Sometime later, they were dancing around the bonfire to violin music, and the crackling logs sent up sparks that became red and gold ember butterflies flitting in and out of their circle.
Bri held Lucas’s hand as they ran and ran, until her heart was pounding and she could barely keep her feet beneath her. He smiled at her, a smile as bright as the moon. And she felt that full white disk above them calling in her blood through Lucas. To Lucas.
She answered it with a kiss.
It was innocent at first. She leapt a step ahead, bumping into him, tripped, and let him catch her. It was soft, tentative. Barely a brush of lips. But like a single spark catching the edge of paper, the need for more burned through her, and the answering heat in his gaze threatened to engulf them.
He stared down, holding her in his arms like a wisp of smoke that would disappear if he squeezed too tightly.
It felt strange to be standing still, paused in the center of a merry-go-round, the world still whipping by in a blur even though her toes were planted in the warm soil. She was transfixed by his lips as he licked them, watched in slow motion as he leaned forward, her senses yearning to memorize every play of light over his features.
He kissed her–a real kiss–and it wasn’t fire, but air. It filled her chest to bursting. She felt like she was hovering above the ground, and if he let her go, she would float away.
As if in answer, a vine curled out of the earth and twined around her ankle. Followed by another.
She and Lucas both glanced down as vines climbed up their legs. The coils pulled Bri back until she was tilting over. She shrieked and reached out for Lucas.
He caught her hand, but the vines were too strong, and soon their gripping fingers slipped apart. Bri turned to Vika as she relinquished her panicked struggle and cried, “What’s going on?”
The enchantress smirked at her as the vines dragged her toward the edge of the dark woods. “Why, sister, didn’t you notice the full moon? It’s your birthday.”
***
The more Lucas struggled against the vines, the tighter they coiled. He tried to shift to get free but found his magic weak and muted. He thought back through the night, his memories fuzzy from the ale.
The ale!
“So desperate to numb your pain,” Hedvika said as she strolled up to him.
He snarled, and when Ryder swirled around them both in a vortex of shadow, Lucas snapped out as if he would bite. The wraith vanished.
“Love is its own poison,” Hedvika said, caressing his cheek. “It makes us weak, blind, and stupid. You let your guard down. Let this be a lesson to you, wolf–your job is to guard her, not to love her. She does not need your brand of love.”
She squeezed his jaw, her gold nails digging into his cheeks until blood welled. “She will learn that tonight.”
He yanked his head back, dragging claw marks across his face. “You swore she would not be harmed.”
All mirth had disappeared from Hedvika’s voice. She conjured a vile of red liquid and unstoppered it, letting his blood drip off her fingertips and mix in to the bottle. “She will not be permanently damaged. There was a lust potion in the ale, to help things along.”
He roared in Hedvika’s face. Her lashes fluttered, and the vines crept over his shoulders and forced him to his knees. They lifted his chin so he was looking up at her. “You swore I would not have to betray her trust.”
She tapped her gold talon on her cheek. “Is it a betrayal to learn what a gluttonous, lustful demon you are underneath that tempting facade? I don’t think so. I think it’s a boon.”
The vines tried to press their way into his mouth.
“I. Will. Not,” he said through gritted teeth.
Persistent roots spiraled up his nose and down his throat to force his teeth open from the other side. He felt a few crack and loosen as his jaw gave way.
“You will.” Hedvika leaned close and whispered in his ear as she dropped the contents of the vial down his throat. “Complete the ritual by sunrise, or I will kill you and find Bri a new guardian. Do not test me, demon.”
As soon as she said the word–in demonish–Lucas began to change. He grew taller, his muscles bulging enough to tear his clothing. His claws and fangs lengthened and turned black as his skin faded to ash grey, his Wielder markings shining silver. He knew his eyes were also glowing with red fire.
The enchantress took a step back and said, “Kristjjan.”
Ryder appeared at her shoulder. “Yes, Blossom?”
“I’m ready to go,” she said, turning into his arms.
Ryder gave Lucas a rare look of sympathy as he wrapped his arms around Hedvika and they lifted into the sky.
As soon as the vines released him, he shifted into the wolf and back to find he was still bound to his warrior form. A form which he loathed, which would surely terrify Briana. So he stayed a wolf and bayed his agony at the placid full moon.
The final twist of the enchantress’s blade. He could complete the ritual with Bri, but she would abhor him as a monstrosity for the rest of their days.
He paced the clearing, trying to shake the residual fuzz of ale and magic from his brain. How had he been so blind? All this time, Hedvika was using Bri as a weapon against him. Keeping his attention so fixed on her, drawing him closer and closer to what he wanted so he did not see the web of trickery until it was too late. Making him think he had won just as the jaws of the trap closed.
He resolved to tear through the palace and rend Hedvika into a thousand fleshy pieces. But somehow his paws were carrying him along Bri’s scent trail. The stronger it grew, the faster he ran. His blood thundered in his ears, and his power built to a frenzy, stoking the needs he’d buried deep inside.
Protect her, the wolf said.
At any cost, the demon added.
The price is too high, the man answered.
Lucas felt the charge of magic in the ground long before Bri came into his sights.
A prism.
In all his wanderings of the White Wood, he had never sensed it before. Hedvika must have kept it hidden. The power was unmistakable, rooted deep in the earth, as if it had grown there since before time was counted. He had not felt a node of magic this strong since his time in France with Vivianne.
They had bound themselves together in a prism like this.
Fated, all three voices agreed.
Bri was waiting in a clearing, sitting on a carpet of soft red roses with her back against an obsidian altar. He let a twig crack under his paw to announce his arrival. Her head whipped around to stare in his direction.
Their gazes met and held as he stepped out of the shadow of the trees and into the milky moonlight. A black ward sizzled around him as he crossed it, eliminating any chance of summoning Ryder and getting Bri to safety tonight.
His mate climbed to her knees and held out her arms, her dress torn and face streaked with tears and small scratches. He trotted up to her and licked her cheeks until she gave a hollow laugh. She slumped beside him, keeping her arm looped around his neck as they leaned their heads together.
I don’t think I like demon ale, she said telepathically.
Lucas snorted. I don’t like it anymore either.
Is this another part of your game? Bri asked.
He lay down beside her and put his head in her lap. I did not know this would happen. I am sorry.
She sighed. Don’t be. I’m the one that got us into this whole mess.
Then I am sorry for what’s to come.
She stopped stroking his fur. What are you talking about?
He sat up so their eyes were level. You have a choice to make, Briana.
Do I really?
Well, it is not a good choice, but it is a choice. He conjured his knife into her lap.
Bri’s brow crinkled as she turned it over in her hands.
We are to complete the ritual by sunrise.
She nodded, as if she’d expected that. Or else?
If we do not, my life is forf
eit and she will find you another guardian.
So what is the choice? Seems like there’s only one.
He whimpered and bowed his head in front of her. You know I would lay down my life for you.
I don’t want you to.
If you don’t want to do this, don’t wish to…I will not force you to complete the ritual. If you’ve had enough of these games and want to be free of it all… There is only one option I can offer you. I can end your life and forfeit my own.
He could not endure another potentially endless search. Perhaps it was better to set them both free.
Bri groaned and drove the blade into the earth before lunging to her feet to pace the clearing. “You think I’d rather we both die than have sex with you? Don’t be ridiculous!”
Some of the panic in Lucas’s chest eased to hear her being so pragmatic. She always surprised him–his clever mate. He’d come to realize she was indeed strong and smart, and perhaps not ruthless, but certainly resilient enough to survive in their world. But was she ready to take that final, irrevocable step?
What about the…side effects?
Bri nodded, biting her thumb as she paced. “I’ve been thinking about that.”
You have?
“Of course.” She whirled on him and put her hands on her hips. “Can you change, please? So I don’t feel like a crazy person talking to myself?”
He looked at the ground. There is something else.
Her face fell. “Oh gods, you can’t shift? I have to have sex with a w-wolf?”
Not exactly.
She stared at him, waiting.
Lucas shifted, and stood before her in his warrior form and battle leathers, gaze fixed on the carpet of roses as Bri’s pale feet came into his line of vision. He couldn’t help following the line of her leg up to the sultry curve of her hip and waist, to the gap between her breasts, the pulse at her throat…her ripe lips. His cock hardened, and burning lust surged through him that he hadn’t felt as the wolf.
He wanted to shift back, but Bri stepped forward and laid her hand on his cheek. Lucas closed his eyes, pressing her hand there as he turned to smell her skin. His claws and horns lengthened.
She gasped. A sound of surprise…but not terror.
He opened one eye to find her studying him, her face a neutral mask.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice deeper and rougher than when he was human. “I would have never had you see this side of me.”
Bri quirked a brow. “Why should you be ashamed of it?”
He scowled at her, and she lifted both brows, genuinely curious.
“You do not realize that you should cower in fear. This,” he gestured at his grotesquely muscled body, “is the form that tears witches’ heads clean from their bodies, that rapes them to yield half-breed slaves.”
His own mother had been harvested from Gaia by a Reaper like Emil and purchased at a slave market by his father–a Wielder commander–to bear him sons for his legion.
Bri blinked at him thoughtfully. “But you are not going to kill unless it is to defend me, and it is not rape if I give consent.”
His bark of laughter was hollow. “Is it consent when you are given no other choice but death? I don’t think so. I do not consent to this.” He turned and leaned against the stone altar. “I wished to have you, I cannot deny that. But I never wanted it like this. I wanted you to accept me willingly. Joyfully, even. Thanks to Hedvika, the final fusing of our souls will forever be tied to misery and suffering.”
This was what Hedvika had wanted all along. For Bri to see him as she did–a beast, a monster, just a tool to be used. He’d played right into her hand, pushing Bri away, being cold and always on the brink of violence in her presence.
Bri’s hand slid up his bare back, and he shuddered, gripping the edge of the stone slab until it began to crack.
“So we won’t allow her to take this from us. We’ll take it back.”
Lucas stared at her face, searching for the truth in her serene gaze, wondering how she could look at his glowing red eyes and wicked black fangs and not cringe away. “You cannot mean that.”
Bri sighed and stared across the clearing, leaning against the table beside him. “You were right, in the pool. It’s senseless to make you suffer–either of us suffer–any longer. Maybe when we complete the bond, all this,” she waved her hands between them, “will settle.”
She suffered too? And she was not disgusted? Was actually considering going through with this?
She is your mate.
Even when Hedvika had sent Emil to the slaughter, he had been desperate for any contact with her–proof that settling their bond would not make things easier–but he didn’t say that out loud. His blood was already boiling with need as the alchemy of the lust potion, full moon, and his demon blood went to work. He feared even touching Bri would set off a reaction he could not control. He studied her out of the corner of his eye. “How can you be so calm?”
She heaved a sigh, holding up her pointer finger. “Number one, I think I’m still a little drunk. Second…I’ve known this was coming.”
He turned on her, incredulous. “You foresaw this?”
“Not this exactly, no,” she said, gazing up at him wonderingly. “But I think I’ve known for a while we would complete the ritual soon. It feels inevitable. Hedvika may be the vehicle, but Fate is doing the driving.”
She leaned back on her elbows and gazed up at the clouds shifting over the moon, her skin outshining it, glowing even in shadow, shimmering with ethereal glamour.
I never thought to see something lovelier than the moon.
He swallowed hard, clenching his fist to keep from burying his fingers in her hair and claiming her mouth.
“I feel like I’ve been swimming against the currents of destiny my whole life, trying to escape a riptide. Why not just give in? Whatever happens, it can’t be worse than a murder-suicide pact, right?”
“That depends,” he said gruffly. “If you spend eternity regretting this, that is worse than death to me. There is no turning back from this, Bri–”
“Shhh.” She laid her hand over his lips.
He stared into her clear, green eyes, at the defiant set of her jaw, and wanted her more than he ever had before. Not for magic or to quell his loneliness, not because she was his due, but simply because she was lovely, and her heart was pure, and her love would make him other than what he was. Better than what he was. If she would only accept him, maybe he could finally have what had always been missing.
Home.
“I know this is permanent,” Bri whispered. “I can’t promise what will happen beyond tonight, but I can promise I will never regret this night with you.”
He frowned, torn between anguish and hope.
Bri ran her finger down his brow. “You don’t believe me.”
He took her hands in his. “I’m afraid this is an ale-induced dream.”
She held one of his large hands in both of hers and turned it in the moonlight, studied the roughness of his palm, tested the sharp tips of his claws. A soft smile curled her hypnotic mouth.
“If this is a dream, let’s make it a good one. I’ve already claimed the wolf. Tonight, I will claim the demon.”
She lifted to her tiptoes and kissed him so, so sweetly, and his blood ignited.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lucas lifted Bri onto the stone altar so fast it felt like he’d faded with her. His head dipped, and he kissed and nibbled at her neck as he tore at the laces of her corset in the back.
This is really happening.
She gulped for air, fighting a wave of dizziness.
Lucas slowed his kisses, gradually, as if it took some effort, and leaned back. “Too fast?”
Bri nodded. “A little.”
He looked at the moon, lines of strain stark on his features, and it was like seeing someone in special effects makeup. It was still Lucas–his bone structure, his expressions–he was just larger and more severe. And a di
fferent color.
He growled, gazing down between them, where she assumed his leather skirt was hiding the source of his frustration. “I do not know how gentle I can be.”
“Let me?” she asked, her voice a little shaky.
He nodded and stilled, his palms flat against the stone slab on either side of her.
Bri ran her hand up his thick arm, to the silver etchings that marked his other life. A whole other history that she had yet to learn. A reminder that he was not of this world. She was mesmerized. She could blame the ale, but who was she kidding? It was pure, undiluted lust. Even in this hulking, alien form, she still wanted Lucas, still felt that plucked harp string in her core vibrating with need at the sight of him.
His eyes glowed red like banked coals, watching her through slit lids, but he did not move a muscle as she explored the unfamiliar contours of his body.
Every instinct in this immortal being was culminating in this moment. Centuries of waiting. The irrefutable pull of magic, of Fate. The last eight days of bloodshed. The power of the moon. And yet he was so careful, still so concerned about her comfort. Had still been grieving over the fact that their first time together would not be as romantic as he had dreamed.
Bri’s hungry gaze devoured the ancient tribal etchings glowing silver on his skin, and she realized for the first time how truly magnificent he was. How every line of him was a perfect balance of beauty and strength. She remembered how he moved in battle, how skilled he’d been at protecting her. How lucky she was to have this beautiful, powerful creature defending her. Willing to lay down his life for her.
He is yours.
The thought gave her a headrush. She traced the planes of his chest, leaned in and kissed where her fingers had just been. His quiver at her touch thrilled her.
Lucas.
The heaven-sent gift she’d never asked for. Savior, protector, friend…lover. She thought of his patient attention, his tender heart, and the fierce passion she had yet to discover in this life. And she let herself want it, unchecked by guilt for the first time. She wanted all of it. Wanted him.
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