The power built, slowly at first, then picking up speed like a boulder rolling down a mountain. Suddenly, he couldn’t control it.
“Farren!” he screamed, unable to move or let go of the overabundance of magical energy. It was going to kill him if he couldn’t direct it somewhere.
His mate lifted her massive head, and in her gray eyes, he found a measure of hope. She barked once and jerked her snout towards his father’s body.
Eli didn’t want to look. He’d ached for his parents—for one more hour, one more minute with them—for twenty years. And before he’d even had the chance to see his father acknowledge who he was, Farren had killed him.
The snarl shocked him, and he whipped his head around. The blood-stained gray tunic was in shreds, and a rail-thin wolf, his fur as dark as midnight, stood over the ruined garments.
“Da’?” he croaked.
The wolf—who had to be his father—bounded for Glenna, and the sound of cracking bones and Farren’s whimpers made it hard to breathe. The power was still churning inside him, begging to be freed, but he couldn’t let go. If he did, he’d destroy half the continent. Or at least, that’s how it felt.
“Eli! Look at me.” Farren staggered to her feet, gloriously naked and beautiful in her human form. Regulus was somewhere behind him, tearing into anyone who dared enter the room. Tierney had freed himself from the muzzle and was now working with Eli’s father to rip Glenna to shreds.
His mate’s hands stroked down his arms, and she took his uninjured hand and held it to her breast. Under his palm, he felt the Tree of Life pendant. “Send the power into the necklace, luv.”
“The casting...will kill you,” he whispered.
“You must be willing to sacrifice all that you are.”
The vampire’s words came back to him, and he held Farren’s gaze.
“I’m not afraid, Eli. Whatever happens, this is what I want.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to his. “Let me do this,mo ghra.Trust me, and I’ll trust you.”
In that moment, Eli felt all the broken pieces in his mate’s soul mend. The guilt she carried over Colin, Brian, and Abagail melted away. There was no place for that emotion any longer. She felt only love for him, and he for her.
“I’m yers, Eliziam Escobar Ruiz Colón. And I do not intend to lose ya’. Do it. Right feckin’ now.”
* * *
Farren
Fear churned in her mate’s eyes. How could she make him understand? “I love ya’, Eli. I’ll always love ya’. In this life and the next.” She cupped his cheek and brushed her lips to his. The power thrumming through him…she could taste it, bitter yet sweet on her tongue.
“Ya’ won’t kill me, luv. Ya’ have power no one has ever seen before, and I believe ya’ can control it.”
Time slowed to a near standstill. To her left, Regulus finished draining Isla and released her lifeless body. To her right, Paulo and Tierney stood over the remaining pieces of Glenna. Farren wasn’t sure what Cade, Liam, Caitlin, and Peter had found, and she mourned Ewan’s death, the hole in her heart growing larger by the minute with all the pack members she’d lost.
But she didn’t have to lose Eli.
Farren curled her mate’s fingers around the pendant. “Trust me. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”
She felt it the second he let go. Not even her first shift could compare to the agony of absorbing that much power. The tree of life burned and sizzled against her skin, and Farren screamed. The castle walls shook, bits of plaster and stone falling all around them.
Regulus took off in a blur of motion, carrying Paulo and Tierney—both still in wolf form—through the destroyed window, then returning for Ewan’s body.
“I will retrieve the others,” he shouted. “Do not linger!”
The others. Cade. Liam. Caitlin. Peter. Mara.
God, she hoped Mara was with them.
She and Eli stood rooted, connected, and unable to move. His guilt and pain were a bitter taste in her mouth, and she softened her gaze, the only motion she seemed capable of.
“You have nothing to regret, Eli. Nothing. I’m alive. Yer father is alive. You stopped a feckin’ vampire from burning to death in the sun.”
If only he could hear her. Or…could he? A tear glistened in the corner of his eye, and Farren strained to raise her hand and wipe it away.
