“Ye are not dead.Yet,” a powerful voice, a woman’s voice, told her.
“Where is this, and who are you?”Jessa flinched at the quiver in her voice.Something deep inside, an old childhood instinct she had never left behind, told her now was not the time to reveal any weakness.No answer came from the disembodied voice.Just more suffocating silence.“Are you Morrigan?”she hazarded to ask.
“I am.”
Jessa pushed herself up to a sitting position and squinted all around, trying to make out anything in the darkness.It was impossible.Never had she been in a place so lacking in any light whatsoever.She reached down and felt the surrounding ground.Where she sat was stone.Damp, hard, and kind of crumbly.Like shale, maybe?She reached to the left and discovered a wall that was more of the same but less crumbly.To the right was a nothingness that could be anything.Unknown nothingness lurked behind her and in front of her as well.But there was that wall to the left, a solid wall.Safety.Maybe this was the back of a cave of some sort.
Pit of despairwhispered its way through her thoughts again.Stop it,she told herself again.
“I really do love Grant,” she announced, proud that her voice was loud and strong this time, the words echoing over and over like a war chant across the pit.“We are connected, he and I.Our souls reunited.You are too late.”
“Am I?”
Jessa gritted her teeth, biting back a frustrated and borderline hysterical growl.Apparently, this Morrigan demon enjoyed mind games.“This is extremely boring,” Jessa taunted.Maybe she could goad thethinginto saying more.“At least before, there was some excitement in your attack.What do you want?What are you trying to prove here?”
Thunder rumbled through the darkness, and the distinct sound of shifting earth, maybe rocks tumbling down the wall, followed in its wake.“I am war, sovereignty, and prophecy.I have to prove nothing.Death and Fate do as I bid them.”In the distance, so very far away that Jessa barely heard it, came a cacophony of guttural croaking, the chatty cawing of ravens or crows, definitely large birds.They sounded like a choir, giving the Morrigan a heartyamen.
What a drama queen.Anger leveled out Jessa’s adrenaline fueled panic, and she welcomed the shift in power within her, the settling, the strength.She shoved herself to her feet while keeping her hand on the wall to her left.Who knew what awaited her in the darkness?Caves had bottomless cracks and fissures, didn’t they?
“What do you want?”she asked again, determined to sound as powerful as possible.A personal trainer had once told her that fifty percent of success was bravado.The other fifty was believing in yourself.Time to lock into that mindset for real.“What do you want, Morrigan?”she repeated.
“Many things.As do you.”
“What I want right now is some light, so I can see what I am dealing with here.”
“Are you certain about that?”
Squaring her shoulders, Jessa braced herself while fighting off the ancient childhood memory of being locked inside the dark, stuffy bathroom cabinet for hours on end while her motherentertained.“I am positive.”
The surrounding darkness softened to a dismal gray that sifted down like a strange waterfall of colorless dreariness.But at least she could see now.The wall to her left was black slate or maybe coal.It was scarred with chisel marks and scratches, as if some ancient being had either mined for whatever mineral it was or tried to claw its way to freedom.The narrow ledge on which she stood was the same material.It was about four feet wide, seemed to run on forever in front of her and behind her, but disappeared into an eerie black nothingness to the right.
“I recommend keeping to the left,” said the tall figure cloaked in black that stood in the center of the path several yards ahead of her.“At least, for now.”
Jessa blinked and opened her mouth to speak, but the being shapeshifted into a swelling column of large black birds that swirled upward like a building storm, then exploded outward.With her hand still on the wall, she crouched, cowering from the ominous fowl with their snapping beaks and eyes that flashed with an unholy light.They circled overhead, occasionally dipping low to snatch at her hair with their gleaming black talons.
If she got out of this alive, she would never own a birdfeeder or birdbath again.Birds could fend for themselves.
“I thought you liked animals,” one of them cackled and screeched as it came at her.
She ducked and tried to knock it away.“You’re not an animal.You’re a nightmare of unexplainable weirdness.”
The relentless army of birds evaporated into ribbons of black smoke rising through the grayness in narrow, curling tendrils.
Jessa exhaled and slumped back against the wall.She could hear her heart pounding now.But then, a subtle clicking drew her attention back to the path.
A silver wolf of unbelievably large proportions ambled toward her, baring its dripping fangs and growling, “I am not unexplainable.”
Backed against the wall, Jessa locked her legs to keep from slumping to the ground.She had to fight.Make a show of bravado.She refused to leave this world without a fight.She had survived too much to turn soft now.“If you’re not unexplainable, explain yourself.As you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to this business of the Highland Veil, the Defenders, or fated mates.”She resettled her footing, wishing some of the loose rocks around her were big enough to be worth throwing.“And when you’re finished educating me, tell me what the hell you want.”
The horrendous beast tipped its head to one side and flicked an ear.Its long red tongue lolled out of its mouth as it cracked a hideous grin.It lifted its muzzle, its gleaming black nostrils twitching.“The air reeks with yer fear.”
“I never said I wasn’t afraid.I asked, ‘What the hell do you want?’”Jessa wished she had her pepper spray.Dark being or not, she doubted that Morrigan the wolf would like a snoot full of cayenne and jalapeño.
“Retribution,” said the animal in a rumbling growl.
“What did I ever do to you?”Maybe if she could keep the thing talking, Grant, Mairwen, and Emily would rescue her.“Grant is my fated mate.He will come for me, and you know it.”Jessa knew it, too.She felt it in her heart, and that feeling strengthened her.
The wolf snapped, baring its long, lethal fangs.“Ye will be my weapon to destroy the Veil.”
