“She can’t…”
She floated away from their position, dragging her army and her darkness with her as if creating space for a presentation. The darkness gave way to the light, the beauty of Mark’s home returning in small increments as she moved further away.
Her voice floated above the new light, menacing the beauty with its grating effect. “You have been warned. Next time, I will not ask. I will take.” She dissipated into the darkness, taking her army with her.
Mark couldn’t move, lost control of his breath.
The grip on his wrist, Caster’s grip tightened, the dull ache drawing him back from the chilling effect of those words.
The same chill had descended on him the night she’d taken everything.
Now, she’d been too powerful even for Riley. Why hadn’t she killed them?
“She wants you,” Marcus answered a question that had remained stuck in his mind.
Despite the light returning to chase away the darkness she’d brought, the air remained infected with her toxicity. It was bitter at the back of his throat, made his skin crawl with the effect of her obvious growing power.
“You heard her, she will take him, next time,” Dean said, his voice hardening with a rage Mark couldn’t manufacture. “I will go to war before I let that happen.”
“If she were capable of taking what she wanted, she would have already,” Edie said.
Her words should be comforting, but the last time Mark had experienced so much fear, Ethel had taken what she’d come for.
She’d taken his soul, his reason for living.
He’d reacquainted himself with that lost part of him, thanks to Caster, but her warning was clear.
She could take it all away again anytime she chose.
It wasn’t weakness to admit his fear, was it?
“She can’t…”
Their discussion was lost in a niggling presence in his mind, not unlike the sensation of having the Prime Alpha in that mind space, soothing away some of his dread.
Except, it was strange and familiar all at the same time.
His wolf’s whine was a warning, a subdued warning, like he too, was afraid of the new presence, but intrigued by its familiarity.
A warm glow spread from the mind space his wolf occupied to wash away some of his worry, but his wolf didn’t relax, its warning now a chorus.
Mark closed his eyes against the feeling, or perhaps to reach for it.
The sound of the others as their argument persisted moved further away as he indulged his curiosity.
“Mark?” Caster’s raised voice pierced through the leash around his mind, and his connection to that warmth was broken. He turned, battling the call of the Alpha invading his mind. Even lost in his curiosity, it was impossible to ignore him.
How had he walked this far? Caster was out of reach, paces away from him, and the toxic air the witch had left behind infected his lungs. His curiosity forgotten, his heart thudded away in his chest, time slowed to a halt, Caster’s steps toward him taking longer than they should.
You have nothing to fear from me.
The voice in his head was not Caster. It was not his own. Its cadence was familiar, but impossible.
Turn around. Let me see you.
He didn’t want to, but what if…
Fear, that same fear he’d seen in the memory of himself, crawled out of his mind to settle in his stomach, and he could do nothing to prevent the shiver running through him. His wolf sounded a louder warning, his howl denying his need to face whatever this was.
Mark turned away from Caster, who still seemed too far away, and his heart stopped, his legs giving out as he faced the impossible.
There, stood Zeke in all his glory, alive, as beautiful as he’d been that day before the witch had torn him to shreds, the same crooked smile on his face.
“Hello, my lovely.”
Mark fell to his knees before him, the presence of Zeke’s Alpha occupying his mind-space with a dominance that silenced his wolf.
His name in Caster’s perfect baritone reached his mind, but Zeke’s Alpha invaded that space as well, and it too disappeared behind the real sound of his own heart throbbing out of rhythm as it shattered back into its constituent pieces.