Chapter 62
Sixty-Two
CARINA
“Home. Home. Home. I need to go home. Home. Home.”
I hurt him. Him and his beta. I hurt people again.
Kill them both. Become stronger. Two shifters…
No. Fists punch my head with the same intensity as Ryder is on my barrier. I won’t hurt them. Take me home. Home. Home. Home. Oh, Hecate, why don’t I have that ability? Why wouldn’t Mom teach it to me? If only I could just leave. Home. Home. Home.
The ground disappears—replaced by my couch.
Home.
Banff—mountains in general, really—are known for their clean air, the way humans appreciate inhaling something not tainted by smog or vehicle emissions.
I’ve always agreed, and the occasional trip to Calgary has my lungs crying for help, but for the first time in my life, the mountain air isn’t clear.
My breaths are rapid, my chest unable to keep up with what my body needs. Fingers dig into the couch cushion as I try to regulate the impossible. The fear, the panic, the shock from one second screaming into the ground, trying to show Ryder why he needs to stay away, to the next being home.
“Did you hear that?” a voice down the hall calls. The blood rushing through my head makes it impossible to distinguish who’s speaking.
“It feels like—Carina!”
Feet thunder down the hallway until my vision is swimming with a few different faces. Familiar ones. Familial ones. Ones who won’t harm me, whom I won’t harm, and most importantly, who don’t want anything from me.
“Holy shit, how?” Aunt Dominque’s face swims in my vision, but between concentrating on breathing and my head not fully present, she’s blurred. As is Uncle Frederic standing beside her.
“Move!” Mom shoves Jasper’s parents—her sister and brother-in-law—out of the way to practically tackle me.
“How are you here? Are you alright?” She pulls back, studying my face—my eyes darker than when I left and the black my hair’s become.
Her movements grow sluggish as she looks from me to Dominique and Frederic, worrying her bottom lip.
As the room starts becoming clearer, so does Jasper standing behind Mom and his parents. Jasper, who helped the pack find me. The pack who I left behind, provinces away.
“Jas…” Razorblades slide up my throat.
Frederic conjures a glass of water and hands it to me.
“Jasper,” I manage after a small sip, the glass quivering in my unsteady hands. “They’re in Manitoba. Ryder—the others. I, I left them. Help…please?”
Confusion clouds his eyes for a second but a brief look towards Mom earns him permission. “I will. I’ll bring them back.”
Jasper blinks out of the room and with him gone, well on his way to helping the others, my body collapses into Mom’s arms. The glass of water spills, instantly getting scooped and cleaned by someone’s spell.
“We should go.” Dominque rests her hand on my shoulder. “Welcome back, Carina. We’re down the road should you need anything. Update us when you can, Morgan.”
The two wave goodbye and leave the house, letting me be alone with Mom.
And Darkness, who’s been silent since leaving Manitoba, settling into the crevices of my mind where it knows it’s not needed. The coven poses no threat. They are magick, and magick will find magick, no matter the kind.
Mom cups my face in her hands which only makes me start crying when it reminds me of last meaningful way Ryder held onto me.
“Everything’s different now. S-she did it. Sloane. I’m Dark.”
“Shh.” Mom presses a kiss to my forehead. “You’re no different than who you’ve always been. We’ll help you.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Why would you hurt anyone?” She slides from the floor to the couch beside me, taking my hands in hers. “What they did to you wasn’t your fault.”
“It was.” A sob blubbers, snot following, but I don’t care enough to wipe my face. “They wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for me. He wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for me.”
Mom sucks in a breath. “Who, honey? Not…Ryder?”
I shake my head because it’s the best I have to offer.
“I think you need to start from the beginning. From the second you were taken from Banff.”
So I do, pushing everything out between sobs—because once started, they’re difficult to stop—monosyllabic symbols, and lots of pauses for deep breaths and sips of water.
Every second, every detail, nothing gets left out.
From the first time I woke to Adalyn and Archer talking, to the second time.
To Sloane’s house tour and below ground and the Seer—Rowan, Archer called him—and his visions.
Even how he lifted his head when I left and showed actual sign of life.
The cells, Sloane’s plans, Caden Blackstone and Wynter, and the pack’s arrival.
Mom’s never looked more shocked than when she discovered Harlow some weeks ago, alive, after believing to be dead for over fifteen years. But learning my true parentage, that I’m a shifter and mated to Ryder, might have beaten that.
“It explains so much,” she breathes, rubbing her forehead “About Ryder…and everything he was saying.”
Truthfully, not wanting to know another word he said about me, I finish my recounting involving Sloane’s demands, her “deal” which went nowhere, Archer’s help in regaining my powers, and finally the fight that ultimately led into two people’s demise: mine and Conan’s.
“I tried so hard to stop it. Conan was only there because Ryder asked him to be. And Ryder was there because the world is fucking sick and cruel, and if Hecate has anything to do with the bond, I’m fucking done with Her.
That ni—I won’t even attempt to pronounce it, but that bond compelled Ryder to save me—and if She’s behind it, then I forsake her. ”
“No, you don’t,” Mom croons, tucking a newly grown strip of black behind my ear. “What happened after that?” She knows if she doesn’t ask, I won’t finish going around in circles over that fateful moment, its consequences, and every theory of how it could have been prevented.
I tell her about Archer’s help and how he knocked out his mom and sister, before remembering about the bracelet in my pocket.
“He’s on our side. I think. At the very least, he’s not on their side—not completely.
He’s staying for his sister.” I tug out the bracelet. “He asked me to give this to Jasper.”
She sucks in a sharp breath and rests her palm over mine to take the leather. “I’ll be sure he gets this.”
Why do I feel she won’t? “What is it?”
“Not my story to tell.”
Okay… As much as I’d love to linger on that, I move on to tell her about the trip home and the voice in my head and the anger coursing through me at everyone and everything. And finally the conversation between Ryder and me. Xander’s arrival, and afterwards.
“You’re powerful.” She tightens her hands on mine, but it’s not pride in her tone. It’s concern. “Your new powers have taught you new abilities, I’m sure. Between them and your triggered emotions, you got yourself here. You were thinking about this place, and so, you’ve come.”
Although it’s over, it doesn’t feel like it. Everything’s just beginning.
“I fucked up.”
“You survived.”
“I need help.”
“You’ll get it, after you rest.”
Rest feels so far away. Like my body is live-wired to keep going and to never stop.
Mom gets up from the couch and returns to the kitchen, but I don’t follow.
Seated, my body falls into the cushions while the pictures on the mantle across from me taunt my Dark future.
They’re photos of me at so many different life stages.
All of them an innocent child who was blissfully unaware of what the future would hold.
The one of me standing by a pile of leaves reminds me of a vision from Rowan. The little girl playing in leaves. The Devil’s future bride.
My gaze finds the window. Was that the past I saw, the present, or the future? Is that girl an adult now and has met the Devil or has she even been born yet, in which case the war is a while away?
Mom returns holding a steaming mug of tea which she urges me to sip. Blowing on it, I do. We sit in silence as I drink.
And when the cup is about half full, it falls from hand as sleep takes me out.
Mom drugged me with a sleeping potion, but it’s alright.