Chapter 63
Sixty-Three
RYDER
Every leaf, every bubble within the stream, every blade of grass—empty. All empty.
She’s gone.
Her scent is nowhere to be found by either Xander or me, the bond stretched as thin as it was when Sloane took her the other night, and my wolf craves the blood of anyone who dared touch her.
Striding back to Holly, who’s guarding Conan’s body, Xander releases a frustrated noise which has nothing against the hollow noise of her absence within my chest. “She’s gone, Ryder. That’s the same power as Jasper.”
“She told me she can’t do that. If she were lying, she would have used it sooner.”
“Well, apparently she can now. She’s scared, freaked out. We can only hope she’s home.”
Home would make the distance within the connection make sense. We’re days away from Alberta, which means so much can change between now and then, and nothing less than her coming home with me is acceptable.
“Do you think it’s the black magick?” Holly stands, brushing her hands along ripped, faded jeans. “Maybe she’s developing new abilities. If only she took us with her.”
Carina left because she was frightened and pressured, not because she wanted to leave us behind. She wouldn’t do that to us, and my growl signals my displeasure with Holly, only broken by a crack nearby that puts all three of us on alert.
Holly hovers closest to Conan’s body while Xander remains beside me, tense, as a fourth person steps from the trees, swatting at bugs.
“You guys have no idea how long it’s taken me to find you.
To finish your thought, she’s home, yes, and while she didn’t take you with her, she sent me.
” Jasper straightens his shirt, flicking off a leaf.
I’ve never been more thrilled to see the male I once despised simply for his proximity to Carina.
“Is she okay?”
His brow lifts as he takes in my nudity. “You guys are naked, but alright. Okay is a relative term. She’s scared, but alive, if that’s what you’re asking. She sent me to bring you guys back.”
She cares. It’s enough. It tells me what I need to know.
Jasper scans us, reaching Conan’s body with a low gasp.
“She didn’t tell you?”
“Took off before she could. I take it this is who…her black magick?” He crouches beside Conan and hovers a palm down the length of his body as a faint white light emits. It dries the blood from the wound, and another pass of his hand forms a black cloth draped over him.
Another few seconds pass before he coughs and looks away from Conan. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe true disappointment fills his gaze as it lifts to me. “I’ll hold onto him, you three grab onto my arm. Let’s get you guys home.”
Like before, the ground is replaced with the familiar worn-down grass outside our camp, the Manitoba trees with Albertan ones, and the heavy air with the freshness of familiarity and home.
“Holly, go find Conan’s father. He should have a moment alone before the rest learn what’s happened. Xander, take care of the pack.” I turn to Jasper, reaching for him again. “Take me to her.”
He shrugs me off. “That’s not a good idea.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“Fine, but find clothes first. I’m over you walking around naked.”
Entering the camp will lead to questions I won’t have the patience to answer, so Xander goes and quickly returns with a pair of jeans I slip into.
“No promises,” Jasper mutters as I’m doing up the button. His hand grasps my arm, and the forest disappears for a smaller patch behind Carina’s house. “This is the edge of the barrier on this side and the closest you’ll be able to go.”
Considering I’ve been inside before, we both know that’s false. “I said take me to her.”
“No matter what happened today, no matter that you saved her or you claim she’s your mate, she’s my cousin. I don’t give a fuck if, in your world, mate trumps cousin. In this territory, my word trumps yours. You will wait, and if she wishes to see you, she’ll come to you.”
My jaws snap as I picture ripping his head off for the way he’s not only keeping me from her but disrespecting my position in her life.
Yet that shred of human logic remains, aware he’s only doing what Carina needs and deserves.
Deep down, the respect I have for him has me straightening and backing away.
After ten minutes of his absence, I pace.
After thirty, I stalk every window in the house visible from here.
After an hour, I sit and wait for as long as it’ll take.
Two hours after Jasper disappeared, steps finally approach—gentler ones that walk alongside the cord connecting her and me. They’re tentative but willing, which is everything.
She appears in sweats, an oversized hoodie, and sneakers. Her arms are crossed tightly over her chest, and her chin is low—like she’s trying to hide from me, which is something I won’t stand for.
“Carina.” Breathed by the dying flame of hope that manages to remain lit—for now.
“Hey.” She lifts her head slightly. Looking at me is a start.
“Are you okay?” My palm pushes into the barrier, while my body leans on it. I’m so sick of barriers keeping us apart, and this one needs the final one.
“No. But for all the reasons you’re asking, yes.”
“I’m asking for every reason.” She’s not okay, and why would she be? She’s had her life turned completely around in the past day. “Thanks for sending Jasper.”
“Is the pack okay?” Her lips roll together, pulling her bottom into her teeth. “I mean, after seeing Conan...”
“I don’t know. I didn’t remain. Jasper brought me here to see you.”
“Oh.” Her brows dip low, and a dark purple gaze drops to the ground again. If I could reach her, I’d lift her head and wipe away the flash of sadness that accompanies the ever-present grief.
“Because I wanted to.”
Her attempt to smile is a mollification and nothing more. One shoulder lifts and falls, drawing my attention to her hoodie. Black and covered in a mortal band’s name. It isn’t one she wore at camp. It doesn’t smell like me. It isn’t mine.
I hate it.
My mate has nothing of mine to warn others away, besides my mark, but that too is hidden by the sweater I’m minutes away from tearing off her and burning.
If only the barrier would allow me through.
“When are you coming home?”
She flinches. Breathes deeply. “I am home.”
She’s not. She’s not in my—our—nest. She’s not in the camp, with shifters who’ll now look to her to lead. This town isn’t her home anymore; simply that of her family. Her connections are with me now.
Except…they’re not. And the human side is aware of what’s been a fact from day one: the princess, the kamahki, the future High Priestess of Highridge was never meant to live her life in the woods.
Biting gave me her, which was obviously a mistake because it’s worse than before, when I could walk away without claiming her. Now, I own the flavour of her skin, the feeling of her body, and can’t let her go. She’s it for me. My mate. My beginning and ending. My everything.
Her shifter side isn’t that prevalent, because she’s able to walk away. And she is.
From the start, I did everything to ensure the bond wasn’t completed, to save us both from this moment. How fucking easy would it be for us to separate now, if my teeth never made that error.
“You have a new home,” I argue, already regretting my words. The more I fight, the more I’ll lose to her will. Lose her when she believes I’m being controlling.
“You bit me because of your promise, no other reason. The bond is driven by convenience, not emotion.”
I stagger towards her, the barrier rippling like a wave around me, which is sickeningly ironic.
“Did you not hear me earlier? I saved you because you didn’t deserve to go through any of that.
You’re my mate, which means protecting you ’til my dying breath.
I bit you not because of fate, but because I wanted you.
I claimed you because I’ve been falling for you since the moment I found you. ”
Every drop of water in the nearby streams halts its course. The wind dies. Her body stills. The only thing that moves between us is the blood rushing through my body.
“You don’t mean that.” She curls her shoulders in tighter. “It’s the bo—”
“If you use the fuckin’ bond as an excuse one more fuckin’ time—” My threat cuts when her sharp inhale becomes audible, breaking the tenseness that even nature’s respecting.
“Why,” I continue, forcing air through clenched teeth, forcing myself to calm down before chasing her away faster.
“Why are you so insistent on telling me what I feel? I want you in my cabin. My nest. My cave. I want you leading the pack by my side. I want you.”
“I can’t. You know why.”
“Explain it to me like I’m a pup.” My hands move to reach for her, blocked by this stupid fucking shield.
She swallows. Inhales. Licks her lips and looks down at her feet. A moment passes before she moves again. The lift of a chin and the darkening of her eyes, replacing my Carina with the person from those cells.
“Conan’s dead, and he didn’t deserve it.
Darkness is screaming in my head, demanding I claim more power.
So far, being here, being home and around my kind, quiets it.
You have no idea what it was urging me to do earlier.
When Xander charged in, my first instinct was to protect you—from what, I have no idea—but I hurt him because I’m uncontrollable.
” She steps back, shaking her head at my hand still up.
“I’m not safe to be around. It’s best if I remain with the coven. ”
Trying to protect me must mean something.
“Besides, Sloane will return, and if your father, Conan, and this bond didn’t explain it well enough, then allow me to. The pack needs to stay out of coven business. You’ve all been through enough, and I won’t live with myself if someone else is targeted because of me. Again.”
“You and I will go, and Xander will stay with the pack.”
The hint of hope immediately shielded by grief reaches through the link. “You can’t leave your family.”
“You’re my family.” What about this doesn’t she get? “You’re the only one who matters.”
“It still doesn’t make me safe to be around.”
Her sorrow-filled voice nearly drives me to my knees. Instead, I slam my hand against the barrier, forced to painfully watch as it ripples instead of letting me through. “You’re not a bad person! Is the magick speaking to you right now?”
“No.”
“Ever think it was only earlier? That your body and magick are becoming one? You’re strong, kamahki. Let me be strong with you.”
She turns her face away, hair masking the misting of her eyes.
“Fine,” I concede for the sake of conversation. “What happens after when you feel in control?”
Her silence is deafening, broken only by a small exhale that echoes through me, to the place the bond initially formed, to where my wolf curls up, wanting to die with the heavy realization.
She isn’t planning on coming back.
“I need to find my birth coven…and maybe my father.”
A shifter. She’s leaving me to journey to an unfamiliar pack, to meet a stranger. Fuck that.
“They’ll see the bite and smell my trace. They’ll know who you belong to.”
“I need to be in control,” she snaps. “I need to do this. When is the last time I’ve had a say in anything in my life?
I lost my coven because they kicked her out for fucking a shifter.
I lost my mother because of Twilight Grove’s insanity.
Mom raised me to take her place, which isn’t my choice.
Sloane changed my soul forever; there is no going back from what she’s done.
And you’re telling me I’m your mate when I never got to decide it for myself. ”
My growl feels like razorblades up my throat. “You had every choice. You came to me. You kissed me back. You said ‘yes.’”
“I didn’t know what I was agreeing to!” Her arms drop from her chest. “You didn’t tell me the truth, even when knowing from day one! You lied this entire time and now expect me to fall into your nest and be your little breeder.”
Well, yeah. “Since when do you even want to be a High Priestess? Don’t start lying to me.”
“Fair’s fair.” She sniffs and lifts her chin, making herself look more like a coven princess than ever—further from me than ever. “I want to take Mom’s role because the coven’s magick will ground me.”
“I’ll ground you. You’re a shifter. I’m your Alpha.”
Magick sparks along her hair as her lips pull back over her teeth. “I have the DNA, nothing more. Do not pull rank you don’t have over me.”
I do rank over her, but re-stating this won’t win my case. Especially when the only thing I actually desire, from the deepest parts of me, is her to be cared for, no matter how that looks.
“Tell me exactly what you want and I’ll give it.”
“Space.” Reinforcing her words, she backs up another step.
“To think. This week alone, I’ve gone from being Mom’s daughter to having another set of parents.
I’ve gone from being bored in Banff to being part of some weird ass plan by an insane witch following a Seer’s vision about Earth’s future.
I went from being terrified of your kind to seeing them as people.
To caring. To caring about them…and you.
And—” She stops at her own gasp, biting down on her bottom lip.
Her admittance is enough.
Fingers turn into claws and stab the barrier without breaking it. “Drop this fuckin’ thing. Or pull me through. Or you come to me.”
For a long moment, I assume she’ll walk away.
End this while she can, while she’s in control of the situation.
But then her scent grows stronger as she walks through the barrier and stops close enough I could snatch her now and hide her from everything—even herself.
She’s close enough to imply some sort of trust, some level of actual desire for me.
“Ryder.” My name on her lips, spoken with regret, is torture. “I’m sorry.”
One way or the other, she was always destined to leave me—either with Twilight Grove or like this.
My wolf whimpers.
Yeah, me too, I tell him.
The bite on her neck makes her mine, but not really.
She gets to decide the rest.