He rounded in front of me.
“There is no escaping me. Not now that I have caught your scent.”
He lifted his chin.
“You are mine, little fugitive.”
Ice-blue irises collided with mine.
Lightning arced through my veins, shattering the Command’s hold over me into a million tiny shards. I collapsed to the ground with a scream. The pain in my knee and ribs was forgotten, replaced by this jagged agony carving up my back. My wings winked out of existence as the onslaught of the transformation overwhelmed me.
“No,” I sobbed as something solidified in my chest, right in the middle of the well of my power. I felt him there—the darkness of his soul, the depth of his power, the dominance of his fury.
The rotten vines of him wrapped around my ribs, never to let me go again.
Because our bond had been sealed. I was now officially mated to the Issaraeth. Which meant that the rest of my life was lost.
My limbs gave out beneath me, and I crumpled into the rocky river’s edge. Hot salt blurred my vision. The rain picked up then, as if the sky too cried for my fate.
It was the only sympathy I’d receive for this curse the Goddess had placed on me.
“You…” the Issaraeth started, a hand pressed over his broad chest. It heaved as he blinked, trying to process what I already knew. He cleared his throat, his velvet voice turning to scraping steel.
“You are my fated mate?”
***
A scream carved open the midnight air. The young female with hair of shimmering silver crumpled to her knees, head ripping toward the sky.
Something ancient had dragged her from the land of dreams, whispering her out of the safety of her parents’ home and into the waiting night.
The moon hung fat, heavy, low.
Foreboding.
It stared down at the youngling as much as she stared up at it.
As she locked in on the celestial body, paralysis set in. Control over her movements slipped away like stars at dawn. Her skin blazed, pressure building from the inside out.
What is happening to me?she thought, far too young to comprehend the magnitude of the moment.I need my momma.
Darkness clouded her vision, blotting out the remainder of her tender light. Because under that Goddess moon, she became an Angel of legend.
A Seer.
Another cry tore loose from the throat she no longer owned. Movement snapped into her limbs, claws reaching for her face as if she could stop the relentless race into a fate forced upon her.
Ice-blue irises rolled backward, the moon shuddering as it shifted into the future.
The world fractured, shifting from night to day as if time itself had forgotten its place. A brilliant sun devoured its counterpart. Blinking, the female brushed at the burning in her eyes.
Only to have her breath catch in her throat at the sight before her.
A male, tall and broad, astride a rearing stallion. Power exuding from his every pore—dangerous, deadly. Glowing script shone through his tunic, right above his heart, though she could not decipher the words.
Yet a strange ache lived beneath his brutality.
The world tunneled in on him, all else forgotten.
