Chapter Nine #2
And Lyric could imagine it. She could see her translucent hand push the thick cord of glowing purple power to the side.
She could see Destiny sitting in a rocking chair on a porch on a spring day.
The wind was lifting the hem of a white sundress, and she wore a worried look in her eyes.
Silently, the Destiny in Lyric’s mind pointed to the woods.
The purple bond was in the way again, and Lyric couldn’t see the trees.
“Hurry,” Destiny murmured.
She’d never done this before. She didn’t understand what was happening.
Didn’t understand what she was seeing. Focus.
Lyric pushed the bond out of the way again, but this time it was heavier and the searing heat of it burned her hands.
She grunted in her mind with the effort, and she was growing sluggish. Tired.
“We can do this,” Destiny whispered, and Lyric could see her hands on the purple bond with her, pushing. The smell of burning flesh touched her sensitive nose. The hem of Destiny’s sundress was muddy now, and her bare feet were sinking in the soggy ground.
A familiar scent hit her senses. Blood and something more. Vic. The way his skin smelled. The way his fur smelled.
Lyric gritted her teeth and helped Destiny move the purple bond. It hurt her hands. Underneath, snaking through the mud, was a thin thread of glowing gold. It ebbed and flowed like magma through the forest topography.
Tears stung Lyric’s eyes. She knew what that was. She’d never seen it, but she knew.
It was a Mating Bond. It was her Mating Bond to Vic.
“What do you see?” Destiny asked.
There was a strange sensation of motion as she walked through the tree line.
Destiny had stopped behind her. Lyric turned to look at her, but her dress was caked in mud now, and her hands looked charred, like they’d been burned.
She looked exhausted, and gaunt. “I can’t go with you now,” Destiny said softly. “Help him. Find him.”
Lyric turned for the woods and looked down at the trail of gold winding through the trees.
She forced herself into a walk, and the gold thread grew thicker.
It curved sharply to the right, and the trees disappeared suddenly.
A road appeared with no shoulder on the side.
The edge of the road dropped off a cliff.
There was a sign, but it was old and faded, and part of it was unreadable. Waters Cre—
Waters Creek Road?
None of the woods or the steep road looked familiar. Lyric heard a sound and watched the thread of gold thicken and curve sharply to the left, to a deer trail that led up the steep hill.
A gray SUV was parked in the trees, and Cian’s black challenger, and there was a drag mark in the dead leaves that lead deeper into the forest. The scent of Vic was thicker here.
“Waters Creek,” she murmured. “Destiny?”
“I’m with you.” Her voice sounded so far away and barely audible now.
Lyric pushed her legs up the trail, but she was so sluggish now.
So tired. Up and up she climbed. There was blood on the leaves.
She could hear talking now but couldn’t make out the words.
Everything was translucent and it was hard to make out what was happening.
Trees upon trees upon trees were layered strangely in front of her.
One appeared in front of her, and she halted and reached out to touch it.
Her hand went through the rough bark with nothing more than a tingling sensation against her burned fingertips.
Inhaling deeply, she pushed through the tree and urged her legs to a jog.
The voices were getting louder now, and the gold bond had turned into a creek of glowing power.
Her bare feet splashed through it, and drops of the bond splashed across the leaf riddled ground.
She ran through another translucent tree and then locked her legs and halted.
The golden creek had widened to cover every inch of the clearing she’d just stumbled into. In the center of it was a wolf. He sat there staring back at her with bright gold eyes.
In her mind, she could hear Vic’s voice so clearly. “Hurry.”
Lyric couldn’t breathe.
Someone was shaking her. Destiny? Destiny had a grasp on her shirt and was shaking her hard enough to rattle her teeth. “Wake up!” she screamed. “Come back to us, Lyric!”
Lyric gasped for breath to fill her drowning lungs.
“Hold on,” Liam growled as the truck made a sharp turn and Lyric and Destiny slammed against the window.
“You’re sure she said Waters Creek and not Waters way?” Liam asked low.
“It’s Waters Creek. I know it,” Destiny told him.
“He’s alive,” Lyric forced past her thickening vocal chords as tears streamed down the sides of her face. She was crumpled in a ball in the passenger’s seat, and Destiny’s weight was pressed onto her.
Destiny’s eyes were filled with emotion. “You did so good. We’re almost there.”
“He said to hurry,” Lyric whispered as she panted and tried to get enough oxygen to her. She must’ve been holding her breath.
“Liam’s been going ninety.” Destiny pushed off Lyric and scrambled into the back seat. “Dodger, are you still there?”
“I’m three minutes out, baby,” came an answer on her speaker phone. “We’re coming.”
Destiny and Liam were calling in the Pack.
Lyric struggled to sit up. Her body felt numb, and like there was a low vibration humming through her. Her hands were on fire. It felt like they had been burned off completely.
She looked down at them and saw blisters and raw skin all over her palms. What the hell?
Destiny inhaled sharply in the back, and Lyric turned to see her gingerly touching the screen of her phone. Her hands were also blistered and bleeding.
“What happened to you?” Lyric asked.
Destiny’s eyes were filled with emotion and she shook her head. “I had to help you.”
“Help me what?” Lyric asked in horror. Destiny’s hands were dripping. It looked so painful.
“Help you move my bond out of the way so you could see Vic.”
It was in this moment that Lyric realized how much power she’d been sleeping on.
Bonds had never been talked about like this, but if she was right, and Vic was where she thought he was, this would open up an enormous power that had been unrealized until now.
Werewolves could track each other through bonds.
She could find the people who were important to her.
Liam slammed on his brakes and skidded to a stop in the middle of a gravel road, then shoved open his door. “Change!” he barked out.
And for the rest of her life, no matter how long or short, Lyric would never understand how his order forced her Change. Liam wasn’t her Alpha.
That didn’t matter to her wolf though. Lyric made a strangled sound as she shoved the door open in a rush and her body detonated like a bomb.
A wave of power washed through her as she fell onto the ground and choked out a pained sound as the wolf ripped out of her body. Beside her, Destiny was Changing too.
Ahead, Liam’s enormous black wolf was already rushing up the trail.
Lyric’s hackles rose. She recognized this forest from the vision, and beside her were smears of red that led up the trail.
It wasn’t just the gray SUV and Challenger in the woods like her vision.
There were six vehicles polluting the forest here.
One of them belonged to Eden’s promised mate, Traydon.
He was back in town. Fear filled her chest. After the death of her last mate, Eden had chosen Traydon for his ruthlessness.
Lyric exchanged a glance with Destiny and then stood up on all fours and bolted into the woods after Liam. The first twenty seconds were usually jarring when she first Changed into this body. Usually, she had to remember how to run, but not today. The wolf had been ready.
She flew through the trees, pushing her legs harder and harder. Her ears were pinned back, and she cut this way and that through the foliage. The burning in her paws was excruciating but she didn’t let it slow her down. Pain was temporary, and Vic needed her.
The pull of her bond to him grew with every step closer.
Liam didn’t stop, didn’t slow. Ahead of them, he burst through the tree line and aimed right for Cian, who was crouched over Vic’s still wolf. He held a knife.
Cian looked up and the startlement in his eyes said they hadn’t heard them coming.
Liam charged him and latched onto his neck before he was even fully Changed.
Liam didn’t care about waiting for a fair fight, and Lyric understood.
Cian had been the bait and had gotten one of his Pack hurt.
Maybe worse. The bloodlust wasn’t going to allow the Alpha patience.
Cian’s scream echoed through the woods. It was short and pained and turned into a yelp, and then Lyric’s attention was on the crowd.
Traydon had been talking to a group of War Wolves at the edge of the trees, and already they were headed this way, Changing as they ran.
One by one, their wolves exploded from them, and they aimed their attention at Lyric and Destiny.
Lyric bolted for Vic to protect his body, but he wasn’t moving.
He lay on his side. Blood was matted across his face and muzzle, and there were three more open shots on his body.
He’d gone wolf and they’d had to fill him with bullets.
That’s how they fought? Really? What cowards.
Fury muddled every thought, and everything was tinged in red as she lifted her gaze to Traydon. Her sister’s mate shook out his light-colored fur from the Change. He leveled Lyric with a look of hatred. Well? The feeling was mutual.