Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Kieran
The darkness lightens and there’s…
Pain.
Burning, searing pain.
It’s the only thing that registers.
It’s the only thing that exists.
I can’t open my eyes, but I feel it.
Blazing, scorching, incinerating my insides.
It’s everywhere and nowhere, smoldering my insides, torching my soul.
My body writhes. My wolf howls in agony.
Is this the fiery gates of the underworld?
It can’t be.
Because there’s sweetness here too… I can feel it in my lungs. In my soul. A taste of Ulissa…
I try to reach for it.
But the darkness takes over.
I’m lost in a sea of vivid dreams and nightmares. They spin and twirl, ripping me through them while my spiraling head tries to keep up.
I see my father’s funeral pyre in flames. He sits up. Stares at me with cold gray eyes.
“Father,” I whisper.
“You dishonor me,” he hisses. “I left you a kingdom and you let it slip through your careless fingers.”
“No,” I say. “I didn’t know…”
He opens his mouth and insects pour out.
I step back with a gasp.
A wolf bites my shoulder from behind.
I scream.
It’s Lucan. He morphs into his human body and laughs at me.
“What did you think, cousin?” he says in a demonic tone. “Did you think I would ever let you have it?”
I reach for him, but the pain ignites, sending me spiraling into the darkness.
It swallows me whole.
I awake to the feeling of waves crashing down on me, a deafening thrumming ringing through my head.
My chest is on fire. Everything is blurred.
I’m in water.
I’m drowning.
My head breaks the surface. I gasp for breath.
But it’s peaceful here. I’m in a lagoon. The sun is out. The warm breeze is rippling through the trees.
My father is sitting cross-legged on a rock.
He looks young. Vibrant. At ease. Before the weight of the crown wore down on him and carved his face with lines of worry. He smiles at me.
“Am I dead?” I ask him.
“Not yet,” he says.
“This doesn’t feel real.”
I lift up my hand and look at it. The edges are blurred. I realize I’m not actually swimming, just floating in the water.
“It may not be real, but it’s still happening,” he says.
“Lucan tried to kill me,” I tell him, tears filling my eyes.
“I know.”
“He’s going to steal the crown.”
“If you let him.”
“What can I do?” I ask. “I don’t even know where I am.”
“You’re right where you need to be,” he says with a slow nod. “You’ll gain strength here. More strength than you’ll ever know.”
“What does that mean?”
He’s quiet for a long moment, watching a colorful wispfly flutter past him. “You already know.”
“I don’t.”
“You smelled her,” he says, lifting his nose. “I can smell her now. Breathe in.”
I inhale, but it hurts. My lungs scream. My chest flares. But underneath the pain, there’s that sweetness again.
It fills my body with a tingling glow. It feels good. It feels like home.
“Shhhh,” a soft, feminine voice says, filling the air. “You’re safe now.”
It’s a goddess.
It’s everything.
“Who is that?” I ask my father, but the rock is empty.
He’s gone.
“Who are you?” I cry out.
Before she can answer, I’m pulled down into the water…
Into the darkness…
And everything disappears.
I’m yanked out of the darkness by the pain.
My wolf whimpers inside, feeling every bit of it.
It’s blinding and immediate and real in a way that my father and the lagoon were not.
The pain is no longer this engulfing ethereal sense.
It’s more localized. It’s coming into sharp focus.
My shoulder.
My side.
My chest.
My back.
All of it screaming at once as I lurch toward consciousness like a man fighting his way to the surface of deep water. My body seizes. Something in my side tears. I think I make a sound, although I can't be sure.
I feel a soft hand on my chest, pushing me back down.
It’s not a hostile hand. It’s a soothing one. A safe one.
“Don’t move,” that soft, feminine voice whispers again. Only now I’m not hearing it in a hallucination. I’m hearing it with my ears.
Light bleeds through my eyelids. Warm and orange and flickering. A lantern somewhere close.
I try to force my eyes open, but I only manage to see through a slit, and only for a second at that.
She’s blurry, but I see her.
The woman with the comforting voice.
A feeling of peace takes over, fighting through the pain.
I can make out her shape, but everything else is blurry.
The bottom of her face is moving. She’s saying something. The words reach me muffled and distant, like my head is underwater.
I try to answer.
My mouth doesn't cooperate.
I try to reach for her.
My arm is too heavy to lift.
“You’re okay,” she says. “No one will hurt you here.”
My vision clears for a heartbeat, but it’s all I need.
All I need to know is that she’s my mate.
Which means I must be dead.
I must be in Ulissa. It’s the only explanation. My mate would not be here otherwise.
Life or death, I don’t care, as long as I’m with her.
The darkness comes roaring back, pulling me down with a vengeance.
This time, I fight it.
I don’t want to go.
I want to stay here. With her. With my mate.
I fight with everything I have.
But it’s not enough.
The darkness takes me anyway.