“The wolf in him won’t be able to stand it, little mouse. The more enthusiastically he bows to me, the better your living conditions will get.”
“No.” Selene tucked her chin, her eyes burning. Why had she been so stupid? If she’d stayed away from Jason and maintained her vows as she should have, none of this would have ever happened.
“Don’t fret. You both have the opportunity to be on the right side of history. When Alex and I rule the supernatural world, you’ll be free to finally be your true self. For too long we’ve been forced into an existence based on balance and harmony.”
“That is the law of the goddess,” Selene said. “We must maintain balance, or the world will fall into darkness and chaos.”
“Some of us could do with a little darkness,” she snapped. “What has the goddess ever done for me?”
Selene furrowed her brow. Saying Nickelova was crazy was an understatement. “The goddess, Hecate, created all supernatural beings.”
Nickelova scoffed. “But the horned god, Panaal, is the source of much of their power. The power of fire. The power of chaos. Hecate and Panaal collaborated to design the reality we currently live in, rules and regulations based on a balance between the masculine and feminine. But Hecate is a wicked goddess. There is no balance. Demons and vampires live in the shadows. Dragons are almost extinct and with them the dragon fae like me whose powers are born from a relationship with them.” She twirled the amulet between her fingers. “When a fairy and a wolf rule the supernatural world, we’ll change everything. We’ll remake everything under Panaal’s eye.”
Selene shuddered to think how the world might change under the rule of Nickelova and Alex. Humans would likely be hunted to extinction. Or farmed by vampires. Werewolf children, human until their first shift, might become vampire targets, setting the two species at odds. The most powerful witches, the demigoddesses known as Hecate, would be overwhelmed with their charge of maintaining balance and the management of their Hellmouth prisons. What Nickelova wanted would completely change life as they knew it. She had to be stopped.
“You’re mad. If what you’re saying is true, you’d unleash the underworld.”
Nickelova sighed. “That, little mouse, is the idea. Now you’d better get some rest. Jason is on his way. You want to be strong enough to watch me break him, don’t you?”
ChapterTwenty-Four
As the sun began to sink over the dense woods, Jason calculated he’d traveled about fifteen miles in the direction of the nonexistent mountains. He hadn’t found a portal or any directions from Nickelova on how to reach her. Still, he was confident the dragon fae knew he was coming. Her Spidey-Sense was powerful enough to detect when a fly entered her web.
Jason was no fool. He didn’t labor under the delusion that he could sneak up on Nickelova’s lair. On the contrary, he assumed he’d be invited in. That was the point, wasn’t it? Once inside, he’d lie, cheat, beg, or steal to get Selene out alive. Then Nickelova could do with him what she would.
When he came upon a stream, he made camp, thankful for the fresh water and a safe, stony bank to start a fire. He pulled the chains and locks from his backpack. He wouldn’t need a tent. In less than an hour he’d shift into wolf form and grow his own fur coat. All he had to do was keep the wolf contained until morning.
As the fire blazed to life and he put a kettle of water on to prepare his freeze-dried meal, he undressed and crisscrossed the chains around his neck and chest. When he was confident the wolf would not be able to free itself, he padlocked himself to the nearest tree. No need to hide the key. Paws weren’t good at using one.
He huddled inside his bedroll and ate four human helpings of the food he brought. As the sun dipped below the horizon and a full round moon came into view, he wondered what Nickelova was doing to Selene. Was she cold? In a place she could safely shift? Had she been fed? Clothed? The thought of her being tortured because of him made his stomach turn.
“Don’t you hurt her,” he yelled toward the place where the mountains should be. “Don’t you hurt her, Nickie!”
When his skin began to tingle and his bones to stretch, he used his last human strength to douse the flames of his campsite. No sense risking a forest fire. Once he sprouted fur, he wouldn’t need the extra warmth.
His groan turned into a growl as the pull of the moon took over. And the person who was Jason gave way to the wolf within.
* * *
The first thingJason noticed when he woke the next morning was the temperature. It was considerably colder than before he’d shifted. The second thing was the snowstorm. It swirled around him, stinging his skin and catching in his eyelashes as he blinked toward the risen sun. He trembled, naked, in a wolf-sized dent of packed snow.
Fuck!The chains were goneand so was his campsite. He stood and turned in a circle but could barely see through the wild white blizzard around him. What he could make out, as he hugged his naked chest, was that he’d awakened on the side of a mountain, and a thousand meters or more above him was the mouth of a cave.
He cursed again as he realized all his gear, the silver cylinder Ryker had lent him, his phone, his clothes, everything he’d brought with him was back at the campsite, wherever that was. It seemed his wolf had escaped the chains and found the portal without him. Or else had been freed intentionally. He was betting the second. Nickelova wanted him weak. It was possible she wanted him dead.
Shivering, Jason began the painful climb toward the cave, teeth chattering in the storm. If he was lucky enough to make it there before freezing to death, he prayed the goddess would send him some ideas, because he had nothing to fight Nickelova with, aside from a lovesick heart and his two bare hands.
Reaching for a stone, he pulled himself up the ever-steepening side of the rock. His fingers and toes were bright red and hurt like a bitch. The pain in his extremities told him he was in trouble. Frostbite, for sure.
Bad turned to worse as he neared the mouth of the cave. He lost all feeling in his hands and feet, the tips of his fingers blackening. Not only could he no longer grip the side of the mountain, but severe fatigue had set in, tempting him to curl up and fall asleep, a choice that would surely mean his death. Close but not close enough. It was hopeless. His body could go no farther. As the cold and the wind coaxed him toward unconsciousness, he closed his eyes and tried to meditate as Selene had taught him, to escape the pain by retreating to a place within his own head.
And then she was there, the bright blue light of Selene’s soul on that plane of consciousness where they’d met before. “It’s a trap,” she said. “Nickelova is coming for you.”
Was it real? Or a figment of his desperate imagination. Darkness closed in on him. He stopped fighting.
“I love you,” he murmured. “And I’m sorry.”
* * *
