“I’ll see you soon,” I promised. “And thank you for taking this journey with me. Together, we will keep an eye on Shadow.”
“We certainly will,” she promised.
She left and I made my way into the lair. It was warm and welcoming inside, and I felt the oddest urge to run to the fire and give it a hug. Maybe it wouldn’t even burn me now that I’d found some unknown source of internal fire that I could produce on my skin.
On a whim, I tried to turn into a fireball again, but there wasn’t the faintest ember. My energy might have been too drained, or just like everything else, I could only channel that shit when I was rocking a fury so complete, it was its own entity.
Dannie…She was still on my mind, and just the memory of her “death” had my hands trembling. Every part of me was hoping that Shadow was right, that she was alive and reforming somewhere, and I would see her again. That was the one hope getting me through.
Not wanting to be alone with my messed-up thoughts, I ended up crashing onto one of the couches before the fire, snuggled down until my entire body let out a sigh.
Here, wrapped in the warmth of the fire’s embrace, I felt safe. So I let myself rest.
* * *
Inky wokeme some time later, its energy a distinct tingle of power. As it drifted closer to my face, my eyes shot open, the wolf in my chest stirring as a low rumble spilled from my throat. It was instinctive after being woken by a powerful entity, even if I’d known exactly what was here with me.
Blinking, I cleared my throat. “Inky?” I rasped. “What are you doing?”
The smoke swelled larger, and in the same instant, I backed right up on the couch because it looked different. Inky was now more of a midnight purple, swirls of green breaking up the endless darkness. “Did something happen to you when I opened the doorway?” I asked. Stupidly, because I couldn’t communicate with Shadow’s bonded mist.
Mist.I finally had an idea of what Inky was, and the reason he was bonded to Shadow. The beast had taken a small part of the creation energy of his land and tied his soul to it. Weird, but what an awesome boost to his own powerbase.
“Inky?” I pushed. “You’re weirding me out. What do you want?”
Reaching toward it, I let my hand brush across the tendrils flickering around the dark edges. Inky hadn’t shocked me in months, so I was taken completely by surprise when a heavy jolt shot up my arm.
With a yelp, I almost fell to the floor as my arm went completely numb. Panic kicked in hard, and at the same time my wolf surged forward pushing us to change. She slammed against an invisible barrier, my body unable to shift with Inky’s power surging through us.
There was another pulse in my aching arm, and I tried to lift it to cradle it closer to my body, but I couldn’t even move a finger. Whatever Inky had done, my limb was no longer responding, and that was not good news. Especially for a shifter with excellent healing abilities.
There was one of two explanations for its current behavior: Inky had gone rogue or this wasn’t Inky. Both options were equally horrifying.
My legs still worked, so I pushed myself up, backing away from theclearly different-coloredcloud of mist. My useless arm dragged beside me as I growled.
“Stay back,” I warned, stupidly because I had zero weapons to use against it.
Mine.
The word filtered through my head and since it was not my thought or internal voice, I quite rightfully had a mini freak-out. A cold blast of foreign energy wrapped around me, and almost in the same instant, my arm started to respond.
I lifted it so I could quickly check it over, pausing at the sight of a shimmery purple mark on my palm. In the exact spotI’d just touched Inky Two.
This wasn’t good. This was not good.
Mine.
Again!What the fuck?“Did… you just talk to me?”
It drifted closer, and while not touching me, I could literally feel the power it wielded. I hadn’t been able to do that before I’d been marked with a purple tattooscarily close in color to the mist itself.
You are ours. We belong to the same land. You called me and now we are bonded.
It swelled larger, its sparking synapses flashing in the same way as Inky.
Wait… bonded?
“I don’t want to be bonded with you!” My words came out shouty, but it was starting to turn into an epic sort of joke how all of these powerfulthingsjust bonded to me, or kidnapped me, or rejected me without asking for my damn permission.
