by Lola Taylor
Alara lingered by the altar, watching as the man fought his way past one person after another. His fighting style was vicious and dirty, much like Nik’s. It was impressive how lethal he was. Ducking, punching, and pummeling his way through the legion of guards, the lone werewolf held his own while the witch strolled toward Alara.
Secret hissed. “Stay back,” it growled.
The woman’s lovely face scrunched up in confusion. “There’s something wrong with you,” she mumbled, more to herself than to Alara. “What is it… Silver eyes…” Her face lit up. “Doppelgänger.”
Secret roared, its fear of the witch running rampant in Alara’s body. Like a cornered animal, it lashed out, throwing a blast of dark power at the witch.
The woman flung up a shield of Black Magic, seemingly on a whim. It absorbed Secret’s attack and then evaporated. Those green eyes stared at her as Secret gripped the altar, stumbling alongside it, trying to find the end so it could run.
Alara seized her opportunity. “Help me!” she shouted, pleading with the witch in front of her.
Stay quiet! Secret backhanded her soul, flinging her backward and knocking her into the wall of her consciousness. Alara struggled to get up. She was so tired. The magic had wreaked havoc on her body, like a computer whose circuits had been fried during a power surge.
The woman’s green eyes lit up, glowing neon. “Get out of my sister’s body,” she hissed.
Alara’s soul sat up. Sister?
Throwing out a hand, the woman unleashed a torrent of dark magic. The spell was unlike anything Alara had ever felt before, powerful beyond measure. The dark, shimmering vortex struck up a gale in the room, flinging furniture around and yet somehow never once disturbing Nik’s corpse, which was protected by a sparkling black aura.
The magic swirled around Alara’s body, caging her.
Suddenly, the witch was inside Alara’s mind. The astral projection floated in the air, her bright hair hovering around her as if she were under water. Alara had never seen anything more terrifying.
Until she saw the doppelgänger.
All this time it had been nothing more than a voice, an incorporeal presence. But now her nightmares had been given form.
It was seven feet tall, at least, with limbs much too long for its body and needle-like fingers tipped in claws. Gray, shrunken skin clung to the long, thin bones of its body, which was oddly human in structure. It had no hair, just a gleaming bald scalp, like a bleached skull. Its many teeth were long and sharp and crammed together in an oval-shaped mouth that permanently gaped as a result. Red, many-faceted eyes without lids stared at the witch in loathing.
Alara wanted to throw up. This was the thing that had been inside her?
Secret hissed at the witch. You cannot have her! This body is mine!
It’s not her I want, the witch said, her voice booming with power. Throwing her head back and raising her arms parallel to the ground, palms up, she summoned two orbs of dark magic in either hand.
Secret shrieked, scrambling away and toward Alara.
Alara cried out, stumbling to her feet and running. A boom echoed through her mind. There was a whoosh, a scream.
With a jerk, she was flung back into her own body. Her heart hammered, and she felt cold all over, inside and out. Her pale skin was drenched in sweat, and she collapsed onto the floor.
The magical vortex around her dissipated, revealing the witch standing right in front of her, arms still held high.
The witch smiled. “There are your eyes.”
Alara turned and looked at her reflection in a shard of broken glass on the floor. Her eyes were normal. The silver was at last gone. As was the malevolent presence inside her head.
With a shuddering release of breath, the witch fell to her knees, breathing heavily as she clutched at her head.
Alara started to go to her but stopped. The witch had saved her life, had destroyed the doppelgänger, but she was still a Black Witch. And with the kind of power she’d demonstrated…
Alara swallowed hard. “Thank you,” she said, keeping a wary distance.
The woman smiled weakly. “Don’t mention it.”
All around them, bodies littered the floor, and blood saturated the air. But Nik’s was the only blood she smelled.
The lone wolf hadn’t killed anyone that she could see, merely knocked them out.
The fighting had stopped the moment the Black Witch destroyed the doppelgänger. Those who remained standing now shook their heads, their eyes clearing of the silvery influence of hypnosis. They looked around in confusion and panic.
Alara immediately took charge. “It’s all right,” she said, raising her voice, which was scratchy from screaming. She searched for her Beta, praying he was alive. Sending up silent thanks when she spotted him, she said through their pack-bond, Keep them calm. Initiate Emergency Plan A.
His tone was groggy, but he swiftly responded. Yes, ma’am.
As she watched her second-in-command take control of the situation, wrangling up the distressed wolves and DPI agents, Alara turned to find the lone wolf kneeling beside the witch. He murmured to her, stroking her face with a fierce look of love in his eyes.
She saw the tattoos Marking both of them—they were mated.
The man was shaking his head as they quietly argued, their words so soft Alara couldn’t hear. At last the woman said, “I have to do this now, while the DPI is still distracted and disoriented from the spell, before they realize who we are.”
“But they’ve already seen us.”
“They’ve seen an illusion, an unremarkable brunette and your average Joe. I cast a disguising glamour the second we walked through the door. Don’t worry.” She smiled. “I got this.”
The woman shrugged her mate off, stood, and walked over to the altar. Pain flickered over her face as she gazed at Nik. Placing her hands on his chest, she closed her eyes and began muttering an incantation.
Power hummed in the air, making the small hairs all over Alara’s body stand up. The woman’s hair lifted, her body crackling with black and purple lightning.
Alara started forward, but the man grabbed her wrist. “What is she doing?” Alara asked, glancing back at her mate with worry.
Those dark eyes regarded her solemnly, glimmering with hope. “She’s trying to resurrect him.”
Mistress Black felt the soul of the werewolf drawing closer. One wouldn’t think of werewolves possessing much innate magical ability, but they were created from magic. The curse itself stemmed from Green Magic, and every ounce helped. She was so close to getting her old body back, could feel it in the untapped well of power flowing through her borrowed body’s veins.
For the past few weeks, she’d been camped out in her scrying room, trying to locate the Black Witch whose power had called to her own. It was the only time she’d used her magic at all, not wanting to tax herself too much when she was so close to performing the ritual that would at last restore her soul to its original body.
Thanks to the remnants of the cloaking spell her mother and mentor had placed on her, the witch had evaded her—until now.
The room was small and circular, made out of black marble. Black crystals to amplify her power sat about the scrying well in the middle of the room, an elevated pool of swirling crystalline water cupped by a bowl of silver.
Gas lamps hung from the walls. She had always preferred fire to electric bulbs. She found power and reassurance in the elements, something electricity couldn’t provide.
She prepared herself to absorb the soul, waited for the breathtaking agony as the soul’s life force and magic fused with her own, but it never came.
Someone had stopped the soul from coming to her.
Frowning, she reached out with her own magic, taking it easy, probing the pathway between the enchanted knife and her. The soul was stuck, as if caught in limbo. Someone was pulling it back.
“Resurrection,” she breathed. Focusing on her scrying pool, she spoke an incantation that
would reveal the source of the trouble. A woman with curly red hair flashed in the pool, looking so much like her dearly departed daughter, Idrina, that it hurt. And to attempt resurrection, after only coming into her powers… the girl had to be more powerful than Mistress Black had at first thought.
Gripping the edge of the pool, Mistress Black leaned over it. “Show me where she is,” she commanded.
The soul slipped further away, closer to being reunited with its body. And taking any chance of finding her descendant along with it.
Tugging it back, she commanded again, “Show me where she is.”
Idrina—no, Verika—yanked back, her incantation growing stronger. She was persistent. Good.
Mistress Black smiled, pulling harder to buy herself some more time. If she lost a soul in exchange for finding her descendant, a powerful ally, then so be it. This was so much more important than just bringing herself back right now.
Images flashed on the surface of the pool, a slideshow of clues. A forest, a Welcome to Moonstruck, Arkansas, sign along a highway, and a manor with a bronze sign out front that read, Crescent Manor, circa 1875.
Mistress Black released the soul, not wanting Verika to tax herself too much. As she’d learned at a young age, too much playing around with the power of death could bring a witch dangerously close to it herself.
No matter about the soul. She’d have another soon enough. Her subordinates had been working around the clock to bring her what she needed, and she had no doubt they would succeed very soon.
And now, at last, she’d be able to find Verika and bring her home, where she belonged.
Pleased, she started to stand, but a soul as dark as midnight slammed into her, knocking her to her knees. This one was powerful, ancient, and wise.
A Death Fey… a doppelgänger.
Mistress Black laughed as the fire of absorbing the doppelgänger’s vast magic burned through her body.
Like calls to like. One of the cardinal rules of magic.
Verika’s Black Magic had recognized her own and had sent the soul of the doppelgänger to her as a gift. Oh, she probably didn’t realize what she’d done, as she had only come into her power recently, but that was just fine. Mistress Black could teach her so much about her gifts.
And Verika’s were many indeed. There was even a chance she was more powerful than her.
Her dark heir. With two Black Witches leading the Purging, their power would be unstoppable.
Why?
Mistress Black paused. The voice had come from inside her head, a dying plea from the doppelgänger.
Why what? she answered back.
Why… didn’t it… work? So weak—it was almost gone.
Mistress Black smiled. Oh, I knew about your little coup the moment you escaped me. Like calls to like, and you’re a Death fairy. I scanned the brains of the witches you’d possessed to find out what you were after. Your little counterspell didn’t work because while Alara loved Nik, your hatred for me was greater. You were the one to deliver the killing blow, not Alara.
But it was her body!
Her body—your doing. The magic knows the difference. Thus, your hatred kept the spell intact.
An anguished wail was the doppelgänger’s last sound as its power was fully absorbed.
Mistress Black sat there a minute, letting her breathing return to normal before attempting to stand. Her body vibrated with power. The doppelgänger had provided her with what she needed to finally perform the ritual.
At last—she was going to break the debilitating curse placed on her all those years ago.
And when she rose again, her first order would be to find Verika and bring her there.
“Nik…”
Someone was calling his name, sounding an ocean away. The voice echoed all around him, disembodied and creepy as fuck.
“Nik!”
Louder this time. And a hell of a lot more distinct.
His heart tripped over a beat. “Alara?” He clung to the echo of that sweet voice, the hope it brought to his chest nearly making him dizzy. “Alara!” he called out.
Nothing. Fucking nothing.
Shit.
Damn.
Ba dum, ba dum, ba dum.
Where the hell was he? He looked around, not recognizing anything. Mostly because there was nothing there to recognize. It was just black. Empty.
Fuck. Was this hell? He vaguely remembered something about a knife.
“Go.”
He turned around. A blond girl stood there, her blue eyes strangely familiar.
His breath caught. “Izzy?”
“It’s okay.” She smiled, her delicate, pale hands clasped demurely in front of her. She wore an ice-blue dress that set off her pale skin nicely and contrasted with her fair hair. “It’s not your time yet. Go to her.”
They stared at one another a moment longer, and then he nodded.
“Oh, and Nik,” Izzy said, stopping him. “Please tell Alara we’re fine. We’re all going to be just fine.”
“I will.” With a gruff nod, because he didn’t know what the hell else to say to his mate’s late sister, he took off at a dead sprint down the lone road running through the darkness.
Come on, baby, he thought. Talk to me. Guide me.
“Nik!” came her voice a second later.
He smiled. “Alara!”
She screamed for him again, the agony in her voice damn near unbearable.
I’m coming, baby. Wait for me. I’m coming—
He came to with a violent gasp, as if all the oxygen in the room was trying to force itself into his lungs. His chest hurt, his lungs burned. With a shaking hand, he reached up and felt the jagged scar over his heart.
Fuck. So he’d really died.
Before he could ponder the severity of that, plus the fact that he was still somehow breathing, two arms wrapped themselves around his neck in a crushing hug.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” he sputtered, the pain in his chest lighting up his whole torso with needle pricks.
“Sorry!” Alara said sheepishly, loosening her grip but not letting go. She might have been afraid to. Those gray eyes he adored so much stared at him openly in disbelief.
He touched the skin beside her eyes softly. “You’re you. What happened to the doppelgänger?”
“It’s gone. It’s been destroyed.” She gently caressed his face. “You’re here.”
“I’m here.” He grasped her hand and held it. “And I’m back to stay.”
Some things words just couldn’t do shit for. Pulling his mate to him, he kissed her deeply, pouring all the love and tenderness he felt for her into his lips. She closed her eyes and embraced him back, the two of them locked in their own little world until someone cleared their throat behind them.
Fuck ’em. They could wait. Coming up for air, he immediately went in to kiss her again, but he noticed her cheeks were shiny. “Aw, baby,” he said, wiping at the hot tears. “Why are you crying?”
“Because… I… killed you,” she sobbed. “I don’t know how you can stand to look at me.”
“Sssh. It wasn’t your fault. Nothing that’s happened has been your fault.” He cupped her face, stared into her eyes. “I told you I would die for you when you made me the happiest wolf alive by becoming my mate. And I’d gladly do it again, over and over.”
“Oh, Nik.” She kissed him. “I love you.”
“I love you too, baby. More than you’ll ever know.”
He held her, stroked her silky hair, took in her scent.
His Alara. He finally had her back.
An immense sense of relief went through him, making him feel a hundred pounds lighter.
“Oh, before I forget,” he said. “Your sister wanted me to tell you something. She said to tell you, ‘We’re fine. We’re all going to be just fine.’”
Alara stilled. A smile, small but hopeful, broke through her tears.
“Ahem.”
“What?” Nik growled, finally looking up to see who th
e hell was annoying him. He blinked, and the glamour masking the strangers’ faces fell away for a few seconds.
Nik didn’t recognize the bastard at first. Tall, built, same cocky-ass grin he wore half the time. Eyes like their mother’s, blue as the sky. Hair blacker than midnight.
E-Elijah?
Behind him stood a woman that knocked the breath out of Nik, her fiery hair glowing in the light of the fireplace behind her. She met his eyes, blushed, and looked away. “Nice to see you again, Nik,” she said quietly.
“Verika,” he breathed.
Alara’s eyes widened as they flashed to the witch. A low growl sounded in her throat, and Nik pulled her closer, soothing her. Astounded as he was at seeing his ex, that was all it was—surprise. No regret they weren’t together, no spark of affection for his lost love.
No, the love for his mate had overshadowed his puppy love for Verika long ago.
He looked at Verika’s hands, which she jerked behind her. He caught a flash of blue ink, shimmering in the firelight.
Eyes narrowing, he swiftly looked at Elijah’s neck. The tips of a swirling tattoo peeked above the collar of his shirt.
Nik’s eyes widened. “No. Fucking. Way.” He rose to his feet. “Be right back, baby,” he said, kissing Alara’s hand. “There’s something I’ve gotta do.”
His eyes flashed gold as he rounded on Elijah, who flashed him a guilty smile.
“Hello, brother,” Elijah said, lifting a hand to wave.
It never made it.
BAM!
Elijah’s head jerked back as Nik’s fist introduced itself to his jaw. Motherfucker. Showing his face in his house, mating to his ex, of all people.
Verika gawked at him as she went to her mate. The asshat had stumbled but not fallen.
Tch. Not surprising. If Nik remembered correctly, the jerk had a rough reputation. Liked to fight almost as much as Nik did.
Then he probably wouldn’t mind a few more hits.
Nik cracked his knuckles, closing in, but Verika swiftly stepped in his way.
“Move,” he growled.
“No.” Verika glared at him. “He helped save your life. You should be hugging him, not punching him.”
