by R. A. Boyd
“I was. Yes,” Zeke said. Audra snuggled closer to him. “I didn’t escape. I was set free.”
Damon put his hand on Jax’s shoulder, trying to get him to settle down. “We can talk about that later. What does this have to do with Cass?”
Zeke kissed the top of Audra’s head. “If, and this is a really big if, we can pull the rage from Audra without her being put down for the next few decades she might be able to control her beast. Or at least bond with it. There has to be some kind of disconnect between the two of them that led to this rift.”
Audra looked up at him. Her eyes itched and her rounded nose was swollen shut from all her crying. “How can Cass help?”
“Because she is a conduit. When we put people like Audra and your brother down we magically anesthetize them and kind of hook them up to the earth. Like a charger. We make it so the earth pulls that unharnessed and wild rage out of them and uses it as fuel. And in return the person is filled with the healing light of this earth. It’s all energy. If we used to use people as a doorway to release that energy into the persons around them, maybe we can use her to siphon that energy out of Audra. Hell, I didn’t even know there were people like Cass still alive, but here she is as powerful as ever. You have me and Willow here to work the magic. And you have Audra who fucking needs this. The way we usually do it takes years, but Cass could do it a fraction of the time.”
Unease enshrouded Jax and Damon as they looked at each other. Audra could feel their doubt like a wet blanket covering her skin.
“Is it dangerous?” Damon asked.
Zeke ran his hand through is hair and shook his head. Even though he didn’t say a word, Audra could feel his heaviness reaching for her. He was unsure. Afraid. If he and Willow fucked up this would be supremely dire for everyone involved. Especially Cass.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I’ll do it,” Cass said from the door. “Whether it’s dangerous or not. I’ll do it.”
It was damn near impossible to sneak up on shifters, but there Cass stood in the doorway as if she’d been there the whole time.
“No, you can’t risk yourself,” Audra said, pulling away from Zeke and standing. She started to take a step toward Cass but stopped when she saw Jax and Damon tense, and it broke her heart. “You can’t do it.”
The wound on Cass’s forehead had already healed. The only thing left was a thin, pink scar that was barely noticeable. It would be gone by tomorrow. “I can do it. You’re my sister. I know you’d never hurt me, but that lunatic inside you needs a permanent time out. No offense.” She turned to Zeke and smiled at him. “How much time do you need? Let’s do this fast. We need everyone in this clan ready for war.”
Chapter 9
“You told them we would do what?” Willow whisper-yelled as she rubbed her neck. “It takes an entire coven to put someone under. And you don’t even want to put her under. And what do you mean Cass is a conduit? I’ve never even heard of a fucking human conduit, Zeke.” Now she was screaming.
Willow was pissed, and Zeke could not give any less of a shit if he tried. This was the only way Audra was going to get better. He couldn’t heal her and he probably never could. Audra was going to have to do this herself. She was going to have to give up all that rage she’d owned for the last seventy years. Or did she say eighty? It didn’t matter. He was not going to lose Audra.
“Willow,” Zeke said as calm as he could. “We can do this. You’re the one who keeps everything settle when we do spells like this, and I’m the one who knows how to push a conduit.”
“What the fuck is a conduit?” She paced back and forth, piercing him with incredulous glances every time she passed him.
“It’s like a siren.”
“Fucking hell! A demon?”
“But not.” She’d never do it if he didn’t measure his words just right. “The Creator created conduits to cause a change in people. Evolution didn’t just happen without a move in the right direction. Conduits are born with certain ideas and they have the ability to rally people to them to make a positive change. Sirens were designed to be like conduits. Except sirens are bad. The Creator created conduits, Satan brought forth sirens.”
She stopped pacing and stared at him through a narrowed gaze. “And we’re supposed to do what, exactly? Because as simple as you’re trying to make this sound it really fucking isn’t.” She pulled in a forceful inhale through her nose and closed her eyes. “Tell me what to do before my neck stops throbbing and I can think rationally.”
“Thank you, Willow.” The anxiety that had been weighing down on his chest vanished. “Thank you.”
Willow opened one eye and then the other, her gaze trained on him. “You love her already, don’t you?”
Zeke nodded and gave her a sideways smile. “I really do. I was afraid of what her madness could mean for me. The thought of going off like I did before I was imprisoned paralyzed me. Now, all I want is to make her happy. I want to do everything for her. Feed her, bathe her, carry—”
Willow put her hands up. “Barf. Please stop. I said I’d do it.” She smiled and lowered her head. “You’re staying, aren’t you?”
He nodded, took a deep breath, and held it in his cheeks. His insides rejoiced with the thought of staying with Audra. “Yeah. This is my home. My family. I even let it slip out that I was a Watcher.”
“Slipped out? Wow.”
“Yeah. And they didn’t judge me. They’re curious, but no judgement. I’m home, Willow. I was made to be here with Audra. With the Ghosts.”
Willow’s breath trembled as she spoke, and Zeke realized her eyes were shining with unshed tears. “Good. I’m going to tell you something, but if you tell anyone I’ll stab you in the thigh.”
“You got it.”
She chewed her bottom lip and shrugged. “I want that. What you and Audra have. What Teague and Riley have. But not what Cass and her men have. I don’t think I’m physically built to handle two men.”
Zeke belted out a laugh. Willow had really opened up since she came here. Maybe this was what she needed. Freedom. From the coven. From their expectations. Just freedom.
Most members of the Coven of the Fallen were stoic in their emotions. All work and no play made the Coven of the Fallen a big bag of douches. They didn’t mean to be, though. They had all been angels and had chosen to fall for their own reason. They didn’t spend enough time with humans to experience the full array of emotions. They kept to themselves. They needed to get out more.
“Well,” Zeke said, standing up and walking to his sister. “It doesn’t have to be two men. Maybe three?”
“I am way too short for that.” She elbowed him in the ribs once he stood next to her. “Come on. This is going to work best in the woods.”
Everyone in the Ghost clan, save for Jace, stood in the waning light of day. Their warm puffs of breath made clouds all around them in the freezing woods of New Rose. Dean, Sara, and Neil had chosen to stay and help.
Zeke hoped like hell they wouldn’t need the help.
He and Willow had been outside for the past hour, digging a hole deep enough to cover Audra’s short frame. They’d cleansed the area with herbs to keep it safe and peaceful: sage and thyme for wisdom; basil, peppermint, and angelica for protection; and poppy seed and cinnamon for health so they wouldn’t kill Audra or Cass.
Audra lay in the two foot deep hole atop a thrice blessed blanket. They’d planned on using it to transport her to their coven house but now it was there in case her beast took over and tried to murder everyone.
“That would be bad,” Audra said, looking up at Zeke as he set a bowlful of herbs aflame. “Sorry,” she said, frowning as she reached up and touched his hand. “That little thought of yours popped into my head.”
She was brave. She didn’t look scared at all. They’d all talked about the risks but Cass was adamant and Audra was willing to do anything to make her sister happy. And she would do anything to trust herself again.
“Loo
k,” Audra said, gesturing for Zeke to come closer to her. She grabbed him by his collar and lifted herself, bringing her lips to his in a sweet sipping kiss. “If things go sideways and you have a choice, choose Cass.”
“Audra—” he began.
She shook her head and held him tight, her brown eyes getting deeper and darker by the second. “Choose. Cass. Fight every instinct you have inside of you to protect me and understand that you are protecting everybody else.” She grit her teeth as if fighting an oncoming assault and he knew her beast was battling her right now. “Beastie knows what we’re doing and she wants to kill, but just know this. Everything that the rogue shifters are afraid of us doing, my beast will do. She will try to dominate every kind of shifter and make herself the most powerful. Don’t you doubt for a minute that she can’t because I know she can.”
The truth in her words and the gradual change in her aura let him know that she spoke the truth. Her beast was slowly taking over, and the evil lurking there was immeasurable.
Her pupils ballooned black and slowly took over her eyes. A fearsome scowl rippled over Audra’s face and a growling roar bubbled in her chest. Her tender hold on his shirt turned into a powerful vice grip, and before she could yank him into the hole with her, Cass’s blessed voice spoke up.
“Let him go and stay still.”
Audra’s hand trembled as she held tight to him but Cass’s order took over. She let go of his shirt and laid down on the ground, her body contorting as she tried to fight through Cass’s order.
“You should probably start,” Cass said, bending down to rest on her knees next to Audra.
For fuck’s sake, Audra’s beast was literally trying to escape the confines of her body. Zeke watched on as undulations began to breathe under Audra’s exposed skin. Her flesh was like an ocean during a hurricane as the monster inside her fought to break free, breaking through the prison that was Audra.
“Oh, God,” Audra pushed out, pain searing in her words. “Start. Now.”
Zeke watched his mate in horror. He couldn’t torture her like this. It would get so much worse, and they hadn’t even started.
He looked up at Willow and was about to protest, but Cass put her hand on Audra’s forehead and chest like he’d told her to.
“Zeke,” Cass said, tears welling in her eyes. He could feel Cass’s pain. It radiated out through the entire group, and he could hear the gasps and cries of the pain and shock roll through the shifters who stood there with them. “Start now. I can… feel something… inside me. Start. Now.” She closed her eyes and her chin fell to her chest.
A moment of stunned silence descended upon the group. Cass was pushing her will on the entire group here without even being told how to do it.
Zeke put his hand on Cass’s shoulder and took Willow’s hand as she knelt down beside them. Willow put her hand in the dirt beside Audra and began chanting. He knew the spell.
The rise and fall and change in vibrato in Willow’s voice stirred something inside him. First she spoke Latin, and then Babylonian, and then The Devine Speech. The moment she began speaking The Devine Speech, the language of all creation, Zeke could feel the spell taking hold.
Cass cried out as the evil rage that had inhabited Audra began to flow into her. Zeke looked at her and watched as the murk in Audra’s aura began to stream through Cass like a thick, gray liquid.
Audra’s body thrashed and fought as the beast screamed through her lips. In this state where the herbs were burning and Willow was chanting words of release and rebirth, Zeke could see the two separate entities that resided inside of his mate.
She was at war. How had he not seen this before? They were completely detached from each other when they should have been unified. He kept his eyes on both women as the hatred that lived in Audra seeped out into the air. They all choked and gasped. Most of them didn’t even know what it was. But he could see it. It worked its way through Cass and she had somehow shared it with the rest of them. Not the murk itself, but the feel of the evil as it tried to find a home in her body.
Zeke looked over at Willow and realized she could sense it to. She switched back to Latin and changed her spell. “Omnes componis et colligis dimittere.” Release and unify. She said it over and over again until the two distinct entities that resided within Audra began to mingle inside her.
They were coming together, producing the most beautiful reds and yellows and blues beneath her skin and around her body. Orbs of light populated her aura, as it had in all angel borne. Her body began to go still, jerking here and there as she and her beast mended their bond and became one.
Her body went stagnant as she lay in the earth. She was asleep. It was done. His mate would find the peace she deserved. Not because he had healed her with his love, but because she had released her pain. Because her family had rallied behind her and hadn’t given up on her. Because her sister was the one to hold them together. The one to keep them together.
Zeke took his eyes away from his mate to focus on Cass. It was her turn now. The toxicity that had fueled Audra’s wrath was now swirling inside of Cass waiting to be released. With her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around her body, she shook and whimpered. She seemed to hold on to that dark energy, afraid if she let go it would be let loose on the world.
“Put your hands on the grass,” Willow said. She turned a worried eye to Zeke. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to flow through her and into me so I could push the energy into the earth.”
She was right. He had been so happy that Audra was free that he didn’t stop to think of how Cass was still holding on to that rage. And if they weren’t careful she was going to push that fury into everyone around her, causing a frenzy of hate-filled shifters.
Willow grabbed Cass and tried to pull her hands to the ground. “Come on, Cass. Put your hands down. You have to let it go.”
She shook her head and held herself tighter. “I can’t. It’ll get loose.” Beads of sweat formed on Cass’s brow and her lip trembled as if she was silently crying.
Jax stepped forward but Willow put her hand up to stop him. “You can’t touch her, Jax. You are alpha and can already shift. If your saber-tooth gets infected and you get loose…”
A snarl ripped through his lips as he looked on at his suffering mate. “Then fucking do something,” he said, pacing in a half circle in front of them, getting closer and closer with every rotation. “I can’t feel her,” he said, pointing to his head. Damn-it. Their bond was being blocked.
Willow grabbed Cass’s hands, urging her to release her hold on herself. “It’s okay,” Willow said, but Zeke could hear the lie in her voice and he wasn’t even a shifter. “She just needs to let go. Please, Cass. You weren’t meant to bear this.”
Slowly, Cass looked up and Willow gasped. Her eyes were swirling black orbs. Audra had learned to deal with this over time. Cass had taken it all in at once and it was poisoning her.
She looked over at Audra’s sleeping form in the hole. “Is she okay? Did I get it all?”
Zeke glanced at his mate and then back to Cass, a relieved smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah. You got all of it.”
That seemed to ease something in Cass. As the moments passed, her body relaxed until she finally lay her open palms on the ground. As soon as her hands made contact with the frozen ground, a rush of dark energy flowed from her body and into the earth beneath her. A wave of dirt and grass pulsed under her as if the space around her were accepting all she had to give. It oozed out of her, and when the last bit of wrath left Cass’s body she fell on the ground.
Willow rushed toward Cass and turned her over. Cass’s eyes fluttered as she looked up, and a slow grin took over her face. “She’s okay?” she asked. She tried to move toward Audra but her strength failed her and she collapsed on the ground. Slowly, she sat back up and looked around.
Zeke nodded. Pride swelled in his heart for the people he was becoming a part of. “Thank you,” he said, picking Audra’s hand up and k
issing her palm. “She’s okay.”
An exhausted and peaceful look took over her face. “Good.” She turned her head to look at the people all around them. “Jax. Damon. Take me home.”
Chapter 10
It was so quiet. For the first time in a long time, Audra awoke to silence. Complete and total silence. She could hear the song of birds chirping through her open window. A light breeze blew and lifted her curtains, a gentle rustling of fabric against the wind. She could hear Zeke’s heart and slow breathing as he lay beside her. That was all normal. Those were the sounds she’d craved for decades.
There was no growl from her own mouth that had pulled her from her sleep. No one was telling her to kill or hurt or hunt. It was quiet.
The beast was still there with her, but it was settled. And it was part of her, just like it used to be. Audra squeezed her eyes tight and started to cry. They had done it. Her mate and her sister had done it.
“You did it,” Zeke said from beside her.
She opened her eyes to see him staring down at her. He was on the bed, one hand perched under his ear as he rested on his elbow.
“You fought your beast and you won. And your sister fought for you, too.”
More tears fell down her face and onto her pillow. A few had found their way into her ear and she laughed. Something like that would have ticked her beast off, causing the psycho to hate every fucking thing for the rest of the day.
Audra’s breath trembled and she reveled in the sound. Beastie wasn’t there to make her hate herself for sounding weak. “How’s Cass?” she asked, rolling over to prop herself up on her elbow and face her mate.
He reached over and moved a few strands of hair from her face. His brown eyes bore into her, his attention completely on her. “She’s fine. And if the ruckus I heard coming from her and her mates house is any indication, she is doing really fine. They could barely wait to get in the house.”
“Ew. You could have kept that nugget to yourself.” She leaned forward and kissed him, and man oh man did it feel good.
