“Your powers are beautiful, just like you, my sister. Don’t cry for me…I am not in pain. I am just going somewhere new.”
I break down completely and cling to her small drake body. I will never see her smile at me again, never feel her hug me and never see her dance around the bar like she was a free soul in this awful world. “No, don’t talk like this is final. I’m going to s-save you. I’ve got new powers, and I can save you! I know I can, I just… Please don’t die. Please. Please, I did all this for you, and…you have to live! You have to be by my side for all of it! You have to have a life as well, have kids like you wanted, and… Please,” I beg. I sob.
I plead with the now silent goddesses to save my friend, and I offer them anything. I scream for anyone to help me save her, but no one comes. It’s just me and I am not enough. She is and she is nearly gone. The storm of my magic rages on in destruction, but for me, my world has stopped. “Please, you’re my sister and my only family. This is all my fault. I’m sorry. Goddesses, I am sorry.”
“I’ve been dying for a while, and I knew you would do anything to save me. I would do the same for you, and it’s okay. This is not your fault. I should have died on the streets at six years old when I was left alone, and I didn’t. I had a life of happiness and joy because I met you and I found family again,” she whispers back to me, her voice fading with her life. I sob helplessly. “I will get to see my sweet parents now. All I have ever wanted is for you to have a family just in case I wasn’t here, and you found it with them. Don’t give up now; show this world who you are and remake it, and always remember that I love you. I’ve always loved you, my best friend…m-my sister. I’ve always wanted to be like y-you, and I thought by not saying that I wasdying, that I was being b-brave, just lik-ke you. I am f-finally like y-ou.” My heart shatters more, and I shake my head in denial.
“I love you, Tannith, and you didn’t need to be like me. You are so much better than me. Please don’t leave me alone…” Her heart stops. I scream and wail. I let my power pour out of me endlessly, and I don’t care what it takes. Take the world. Burn it down. Fuck it all. I want to die with her, but I can’t. I gave away my soul for them, and I will never see Tannith again. Her body stays in my hands as I scream in agony as my heart feels beyond broken. I can’t be here. I don’t want to ever see the heirs again. I won’t.
I am not alone, and I close my eyes to find him. “My monster, I’myoursand I unleash you. Come to me, and take me away from them.”
He appears like a knight of darkness, walking through my storm of shadows, and it parts for him. His tartan and cloak move in my power, but everything else is still as he closes the space between us. His wings are pressed in tight to his back, his dark hair softly dropping over his forehead, and his daggers glitter. Oblivion doesn’t hurt my monster because he’s from oblivion too. My monster kneels in front of me and bows his head. “I am yours and you are mine.”
“Yes. Take me somewhere they can’t get to me,” I beg of him. I know I’m making a deal with the devil as he solemnly nods once and comes closer, picking me up into his arms. I hold Tannith’s body, and my chest heaves with shuddering breaths. She is really gone. I ignore the heirs shouting for me to let them go, to not leave with my monster. Little do they know, he was never the monster to me. They were.
“I’m sorry she’s gone.” My monster brushes his lips against my forehead. “My mate, we will have revenge. My name is Zyran Nightward, and I will return you to your true pack, where your brother waits for your return. Oblivion calls you home, and wewill answer, and the world will fall to its knees for its new rulers.” He spreads his wings and shoots us both into the night sky, taking my sister back to the stars, in my arms.
Epilogue
Prince Blackfire, Heir of the Crone Pack.
My ears are ringing when I wake up and roll over in the snow, staring at the night sky. What the fuck just happened? “Meredith.” I call her name out, but she isn’t here. I would know if she were close by, and she isn’t. Her scent still lingers on the breeze as I look at the devastation of what her powers just did. The mountain range is gone, reduced to rubble except for the small patch of rocks we are standing on. She destroyed an entire mountain range, and she isn’t even trained to use her power. She is a queen walking this world, and I knew it, but now the world is going to see it too when they come here.
This is just the beginning, and I need to find her before her grief makes her do something she will regret. An immortallife is a hard one to live if you have a million regrets—I would know. I touch my uncle’s mark on my neck, finding it gone. The champion mark on my neck has overridden my uncle’s magic and, for the first time since I was five years old…I am not under his command.
I still lost her. Fuck. Her friend is dead, and my uncle will pay for her loss…but first. I search the snowy top, finding Reed first, and I drag him out from under the rubble. I sense Orion further down, and I dig into the rocks, enjoying the pain as it cuts into my hands and wrists. I think back to when Meredith chose to save us, how the magic changed her champion mark. The swirls chased up her neck, making a crown, and her crown was made of stars. Now I know why. I know what she is, and where she will be taken.
Eventually I get to Orion and drag him to the surface and carry him up the mountaintop. I lay the cocky asshole next to Reed and lean against the bloodstone, making a plan. I might be angry at them both for upsetting Meredith, but they are my friends. Brothers. The winged fucker took her, and my hope that he was bound to the island has gone up in flames. I am going to enjoy ripping his wings off for taking Meredith from me.
“She isn’t human. She never was.” Orion sits up straight, rubbing at the champion mark on his neck, the crown of vines. I know the mark from my uncle that bound him to so many secrets is gone too. “What is she?”
“I don’t know, I don’t care, but the bat took her,” Reed snarls and stands up, blood pouring down his face. I could tell them, but not yet. I know our girl isn’t that angry with us, because we are alive. The destruction of this mountain range tells me that she wants us alive, even if it is to rip out our hearts and stomp on them. I don’t care what she does to me as long as she is with me. “I should have found a way to tell her. Why did Tannith die so fast? That wasn’t normal.”
“The goddesses were angry. You heard them scream in anger when they gave her power and she changed,” Orion murmurs, and I still. “They wanted revenge.”
“You think they sped up Tannith’s impending death?” Reed rubs away the blood pouring into his right eye. “We have to find her. That bat can’t have her.”
“She could be anywhere in the world. They talked about a fourth pack,” Orion points out.
The fuckers don’t have a clue. She is mine, and I can find Meredith anywhere. “I can find her and the fourth pack is real.” I pull my shirt down, showing the new mark drawn out across my heart. It’s an elegant mark, two rings woven together in flames and stars. It matches the mark I drew on the back of her neck last night. Reed’s and Orion’s eyes blow wide. “There is nowhere in the world she can go that I cannot trace her.”
“Is that a marriage mark, you crazy fucker?” Reed stares. “How the fuck did you get her to agree to marry you? Did you do the conditions in secret or something?”
I smile to myself. Marriage marks are complicated, but I’ve been planning this for months. First, she had to accept food from me, and she began with eating berries I picked just for her. I made her dinner for weeks, and each meal was a step closer. The second part of a marriage mark is accepting family jewels and wearing them for two weeks straight in my company. She happily took my gloves with my jewels in them, and I made sure she came out into the forest to hunt for the chosen every morning for two weeks so she would wear the gloves. I found the chosen house on the first night, and I made sure we didn’t go anywhere near it so she’d wear the gloves longer.
The last part of a marriage mark is easy. Drawing the sacred marks in blood on each other’s skin, and I did that for us while she slept. It wouldn’t have worked if she didn’t have feelings for me too. The mark glowed bright red before settling into black,and now there is no one who can come between us. I know it’s fucked up and crazy, but that is exactly how my hopeless wife makes me feel. “Does it matter? She is my wife, and we are forever. Now let’s get her back.”
