Chapter 24
JAX
Mom’s arms are around me.
Her heart beats against mine.
Her body is warm, flesh and blood and bone. She’s not a dream, not a figment of my imagination.
Her once-soft features are gaunt, her hair almost silver when once it was a deep chestnut, but…
She is my mom.
And she is alive.
“You found me, Jax.” Her palm goes to my cheek, her green gaze stretching into my soul.
“I tried so hard, Mom, for years,” I croak.
“I know. I know. But the time was not right. Now it is.”
I nod, gulping back the tears of joy, not sure exactly what all this means, but knowing that something momentous is unfolding.
“How are you, my son?” she says softly. “And Clem, how is my little girl?”
“I’m good, Mom.” The words are painfully inadequate, but how do you sum up fifteen years in one sentence? “And Clem is not so little anymore, she’s twenty-five now. She’s healthy and… happy.” I gulp hard. “But Dad is—Dad is…” I don’t know how to speak the word out loud.
Mom puts a finger to my lips.
“It’s okay, Jax. You don’t have to tell me.”
Her green eyes spell her sadness. Somehow, she already knows that Dad is no longer with us. “The time to talk will be soon, not now.”
I move to help her as she struggles to sit, but already the cape is supporting her, assisting her.
I watch in in wonderment as it molds around her, and props her up.
It knows what it needs to do. And it suddenly strikes me that the runes Tippy and Felicia sewed into the seam yesterday have allowed the cape to find her.
Those strange little chitters were joyful sounds at being reunited.
No wonder Felicia warned it might get emotional.
And why shouldn’t it? Because I sure as hell am.
“Sumi, tas sha,” Mom murmurs softly, and the cape expertly removes the tubes from her body. It then thins itself into the shape of a walking stick, enabling her to lean on it as she stands.
For a moment I just stare, fascinated, but the urgency in Mom’s voice brings me back.
“Honey, we have to go. The dark forces are closing in on us.”
As if on cue, I hear voices approaching. Shouting. Footsteps pounding along the corridor, toward us. My wolf growls. I feel it planting itself firmly within me, huge paws and claws unfurled, ready to shift if need be. To fight.
I telepath for it to back down.
Now is not the time to fight.
Now is the time to get the fuck out of here.
Mom pulls me toward her. “Sumi, taranda.” She speaks strongly, with authority.
The cape responds, surrounding us in billowing fabric. It seems to have suddenly doubled in size, the material easily enfolding us both.
And then the door bursts open.
There is a brief moment in time, the split second before we disappear, when a group of shocked humans in white coats stand staring at us, suspended like flies in ointment, eyes bulging, faces flushed from running, chests heaving.
But one pair of eyes stands out, full of impotent rage and malevolence.
And in this split second, Marsha’s glamor slips, and a snarl transforms her into something demonic.
Something dreadful and dark, with sharp pointed fangs and a jagged scaly jaw, two black horns jutting out of the thin wisps of hair atop her skull.
A howl escapes her lips, spine-chilling, blood-curdling.
Utterly evil.
And then we’re tumbling and twisting through a tunnel of rainbow colors and flashing lights.
The sound of that howl gets fainter, until it’s finally gone, snuffed out like a candle flame, as the portal cape carries us away from the fake glitter of Sparkle City and the evil at its core.
Back to the Labyrinth. A place of darkness that is full of light.
Back to my people.
And one of them the most beautiful of all.
My mate.