordered me.
Draw it out? I couldn’t expel things. Hell, I’d never heard Vannah even talk about witches or fairies doing this.
“Go into your power, and do what Ethan said!” Vannah’s voice radiated through my overcrowded mind.
I instantly felt a draw to siphon the thing’s energy. The black wolf was holding its own, but it needed back-up. Back-up from the fairy-witch who suddenly had the urge to pull a vamp move and start sucking up energy. Vampire moves now? This had better be a dream.
My wolf joined the attack on Demon-Dom, and even though it was heartbreaking to watch the guy I loved getting mutilated by wolves, I had to do my part to finish this. The black wolf with vivid blue eyes was ripping this thing’s throat out, but it wasn’t dying. The evil sucker was replenishing itself after every lethal attack.
That’s when I felt more electric energy hit me, and I inhaled as I watched a trail of electric dust leaving that thing and entering through my palms, juicing me up.
Okay, crap, we’re doing a vampy thing…time to manipulate its mind to die an excruciating death.
I clenched my teeth together and imagined its internal organs melting to nothing, its sinister energy turning in on itself and forcing itself out of my mind and into the world outside of my physical body.
Before completely working to expel the thing that the two wolves had pinned to the ground, I narrowed my eyes, seeing Demon-Dom for the last time and draining him of all the energy he could have ever had. I would cry about this later, right now, this thing was about to leave my body, and hopefully, the owl was ready to finish it off.
“Jen, I love you.” I heard Dominic’s voice echo in my mind. “I always have.”
“Go to hell!” I growled, and then I was in control of my mind again. The evil thing I had locked up all this time was expelled from me.
My eyes popped open to see that black dust particles had filled in the room from where Ethan had killed the demon, and his large wings blurred as the owl blew out of the top of the building. I shot up, forcing the limp body of Dominic off and away from me like it was the plague.
I turned to see Vannah, who was staring at me with eyes wide as saucers. I tried to speak, but my body started shaking violently after what I’d just witnessed.
“You need to shift, Jenna!” Vannah said.
She was right. The only way I’d be able to manage my thoughts and emotions was to be in my wolf form. There was no way I could deal with the loss I felt in my current form. I needed to get as far away from here as possible.
23
I took off from the cabin, wanting to run my wolf out of the school’s boundaries and never look back. Oddly enough, my wolf—the one I worked hard to submit to follow me while I was in the troubled kids’ program—gained a mind of her own, and for the first time, she took control of me as my shifter self.
I was stopped dead in my tracks, my wolf not budging no matter how hard I fought.
God, don’t turn on me again. I need to get out of here!
That’s when it all changed. My wolf was in the driver’s seat now, and I was going to be heading to an insane asylum once the school caught onto the fact that Jenna no longer had mental control over her wolf. The wolf trotted to an isolated area and laid down.
WTH is going on?
As soon as my wolf dropped her head, my vision changed. Holy crap, how am I seeing myself strapped to that table? My wolf was giving me her wolf eyes for a glimpse into my mind at what went down when Demon-Dom was trying to end me.
I watched it all through her eyes like I was witnessing it for the first time. I felt the sinister energy, and through my wolf’s eyes, I saw the truth of what went down.
It was never Dominic!
I watched the appearance of what I thoroughly believed was Dominic fade into the most horrific creature. It was fashioned in all black, and its face was terrifying, displaying the epitome of evil. I was shocked I didn’t see through this façade the first time. It was bald with black veins over its entire face, rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth, and hollow, black eyes.
It was never Dominic, and the sick, dark SOB played me so well that I fell for it, but my wolf didn’t. Why wouldn’t the wolf lend me her eyes when all of this was going down?
My vision shifted again, and I saw something else. In another part of my mind, my wolf heard the chants of Ethan and Vannah, calling her to another area of my mind, far from where I was trapped with the demon.
“She can’t be in her mind alone like this, do it now!” I heard Dominic’s voice through my wolf’s ears.
How the hell did all of this happen without me knowing it?
My questions were slowly being answered as my wolf
continued to force me to see what she had done while I was locked up with that monster.
She was drawn under a heavy spell—Ethan and Vannah’s chants—to Dominic’s wolf, which had miraculously entered my mind. The wolf was humble toward her, but fierce and drawing her to merge with him. I felt my wolf being called by his wolf to force a merge between the two.
It was like my wolf knew precisely what to do, and I watched her bow her head to the strong alpha as the black wolf approached. The two wolves placed their foreheads together, and that’s when I watched in disbelief as the wolves formed their own bond, and Dom’s wolf took the power my wolf offered his. They united, and my wolf continued to pull from whatever power I had with my fairy-witch genetics, transferring it to her other half. I felt their sense of unity and satisfaction from both wolves, having desired this merge for longer than I realized.
They had been starved of each other, and even though they were surviving without the other half of each other, they had not been able to be the shifters they were born to be. That’s when I instantly understood why Dom and I had no trouble accepting each other as true mates, and that’s when I felt the emptiness and void both wolves had suffered while being kept apart.
Now merged as one, the wolves were fed and ready to go after the demon. That is why Dom’s wolf had my wolf’s blue eyes. She and his wolf were one and carrying mutual power. Dom’s wolf was more powerful than ever before.
WTH…how was there enough room in my freaking mind for this all to go down?
I felt Dom’s presence through his wolf, and the large alpha mentally took control of the situation. It’s like my wolf had been following along with plans that were made, but I never knew jack shit about them.
None of it made sense, but it was real. I saw it through my wolf’s memories, from her own eyes. While I was sitting out here, getting a lesson in our wolves merging with the help of Vannah and E, the real Dominic lay in that bed unconscious, somehow blacked out after everything that’d happened.
Why wasn’t Dominic in on the fight?
As soon as I thought it, my wolf allowed me to feel him in his wolf—he’d entered my mind through his wolf, and neither I nor that demon ever saw him coming.
I had to get back to him. My wolf gave me one last slap in the face before she released control and turned it back over to me again. I was losing Dominic—she was losing her mate—I could sense it from the distance I was at. The wolf and Dominic had both absorbed too much of my fairy-witch magic, and it was killing both of them. Good God, there was no reasonable explanation for any of this.
All I knew was I needed to get back to Dominic, and in sensing them both taking power like this from me, I knew I had enough juice to save him. I just hoped I knew what the heck I was doing.
I lunged out and pushed my wolf as fast as her feet could carry her, and I jumped on the closed cabin door, scratching and pawing until Vannah opened it.
“Jenna!” she said with wide eyes. “Are you okay?” she asked as my wolf snarled past her and into the room where Dom lay in his shorts on the bed, his color now pale and deathly looking.
I shifted back in that second. “I’ve got him,” I said to Lusa as she held her brother’s head in her lap, crying. “I saw it all—mostly anyway—through my wolf’s eyes. I need to help bring him back.”
“Can you?” Lusa sniffed. “You should’ve helped him before you left.”
“She couldn’t, Lusa,” Vannah said. “She went into shock. If she didn’t shift, she could’ve gone catatonic.”
“Lusa,” I said, calmer than I’d imagined I could be. “I’ll get him back like he got me back from that thing on our vacation. I need to be alone with him. I’m not losing him.”
“Lusa,” Vannah’s voice was set with her witch authority. “They need to be alone. Jenna can help heal his mind. You know how shifters work. They need to have a close connection. No distractions.”
Lusa sighed, and then in a vamp blur, she was out of the room.
I looked back at Vannah’s sad eyes. “I hope I can get him back.”
“I can sense a change in his aura by having you close. Use your instincts. You know what to do.”
Vannah let the door shut quietly behind her as I slid onto the bed, still unclothed from shifting back from my wolf. It was fine. Our skin-to-skin contact would help Dominic heal from whatever it was that took him out. I wouldn’t know until I got my man back and explanations started to take place.
All that mattered now was me pulling him to face me and holding his limp body in my tight embrace.
24
Dom’s breathing was shallow as I ran my hand through his hair, trying to use our shifter connection to bring him back to me. I brought my thoughts to nothing but the consuming love I knew I felt for him.
I felt my energy change at that moment, feeling his closeness light a fire of determination inside me. I needed him back. My wolf needed her mate. Something was off, though, and I felt that next. The merge between the two wolves had not been done correctly, and that was part of what was taking Dom down.
“What did you try and pull off?” I questioned as I traced his perfect lips.
I situated myself upright to turn his head and bring my forehead to his. For the first time, without me having to ask him to open up, I saw his inner wolf. I sensed the power coming off his wolf and how both of them needed my help immediately.
Without knowing what the hell to do, I went with my gut instincts. I imagined myself taking back what was mine. Dom would never be able to handle this power unless he and I united ourselves the proper way. The way Dom approached this whole thing, without us claiming each other physically as mates, may have worked to extract the demon, but it was backfiring on him now.
“Take it all back, Jenna,” I started chanting to myself while running my hand across Dom’s cheek.
My eyes closed, and I felt my power awaken. It was strange, but a healing element was present as if I’d cast a spell to help him heal. Heat in both my palms forced my eyes to reopen and see to white balls of light hovering over them. I didn’t question anything as I pressed my left palm into Dom’s chest and my right palm over his forehead.
Instantly, Dom’s aura became healthy again. I felt his strength replenishing as it started to work to pull out the magic from him through my hands as they rested on him. I inhaled deeply, never having felt this energy before, but my inner wolf knew precisely how to take it all in and return it to the other side of my genetic makeup…the side I hardly knew anything about. The power was potent, and if it weren’t for my wolf somehow knowing how to lock it away in me, I would have probably passed out, being overwhelmed by all of it at once.
“Thank God, you’re healing,” I said, feeling tears of joy and relief.
I could tell Dominic was knocking on death’s door by how slowly his body was working to heal itself. I wanted to speed up the process, needing to see him alive and well, but I was afraid to touch him with any of the magic I had in me. His body was recovering on its own. That’s all that mattered.
Now, it was only a matter of time before his eyes reopened, and I had him back and healthy again.
I must have laid there for at least an hour, listening to his heart as it beat in perfect rhythm and watching his chest rise and fall with each deep breath he took. He was in a deep sleep, but thank God he was okay.
“Dominic did what was best. Dominic will survive,” I heard Ethan’s voice in the other room.
I could tell by the way the owl shifter was talking that the poor kid was out there, reassuring himself that Dominic was going to survive. I got up and put some clothes on before I walked out of the room to find Ethan.
“Hey, E,” I said, watching him pacing while Lusa tried to calm her cousin down.
“Jenna, I felt you take the energy back. He had to do that to trick the demon. He will live.”
I smiled at Ethan. “He’s going to be fine. He’s sleeping and healing now. I felt it.”
Ethan nodded. �
�You both need each other. It will never be the same after today.”
I cocked my head to the side in confusion, glancing over to Lusa and Vannah. “While Dom’s out, someone needs to explain to me what the hell went down to cause all of this.”
Ethan started tripping out again, defending Dominic’s actions, and I had to take a calming breath myself, or we’d lose the owl shifter again. Although, I had no idea if he’d get busted or not because after all the crap that had gone down—magical wolf merges and demonic extractions—you’d think the school would have busted all of us by now.
“Let’s get some fresh air.” Lusa took control of her cousin. “Vannah will fill you in,” she said, obviously messed up from almost losing her brother.
“What the hell, Vannah?” I started by saying how I really felt about everything. “Where are we, why did it all go down like this, and when did you all plan to let Dominic go on a suicide mission to save my ass from that demon?”
“Listen, I know you’re confused—”
“Confused?” My voice raised a few octaves. “That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. You and Ethan were on stand-by with a magic spell? Fairy godmother shows up. I don’t even know where to start with the questions.”
“Listen,” Vannah said, “After everything that went down on the virtual vacation, Dom wasn’t letting it go. He started planning to get the demon out from the second he brought you and your wolf back from it almost killing you both. He was hoping that getting you and your wolf submitted properly would help us extract the thing and kill it, but we needed a way to kill the thing.”
“Go on.”
“So, while Dom worked with you in that stupid troubled kids’ program, I went to work on ways we could join forces to kill the demon in you.”