She redirects the bladeI threwtowards the wolves. While the little child inside me wants to cover her eyes and hide from the inevitable death—one that’smyfault—I can’t. It isn’t fair for them to lose their life while I hide from reality.
The blade imbeds itself into Conan’s heart.
His wolf form melts away for a human who slumps to the ground, the roots releasing him. His short breaths of a life remaining are lost beneath the grief-filled howls of three wolves.
“No!” I lunge across the room to Conan’s side, hot tears starting down my face as the instant grief rips my soul apart. “No, no, no, no, no, no,no!This isn’t happening… No!” Myfingers wrap the hilt, and I yank it out of his heart, needing the wound clear before healing spells could potentially work.
No healing spell can heal a wound to the heart.
“Conan, no! Stay with me.”
His eyes flutter, wild, looking from me to the side and ending on Holly’s distraught wolf face. Her form changes too, back to a naked human who slumps to the ground, stretching an arm as far as she can. Her fingertips are but an inch shy of his, and it’s her face that becomes the final thing he sees before drifting into the afterlife—his final breath a shudder that tears through my soul.
She screams in agony—in grief.
“You will not die!”
Hands over his heart, I recall every healing spell Mom’s ever taught me. Silly ones for small wounds, stronger ones for bone fractures, and everything in between.Anythingto heal him—to bring him back.
“He’s gone,” a sly voice over my shoulder announces.
He’s not gone. I refuse to believe it. Refuse to believe that the others lost a packmate all because they came looking for me. One way or the other, I caused his death, whether with the knife or not. They should never have been here. They all got caught up in this becauseof mewhen Sloane used Alaric against them, and then again when they followed Ryder.
None of them should have ever met me. All I and the covens have done is bring death into their lives. Conan’s death is my fault, and there’s nothing that’ll make it acceptable.
Ryder’s howl is the loudest. Sharper than the knife that took his friend. Louder than Holly’s screams. And more deadly than the festering poison I am on them.
He shifts back too, but I don’t meet his gaze. “Carina…”
Kill them,Darkness urges.Kill them while I thank you.
Thank me?I ask it, already knowing—feeling—it’s too late. It’s thanking me for giving it more to feed from. I threw the knife; Sloane only redirected it. Such a detail isn’t important to the magick coursing in my veins.
Welcome to your future.
No.
A shiver slinks over my neck, the blue light from my magick that’s still trying to heal Conan darkening, becoming heavier, denser until?—
Embrace me. Don’t fight. Be who you can be.
Darkness drowns out my water, my healing, my natural abilities…my connection to the Goddess. It draws me further away from the Light, from goodness, from trying toheal—to save—what I ultimately caused.
Leaning forward over Conan’s body, my hair falls into my view—the hair that, from the roots downward, turns black as the Darkness consumes me—consumes all of me.
“Fuck off,” I grit out to the imaginary voice in my head, the power that’s forbidden for these reasons. My hands press into my temples but doesn’t drown it out; it’s stronger than the bit I took from Alaric, proving how little I actually claimed. I believed I was in control, but I wasn’t at all, because there wasn’t anythingtocontrol. Not really.
Not like this.
It’s almost laughable, my naïveté.
Let him go, the voice commands.It’s over.
My hands move from my temples to again press hard on Conan’s wound. Blood seeps between my fingers, staining my palms like a sick show of Darkness encasing my hands. I deserve this, though; deserve Conan’s blood to stain my hands.
“Never.”
He’s dead by your doing.
