He reached for me and stopped, shaking his head. “I failed you.”
“No,” I said and came forward, but he backed away. “Orion broke the rules.” I glanced around. “And the world along with it, it seems.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure,” I said and pressed my hands to my chest. “It’s like a sense, an instinct.”
“We lost, Tiani,” Xander said harshly. “I lost. I should’ve taken that damn deal.”
“Orion is good at making you think that,” I said. “Said he’d leave what, all shifters alone in exchange for you?” I snorted. “Yeah, right. Not if this was his end game. Not if he wanted to become some lunatic hunter after shifters for all time. We can stop this from ever—”
Seizing me by the shoulders, Xander stared down into my face and said, his voice breaking, “Go back and run. Get away from me. I can’t save you.”
“I don’t need saving,” I said and lifted my chin. “I need you.”
Misery twisted my mate’s face. “I can’t.”
“You know I won’t go anywhere,” I said. “If anything, when I go back, I’m going to stick as close as possible to you.” His lips twitched, and something in his face softened. “You forgot how stubborn I was, didn’t you?”
“I forgot nothing,” he said.
“I bet you forgot some things,” I said teasingly. “It’s been a while.”
He looked back at me, and, before he could speak, I was up on my tiptoes, kissing him. Xander went rigid, his hands falling away, but I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on. Then he was kissing me, hard and urgent, a man who’d been starving for some eighteen years for contact.
A little giddy when we pulled apart, gasping, I said, “Good to know you get better at that.”
“Dammit, Tiani,” Xander muttered and cupped my cheek with one hand, the ghost of a smile on his face. “You irreverent creature. You could always make me laugh. How I have missed you.”
Throat aching, I put one of my hands on his heart. “It doesn’t have to be this way. You know that.” I blew out a sigh. “I’m not going to tell you, either.”
“I think you should, actually,” Xander said. “In case I try to make the same mistakes.”
“What happened?”
Xander’s face creased, and his eye closed. “Tia, I…”
Reaching for the hand on my face, I lifted it so that his fingers were on my temple. “Show me, then.” His face twisted again. “Xander, I can handle it. I’m here to stop this.”
He hesitated a long moment, then his grip tightened, and a barrage of images flashed into my mind. Heartache, anger, regret, and guilt screamed through them, choking me. Yet underneath it, Xander was still Xander. Which caused my heart to break a little—he'd been so alone.
My eyes flew open at one moment, and I glared at him. Xander’s face was already contrite.
“You idiot,” I said.
“Yeah,” he muttered.
“Well, he was a tricky bastard,” I said. “All right, I know everything except—”
“No,” Xander ground out. “I can’t relive that. Not with you here, alive. I can’t.”
“That bad, huh?” I tried to joke, and Xander twisted away, the agony on his face stark and terrible. “Xander, it wasn’t your fault. I know that much. I know—”
“You saw how Orion came and offered that deal. How he promised to lay waste to Winfyre.” Xander began to pace, and his fists clenched. “He did.” The words were bleak and furious. “Look around, Tiani. He destroyed everything to get to me. The bastard began to kill and pillage, laying waste to territory after territory. We couldn’t keep holding Winfyre’s wards. I-I had to…”
“You granted him mercy the first time. You fell for his stupid act—so did all of us! Then he went on his rampage. I saw it all, Xander—I understand! But what I don’t understand is why you went and took his deal, two years later,” I snapped. “And little good it did! He wanted that—he wanted to back you into a corner. Once you agreed, the wards fell, and Winfyre burned! Why would you sacrifice—”
“You were pregnant.”
All the air left my body.
Xander’s face was tight and miserable. “I wanted to protect our daughters. I didn’t want our twin girls to grow up in this terrible world I’d helped create.”
“Xander—”
“If you can’t stop him, I want you to leave me, Tiani,” Xander said and turned away. “I can’t—he killed you both.” His voice broke. “You all died in my arms. I-I couldn’t protect you.”
Cold fury rose up in me. “That bastard.” I gasped as something hit me. “He knew.”
“What?”
My hands pressed to my stomach. “He knew the girls could’ve stopped him. The bastard—I bet he tapped into my gifts to see the future somehow.” I touched my wrist. “Oh my God, the bracelet. I bet the augris was able to use it—that’s why it hurt sometimes. I was getting visions, and I couldn’t see them. Orion was.” Now I was panting heavily. “I’m gonna claw his damn eyes out.”
“Why would he take it off, then?” Xander asked, his back still turned to me. “Why kill you?”
“It didn’t work. I was never a stasis. It must have taken a while for my gifts to return. Or maybe the future he saw—I didn’t come back to you. I wouldn’t have, if not for Brody.”
“Brody?” Xander turned to me, and suspicion flitted through his gaze. “What are you talking about? He died a long time before I met you.”
“Orion broke the rules,” I said, and a smile tugged up into my cheek. “And Brody took advantage of that. I see now. That must also be why I’m getting my powers back more quickly.”
“I don’t understand,” Xander said.
“Give me your hand,” I said. He didn’t move. “You were always too shy for your own good.”
With a grunt, Xander grabbed my hand, and I closed my eyes, vowing to stop Orion. To give Winfyre the future it always should’ve had before he began to meddle and rewrite things.
Xander pulled in a breath, and I opened my eyes, smiling. Warm sunshine played on my face, the trees waved around us, and Xander, whole and hearty, his hair only lightly touched with silver, looked around in wonder. Both of those blue eyes gazed at me now as Xander shook his head.
“What—how…?” he whispered and touched his face. “What did you do?”
We were in Winfyre, restored to all its glory and then some. It was late spring, with flowers blooming everywhere and sweet scents on the air. Distant familiar laughter and voices rang out—those of our family, somewhere close by—and Xander let out a small, happy laugh. The lines fell away, and he straightened, seeing the future that was always meant to be. The one Orion had tried to steal.
“Of course,” he murmured. “I understand.”
“Mm, sometimes you can be damn literal for a dragon shifter,” I said.
“Daddy!” A laughing ten-year-old darted between the trees and threw herself on Xander’s leg. Two bright blue eyes beamed up at him. “Found you.”
“Yeah, you did,” Xander said, and his face became impossibly tender.
“Hey, you look like my big sisters!” The girl had spotted me and smiled. “And my mom.”
“Oh, I remember this,” said a familiar voice. “Better if they don’t.”
I met my own gaze from across the clearing, and a surge of the surreal gripped me. I couldn’t say that I looked different or older, but I was different. A wife. A mother. A guardian.
“You know what to do.”
Xander had the little girl in his arms, and two teenagers had popped out, twin girls who were arguing happily. I grinned as they swarmed Xander. It figured we’d have all girls.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Who are you talking to?” Xander asked, coming forward and kissing the future me.
She winked and smiled. “An old friend who’s about to kick some ass.”
Xander turned to look, but I’d already gone back.
Chapt
er Thirty-Five
Xander
“I suggest you take my deal, Bane,” Orion said, and his eyes glittered. “Or else I will lay waste to Winfyre and destroy all you hold dear. I promise you that.”
“You can try,” I said through gritted teeth, hating the fear that clenched my heart under his poisonous words. It was like I could see the wasteland he’d promised for a moment, and I blinked, shaking my head. “Or you can leave before I lay waste to you.”
Orion had appeared on our borders not even twenty minutes before, with a small force of Excris and Lind. They were lurking in the trees behind him and laughing amongst themselves. But so far, no blood had been spilled because Orion claimed he wanted to broker a deal.
If I agreed to sever my human form and be hunted by this madman, all shifters and other territories would be left alone. The rage and snarls from my fellow shifters with me had been answer enough. Yet some part of me wondered if I shouldn’t take it.
Isn’t sacrifice part of protecting Winfyre? I know the wards will hold…the Alphas and Lorel will see to that.
But my friends would never let me. Even as I hesitated, I sensed the other Alphas’ eyes on me, daring me to agree to Orion’s deal. Never mind what Tiani would do if she found out.
“I suggest you leave,” I said. I didn't know Orion's numbers; otherwise, I would've had the Northbane attack. Worse, we weren’t on Northbane territory but in the Tiselk. Due to a technicality in our treaty, we couldn’t attack him without the Tiselkians’ permission. Otherwise, they’d see it as an insult. I had a feeling Orion knew that. “Go back to the hole you crawled out of.” My shifters will follow you, and we will find your damn hiding spot and end you—with the Tiselk at our side. “Find some peace, man—end this.” I shook my head. “It can only end badly for you.”
Orion laughed, then, and rubbed his chin. “Are you so sure, Bane?” I didn’t like the look in his eyes, the sly triumph, as though he’d already won. “Maybe I’ve already seen how this ends. Your end.”
“Let me end him,” Tristan snarled.
“Don’t show this fool mercy,” Fallon said quietly. “He doesn’t deserve it.”
“He’s not technically on Northbane territory,” I murmured back. “This is the Tiselk. I don’t want to start a border war with them.”
“I’d think the Tiselk would be grateful,” Kal hissed.
What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I come to a decision about this?
“You’re not taking his deal, Xander,” Luke said and gripped my arm. “We will not let you.”
“Perhaps you should,” Orion called out and grinned at us. “It will spell all your deaths, otherwise.” His eyes glittered. “Even those yet unborn.”
Luke started forward, snarling, and I threw out an arm to keep him back. “Is this what you want, Orion? To die here and now?” I glared at him. “How do you think this ends?”
Orion held up an arrow and twirled it. “This arrow, through your throat, Bane. In a lonely wasteland by the lake where you first saw your mate.”
Something painful was happening in my mind, and it was like I saw it, I was there—
It was all my fault.
“The last shifter—it will take me almost two decades, but it will be worth the hunt…”
“Xander,” Luke whispered and grabbed me, keeping me upright. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s true, Bane—it is all your fault.” Orion threw back his head and laughed. “I win.”
“Like hell you do,” said a voice of pure and icy fury.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as a cloaked figure came forward, hood up.
Then I blinked. I know that voice.
Shoving back the hood, Tiani glared at Orion. “You lousy, cowardly bastard. I know what you did. And I know what you think you saw.” Her lips curled. “Easy to call the shots when you’re cheating.”
“Whoa, where did Tiani come from?” Fallon asked. “She looks pissed.”
“And where’d she get the sweet cloak?” Tristan asked. “It looks like light.”
It was a deep and vivid light green, swirling with silver designs, reminiscent of the aurora borealis. The color brought out her eyes, and she seemed to crackle with a power like that of a molten star.
“You used my gifts to terrorize people for years, looking into the future they most feared,” Tiani said, and Orion jerked back, his face going stark white. “All while trying to bring out the one you wanted, where you could give in to your sick and twisted fantasies of hunting shifters.”
Murmurs came from the shifters around me, and Rett gripped my other arm tightly, whispering, “What the hell is she talking about?”
“I don’t know, but it’s freaking me out,” Tristan whispered. “Think she’s right?”
“Yes,” I said as the bond between us fused completely.
“How?” Kal asked.
“That’s Tiani,” I said. “Full of surprises.”
“So, you figured it out,” Orion said and wiped at his sweating lip. “It doesn’t matter. I prepared for this. And I’ll figure out how to get that future.” Now he was sneering at my mate, and my temper cracked. “I assume you saw your great dragon laid low.”
I heard surprised murmurs go through the crowd. Dragon? Did he say dragon?
“Actually, I saw him as a damn stud, a sexy silver fox,” Tiani replied coolly. “And I saw this.” She snapped her fingers, and a spark shot into the air. Immediately, there was a sense of movement, and the forest around us filled with shifters. “I saw the true future—the one you could never quite subvert or change, no matter how many times you tried…”
Shifters from every corner of the Northern Wilds and the Tiselk. Old friends, allies, and the like. Even some enemies and criminals had shown up. We all stared around in disbelief.
“How did they get here?” Finch asked. “Hoppers?”
Ayani and Lazu came to stand on either side of Tiani, and I shook my head. “No, I think it was our old spirit friends.”
“Oh, impressive enough, I suppose,” Orion called out. “But I’m afraid you forgot about the old friend in your escape, Tiani. I finally caught up to him.”
Tiani’s eyes narrowed, and then there were cries from the Alphas while I went numb from head to toe. Two dindari had dragged out a snapping, writhing black lion. With wings.
Orion’s malicious glance landed on me, and I saw the triumph in his eyes.
No. That can’t be him. That can’t be…
“Brody?” I asked, and Rett’s hand crushed my arm. “No, he…”
“You never knew if he died, did you, boys?” Orion asked. “A mythic shifter, a winged lion—left to rot in the hell of the Rift.” His grin was cruel and wide. “Why do you think I took a trip there? I wanted to bring back a souvenir.”
“Brody!” Kal’s shout was hoarse and agonized. The lion flexed its wings and roared.
“It can’t be,” Rett murmured. “It can’t, we wouldn’t have…”
“I gave him a dose to wake up the old Bloodlust, you know,” Orion said with a chuckle. “And trapped him in this form. If I can’t have a dragon to hunt, a sheddu will do nicely.”
“Kal, you have to go and make sure Lor doesn’t come here,” I said in an undertone, my eyes never leaving the lion. Horror was quickly outstripping my shock. “She can’t see him like this.”
“Maybe we need a demonstration,” Orion said and went over to the sheddu. It shrank and crouched, causing a hoarse cry of pain to escape me. Whispering something, Orion then nodded at the dindari and stepped back. “Now you can finally kill him, Sampson.”
The sheddu roared and made straight for me.
My mind flashed back to that night, the rage and pain in Brody’s eyes, and the fear. He’d been in the grip of that damn crian shard—we knew that now for sure. But he’d been our friend, he’d needed us, and we’d let him down. We hadn’t helped him when he needed it the most.
For a moment, I was back in the rain an
d fighting my best friend.
Not again.
“Alexander!” Tiani screamed, and it woke me up to the sheddu charging at me now.
But I gritted my teeth, waiting for the blow to come. I deserved it.
No, you didn’t, came a familiar voice in my head. It was all my fault, Alex.
A dark form crashed into the charging lion and knocked it back, then shifted into a tall form in a black cloak billowing in a sudden breeze. Someone crashed into me and hugged my arm. Tiani. Her scent filled my nose, but I was staring at the back of the man in front of me.
Brody. Brody Sampson was standing in front of me, alive and well.
He glanced back and grinned. “Hey, sorry I’m late.”
“You idiot!” Tiani was hissing in my ear. “That’s a damn Mimic.” She gestured at the unconscious sheddu lying several feet away. “Can’t you tell?”
“No, I—watch out,” I said as the sheddu leaped up and charged again.
Brody had already twisted away, and there was a roar at my side, then Tiani shifted, snarling and snapping, a rippling and luminescent silver-green dragon throwing herself at the Mimic.
“Tiani!” I yelled. “No, it’ll—”
“No!” came another scream, and I looked to see Orion staring at Tiani in pure horror. “It can’t be, it can’t be—she can’t be a shifter. I severed her! I stole her gifts.”
Two dragons were clashing in the air, and now the Excris were surging forward, attacking shifters. Arrows from Skrors rained down from the trees. One narrowly missed piercing my skull but for a shove from Lor, who’d appeared out of nowhere.
“Lorel, no, you can’t be here,” I said.
“Later,” she snapped and rolled up her sleeves, eyes burning with dark green energy. “This ends today. Tiani needs our help.”
“Our?” I asked as she pulled me to my feet. She’d brought the rest of the Alphas’ mates. “Uh…”
Dragon's Oath (Northbane Shifters Book 5) Page 29
