Chapter 59 Ditch
Ditch
“Begone, foul creature!” Ditch snapped, turning from her vigil at the window.
Nettle lingered in the office doorway, golden eyes too intelligent, pupils slitted to knives. Fur bristled. She yowled a warning that set Ditch’s nerves even more on edge.
“I will make a stole out of you.” Exhausted and bruised, Ditch was in no mood for an ill-omened visit. It wasn’t even midnight. And she’d begun to feel the decided failure of spells. The sabotage of them.
Apparently, her campaign to win hearts and minds had won none. Even Meera had deserted her.
With a hiss, Nettle shot away.
“And don’t come back—”
A massive shadow took Nettle’s place, filling the doorway.
Thane.
But this was not the controlled, disciplined king she’d traded barbs and pleasure with. This was the moon-mad animal that lived beneath his skin. Towering, rippling, and hungry.
His bulging muscles twitched with anticipation, face and chest coated in blood. An unholy blue fire lit his eyes. His breath steamed in heavy gusts. Claws and fangs dripped.
Her heart kicked hard, but she kept her expression flat. “Ah-ah, beast. Heel.” She raised her palms, summoning her power. The glow flickered, weak. Her tail and horns barely gave off a spark, like dying candlewicks.
Damn it! She ran on fumes.
He did not. Superpowered by moonglow.
She considered pressing the alarm under her desk that Meera had noted in a binder. Still, an army of witches would have difficulty felling him—Lykae beasts shed spells—if they even mustered for Ditch.
“Thane,” she said, “if there’s so much as a scrap of you left in there, claw your way to control. Because what happens next, there’s no coming back from.”
He answered with a low, seismic growl that rattled the windowpanes and guttered the fire. He stalked forward, step by step, heat radiating off the remnants of his torn and bloodstained clothing. The wood beneath him groaned.
Her face changed, twisting into its demon aspect, but he shook off the mesmerizing effect, like stepping through a cobweb.
Her stomach dropped. “I said no, wolf.” She fired two hexshots. One slammed into his arm to blow out a chunk of flesh, one hit center mass, exposing bone.
The room quaked from the force, but he didn’t blink. Didn’t grunt. His flesh simply boiled, knit, and smoothed as if she’d splashed him with water.
Smoke thickened the air. Sulfur burned her throat.
She fired another shot of acid and lava. It splashed his neck, steaming. He sloughed it off, the molten mass hissing down to the hardwood. She fired again, but her palms fritzed, sputtering useless light.
Nearly the godsdamned Awaited One, and she couldn’t even slow a wolf king. Her only hope was the alarm.
He bared his fangs, his gaze a frenzy of predatory desire.
She dove for her desk.
He reached it first.
With a single swipe, he batted it across the room, wood splintering against the wall.
He seized her around the waist, crushing her against his chest.
“Let me go!” She punched her horns into his shoulder. The tips scraped bone. Her claws raked his chest. She tore strips of him open.
He didn’t seem to feel her, just dragged her head back, clamping her nape with a huge palm.
Her tail snapped forward, injecting his arm. She pumped venom into his muscles until toxin-tinged blood streamed from his flesh.
He didn’t react to the strike. Instead he inhaled deeply at her throat. A low groan vibrated through his chest, through her bones. The heat from his skin made her sweat. Her flailing legs brushed his hardened shaft but couldn’t get leverage for a kick.
He dragged his face along her neck, and a primal shudder racked him. Snarling, ravenous, he licked her flesh. His breaths fanned the wet trail.
Was he going to claim her? Bite her?
“Do not do this, Thane! You have no right!”
Suddenly he stilled. Cocked his head. Listening to something she couldn’t sense.
Then he launched forward. She slammed against his chest as he sprinted for the stairs. She was trapped against him, hauled like prey as he leapt down the steps.
The sconces in the hall burst as they passed, glass raining like sleet. Dried charms and witch knots tore loose from the walls. The floor split under his pounding strides, dust pluming. Nettle screeched somewhere in the keep as the beast thundered on.
Cold air hit her as they burst into the night. Trees seemed to writhe toward them, as if pulled by the Lykae’s gravity.
Four Riders appeared, hoods up, palms lit. Smirking Rosewyn the Banehand was among them. She could fell even this beast!
“Attack him!” Ditch ordered.
He tensed in readiness—
But the Riders stepped aside. Waved him on. Let him pass.
Understanding rang through her like a death knell. A coup. Conniving Rosewyn hadn’t been able to dethrone Ditch herself, so she’d schemed for a Lykae to do the dirty work.
Rosewyn had fed her to a wolf.
“You treacherous little worms!” she screamed. Enrage not a demon. “I swear on every hell that ever spat me out I’ll peel your minds apart! I’ll save you for last, Banehand!”
Thane’s beast loosed a triumphant howl and plunged deeper into the Witchwood. Branches whipped past, roots tearing under his feet.
“Where are you taking me, you mindless brute?” she snapped, even as dread sank its claws into her gut.
He didn’t slow. Couldn’t acknowledge her.
This creature had a destination. A purpose. A monster driven by Instinct.
She feared she knew exactly what it intended.
“If you force me from the Skein, I will hate you across worlds. You don’t understand. I must be here. I must rule and stop the All-Battle! If I leave, the Skein burns.”
The last chance of the immortals neared, and no one knew this but her!
“Thane, stop! Stop!” Her horns gouged his shoulder again. Her tail and claws dug for purchase.
He ran harder, the world hazy from his speed. They cleared the tree line. The ground dropped away and rose again in jagged shelves.
She slammed her fist against his implacable chest. “Damn you, wolf, listen to me.” Her voice cracked, its raw tone foreign to her ears.
“I have never begged for anything in my life, but I’m begging now.
Please. Fight for control. Sway your beast. I will do anything you want.
I will surrender as your mate. Just don’t force me from here. All will die without me.”
Her words vanished in the wind, carried away with his heaving breaths and low snarls.
The beast tearing her from everything did not care—not about her destiny or wants, only his own. His strides lengthened even more, brutal and relentless, hammering forward.
Toward Mount Nothrior.
Toward the portal.
Toward a world that was not theirs.
***
Meera
Alone. Stunned.
Lowell just left me. She watched as he sped away, slowly lost to the mist.
Her staggered mind kept picturing the excitement she’d seen in his glowing blue eyes. Kept picturing how his beast had begun to surface and how she—idiot that she was—had believed it’d arisen for her.
Bile rose. This moment of discovery had been fated since he was born, and he’d been taking a witch’s virginity and making her orgasm when it’d happened.
Fate had a diabolical sense of humor.
Meera would feel the scorch of her release forever, because with one interrupted connection, Lowell had ruined her for other males. Even as grief wrapped around her like a shroud, her body still hummed for him. Always would.
She’d thought he loved her. Thought they were making love. She’d believed. Instead of making love, they’d fucked, and it’d been so lackluster in his mind, he hadn’t even finished.
The male she loved had recoiled from her like poison.
Her heart shattered into pieces so brittle she could never repair them.
She folded to her knees, hands trembling against her face as sobs shook her ribs. A wail bubbled up from her throat and died on the cold air.
Hope died with it.
In its place, something dark took shape, pain souring into a venomous bloom that wanted to consume every flicker of light.
But not her palms. Their glow reached even past her squeezed tight eyelids. She blinked them open to find her hands boiling with brightness, her power manifesting as never seen. She felt it spilling out into the Skein, infecting the night even more than before, stoking the fury of others.
War would follow.
Good.
Her despair had twisted into hatred, and in that hatred, she found clarity. Earlier she’d wondered how she could live without Lowell. She’d wondered what could buoy her. Now she knew.
These beautiful infuriations.
Her mother had warned that either Meera would control her power, or it would control her.
Correct.
She’d taught Meera to fear wrath without reason. No more. Because Meera had nothing left to lose.
Let the Skein tear itself apart. Let old resentments ignite. Let the land burn clean of broken dreams.
She rose as if emerging from a chrysalis with a vow upon her lips: “I promise myself to the coming war against the Lykae.” She would train.
She would unravel wolves from the inside out.
She would confess everything to the high priestess—about Lowell, Rosewyn, her own mistakes—and beg for Ditch’s mercy.
Then she would earn the right to wield her wrath on those that deserved it.
And her compact with Hecate—I will never bear my own babes…if I can have the male I love—would be honored. He’d only been in Meera’s grasp for a brief moment, but she had indeed had him.
The covenant had been bound; she would bear no children.
Instead she would guide and tend to her infuriations, becoming Meera the Wrath Mother.
My story, she realized, is the origin story of a very wicked witch.
Footsteps neared the Mount.
She stood in the moonlight, naked, her orgasm dried on her inner thighs. No matter. Meek Meera was gone. In her place rose a voluptuous enchantress with no reason to fear anything. She lifted her blazing palms and dared this interloper to say
one
wrong
word.
Anyone who tried to intimidate her ever again would pay the price. I will smite them, mothering their wrath against themselves.
Into the clearing burst Thane—full beast—carrying Ditch in his arms.
Meera’s jaw dropped. He was hauling her toward the portal to the mortal world!
Her power thrummed, tasting the magic tangled around him. Rosewyn’s clung to the king. Clever little viper. She must have tampered with the containment spells even before Meera ever sent them.
How did I miss that?
Ditch would figure it out and blame Meera. She’ll kill me for my failure.
Or she’ll try to.
“Meera!” Ditch screamed, hardly noting her nakedness. “Thank Hecate! Use your power on him!”
Meera hesitated. Could even Ditch handle the fury Meera Newteye planned to unbridle on Lowell and his kind? On Lowell and his new mate? Meera’s lips drew back from her teeth. Maybe Ditch taking a permanent vacation was exactly what needed to happen.
Then a flicker of her former loyalty resurfaced. A Lykae was attacking a fellow witch, and she could stop it.
Just as Meera was about to strike, Ditch shrieked from the mountain path, “You traitorous fool! Follow my fucking orders, or I’ll dine on your corpse!”
Just as she had with Lazara, Meera’s friend and mentor.
The reminder turned Meera’s cold heart colder. The Wrath Mother gave Ditch a cheery salute and called, “Go with gods!”
Thane and Ditch disappeared up the path on their way to another world.
Just as well.
I’m the high priestess now.