It poured into Brax, lighting up his pack bonds until it was like a galaxy had exploded in my mind’s eye. My magic swept through them, gobbling down the gold light stranglingthose bonds. Devouring them with a never-ending blanket of darkness.
Brax’s mouth shook around my hand as I yanked hard on those bonds. The enthrallment that held his pack spellbound snapped.
From the forest, an eerie howl lifted. A moment later, dozens more joined.
Despite the magic it had consumed, the void inside me was still ravenous. It was no longer something I wielded consciously but rather a hunger like my bloodlust from when I was first turned.
And it needed to feed.
It turned toward the wolves it had just freed.
I whimpered.No. Not them.
It seethed, the need for sustenance overwhelming all other thought.
Instinctively, I searched for a new source of magic. One that might soothe the insatiable pit at the center of that strange power.
I didn’t have to look far. No further than the root impaling my chest. The magic that coursed through it promising a much better feast than Brax’s pack would have given me.
I wasn’t entirely in control as my power reached down to gobble up the golden light infused in the root.
I’d just started to drink from it when a blow caved in my chest.
The roots holding me broke, ripping free as I flew backward.
I hit the trunk of the oak tree. Something important in my spine gave way in a brief flash of pain.
I fell to the ground and lay there.
Broken.
Dying.
Muiredach bore down on me. My death in his eyes.
Desperation—or the small amount of power I’d managed to absorb from the roots of the oak—had me reaching for my connections to Liam.
Suddenly, I could feel him and the rest inside me. Connor’s desperation as he bounded through a deep forest, following a nearly non-existent game trail. Thomas running flat out beside him.
Through it all, Liam’s single-minded focus.
At my mental touch, he slowed. Electric blue eyes pierced my soul. “Aileen.”
Liam.
Up ahead, Thomas stopped. “You have her?”
“She’s close.”
There was a rustle from the underbrush as Connor, no longer a stag, joined the other two. “I sense her too.”
“If we can’t bring down the illusion, it won’t matter how close we are. We could be right on top of them and never know it,” Thomas said, his voice giving away his frustration.
Liam wasn’t listening. His forehead furrowed as realization settled on his features. “I can feel her pain. She’s dying.”
A stark silence fell.
Mo chuisle. Liam’s voice sounded in my head.You have to let me in.
