Abner’s constant advice on my self-improvement grew tired in the first month we were together. But he compared me to Maggie only right before we broke up. He never gave me a reason he rejected my proposal and promptly left to sleep with her. At this point, I didn’t want to know.
“I should go.” But I couldn’t move. My legs simply wouldn’t work. When I looked to Declan for help, the brood suddenly surrounded us in a tight circle, intent on Abner and I. The stag, Toad, a midnight-colored wolf—their gazes bore down on me. All the blood rushed to my face, and I startled into snake form.
“Oh my Godds, Evening. That look is dumber than your rock collection. You’ll never pull off scales.” Abner’s wide mouth opened on a bray, and the rest of the brood followed suit. My chest tightened, strangling my breath into a reedy wheeze.
I guess they were just being nice last night when this stupid form didn’t seem to bother them a bit. I really needed to find Ward because Declan and Noora laughed too and it made my throat sting and my eyes well up. My mate didn’t seem to be anywhere in the brood, but my gaze rested on that dark wolf and he looked bigger.
Abner wiped his eyes, his smile going sympathetic like it did every time he cut me down. It made my heart surge in my chest like an idiot, just like it used to. But this time it was because I was angry as hells he said those things at all.
Ward only ever encouraged me, praised me, looked out for me. Abner’s voice sat like glass shards in my mind. Where did my mate go? That midnight wolf stepped to the side. Did it have an extra leg? Or three? I couldn’t process because he revealed Ward sitting in the clearing in his bear form, happily embracing Maggie. My sister looked up at him with adoration in her eyes. My breathing sped up. I stood, paralyzed.
The sound in the back of his throat snapped my attention to Abner. “Wow, what a happy couple,” he said.
I looked back and Maggie stood with a now-human Ward, hanging on his flexing arm. Words jumbled up in my throat. Maggie and I had shit to work out for sure. The thing with Abner wouldn’t just go away. But she would not take the thing that made all of that feel like a slight bump in the road of my life. I should have lit her up like a roman candle that very day.
No words came out, but something inside me clicked and lit a geyser of pure rage. No one was going to come between my teddy bear and I.
I dove forward, running as fast as my stupid legs would carry me, intent on a massacre. That lion would look like he had a black eye compared to what I was about to do to my sister. The black wolf skidded to a stop in front of me. He definitely had too many heads. I shifted as I leapt over him with more grace than I had ever managed. Just as my fangs were about to meet flesh, I started awake with a giant gasp.
My heart beat furiously against my ribs. I rolled and sprung up next to the fire. Night still blanketed the camp site. Declan and Noora slept, but they both moved like they fought their dreams. And Ward? Something large and dark and terrifying crouched over him. The image of the wolf from my dream flickered over the creature, except the wolf had sprouted an impossible number of legs and heads. My rage returned, and the wolf disappeared, leaving a nightmare with foot-long claws, razor teeth and dark, flowing hair feeding on Ward with gut-churning slurping sounds. Its body melded with the dark but amongst all that unnaturally moving hair sat a crown made of wire, blinking lights, metal, and a tooth the size of my palm.
The tooth beat a drum in my body that I was coming to associate with the relics. I would not eat wires and a tooth. I promised myself after the last time. Most importantly, this thing was hurting Ward.
My scream of rage sounded just as badass as my dream as I dove on the creature, whipping him away from my bear, striking it in any way I could. My pure fury lent me strength I shouldn’t have had to push back the piece of night. Those hissing scales in my mind flooded me with more power, shifter power. I wasn’t sure what to do with that other than keep hitting the monster. It tried to sink me back into a dream. My snake fought with me, keeping me awake.
Strike him down. Protect our mate.Okay, the voice thing was new. I would deal with that when we weren’t fighting a dream demon.
There was no way I was going back to that nightmare where I ended up stuck with Abner and Ward had a happy family. I head-butted the creature in the nose, a move Fallon always had success with, and it slunk away from me into the dark. My immediate headache—worth it.
I scrambled back to Ward, shaking his shoulders, willing him to be okay, still furious that he had let Maggie rub all over him. The completely rational part of me knew it wasn’t him and knew it wasn’t her, but fear had taken the reins.
“You bastard!” I screamed at him as I hit him on the shoulder. “You promised you wouldn’t even look at her.” I punched him right in the rib and got a bruised hand for my trouble, but no response from Ward. My anger faded as fear set in.
“Wake up, Ward. Please.” I shook him by both shoulders and watched his hand flop to the ground. “I don’t know how to do this by myself. Please wake up. We can be whatever kind of mates you want.”
He didn’t move, but at least he wasn’t fighting himself like the others. If he wouldn’t listen to me, maybe his bear would. I reached deep inside where those Goddess relics made a home in my soul and said, “WAKE UP!”
Ward gasped awake just as I had, immediately wrapping his arms tight around me. I couldn’t breathe a lick, but I was so grateful he squished me to him, I didn’t care.
“I had the worst dream, viper. The chain. I couldn’t escape, no matter how hard I tried.”
A squeak came out with no words, and Ward finally eased his grip on me.
“There’s a creature with the relic. It was?—”
“Noth?” Ward’s voice strangled.
Ward peered over my head to the wolf, who looked like a starry void with too many legs.
“Oh, no. Not your ballad friend?” I turned in Ward’s arms. “I thought he was an elf?”
The nightmare monster heaved and slobbered with desperation. I hoped some intelligence would shine through the relic’s call, but the creature remained lost. The relic—a blade-shaped bone—sat strapped to his head, glowing in time with the lights on the makeshift crown. Those same wires filled the box we took from the last temple. It was like nothing of the Harrowlands and it chilled me down to the bone.
“Step away from her. You have a new master now and you will lead his army once I’ve killed the witless one,” the creature lisped.
I huffed. I was the witless one? “Looks like the owner of the box finally found us.”
Ward tucked me behind him. “Noth. Do not give in to the Goddess’ call. It’s twisted.”
