Shadow Kissed (Magic Side: Wolf Bound 4) - Page 85

In that moment, she’d roared with fury, two decades of anger unleashed. I was trying to fight my way free of the operating table, but she was fighting free of something far more powerful.

As I was about to give up, searing pain had raced through my arms, like my very flesh was being torn from my body. One strap had snapped, and my arm had torn free. I’d seen it for the first time in the fluorescent light: claws and fur rising from my skin. My true form.

As the memory faded to black, the pain lingered. Intensified. My eyes shot open. I was staring wide-eyed out over the lake, with my knees sinking into the soft mud beside the silver water.

We’d broken through before. We’d do so again.

Reaching out for my wolf, I growled deep and low, letting my icy magic turn to fire. All across my body, the golden bonds of spell writing began to burn away into whispers of black.

I gasped as the transformation took me. My back arched, and my chest cracked. Fur erupted along my skin—except this time, it was black and made of shadow.

My head whipped back, and I howled.

My cry was cut short as the wind slammed out of my lungs. My body hurled backward, and I tumbled head over heels until I rolled to a stop in the mud.

With a groan, I levered myself up onto my hands and knees. Human hands. My heart clenched. Had I failed?

“Wolfie?” I cried as I stood.

I’m here,she said—but her voice didn’t come from within.

I snapped my head up.

A black tendril of smoke had coalesced around my arm and trailed to where a dark wolf stood across from me. A wolf of shadow.

My mouth went dry. This had happened before—once when I’d attacked Aunt Laurel, and again on the roof of Bentham.

I tried to moisten my lips. “Wolfie, is that you?”

Yes,she said, pacing back and forth in agitation.

Scrambling to my feet, I took a step toward her. But she retreated hesitantly, and my heart broke. How would she forgive me?

Guilt took me back to my knees, then dropped me to my palms as the tears flowed. “I’m so sorry, Wolfie. I’m sorry I bound you, that after one month of freedom, I bound you again. I know I betrayed your trust. I didn’t want to do it. If I could have asked you, I would have. I know that doesn’t matter.” I hung my head, looking at the muddy streaks on my legs. My chest quaked with sobs. “Please forgive me.”

For a moment, there was no response, and then a wet nose prodded gently at me. No.

My heart stopped cold with the answer I’d feared most. I looked up to see the shadowy wolf lying with her head on her paws, inches from me. You don’t need to be forgiven.

My throat tightened. “But what I did—”

It protected our pack. Our mate. Our family.

The tears hung in the corners of my eyes as I tried to read her expression.

Did you think I would see it any differently? she asked.

“Yes. I bound you. I heard your cries,” I whispered through clenched teeth, because had I spoken any louder, I would have broken into more sobs.

The Dark God took control of me. He turned me on Casey, he turned me on Sam. Fuck him. You saved me from that. Do you think that’s freedom, living in fear of what you might do next?

The world began to spin as all the vindictive words spiraled around me and guilt tried to block my ears.

Wolfie rose and nuzzled me.

I watched them attack you for it and call you a monster. Screw them. We may be twin-souls, but we are one. Our thoughts may be different, but we share the same body, the same blood, the same life. I know why you made your choice. And I know that deep down, you’d make it again—I would trust you to.

With disbelief and heartache straining in my chest, I reached out to touch her. She was shadow, but I could feel her warmth, the soft silk of her black fur.

Finally, I found words. “You were there? You heard—everything? Even though you were bound?”

I’ve always been there. I watched you grow up while I was bound. I watched you fight off the Dark God. I was there when you stood up to the council this morning and the ghost wolf just now. And I watched you cry over the choice you made.

Shock washed over me as she nuzzled my fingers and continued, My heart broke because I couldn’t reach you. That I couldn’t be there to comfort you. You are my person and always have been.

Then I cried. I held her, and I sobbed with everything I had. I didn’t let go of my wolf.

Minutes or hours later—I couldn’t tell the difference here—I’d drained all my tears, and my breathing began to return. Wolfie butted her head against me. Okay, reunion time is over. We have a fucking city to save. So let’s figure out how to get me back to normal.

I sat upright. “Normal. This isn’t your true form? I thought that maybe since we’re twin-souls, you finally broke free.”

Wolfie blinked at me. Oh, hell, no. This isn’t my true form. We are one. We share a body. This is your funky voodoo magic. While black silk is striking, I’m a beautiful red wolf, or have you forgotten?

My jaw dropped.

Iwas doing it? How?

Tags: Veronica Douglas Magic Side: Wolf Bound Fantasy
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