Briar
THE SHIMMERING CRYSTALLINE NIGHT WHORLED WITH MY steaming breath as I huddled beneath my new fur cloak. I wondered how many lives would pay for it.
It took me hours to draft my letter to Calla.
I kept getting choked up writing it, as if putting ink to paper would finally resign myself to the fact that it was true: Maez was a sorceress.
And she still wanted me, in her own way; I knew from that look in her eyes she did.
But did that make it any better? She had no reason for a mate, but she’d keep me as a lover?
Would I bed her while I watched her kill and slaughter to keep our stolen castle warm?
Was this the life I resigned myself to if I stayed by her side?
I hadn’t shared all those fears with Calla, but I knew my twin would be thinking them all the same.
Calla had always been too perceptive for me to keep any secrets from them.
I wondered if they would hate me for it, choosing to stay with someone who was by all accounts now evil.
Sometimes I thought my twin put me on too high a pedestal.
Sometimes it seemed like they saw me as the personification of good.
How would that idealized version of me compare to this—someone willing to love a killer?
Someone who was beginning to realize she carried her own darkness?
When I’d given the letter to Maez, she’d flicked her wrist and the letter had disappeared. She said she left it on Calla’s bedside table. My anxieties eased at that. At least Calla would know I was safe.
Maez cleared her throat, pulling me from my thoughts and back to the frozen balcony. She appeared without even opening the door and I was beginning to suspect she was always around, lurking in the shadows, ready to be summoned.
“These aren’t the furs I expected you in on the full moon,” she mused, ambling over and leaning on the railing to survey the moonlit tundra.
I’d felt the pull of the full moon like the heavy undertow of a mighty wave. I’d walked almost mindlessly out to the balcony to gaze up at the Moon Goddess.
“Doesn’t the Goddess call to you still?” I asked Maez. “Doesn’t she pull you out of your skin to run in the moonlight and howl at her beautiful glow?”
“I am beholden to no magic now,” Maez said, pride in her voice. “No Goddess can control me.” Her eyes dropped from the sky onto me. “Nor person.”
“Is that what you thought I was to you?” I silently cursed myself for being unable to hide the pain lancing my words. “Was I a shackle? You thought I controlled you?”
“You put a target on my back the moment the moonlight touched me,” Maez said, her bright magic even more vibrant in the dark. “I’d finally found my place, my safety as a guard for Grae. You plucked me out from those shadows and brought the eyes of all of Aotreas upon me.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I hadn’t really considered what a burden it would be to be tied to the Crimson Princess. To be mated to someone that everyone wanted for their own gains. Within hours of our bonding, Maez had suffered for it.
“I’m sorry Sawyn took you to keep me cursed.” I said it like I hadn’t a hundred times before. I’d forever feel guilty for what Maez endured at Sawyn’s hands while I was under that sleeping curse. Weeks and weeks she was starved and tortured before Calla and Grae saved her.
I scrutinized her with new eyes.
“What?” Maez asked, seeing instantly the flash of a question on my face. I hated that she could read me just as easily as ever even when I couldn’t do the same.
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.
“No,” she corrected. “Say it.”
“I only wondered . . .” I took a deep breath and blew it out, the steam curling like pipe smoke.
“I wondered if all that you suffered at Sawyn’s hands was one of the reasons you grabbed for that dark magic in Valta.
” Maez went stock-still. “When you heard that I’d been taken, had it been out of fear that I would bear the same fate as you? ”
“So close and yet so far.” Maez chuckled and I shuddered at the bitterness in her laugh.
“Tell me.”
“Like I said”—her eyes darted back to the moon—“no one controls me anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, voice cracking. “I’m sorry I brought all of this upon you. I’m sorry I am who I am, my own kind of curse.”
My hand slid across the balcony to cover her own and Maez instantly yanked it away.
“Oh bleeding heart Briar,” she scoffed. “Save your apologies. I’ve never felt more free.”
Tears welled in my eyes. I knew she’d chosen the darkness because of me, to save me, knew the old Maez would stop at nothing to get me back. But now that the magic had taken hold of her, I knew she wouldn’t make such sacrifices again.
When I sniffed, Maez glanced at me and rolled her eyes in annoyance. “Go,” she said. “Run in the moonlight. Pray to any Gods that control you.”
She turned and I reached out, without thought, my hand landing on her forearm.
“Wait.” Maez paused and looked down to where my hand touched her flowing black robes.
“Come with me.” I knew she was going to make another sniping comment, knew she’d make another jibe about control, so I switched tack.
“Can you even shift anymore? Or did you lose that power for a different one?”
“I can shift,” Maez said defensively, and I knew I had her hooked.
I quirked a brow at her. “Do you think you’re faster than me now?”
“Without question.”
“Prove it,” I challenged. “You run this pack. Lead the way; show me the land of your new domain.”
Oh, she liked that. Her lips curved into a catlike grin.
Perhaps I could find a way to work my charms over this version of her, too, goad her into spending time with me, growing closer again.
I asked her to lead the way, a fun, distracting game of cat and mouse, but really my heart was screaming out to her.
Maybe the run would put a dent in her newfound armor.
This was one step in the right direction, and I had to try.
I bowed my head to her and gestured to the door. “After you.”
She let out a little huff. “Are you sure you can keep up?”
My eyes twinkled with the challenge. “You may be a sorceress, but I’m a Gold Wolf.” With that, I turned to the door and ran toward the stairwell, Maez laughing, hot on my heels.
THE MOONLIGHT ON MY FUR WAS SUCH A GLORIOUS RELEASE.
I didn’t realize how much I needed this after being cooped up in the castle.
Maez’s silver fur was a gleaming flash through the white snow, but I stayed close, nipping at her legs and making her push faster.
As she weaved across the snow dunes, I tracked that black tip of her tail, keeping her locked in my sights.
No magic seemed to spark around her Wolf form.
She seemed almost back to her normal self, howling at the moon, playfully swirling back to snap at me.
When we dropped low enough down the mountain, we hit the tree line and plunged into the dark forest. Spindly pines and shrubs gave way to more and more robust trees until we were in the sweet-scented pine forests that made me giddy.
Running through the forest was so much more enjoyable than a frozen tundra.
There were logs to jump over, brambles to dodge, rivers to breach, animals to scent and hunt. We ran and ran, my soul singing.
When we reached a powdered meadow, Maez slowed her pace and spoke into my mind for the first time on the run. “All right, Princess,” she said, her voice warm and crystal clear. “You’ve proven your point.”
It felt so good to sense her in my mind, to feel that connection between us so strongly. This was Maez. She was still here. She still existed. A flutter of dangerous hope sparked in me.
“Do you admit defeat?” I asked.
Maez’s head turned back toward me. She had beautiful amber eyes, rimmed in black fur that faded to silver. “Never.”
She pounced on me, playfully trying to pin me. I let out a yip of delight, rolling out from underneath her, and trying to get my teeth to grip the back of her neck. She dodged out of my strike and pounced on my again, using her barrel chest to pin me down.
“Shift.”
“What?” I asked, laughter in my unspoken voice.
“Shift,” she commanded, her voice tinged in desperation.
Without thought, I did as she said. Maez shifted at the same moment I did and all of a sudden it was us—her bare skin on top of mine. I didn’t feel the burn of the snow on my back as her dark eyes hooked into mine and she smiled for a split second before she dropped her head and kissed me.
This kiss was all her, all my mate. My body reacted on instinct, my hands sweeping around her bare skin and pulling her tighter to me.
I could feel the magic tying us together, like a flaming rope I could reach out and grab on to.
My lips tingled as her mouth worked over mine, kissing me with a passion and hunger as if she’d been starving for weeks, gorging herself on me.
Her thigh slid between my legs, spreading them wider as her hand dropped to cup my ass and rock my hips against her.
Electricity sparked between us, crackling and zapping the air.
Maez gasped and pulled back, her eyes now filled with that eerie green.
And just like that, my mate was gone.
Her mouth tightened into a scowl.
“Maez.” I reached for her, but she leaned out of my touch.
She shoved backward onto her knees. “You don’t want this, Princess,” she said, her voice still husky with lust. “You don’t want what I’ve become. You are too sweet. Too good.”
“I am not so good,” I spat.
Maez threw her head back and laughed bitterly to the full moon. “If ever there was a portrait of goodness, Briar Marriel, it would be you.”
There it was again, the accusation chafing against my inner thoughts.
I was not as sweet as all of them seemed to think.
The urge to prove her wrong crested in me like a wave.
Maybe I’d have to absorb some of her darkness into my soul to pull her back into the light.
Maybe we could both become a mixture of the two.
“No,” I muttered, sitting up and gathering my knees to my chest. “I am not that person. Not anymore.” The bite of the cold came rushing over me, stinging my vulnerable skin.
I wouldn’t give up, not now that I knew she was still in there. If we had to live our entire lives in Wolf form just to be together, then so be it. A part of her was still mine and I would cling to it with everything I had.
Maez frowned, seemingly reading all that determination on my face.
“Time to go home now, Princess.” And with a swirl of her magic, the world disappeared.