Chapter 7
Dakota Claymore
Throughout my life, I had experienced a fair amount of ‘true magic.’ In fact, I would claim I’d experienced more true magic than most of my pack mates. Although, now that I knew the BBP bond was formed with true magic, I wasn’t sure that was entirely true anymore.
Still, the way totemic shifters bonded with our counterparts was innately tied to true magic in a way the others wouldn’t have experienced.
And knowing now that Hastain had true magic, even to a small extent, and used it in the worst way possible…
I wondered how much of that occurred on a daily basis and how often we turned our gaze from it.
How had we gone so long ignoring what a problem this bastard was?
Why didn’t I know more about his magic and true magic in general?
Right now I was completely regretting my lack of knowledge, especially since portalling was absolutely nothing like I’d ever experienced before.
It felt like all the air and light had been sucked out of the world, sealing us in a black void that felt like velvet—soft but almost suffocating.
I couldn’t see or hear anything; the only sensation apparent to me was the feeling of Effie’s hand intertwined with my own, the soft texture in a firm vise grip of my own doing—worried that if I lost my grip even the slightest bit, she would be lost to the darkness.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for being able to feel her hand in mine, I would have been losing my shit, but my wolf felt moderately calmed by the familiarity of her touch. Although it was minor compared to our discomfort with having no control over or idea of where we were going.
It didn’t help that because of Reaper’s warning about our rough upcoming landing, I felt completely unprepared to do what I needed to in order to protect Effie.
I wanted to shelter her frame in mine, and I couldn’t do that unless I knew when I needed to break our damn fall.
Right now it seemed like we were going to be floating in this damn limbo forever.
As if the void itself heard my words, the air around us shook with a deep melodic bass drumbeat that had me wincing.
My sensitive ears felt raw from only a few moments of the noise, and its increasing volume would have been enough to drive me crazy if my attention wasn’t suddenly diverted by warm wind hitting us right in the face as a crack of thunder sounded.
The faintest light sparked up ahead, and I pulled Effie closer to me, her back to my chest, knowing we were nearing the shadowlands—
Our exit came out of nowhere.
Protecting Effie, I turned my back towards our downward descent as we broke through the portal and began a twenty-foot fall to the ground. Julian held tightly to her as well, wrapping an arm around her chest so she was supported from all sides during impact.
We crashed onto the rocky ground in a collision that would have fucking shattered a human body.
Holy fuck. I groaned, a series of curses leaving my mouth at the pain radiating through every part of me, my head having snapped back and hit the ground as well.
The world around me was spotty, and I had a serious moment of not being able to hear or see anything before Effie’s sweet voice finally broke through the pain.
“Crap, crap.” Effie leaned over me, perfectly uninjured, her hands fluttering over my body like she wanted to check on me but was afraid to touch anything. “Are you okay? Both of you landed way harder than me, that must have hurt—”
Tugging her down to me, I kissed her hard before releasing her, Effie’s gaze flashing pink as her wolf surged forward to look over me as well. She looked panicked at my lack of response, or at least verbal one.
“That was the point,” I told her. Julian chuckled from where he lay nearby, groaning in pain.
“I would have been fine.” Effie eyes narrowed. “Now you’re freaking hurt—”
“Totally fine,” I assured her, not liking the guilt brewing in her gaze. “See?” I said as I slowly sat up—or attempted to, only making it halfway
“No, you look like you’re hurting,” Effie said, her soft concern and her wolf’s intense protectiveness over her mates shining through.
Before we could argue more about it, muffled voices and groans broke through the space along with the shaking of the ground, a tell-tale sign that the others were landing.
Not gently either. I was glad we weren’t the only ones, but it also wouldn’t do us any good for everyone to be fucking hurt.
Effie darted away from us as I slowly sat up fully, ignoring the pain in my back, as I categorized our surroundings and gathered my bearings.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected in the shadowlands, but it wasn’t this.
The landscape was absolutely beautiful, and I rarely said that about anything aside from Effie.
We’d landed in a clearing filled with lush, vibrant greenery that was a tone darker than in the real world, the grass a dark emerald rather than spring green and the tree bark a deep chocolate shade rather than a simple brown.
Above was a series of suns and moons, crowding the sky in different levels of transparency that allowed the lavender-streaked sky to shine through.
A dark forested paradise—that was exactly how I would describe it.
“Castle.” Julian gestured in the opposite direction of my gaze. We’d landed ourselves right outside of the city gates.
“Big one at that,” I said. Beyond the perimeter wall was a medieval style town made of one- and two-story stone homes that created a visual pathway towards the silver stone castle that stood sizable in comparison to an even larger mountain behind it.
The stone glinted in the light from the celestial beings in the sky, shimmering in a way that made the structure appear to change in size depending on how I looked at it.
I’d never seen anything like it before, and to say I was captivated by the illusion was a bit of an understatement.
Which wasn’t good, because we couldn’t afford to be distracted in a potentially dangerous environment, especially with Effie here.
Slowly standing and brushing myself off, I checked that everyone had landed, needing to know my pack was safe before moving towards Effie who was talking to Ruby and Reaper.
The latter was pointing to the castle in the distance as I approached my mate from behind, wrapping an arm around her waist as she leaned back into my frame and looked up.
“It’s beautiful here,” she said softly.
“It is,” I agreed, my ears picking up on the conversation my other pack mates were having with Aaren’s pack about potential dangers and how to handle them. I wasn’t fully in the mood for that shit right now, so I let them keep at it while I kept Effie tucked into my side.
“How far is the walk?” I asked Reaper, trying to decide if I wanted to carry Effie and weighing how much she would fight me on it compared to my concern about her getting tired.
While she seemed to have recovered, I had felt how much that magic usage had drained her the other night and I had absolutely no idea what we were about to face.
She probably wouldn’t fight me on it a ton unless I told her I was worried about her getting tired—then she’d probably protest and get worried about me being tired. Shit.
“Around twenty minutes. We can’t portal directly into the city because it has a defensive ward,” Reaper explained. “It should go by fairly quickly, though. It doesn’t look like it, but it’s night here, so we won’t garner as much attention as we normally would.”
“Does your father know we’re coming?” Warwick asked, the bitten wolf’s gaze tracking his own mate, as we made our way towards the gate. I had a feeling that while his BBP had followed Reaper down here with Ruby, that they still didn’t trust him completely.
Then again, I had absolutely no idea what their dynamic was.
“He doesn’t know why we’re here, but he knows that you requested an audience.”
I hoped he was open to what my mate had to say because considering everything we had been through and how much pressure Effie had put on herself for all of this…
well, let’s just say I wasn’t positive how I would react to any perceived disrespect towards my mate.
Especially if he wasn’t willing to hear her out.
Effie and Ruby chatted as they led the way through the gate accompanied by myself, Reaper, and Warwick, but my attention was focused on the village around us.
It appeared Reaper had been right about it being nighttime.
All of the doors were shut and windows closed, any sign of movement completely absent.
It was peaceful, and I had to imagine that with the number of houses and shops we passed, it was much busier during the day—in fact, it was probably a bustling city rather than the town I originally took it for.
Effie’s next question pulled me from those thoughts and back into the conversation at hand though.
“Reaper, do you know the full story of what happened? I know there are some rumors about the dark god and a moon goddess and how that played into the gate closing in the first place, but I don’t have the full story. I want to be prepared for what to expect.”
And that was exactly what Effie deserved—answers. How did Mona play into all of this? How did she know so much about the situation? Why had the gate been closed? Obviously because of the slaughter of the lykos, but Ryder had said there were other reasons as well.
I looked down at Effie and kissed the side of head, feeling frustrated on her behalf. It took a lot for my mate to ask something so directly, so she must have been extremely nervous.
And to be fair, I wanted to know more before meeting the asshole who had single-handedly cut off the connection between the divine realm and Earth, allowing for this massive upset in balance.
Reaper paused, offering both of us a look and sighing.
“I know more than what’s out there, mostly because I’ve read my father’s personal documents from our library, and of course I’ve asked him…
but it’s never been all laid out for me.
I haven’t brought myself to ask him for the full story, because I could tell it caused him pain, and honestly until this point it didn’t really matter to me. ”
Effie nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“My understanding is that my dad was in love with this moon goddess, and they had a falling out that led to the creation of the humans—a temptation for the lykos and kitsune, which resulted in wolf hybrid species. Which of course led to the slaughter of the lykos by the kitsune and resulted in the gate closing…an action my father took to stop the influence of the divine realm, hoping that it would mitigate the problem since it had originally started there.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Apparently there was a god, undetermined but probably the sun god, who encouraged the kitsune to take the action they did.”
Seemed a bit drastic…or maybe it didn’t. I wasn’t sure how insane I would be if someone tried to take Effie from me, but considering the rage I felt towards Hastain—yeah, I could see shit getting messy pretty damn fast.
“The part that isn’t common knowledge,” Reaper continued, “is that he was more than willing to be civil in the situation at first, when it was just a dispute between lovers. Essentially, he wasn’t asking her to pick, he was asking her to be with both of them, but when the sun god convinced her otherwise he created the humans in revenge.
At least that was what my father’s journal says.
It’s definitely biased, but he did take a large part of the blame, explaining it was a revenge tactic.
He ended up loving the humans, but it didn’t start that way—at first it was far more personal. ”
“And then because of the love he had for the moon goddess he wanted to protect the lykos when the kitsune started to kill them in jealousy,” Effie murmured to herself. I let out a concerned noise at the sadness painted in her gaze.
“How do we know that he’ll tell us everything?” I asked.
“He’ll tell you,” Ruby said with certainty. “The dark god is a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them.”
“It’s why I’ve never asked him,” Reaper admitted. “I don’t know what his answer will be about the key, Effie, but he will give you the information you ask for.”
A thoughtful silence filled our group as we neared the castle, the others having stopped their conversations to listen as well.
The great silver heights of the building grew larger in front of us, its shine emphasized by the contrast of the stone road leading to it.
Dark green banners hung from the windows, emblazoned with a simple crest of two swords crossed over a moon.
It was almost intimidating in its simplicity, and I had to wonder if the moon represented the dark god’s love for the moon goddess.
If the story was right, that would make the most sense.
“I’ve never seen a castle before,” Effie murmured.
“When we get back, we can go see some in England,” I suggested, a bright smile banishing some of the tension that was running through her.
Pulling her closer to my side and breathing in her scent, I watched as Reaper walked ahead to greet a guard. As the rest of the group caught up to us, my mate’s smile disappeared, replaced with a nervous expression.
“How do you feel about all of this?” I asked. “About what he said?”
“I really don’t know what to think, Dakota—and that scares me.”
I wouldn’t admit it to her, but I was worried as well.