“We spent time together, and even after returning home, we visited each other frequently. I fell in love and wanted nothing more to provide for her. No matter what everyone else thought, I longed to make her my mate.” His attention falls to the bite mark on her neck, and then me, drawing his own conclusions with a hard set to his jaw. “She told me she wanted that too, but with the least amount of bloodshed as possible, and went home to talk with her coven. I never saw her again. I didn’t know she was pregnant with my pup. I…I assumed she gave up and moved on. I tried to see her, but she never returned to our meeting place. This entire time”—his tone hardens—“she’s been dead.”
Carina reaches for his hand. “I can’t speak for why she didn’t return right away, but apparently her coven was worried about my parentage and wanted me out. In the midst of them kicking me out, another witch targeted her—and me. Maybe she was trying to run to you, but something redirected her to Alberta instead.”
He blows out a breath, and truthfully, I don’t think he even heard her. Gone and into the past with her mother instead of listening to Carina recount the pain. Silver flashes in his eyes while his hand lifts, to touch, but drops at the last second. “Forgive me. I didn’t know. I would have—I swear, I would have?—”
“I believe you.”
He nods once, more for himself, and wipes away leftover tears. “You’ve been living with another coven, then?”
“In Banff, yes. They’ve been good to me. She—Lily—Mom…she chose well. She chose the best people, I swear. The woman who raised me, Morgan, is great. She gave me love, life, and a coven. I have an aunt and uncle, and a cousin, Jasper. Banff is lovely to grow up in, though busy.”
His body tenses, wolf tendencies emerging. No shifter approves of others raising their pup, and it takes a few more inhales before he’s murmuring, “You had a good life?”
“A fantastic life.”
His attention falls onto her neck again before looking at me. “Like your mother in numerous ways.”
Carina’s cheeks redden, and I walk forward, resting my hand on her shoulder to make my own claim. Father or not, she’s been mine long before she was his. “She’s my mate.”
“Hisnîkâkîstis,” Carina fills in, completely butchering the term, which only lifts a bit more of his grief with a smirk.
“Enough of a shifter to make the bond form. That’s very interesting. Any other features?”
“When Ryder was threatened, I grew claws and fangs, but I can’t do it on my own. Before then, there was no sign of it. I was told Lily locked my wolf side at my birth, to protect me—probably to appease her coven. Do you think I’ll ever completely shift?”
“You probably would have done so when he was threatened. If that was the moment that awoke that part of you, whatever you have comes out in full force.”
Admittingly, a small part of me hoped she’d one day join me for a run on four paws rather than my back, but I wouldn’t change her for anything. I fell in love with Carina as a witch, and I’ll love her in any form.
Callum gets to his feet and helps her up, keeping her close before jutting a hand in my direction. “Thank you for this. Thank you both for telling me. Just…thank you. I’d love to get to know you, Carina, if you’d give me the chance to. You’re both invited to my territory any time you wish. I’ve missed twenty-four years of your life, but would appreciate learning all about it, about your family”—he chokes over the word—“about Morgan.”
A deep breath of peace floats down the bond. “I’d like that too.”
After a few final words, we leave him on the cliff where he can grieve the mate he wasn’t able to claim in time, and the child he was forced to be without.
Carina tucks into my side as we start down the slope and away. Once we’re a distance away, a storm of emotions crashes on her shoulders—and into my stomach—as she turns into my arms and sobs into my chest.
“Thank you.”
“Always.”
Seventy-Six
CARINA
The afternoonafter we return from BC, Ryder takes me to the pond he shares with his mother’s soul. Instead of sitting with him, I pace the stretch, my mind running over everything from the past few weeks.
As the wind blows through the trees, rustling leaves, visions of them burnt up and dead, forests crushed, animals destroyed fill my mind with nightmarish visions. Earth rumbling from the Devil’s anger, making the rest of us his victims.
“Is this really our future, Goddess? We’ll lose all we know.”
Of course She doesn’t respond. She’s a figurehead, a belief, and gave us a form of herself on Earth—Freya—for this precise reason.
I drop to my knees beside the bank and dip my fingers into the pond’s surface. Silky, it rolls over my skin, reminding me of home and peace and everything opposite to the Darkness.
“Goddess…Hecate, I haven’t turned away from you, no matter what’s happened. It’s been said that to be Dark is an automatic betrayal, but I don’t feel it. Not deep down. And I believe you still have allies in Twilight Grove. My changed powers don’t mean I turned away from you.”
The water ripples around me, reinforcing the fact I still retain control over my element, but otherwise, Earth remains silent. With a sigh, I pull my hand from the water, except when only my fingertips are submerged, the pond moves, forming a rope around my wrist until it drags my hand back below the surface.
