Behind her Kala stiffened, her hand tightening around Shilah’s waist, a wave of energy pouring from her. “It worsens. I see our city burning and blowing away like ashes in the wind. No one will be spared.”
Her sister spasmed, and Shilah gripped onto her as the vision held Kala in its ruthless grip. When it released her, she sobbed softly, her tears wetting Shilah. She wanted to open her mind and plead with him to let her go, but she was petrified to a depth she could not explain. It was then she acknowledged a deep part of her still feared the monster within him.
Tears burned behind her eyes and clamped down hard on her emotions. She couldn’t afford feelings. The winged creature soared through the sky with dizzying speed, her mind directing it toward the pulse of raw energy deep into the open lands connecting the borders of the seven kingdoms. They escaped the tree line of the Darkage, moving from the pitch black of night to dawn. She could see the sun far off in the distance. But she felt no relief that she was no longer in the realm of shadow and demons.
Below her she saw no movement, she detected no aura, but a wave of dread filled her as the stark wasteland spread before her. It resembled death itself, with sharper jagged edges its main décor. Lifeless plants, twigs, and barks indicated a once thriving forest full of animals all erased by a force beyond their comprehension. The creature dipped in a rolling swoop, his enormous wingspan flaring wide as it glided low, and then landed. They hurriedly slid from its back. “Thank you,” Shilah murmured, releasing it from her mind control, and it took to the sky once more.
“Hurry Shilah, I can feel the portal through the woods, just there.”
She didn’t have the heart to tell her sister she could feel Lachlan in the shadows. Shilah ran with her sister toward an opening in the barren forest of the wasteland. The trees were bare without leaves, and the earth cragged and without grass. They scrambled over several small boulders, climbing to what looked like the mouth of a cave.
A wave of dark energy made her stumble, and Kala cried out in fear.
“Keep going,” Shilah said, turning around and searching for him. Opening her mind, their thread vibrated with a resonance she’d never felt before. She could not see him, but she felt him deep in her soul where it mattered. “You are a man I never imagined experiencing,” she whispered. “I thank you for our time together, for I will cherish the memories forever, and I will crave you always. Your world is on the brink of anarchy, and your king needs you. Mine is on the edge of a revolution and I am needed. Please, Lachlan Ravenswood, let me go.” Her knees weakened, her heart beating sluggishly within her breast. “You are the harbinger of death and destruction for my city…and I would have no choice but to declare us enemies if you do not relinquish your claim, Darkan.” Her heart cracked, and she trembled violently.
A cold, menacing snarl rumbled in his chest. The ground shook, and the acrid flavor of betrayal coated her senses. A low, mocking laugh, cunning and cruel filled her mind. And at its center she felt the bloodletter reveling in the challenge, the need beating in him to force her submission. And he still did not step from the shadows, yet she could feel him beneath her skin.
Inside there was a terrible wrenching as if something was tearing her body apart. It was a pain as she’d never felt before, and she did not understand the depth and breadth of it. Their thread jerked, the pull from her chest burning with live agony, and she could not separate his feelings from the ones swirling through her veins.
The control on her fear was a thin gossamer thread, for if he took her with him into the darkness, she doubted she could fight him. Doubted she would want to fight, for everything in her would cry to submit, and he had the power to make her surrender should she try to resist his dominance. Then everything would be lost.
Warily she stepped toward the shimmering energy that would take her back to her realm. Shilah moved deep into the darkened cave, dipping low to avoid the sharp edges of the crystals hanging from its ceiling. She breathed through the sheer raw power emanating from the portal. The tree glowed pink and silver in the distance, and Kala stood at a sparkling branch waiting for her.
Her sister glanced back at her but made no sound, only touching the tip of the branch that would lead back to their realm. A brigh
t light pulsed and her sister vanished. Shilah stepped forward, reaching the tip of her finger toward the branch.
A harsh sob tore from her, and with a sense of shock, she realized she cried.
Phantom kisses ghosted over her forehead, and down to her lips. She touched the tip of the branch, and she was sucked through a vacuum of whirling stars and blinding energy.
“Goodbye,” she whispered, her throat tight and aching.
Then her world went dark.
20
His mate had left. And he had let her. Lachlan had not expected the terrible wrenching, dagger-like pain piercing through his soul where only darkness should reside. She had been a brief light that had filled him, and the echoing emptiness that had been his life for over four hundred years had abated. She’d stilled his mind. Made him sentient, made him feel.
His eyes were damp. Darkans didn’t cry. They didn’t feel sorrow. Their brutal souls were damned, so why did he feel as if a part of him had broken and would never be whole? Why did he feel this peculiar weakness in his heart, this tearing agony because their thread no longer hummed with a soothing resonance?
His heart stuttered, and he stretched, reached, unable to let go of her. There was only a void. The ravaging hunger to slaughter and drink the darkest of essence burned in his veins. And this part of him had made her flee, the most natural, instinctive part of him. The bloodletter, the monster, but she didn’t flee in fear of it, she fled because of how protective it was of her. He knew if any harm befell her, he would repay her pain with blood.
If his mate were to die before him as her sister’s vision implied, he would indeed annihilate her kingdom, that was just his way, and there was no changing that. And understanding her love of her people and loyalty to them, he respected her choice and loved her even more for it, so he would not follow her and endanger her world against her wishes. Their mating had been complete, they had exchanged blood, and their lei had formed so he could force her to stay. The monster wanted to, but he wanted her to love him and come to him of her own will. If that would ever happen, he did not know.
Turning away from the portal, his hands clasped behind his back, he prowled on foot over the vastness of the wastelands. He could feel the crouching creatures of Taryllion, their hackles stirring as they smelled the predator walking through their lands. He could feel the darkness rising, that hollow emptiness yawning like a tremendous endless hole threatening to swallow him whole. A poisonous rage flooded through his veins, a dark red stain that spread rapidly, encompassing all the light that had tethered his soul. The sheer intensity of his rage threatened to rip him to pieces, but he set his jaw and kept walking, his mind filling with cold purpose.
He was going hunting.
Hundreds of assassins across the seven kingdoms had answered the call for her recapture. It did not matter that she had left and might never return, they would all be made to understand the depth of their error. And all the pain and rage he felt now would have an outlet. Darkness roared, the bloodletter rose in him and he embraced it, for the monster was familiar, the beast was a comfort, and the absence of his mate was an unrelenting pain he only knew to assuage in blood and death.
* * *
Serange
The Kingdom of Dxyriah.
Raw, pounding energy tore Shilah apart as she spun with nauseating speed across the stars. The color in the nexus constantly changed, swirling with a deep purple through dark red then with blue and green. The humming at the center grew louder, and then the multi-colored whirling force spewed Shilah and Kala out with such power they slammed into the floor of the cave. Kala cried out her pain, but with Darkan blood coursing through Shilah’s veins, she barely felt the jarring impact.