by Wood, Vivian
“There you are,” Lily said, as if this were all perfectly normal.
“Oh, Lily!” Sophie cried, releasing Ephraim at last and flinging herself into her sister’s arms.
“Oh—” Lily tried to warn her, but Sophie’s enthusiasm was too strong.
She stepped right through her sister’s solid-looking but ultimately insubstantial body.
“Sorry,” Lily said, pulling a face. “Nothing is… permanent… here. You won’t be able to touch anything.”
Sophie wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold in the sudden burst of sadness she felt at not being able to hold her sister. It was just that Lily was so close now… and yet, somehow, a world away.
“I miss you so bad, Lil. I just… it’s been really tough without you,” Sophie said slowly.
“I noticed. You weren’t coping very well. I’ve been watching from here,” Lily said. “It was hard to witness.”
“I have so many questions. Mostly… are you okay here? Is it… it seems lonely,” Sophie blurted out.
“Where are we?” Ephraim asked, clearing his throat.
Lily turned and favored him with a look.
“You must be my sister’s mate,” she said, tucking a piece of hair back behind her ear. She raised a brow at Sophie. “Handsome.”
“Lily…” Sophie was at a genuine loss. “Why are we… wherever we are?”
“We are… let’s say, in between. It’s lonely here, sure, but there are tons of other people on the other side. When you two destroyed that horrible man, you freed the last piece of my soul, which Papa Aguiel tarnished quite badly. You also damaged your own souls in the process. So now we’re all here, in between. This is where we will be cleansed, and then sent on our way.”
“On our way to where, precisely?” Ephraim was quick to ask.
“Lily, are you saying you’re coming back to the human realm with us? Or are we… are we going to the afterlife?” Sophie asked, her heart beginning to pound.
Lily gave her a sad smile.
“We’re going in different directions. You’re going back,” she said, pointing. When Sophie glanced to where Lily indicated, she could see the barest outline of a portal forming, glowing with a soft yellow light.
“And you?” Sophie asked.
Lily pointed again, in the opposite direction. “Forward,” was her only explanation for a twin portal, this one glowing pink.
“Oh,” Sophie said, her shoulders slumping.
“I was going to carry you forward with me,” Lily said, cocking her head. “I didn’t want you to be alone. But now… now, I couldn’t. I can see that the two of you have very big things coming.”
Tears slipped down Sophie’s cheeks. She glanced at Ephraim, who moved to her side and took her hand again.
“We do,” Ephraim affirmed. “Right, Sophie?”
Sophie nodded slowly, still looking at Lily with longing.
“Honestly? Time is so different here,” Lily said, glancing around. “It’ll be the blink of an eye for me, and then we’ll all be together again.”
“You sound pretty certain of that,” Ephraim said, brows arching.
“I am,” Lily said. She pursed her lips. “For now, though… you two take good care of one another. I’ll be watching to make sure.”
Both of the portals grew brighter and brighter, and Lily sighed.
“That’s our cue,” she said. “Do me a favor, though? Take this book with you, make sure Mere Marie gets it. She’s going to need it.”
She picked up the heavy leather-bound text and thrust it into Sophie’s hands. Sophie was shocked at how heavy and real it was, after her experience trying to touch Lily.
“What is it?” She asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lily said, waving a hand. “Someone just asked me to pass it along.”
Her form shimmered, growing transparent.
“Lily, I miss you so much,” Sophie said.
“You too, Soph. Just go live the hell out of your life, enough for the both of us. I’ll see you soon enough, I promise.”
Lily gave her a last smile and then moved toward her portal. Sophie felt Ephraim gently pulling her in the opposite direction, and she let him guide her away. Lily vanished in a flash of pink, and soon Sophie was stepping through her own portal, the book clutched to her chest.
A gentle wash of pure white magic brushed over her as she went, and she could feel it stripping away the layers of dark magic, the results of her single-minded campaign against Papa Aguiel.
It was like taking a deep breath of the cleanest air possible, while plunging into crystal-cold water. Cleansing, purifying, and satisfying on a soul-deep level.
When Sophie and Ephraim landed back in the endless hallway of his maladh, she looked at him and smiled.
“Your aura… it’s perfectly pure,” she said.
“Yours, too. And I have another surprise,” he said, raising a brow.
“Yeah?”
He took Sophie’s hand and brought it to his neck. Her fingers met nothing but smooth, warm skin.
“Your collar’s gone!” She said, astonished.
“You did that for me,” he said, a slow smile growing on his lips.
“What? How?” She asked, color rising in her cheeks.
“Your greatest desire was to take down Papa Aguiel, alone. When you let me help you, you sacrificed that wish… and freed me in the process.”
“Why didn’t you say something before?” She asked, smacking him lightly on the arm.
“Oh, I don’t know. Saving the world, seeing your sister’s ghost… we had a lot going on,” he joked.
“Oh, Ephraim,” Sophie sighed. She set the book aside and threw her arms around him. She hugged him hard, trying not to cry for the hundredth time today. “What will we do now? We’ve been so wrapped up in trying to save the world, we haven’t even had that discussion.”
“You know what’s amazing?” He said, stroking her hair.
“Hmm?”
“We can go anywhere, do anything. We know that we’re fated mates, and that was the hard part. After all that fighting each other and trying not to die, we can just… be alone, figure each other out, decide what we want. We have an immortal lifetime to do all of that.”
Sophie pulled back a little, glancing up at him. Tears were definitely pricking her eyes now, she couldn’t help it.
“Yeah?” was all she could manage.
“Absolutely,” he swore. “For now… I say we head back to the human realm, check on the Guardians. Don’t forget, we have a mysterious book to deliver. How does that sound?”
“Couldn’t be more perfect,” Sophie agreed. “Let’s go.”
Lacing her fingers with Ephraim’s, Sophie grinned. She’d go anywhere with him, do anything he wanted.
After all, he was her mate for life… forever and always.
Epilogue
“All right. I think I need to retire for the night,” Mere Marie said with a regretful sigh. “After almost two days of celebrations, I’m tapped out. I’m too old for this.”
They were all gathered in the kitchen, sipping St. Germain punch and swapping almost-the-end-of-the-world stories. Rhys and Gabriel both snorted, but Mere Marie just pointed to baby Marie, who was sleeping soundly on Cassie’s shoulder.
“She’s got the right idea,” Mere Marie said, giving the baby a fond pat on the back.
“Tomorrow, we should talk business,” Aeric said, stretching and setting his champagne flute aside. “Now that we’ve defeated our two biggest enemies, I’d like to imagine that the Guardians become sort of peacekeepers… instead of constantly trying to stop an apocalypse.”
Mere Marie nodded.
“The Manor belongs to the Guardians and their families,” she said, smiling at the sleeping baby again. “I hope as many of you stay here as possible, permanently.”
“There’s time to work all that out,” Rhys said, emptying the last of his drink in a single sip.
“Actually�
� on that front, we have some news,” Kira spoke up. “Now that things are calmer, Asher and I are going to take off for a while. Travel, see the world. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
She reached down and took Asher’s hand, and the adoring glance he gave Kira was so sweet it was nearly sickening. He kissed the top of her head and beamed at her, oblivious to all else.
“Well, as Rhys said. All things we can talk about tomorrow. For now, I think a good night’s rest sounds great,” Mere Marie said.
After a round of goodnights, she headed upstairs and got into her nightgown. She let down her long white hair and sat on the side of her bed, then nearly fainted with fright. The candles flickered, some of them going out.
The room turned chilly.
And there he was. Standing in the middle of her bedchamber, ghostly but all too present, was Le Medcin.
“Monsieur,” she said, dipping her head in a respectful gesture and pressing her hand to her pounding heart. “You scared me.”
He wore his usual finely-made but ancient-looking suit, the dove gray material making his ebony skin look even darker. Just looking at him fascinated and repulsed her, such was his power.
“You have done very well, Marie,” he said, his deep voice spreading a chill of gooseflesh up her arms.
“Thank you, Monsieur.” She waited, knowing he must be here for a reason.
“Your Guardians have been very successful, much more so than I anticipated. Still…” he paused for a moment. “The human world is in a very dangerous position. The war between Heaven and Hell, good and evil… The tide is turning, and not in our favor.”
She was surprised to hear Le Medcin refer to himself as being on the side of good. Or any side, really… until this moment, she’d considered him to be a truly neutral force. The referee between good and evil, one might say.
“I see,” was all she could think to say.
“You will need to put your affairs in order,” he said, changing the topic. “In twenty four hours, you will meet your new charges.”
“I— what?” She asked, confused.
“Come,” he said, beckoning her over to the broad scrying mirror in the corner of her bedroom. Pressing a single ghostly finger to the mirror’s surface, he caused it to ripple and shift, forming an image.
The angle of their view was odd, but after a moment it righted itself. Thick black steel bars formed a cage and obscured part of what she could see, but the occupants of the prison were clear as day.
Three hulking, muscular men. Covered in tattoos, fierce expressions of hatred on their faces. They stood, arms crossed, staring straight at Mere Marie as if they somehow knew she was watching.
Most extraordinary of all, each of the three men had a set of glorious wings, rising high above their heads.
“Angels,” Mere Marie whispered, crossing herself without thought.
“Fallen angels,” Le Medcin corrected her with a sigh. “These three have been… troublesome. We need someone to oversee them in the coming days. It is believed that they will be a key part of the forces of good, that which protects the human realm and keeps Lucifer himself from walking the Earth, taking dominion over each living soul in the world.”
Mere Marie’s mouth opened and closed again. She was rarely without words, but this… this was something else.
“The Devil is out there, Marie. And he’s a lot bigger and meaner and smarter than the forces you’ve battled here. These three warriors I’m giving you… they would have made great Guardians, but now we need them for a higher purpose. Just like we need you for a higher purpose. Prepare yourself.”
“But why now?” She couldn’t help but ask.
Le Medcin watched her for a silent beat, seeming to consider how much to tell her.
“I cannot prove it, but Hell is tipping the scales somehow. We cannot allow them to continue. They will decimate the world, enslave all humans and Kith, rain fire from the skies.”
“I… okay,” was all she got out before he was talking again.
“One full day from now, I will summon you. Pack light, bring what you need.”
He pressed a cream-colored business card into her hands, and she tried not to shudder at the icy touch of his flesh against hers. Then he was gone, vanished like the apparition he was.
She stared down at the card she clutched with shaking fingers.
“Les Mercenaires,” she read aloud.
It sounded familiar….
Cairn’s soft purr filled the room as he slipped in to twine around her feet. The black cat sat at her feet, looking up at her with his luminous eyes.
“Are you all right?” He asked softly.
“Start packing up all the important books,” she told her familiar. “We leave tomorrow night.”
“For how long?” He asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well what do you know?”
She glanced down at the cat, a cool smile on her lips.
“I think our lives are about to get very interesting,” she said, shrugging.
With that, Mere Marie turned and began preparing herself to meet her first fallen angel.
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An Excerpt From Howl…
Fire crackling and warming her skin, moonlight pouring in the windows and casting shadows on the floor, handsome Harlan staring at her with more desire than she’d ever seen in her whole life…
Penny couldn’t think to resist.
Raising her hand, she beckoned to him. She longed for him, longed to comfort and caress him, learn the nuances of his incredible body and the flaws of his heart. Something in her called out for Harlan, wanted him so badly it nearly hurt.
Harlan sunk to his knees, the thin white sheet around his waist threatening to come loose. Penny stared at him, swiping her tongue over her lower lip, anticipation simmering low in her body. When he reached out and tugged at the lower hem of her t-shirt, then pulled it up over her head, Penny’s heart began to pound.
Without speaking, Harlan stripped Penny’s jeans off. Eyes intent on Penny’s face, he unhooked her bra and slid it off, baring her breasts to the firelight. With each breath, her breasts rose and fell, drawing Harlan’s attention.
“Beautiful,” he said, reaching out to cradle one round globe, brushing his thumb over her dusky nipple. He paused, then withdrew his touch. “Penny…”
He seemed uncertain how to ask her permission. Penny rose on her knees and leaned forward, cupping his jaw and pressing her lips to his. He met her with a groan, his lips and tongue seeking hers, stoking the rising flames of her desire.
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About Vivian Wood
Vivian is an erotic romance writer, author of the Alpha Guardians, Winter Pass Wolves, Red Lodge Bears, Werewolf’s Harem, and Louisiana Shifters series.
Vivian has been an autodidact from a young age, and to this day she'll read anything she can get her hands on - back of the cereal box, billboards, whatever. When she's not reading or writing romantic stories, Vivian likes making drinks from her Trader Vic's cocktail recipe book, snuggling her badly behaved dog, and drinking great coffee on rainy wraparound porches in New Orleans.
Vivian really enjoys her work, and is always excited to see what's in store next for her beloved characters.
More Of Vivian’s Fabulous Shifters!
Alpha Guardians Series
Evil Abounds - Alpha Guardians Book One
See No Evil - Alpha Guardians Book Two
Hear No Evil - Alpha Guardians Book Three
Speak No
Evil - Alpha Guardians Book Four
Bear Risen - Alpha Guardians Book five
Bear razed - Alpha Guardians Book six
bear reign - Alpha Guardians Book seven (dec 2015)
Amelie Hunt Presents: Vivian Wood’s Winter Pass Wolves Series
Howl
Growl
Prowl
Red Lodge Bears Series
Josiah’s Command: A Red Lodge Bears Prequel
Luke’s Obsession: Red Lodge Bears Book One
Noah’s Revelation: Red Lodge Bears Book Two
Gavin’s Salvation: Red Lodge Bears Book Three
Cameron’s Redemption: Red Lodge Bears Book Four
Finn’s Conviction: Red Lodge Bears Book Five
Wyatt’s Resolution: Red Lodge Bears Book Six
Josiah’s Conclusion Red Lodge Bears Book Seven
Werewolf’s Harem Series
Owned By The Alpha
Taken By The Pack
Possessed By The Wolf
Saved By The Alpha
Forever With The Wolf
Fated For The Wolf
Destined For The Alpha: The Complete Werewolf’s Harem Series Collection
Louisiana Shifters Series
Shifters Vignettes: Maddie and Jasper
Shifters Vignettes: Rose and Mason
Shifters Vignettes: Ian and Jeanne
Shifters Vignettes: Emma and Connall
Shifter’s Ascent: The Novel
Shifter’s Legacy: The Novel
Louisiana Shifters: The Novels
Louisiana Shifters: The Vignettes
Louisiana Shifters Super Collection
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