CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Preston
Nightshade Bear Territory
Sharon disappeared into the trees and I shifted mid-motion.
I tossed my energy into pushing out my bear, still running after her.
This was the last straw. She’d come into my house not once but twice and now she’d murdered her own son.
Venal was an asshole. Maybe he was already dead but dead men don’t bleed out.
Bears who are already dead don’t have doors show up.
His door was there. It had to be his door because the ghostly squirrel who had plagued us for weeks, hopped around and told us all that he felt a door and was going to make a run for it.
He was tired of our stingy asses not cracking his nuts for him.
She’d killed her own baby. She killed the person who grew inside of her womb and who had sided with her again and again no matter how much she dragged him into her fucked up plans.
If she’d do that to her own baby, what would she do to mine?
“Preston!” My carrier’s voice reached my ears but there was no stopping me.
My bear had his hunting eyes out. Every little movement the forest made vibrated through me.
I knew where every bird, small rodent, and bug was.
Sharon was bleeding everywhere and I prayed whatever magic she sucked up from killing her son seeped out of her wound.
I’d heard of magical lines like theirs before.
Each person was usually able to choose their heir or heirs.
Then when they grew old and died the magic could pass down only if the person was there with them.
It grew stronger in each generation. I didn’t know where she got the sacrificing thing from but she was so fucking backwards.
“Won’t matter when I eat her. She’s half-frozen. Her shoulder and maybe one boob or something,” my bear rattled off still barreling through the trees. “She’ll be a meat popsicle – literally!”
Sharon was headed toward the Other World gateway.
If she made it there before we got her, we’d have to start this all over again and I wasn’t sure I had the energy for that.
Someone passed me, running through the trees.
It was one of my cousin Zeke’s kids with Star Hemlock.
If Star was here…. He had a passion for landing on the shoulders of his enemies and ripping their heads off.
Too bad I hadn’t grown wings instead of horns.
“Fuck!” the teenager shouted and I looked over my shoulder as I passed him. He’d tripped over a root or something and I’d lost precious seconds checking on him.
Cold magic brewed under my skin, leaving a trail of frost and ice wherever my paws landed.
It glided ahead of me as if it were sniffing her out like a hound dog.
I caught a glimpse of hair fluttering into the portal and charged forward.
I snatched the ends in my mouth and the strands froze and snapped.
I plummeted through the portal, but the guards hadn’t stopped her.
They never did and now she was gone again.
Down an arm and a boob according to my bear but she was gone and maybe had a little more magic.
“Mate?! Do you have the baby?” I asked, sinking onto my furry haunches, panting.
One of the elves poured water into a big bowl and sat it down in front of me.
I drank greedily and poked Wess again. Why was he taking so long to answer?
Had Sharon circled back around? Had I chased a mirage through the forest?
Was she still back in the village? Was that how she managed to escape all of us?
“No,” my bear thought to me. “No, she’s not. That was her! He’s…. Wess is…. Unconscious?”
My blood ran colder than my magic.