Aaron #2
Light erupts behind us. I spin around. Golden light pulses through the trees from the direction of the Glen—bright, steady, pushing through the barrier my mother just rebuilt.
A lion’s roar carries from the direction of the Glen, deep and savage, and my whole body stops. I’d know that roar anywhere. That’s Mara.
Eric’s voice slams through my head. You’ve altered the future just slightly. But not completely. There’s still a chance you’ll lose her.
Everything I did tonight was supposed to prevent this. I opened the Glen to get ahead of the vision. I put Mara to sleep to keep her away from this exact place. None of it mattered. She’s at the Glen, doing exactly what the time-slip showed me she would do, and I can’t breathe.
Torin breaks into a run. I don’t run. I tear the air open and step through.
I land at the Glen and my knees almost give.
The cottage barrier is cracked and glowing, golden light spilling through the gaps, and in front of it on the ground is Mara.
Sprawled on her back, naked, her lion form gone.
She’s shifted back to human and her body is trembling with a gash across her arm bleeding into the dirt.
Two warlocks are standing over her. I recognize them. The older one with white hair spilling from his hood. Thin skin at his throat, the vein moving underneath it. The younger one with the angular face and hands at his sides.
The same two warlocks from the time-slip.
The ones who killed her while I stood there screaming, helpless, watching the life drain from her amber eyes.
The younger one raises his hand. Magic swirls in his palm—bright, violent—and solidifies into a blade.
The same fucking blade that went through her chest in the future I couldn’t stop.
My magic detonates out of me before I even know what I’m doing.
Blue-gold light slams into both of them and pins them where they stand, their bodies frozen, their mouths open with no sound coming out.
My power wraps around them and sinks into their skin, and I can feel every single thing inside them.
I walk toward them. The younger one jerks against my hold. The blade dissolves from his palm as my magic crushes through his hands. His bones snap under the pressure. He tries to scream but my power closes around his throat before the sound can form.
“You,” I mutter.
I peel the skin from his arms, strip it downward layer by layer, and somewhere in the back of my mind I know I should stop.
I don’t want to. I reach for the older one and do the same.
My power works through them both at the same time, pulling them apart while they’re still breathing, and whatever is running through me right now burns so hot it eats my exhaustion whole.
The younger one’s conjured blade reforms in the air. I catch it with my power. Blue-gold light wraps around the handle and holds it steady.
I bring the blade down on the older one first. His head separates from his body in a spray of blood that reaches Mara. She flinches. The red scatters across her skin, her hair, the dirt around her.
I turn to the younger one. The one who stabbed my mate through the chest in a future I will burn every realm to ashes to prevent.
The blade takes his head. More blood. It sprays across Mara, warm and dark, and I let both bodies drop. They hit the ground like nothing. I’m standing over what’s left of them with my magic still crackling off my skin. My breath is ragged but my hands are steady for the first time all night.
Torin reaches us on foot. He stops at the edge of the clearing. His mouth opens and nothing comes out.
“Goddamn,” he manages.
He’s looking at the bodies, at what’s left of them. He’s known me nearly his whole life and he’s never seen me do anything like this. I can see it on his face—he’s looking at me like he doesn’t know me anymore.
Mara is sitting up with her arms wrapped around herself, shaking, warlock blood streaked across her shoulders and her face. She’s looking up at me with those amber eyes.
Every part of me wants to go to her, but I sealed her in. She shouldn’t be here.
I glare at her. My teeth ache from how hard I’m clenching them. I want to hold her. I want to scream at her. I don’t do either.
Torin pulls his shirt over his head and crouches beside her. He helps her slide into it and checks the gash on her arm. He lifts her to her feet with his arm steady under hers. She leans into him and winces and her tail hangs low behind her.
“Damn, man,” Torin mutters.
I look up from Mara to the tree line. Tiana is standing at the edge of the forest with her hand pressed over her mouth, her eyes wide, tears streaming down her face.
The exact pose from the time-slip.
My magic flares. I want to kill her. I want to rip her apart for bringing Mara here because I know she did it.
I can’t prove it. My sister would deny it, my mother would take her side.
But I know. The pose tells me everything.
She’s not surprised that Mara is at the Glen. She’s horrified that it went wrong.
I don’t say anything to her. I just look at her across the clearing—magic still flickering off my hands, two headless warlocks at my feet.
The Glen pulses behind us. It’s going to keep failing because I’m the one who broke it.
“The Glen won’t stay sealed,” I tell them. My voice comes out flat. “No matter what we do now. It’s done.”
All three of them are watching me in horror. Nobody speaks.
“I’m going to have to figure out how to deal with this.”
“We need to get your mate to Wintermoon Medical,” Torin says, but my eyes are still on Tiana. In the time-slip she ran. Disappeared into the forest like a coward. She’s not running now, and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.