Chapter 7 #2
She was standing over me, her eyes panicked as she grasped my face, looking over me with fast, rough breaths.
I blinked and whimpered, feeling like I couldn’t breathe.
Flinging up, or trying to, I realized that was exactly the problem—the organs in my chest were just…
gone. I was left with nothing but a gaping hole filled by a small, burning inferno.
It was radiating its own damn life force, making Mona shy away from it, her own skin beginning to blister.
“What’s going on?” I could barely get a word out, let alone a question. My eyes shut, the blinding pain infusing everything.
“This is your father’s fault,” she hissed, tears leaking down her face. “I told him you needed to practice, and now it’s like you’ve never experienced half of your own magic. Your body is trying to reject it.”
Her words made no sense. Why would I have magic from what amounted to a sun stone? I was lykos.
Wait—why was I even here to begin with? Why hadn’t I questioned needing to come here to unlock my own powers? That didn’t make any sense.
“Listen to me. I can’t explain it fully, not when you’re suffering like this, but you have magic like your mate Ryder. Well, not yet, I suppose—but you can have it. It’s always been a possibility,” she murmured. “Fuck, I should’ve considered this. We have to fix this, it’s going to burn you alive—”
Feeling delirious, her words floated around me as I tried to pull on my connection to Ryder. I needed him. I knew that instinctively.
All of a sudden my skin was set ablaze, flames surrounding me as Mona’s image faded.
Ryder’s hand slid into my hair as he kissed me hard, grounding me. When his hand pressed to my chest, I cried out, the light emanating from it causing fire to travel up Ryder’s arm to…him.
My eyes widened as the world stilled around me, meeting the gaze of my kitsune mate.
He was transformed. His entire body was made of pure light, fire licking his skin, and his molten red and orange eyes were filled with anger and panic as he kissed me again.
Despite it burning me alive, the sensation of his magic against mine felt good.
I whispered his name, realizing that if I was going to die, I wanted to die while kissing him.
Die?
I couldn’t die.
Why was I—
My thoughts began to blink in and out of existence.
“Effie, I need you to shift,” Ryder demanded. “It’ll equalize your magic. Shift now.”
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“I’ll shift and bring you with me. I’m going to force it, kitten.” Ryder laid me down on the cold stone floor and stepped back, and I watched in a half-dazed state as his form seemed to shimmer gold—before he shifted.
Wow. I’d never seen a kitsune, and for just a moment, the pain didn’t matter.
I was in awe of his massive form, his fur a beautiful mix of orange and red streaked with gold.
His black eyes were focused fully on me, and there was a painfully bright light which emanated from him that attracted me like a moth.
What really held my attention, though? His tails. Eight beautiful tails, all in different fiery shades, flicked behind him, and when his snout pressed against my face, I realized what he planned to do.
His alpha magic surged through me, forcing my shift.
It hurt. A lot. More than it ever had before, but then it felt like a cooling balm was running over my skin in a waterfall effect.
I sank to the floor, breathing heavily and feeling dizzy with relief.
Something had changed inside of me—something monumental.
There was new energy under my skin, and I had no idea how to deal with it.
The room was suddenly silent, and when my eyes flicked open, I found Ryder staring down at me still in kitsune form, my own body having shifted back to human on its own.
The pendant was hot against my skin, but as my eyes took stock of my body as I attempted to sit up, I found it whole.
I hadn’t imagined all of that, right? I just felt like something like that should have left a physical marker of some kind.
I wrapped my arms around Ryder as he held me up, my legs shaking. His tails wrapped around my waist as I laid against him, trying to catch my breath.
My gaze moved to my pendant, realizing in dazed surprise that half of it was lit up—the side that matched the Homura Stone.
I tucked it into my shirt before trying to stand on my own, my gaze moving around the room to find all of my mates unconscious.
My magic had fallen, the barrier having kept them from harm.
How had Ryder broken through it?
“I don’t know what happened,” I murmured, closing my eyes.
“Something changed. I unlocked something, exactly like Mona said I would… But when I saw her in my dream state, she said something I don’t understand.
She said I have my father’s powers, that I was unlocking them.
But if I’m using the Homura Stone which is connected to the sun, wouldn’t that be kitsune powers? Why would I have those?”
I continued, knowing he couldn’t respond. “I…I don’t get what she was saying, but I know something changed. There’s something different inside of me.” I tightened my hands in his fur, feeling a surge of fear.
Suddenly, Ryder shifted back. His bare chest was hard and muscular under my hands, and he scooped me up in his arms easily, staring down at me in confusion and fascination.
“What?” I whispered.
“Turn for me, kitten.”
I did after he gently put me on my feet, my gaze moving back to my mates in concern as his large, rough hand pushed up my shirt. I wanted to wake them, but I was so incredibly weak I shouldn’t have been surprised it was so hard to move, especially after what I’d been through.
“You have them.”
“Have what?” I asked, looking back at him over my shoulder.
“Marks, like me. Like a kitsune.”
“What?” I turned around, trying to see my own back. “What marks?” Why would I have marks like that? Although if they were the same as Ryder’s, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing…maybe it was a mate thing?
Ryder turned, showing me the circle with eight flames in a reddish tone between his shoulder blades. My fingers traced them and he shivered, distracting me for a moment and making me realize my touch affected him that much. It made me want to touch him more.
“I don’t understand what’s going on. Is this why we had to come here? Why didn’t I consider that before?” I whispered again.
Ryder turned and captured my lips in a gentle kiss. “Breathe, kitten. I promise we will figure it out.”
I believed him. I believed him completely. There was such a strength to Ryder, and underneath his calm, collected control, there was something that burned so intense and bright.
“Fuck,” Julian groaned, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. “What the hell happened?”
His clothes were singed, and I moved towards him. He tugged me down to where he was on the floor, pulling me into his grasp and kissing me hard. “What the hell happened? After the explosion, I don’t remember anything. You look different, preciosa.”
“I do?” I asked, turning towards Ryder for confirmation. He nodded sharply. So the process had left some type of mark.
“The same, but slightly different. I’m not sure how to describe it.”
Looking down at my skin, I did notice a faint glow… My nails were an iridescent pink that they hadn’t been before.
I was more confused than ever.
“Effie?” Tore’s rough voice had me turning to find that he’d sat up.
Rushing over, I knelt next to him as he looked over me, his eyes flashing with a rolling heat.
He moved closer, pulling me into his lap and gently running his hands through my hair…
then tightening his grip on it and tilting my head back to run his nose against my jaw.
The touch was intense and had heat flashing across my skin as his voice came out in a rough tone. “You smell different, lil bit.”
“Different how?” I breathed, trying to not show just how turned on I was.
“Less wolfy,” he growled softly. “For sure less like me. I don’t like that.”
I didn’t either. I wanted to smell like all of my mates.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” I admitted as he continued to run his nose along my throat.
“Your magic has been altered, for sure,” Dakota said, helping Caedmon sit up. My lycan mate was still a bit dazed from being knocked unconscious. “I can tell from over here, little wolf.”
Tore nipped my neck as if he didn’t like my attention elsewhere, making heat explode in my center. Before I could do anything but gasp, he had me flat on my back. I whimpered as he held himself over me, staring at me with darkened eyes filled with a predatory light.
“I wondered when this would happen,” Caedmon hissed.
“What?” I shivered as Tore’s nose brushed against mine. Despite the soft action, there was an aggressive edge to Tore’s magic, and while it should have made me afraid, it didn’t…mostly because I knew it wasn’t towards me.
Tore let out a defensive rumble. “Ryder, this is your fucking fault.”
“I don’t understand,” I breathed out.
“Tore has been trying to keep his shit together,” Dakota explained, making me realize this was what Tore had meant on the plane. “It’s because mating—post-mating—is always hard. Like right now, I want to rip off his fucking head for being that close to my mark on you.”
Tore’s chest rattled as he shot Dakota a challenging look that I didn’t like at all.
Dakota’s lips pulled into a smile as he looked back at me. “I also don’t mind being a possessive fucker. He’s been trying to keep it tucked away, so now he has to deal with it all at once.”
“Which is why he’s been in such a bad fucking mood,” Caedmon bit out.
“I didn’t notice,” I admitted, running my hands through Tore’s hair.
“Never with you,” Tore rumbled, brushing his nose against my collarbone.
“Tore.” I pressed a hand between us.
“I can’t help it,” Tore admitted. “My scent is nearly gone from you. It’s fucking bullshit.”
I flinched at the frustration in his tone, purely reactionary, but it caused one of my mates to let out a deadly noise. I breathed out, ignoring the violent energy and rather focusing on the man I loved, trusting and knowing he would never hurt me.
I swallowed, melting into the ground as he stared down at me.
“I’m trying so hard to keep it together,” he admitted roughly.
I knew he was. I could tell.
“I hate to interrupt,” Ryder said suddenly, “but we need to leave. Now. Effie, are you going to be okay walking out of here?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, feeling shaky. “Despite remembering how much it hurt…I feel good. Really good.” In fact, it was like I’d been reborn. But I was also exhausted. Everything felt like it was draining me, making me feel like Jell-O.
Suddenly the doors flew open, and Ryder’s mother stood there looking panicked as she looked over all of us. “Your dad just went to intercept your grandfather. He’s here.”
That wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all. It was too late to avoid him; now we just had to make sure he didn’t know we’d been down here or that I was a lykos.