Okay, now I’m worried again.
Lucian, like me, appears perplexed. I guess we’re both missing out on those predatorial instincts right now.
Safe to assume, this woman’s mate is someone we don’t want to mess with. Although the more I consider her, I have a feelingsheis the truly deadly one. She’s just hiding it behind a calm, motherly demeanor and a casual-looking flannel shirt and jeans.
Without another moment of hesitation, she turns to the keeper. “One tree,” she says. “But not that one.”
She points from the tree that the keeper’s magic had been curling around when he started to heal me, to another tree on the opposite side of the clearing. The only real difference between them appears to be that the second has more space around its trunk.
“That tree is acceptable,” she says. “When it dies, its woody pieces will nourish the earth and provide homes for the little creatures that live in this forest, and soon new life will grow.”
She arches an eyebrow at the keeper. “Life will always spring from death, dark one.” Her expression softens. “Even when all hope seems lost.”
A crease forms in his forehead and his head tilts slightly, as if he’s both surprised and puzzled by what she said.
She rises to her feet and quickly scoops up her daughter, who continues reaching for the butterflies for a moment before she settles back into her mother’s arms.
“Our dark wolves will remain here until you leave,” the woman says. “But we will continue on our walk.”
She reaches for her son’s hand, and he takes it immediately.
Then she pauses and turns back to me. “Consider your choices carefully, and when you decide on your path, remember that you don’t have to walk it alone.”
With that, she steps into the shadows of the trees, and within seconds, she and her children are gone.
The crimson wolves remain in the shadows. They seem to blend into their surroundings now, which makes me think the color of their fur is changing, camouflaging them against the foliage, but it’s becoming hard to tell.
I should feel relieved that the threat is over, but weirdly, my strongest emotion is envy.
The connection the woman has with her children, and apparently with her mate, is beyond anything I ever imagined possible.
Family.
It’s a little word that means a lot.
Right now, a member of my biological family is sliding to the ground.
“Fuck me,” Lucian whispers, his knees buckling and his butt meeting the moss as he drops onto it. “That was close.”
“Stand clear,” Diavolo snaps at him. “Veda has suffered for long enough.”
Lucian isn’t exactly close to me, and he’s certainly not in the keeper’s path, but he won’t want to be anywhere near his magic.
He scrambles to move farther away, taking himself off to the side of the clearing while Anarchy hurries along close behind him.
The keeper is already spinning to me, his right hand held out toward the tree the woman gave him permission to use while his left arm is outstretched toward me.
Dark light pours from the fingertips of his right hand, shooting across the air, curling around the tree’s trunk in a single ribbon that splits into many threads, each one wrapping around a different part of the tree from its base, up its trunk, and out to the ends of its branches.
The nearby butterflies scatter and fly away.
The keeper’s attention is only on me.
Black light rushes back to his right hand in a loop that intensifies in strength, making the air tingle and the hairs across my body stand on end.
Glorious, dark magic, more powerful than he’s shown me before, pours from his right hand to his left, winding around his crown-shaped ring before it streams toward me in a single ribbon that splits into a multitude of threads once it reaches me.
Each thread wraps around a different part of my body, sliding beneath me and curling around my legs, torso, arms, neck, and head, lifting me off the ground.
