Chapter 35 #2
“We need to go,” Felix said breathlessly, but he didn’t let go of her. Didn’t stop gazing into her eyes. The green and brown of his eyes were blazing so intensely she thought they might burst into flames.
She nodded, pushing him away because she knew he wouldn’t be able to do it.
“He’s going to send for backup,” Avery said.
Felix smirked, lacing his fingers through hers. “Then we’d better go home.”
The council tower bell clanged through the forest, each peal drilling into Avery’s skull as trees blurred past. Her boots slipped on wet moss, bark scraping her palms when she caught herself against a trunk.
They had made it out of the dungeon with little interference.
Avery’s calves burned, but she didn’t stop.
Didn’t slow. Fuck, she hated running though.
Behind her, Felix’s footfalls matched her rhythm, his breathing nowhere has haggard as hers.
She could feel his attention darting to every shadow, every crack of a branch, waiting for the enforcers to close in.
For better or for worse, nothing had stopped them.
But Callum had rung that bell. Callum knew they were gone.
What was the plan here? Sprint until her heart exploded? Until they hit ocean or ran out of island? She shoved the thought down. One crisis at a time.
The trees gave way to the clearing—moonlight puddling across the wolf’s milk meadow.
Rain hung in the air like sullen mist, dampening her face, and soaking through her prison shirt.
The frigid wind sliced her cheeks as each step carried Avery moved closer to the place that had started it all.
Once again. She had ended up right back here. How poetic.
They slowed next to the statue of Cerituen, the cut-away plinth beside it now more obvious than ever. It was Arawn, the shifter god. How many centuries had the witches spent erasing the island of its history, literally carving away every trace that witches and shifters had once stood side by side?
Felix’s tail lashed behind him; he was deep in thought. Likely, his train of thought was how the fuck are we going to get off this island?
“How the fuck are we going to get off this island?” Felix said.
Called it.
Avery smiled to herself, trying to hide how out of breath she was from the run. Her lungs burned, face dripping with sweat. It was funny how quickly you could know someone when they were meant for you.
“I could hot-wire us a boat?” he suggested.
“Do you know how to do that?”
Felix looked to the side. “I could figure it out.”
Avery sighed. Even with all his amazing qualities. He was still a man.
The sound of heavy wingbeats had their necks snapping up towards the sky. A black silhouette of a dragon blocked out the moon; it was only for a second, but it was long enough for them to know that they were, once again, utterly fucked.
“Go!” Felix shouted at her.
They bolted back toward the tree line. Branches whipped at her face as they plunged back into the forest, ducking and weaving between trunks.
But there was only so far they could go.
This whole side of the island was cliffs, sheer drops that plunged straight into ocean.
She could already hear the waves smashing against rock somewhere ahead, the raging ocean ready to swallow them whole.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” Felix’s inner monologue made its way to her head. It would have been funny if they weren’t being chased down by a fucking dragon.
The trees thinned out, the forest floor turning to a meadow of wolf’s milk, and beyond that—nothing.
Just the sound of the ocean roaring up from below, confirming what she already knew.
There was nowhere else to run. Nowhere to go but over the edge.
Why had they even run this direction? She knew this was a dead end.
But something had called her here. Something always pulled her back.
Before they could double back, the ground bucked beneath her feet, the impact so violent that every flower shook like they themselves were frightened.
The dragon slammed down in front of them, claws gouging deep craters into the earth. Wren sat on top of the beast, the glinting rifle already trained on Felix.
Every instinct screamed at her to run. Something in her was compelling her to go forward.
To try to make her sister understand, even if she had imprisoned them before.
Out here, though, it was just them. Maybe that changed things.
Maybe Avery could make her understand. Even if they had a different mother, Wren was still her sister. At the very least, she had to try.
She took a step forward. Felix caught her wrist, and she whirled to face him.
“Don’t,” is all he said. His nostrils flared, emotion swimming in his gaze that he didn’t try to hide. Fear for her. Fear for him.
She pulled her wrist free as gently as she could, holding his gaze. “Trust me, it’s my sister.”
“Avery,” he warned. “Please, I can’t lose you, too.”
The words wrenched her heart, like he had just reached inside and squeezed. Still, she turned around and didn’t look back. Somehow, she knew this was the right thing. It had to be.
Wren slid off her dragon, boots thumping onto the ground, never taking her rifle off Felix.
As she closed the distance between them, she saw the ice in her sister’s eyes, dark circles running under them.
Her hair was dark and lifeless. So, she was sleep-deprived and pissed.
Lovely. Her sister always struggled with no sleep.
It always made Avery wonder what she had seen.
How much did she know about the council?
It was enough to keep anyone up at night.
“Wren—” Avery started.
Wren cocked her rifle, cutting her off. “You have three minutes before this place is swarming with enforcers.”
Avery swallowed hard, looking down the butt of the rifle. Her sister was ruthless with shifters. If Felix so much as twitched, Wren would pull the trigger.
For a moment, she froze, her mind going blank. How did you even start a conversation like this without sounding insane? “Hey, sis, the council’s been lying to us for centuries, and also Mom’s evil?” Every version sounded deranged.
Wren took a step forward, gripping the rifle harder. “Avery, now.”
“Our—your mother isn’t who you think she is,” Avery managed to get out.
Wren narrowed her eyes.
“They’ve been lying to us. Trapping shifters in statues and bonding them to witches.”
“Who?”
“The council. It’s a long story.”
“Try me,” Wren hissed.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”
Wren’s nostrils flared. “Two minutes left. Tell me, or I pull the fucking trigger.”
Anxiety flared through her, her pulse hammering in her ears as she tried to get the words out to explain.
“Okay! Okay.” Avery took a shaking breath. But she still couldn’t stop what came out. “Mom is bonded to a shifter. You are bonded to a shifter, like I am.”
“That’s…that’s not possible,” Wren said. “This isn’t the time to joke,” she said, white-knuckling the rifle.
Anger swirled through Avery, her whole body tensing. She could even feel her shadows demanding to come out. All they needed was a bit of blood. “For once in your life, can you trust me?”
“Do you know how insane you sound?” Her voice wavered.
“Yep. Quite aware.”
“Then you can understand why I’m a touch bit skeptical that you’re telling me the dragon I’ve had for years is a shifter.”
“Tell me one thing then.” Avery swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “How did you do your ritual?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You used blood?”
“I said it doesn’t matter,” Wren hissed.
“You’re smarter than this. There’s a reason only certain families get elemental powers.”
Her lips parted, just for a second, but Avery saw it. Wren hadn’t known. She genuinely hadn’t put it together.
Just to drive the point home, Avery bit her tongue, the metallic taste of blood seeping into her mouth and coating her tongue. Shadows crawled along the ground and twisted up her legs. Wren took a step back, her eyes going wide and finger hovering over the trigger.
“I don’t have a familiar, Wren. How do you think I have these powers?”
Wren furrowed her brows, looking between her dragon and Avery. “Who told you this? The shifters?”
Avery scratched the back of her head. “The goddess,” she said, the sound going up at the end. Yep, she truly sounded insane.
Wren scoffed, disbelief rolling off her face. “Are you fucking serious, Avery? The goddess? She’s a figurehead, a deity. She means nothing in the real world.”
“I wouldn’t piss her off—”
As if on cue, the wolf’s milk flowers started to breathe, closing in and out just like they had in the maze.
Avery recognized it almost immediately. Her stomach dropped.
The goddess. She was doing this. Wren stared at the meadow, color draining from her face as she watched the flowers pulse in unison.
Even the dragon took a step back. Ley lines lit up along the meadow, beating like they had their own heart.
Perhaps it was the goddesses. The earth her body, the ley lines her veins.
“Enough.” She looked down the scope of the rifle. Avery stepped directly into the rifle’s line of fire, blocking Felix.
“Move,” Wren commanded.
“Not until you let us go.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you know something’s not right. “
Wren’s jaw clenched, her grip shifting on the rifle.
Shouts erupted from the tree line, boots and paws thudding against earth, familiars snarling and snapping. They were closing in.
“Please,” Avery begged.
Wren’s rifle trembled. “I can’t, I’m sorry.”
Pollen burst from the meadow, spiraling up in thick golden clouds. For one suspended moment, it looked almost gentle, just pollen drifting on the wind, catching the moonlight.
Avery just smiled. “I told you not to piss her off.”
Then the world exploded into gold. The air turned thick and shimmering, pollen so dense it choked the light and obscured the view of the approaching enforcers.
The dragon inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring wide, drawing the pollen deep into its lungs.
Its eyes flooded black, pupils swallowing the color whole.
Oh fuck. Was she about to get fucked again? Had she ever read dragon smut? She made a mental note to revisit it later. The only fucking thing she needed to do right now, though, was fucking run.
“Witches,” a deep and furious voice said into her mind. Wren stilled as if she had heard it too, all the blood draining away from her face. The beast roared so hard the ground shook. It was the dragon’s voice. And it was a goddamn shifter.
“Time to go, kitten.” Felix’s voice came into her mind.
Avery didn’t stick around to find out. That was a Wren problem now.
Gunfire cracked behind her, bullets hissing past her head, thudding into the ground and spraying up clods of wet dirt.
She ran for Felix in the distance. Where the fuck were they going to go?
Bullets continued to ring out around them.
Behind them were a hundred enforcers and whatever the fuck Wren’s dragon had become.
Ahead was nothing but cliffs and the ocean.
She had understood why the goddess had brought her here now.
But was she going to actually help them get away? Surely she wouldn’t be that helpful.
The enforcers pressed forward, their familiars coming up behind them as shots rang out.
They ran as far as they could, stopping just at the edge of the cliff, rocks falling away at their feet.
Felix threw up a wall of shadow, but a single bullet threaded through the darkness.
Avery saw it tear through the shadows, saw it embed itself in Felix’s chest with a thunk.
The scream that tore from her was no sound a living being should make. It didn’t even sound like her. No.
The shadow wall collapsed, like a curtain falling.
On the other side, Callum kneeled with a rifle.
Motherfucker. Avery didn’t think. She didn’t need to.
Blind fury overtook her, her shadows bursting out of her at a speed nothing could keep up with.
In an instant, they found their target. They wrapped around Callum’s throat and squeezed.
Squeezed until the fucking light faded from his eyes.
Consequences be damned. She was never coming back to this wretched island unless they fucking buried her here.
When she turned back, Felix wobbled, clutching his chest, and fell off the cliff.