Chapter 18 #2
I feint left, he follows, and I reverse direction. My teeth find his throat before he can compensate. His blood fills my mouth, hot and bitter. I don't enjoy it. Don't revel in it. But I can't afford mercy, not when Eliza's life hangs in the balance.
His body goes limp. I hold on for another few seconds to be sure, then release.
I charge toward Connor.
Too late.
He's already moving, already closing in on where Eliza stands. She sees him coming, raises Jax's silver knife in defense, her stance low and ready. But Connor doesn't engage her.
He goes for the elderly woman instead.
The elderly woman tries to run, but she's frail, no match for a wolf's speed. Connor's jaws close around her shoulder. She screams. He drags her toward the center of the stone circle. Toward the largest standing stone with his carved message still visible in dried blood.
The convergence point.
Eliza screams. Not in fear. In rage. She charges after Connor, silver knife in one hand, one remaining salt-iron nail in the other.
But another wolf—sleek and dark, female—intercepts her.
Eliza doesn't hesitate. The nail drives into the wolf's shoulder, and in the moment of shock, the silver knife slashes across its throat.
The wolf collapses, and Eliza keeps running, but two more wolves move to block her path.
Everything slows down. The battle, the storm, my own heartbeat. I see it all with terrible clarity.
Connor isn't trying to kill Eliza quickly. He's trying to position her. To have her death happen at the exact right place, at the exact right moment. And he's using the old woman as bait to make her come to him.
My wolf explodes. I lose any connection to my humanity or civility. I stop worrying about collateral damage or young wolves who don't understand what they're fighting for.
The storm above screams with my fury.
Lightning doesn't just strike near me anymore. It strikes through me. Channels through my body like I'm a living conduit, a bridge between sky and earth. The electricity doesn't hurt. It feels right. Like breathing. Like finally embracing what I was always meant to be.
I am the Storm Alpha.
Not just a shifter who can sense weather. Not just a wolf with storm affinity. I am eight generations of accumulated power, of bloodline magic passed down from ancestor to ancestor, all focused into this single moment of protective fury.
Thunder deafens. Lightning turns night to day.
I move faster than physics should allow, riding the storm itself.
My paws barely touch the ground between strides.
Wolves who block my path get thrown aside by wind that obeys my will.
Rain lashes down in sheets, blinding everyone but me.
I see through it like it's not even there, every drop a tiny eye feeding me information.
The dark wolf blocking Eliza barely has time to look up before I'm on her. I catch her spine between the shoulder blades. Snap. She drops instantly, and Eliza scrambles free.
"Connor!" she gasps, pointing with her knife.
He's almost at the center now, the elderly woman still in his jaws. She's limp, unconscious or dead, I can't tell. Blood streams from her shoulder, leaving a trail. But Connor positions her carefully at the base of the largest stone, his movements deliberate despite the chaos around him.
Then he shifts to human form, naked and covered in blood, and pulls a knife from where it was hidden near the stone's base. Silver blade. Ritual markings etched along the length. He must have planted it here earlier, prepared for this exact moment.
"No!" I charge, but I'm still twenty feet away.
Connor looks at me. Smiles. And drives the blade into the woman's heart.
Her blood spills across the stone, and the convergence point activates with a sound like reality tearing. The air itself splits open, showing something dark and writhing beyond. The rift is maybe two feet wide, jagged at the edges like a wound in the fabric of the world.
But the old woman's death doesn't complete the ritual. The rift stays small, contained. Connor's smile twists into something manic and triumphant.
"Wrong bloodline?" I snarl, shifting to human form as I close the distance. My hands reach for his throat. "You failed."
"Did I?" Connor backs toward the convergence point. "The Morrisons served MacRaes for seven generations, Declan. You never asked why?" He laughs, blood on his teeth. "My great-grandmother was one of yours. Storm blood runs in me too."
Ice floods my veins.
"Not enough to manifest the power," Connor continues, not defending himself as I reach him.
"Not enough to challenge you directly. But enough for this.
" He spreads his arms. "This was always the plan.
A Storm Alpha's death at the convergence point.
I'm not strong enough alive to take what should have been mine.
But in death? In death, I'm exactly what the ritual needs. "
My hands close around his throat. "You're insane."
"I'm devoted." His eyes blaze with zealot certainty. "The old world returns. The Fomori walk free. And you'll spend eternity knowing you couldn't stop it."
I could kill him right here, right now. Snap his neck. Crush his windpipe. End this.
But he wants me to.
The realization hits.
Connor's not fighting back. He's leaning into my grip, making it easy. His feet are positioned carefully over the convergence point, ready to spill on sacred ground at the exact right spot.
If I kill him here, I complete the ritual myself.
I release him. Try to throw him away from the convergence point. But Connor's hand shoots out, grabs my wrist in an iron grip. His other hand still holds the silver knife, slick with the old woman's blood, and he drives it into his own chest.
Deep. Angled up under the ribs. Straight into his heart.
"Thank you," he whispers. "For being predictable."
He falls backward toward the convergence point. I lunge, trying to grab him, pull him away. My fingers brush his arm but can't get purchase.
Connor's body hits the stone directly over the convergence point where the elderly woman's blood pools. Storm blood mixing with bloodline sacrifice.
Too late. I was too late.
The convergence point activates.
The sound is indescribable. Like worlds colliding. Like the universe screaming. A rift tears open above the stones—small at first, maybe three feet across. The seventh seal, the one Eliza strengthened at the eastern shore, fights back. I can feel it holding, resisting, buying us precious seconds.
But Connor's blood keeps flowing. More Storm blood spilling onto the convergence point with every heartbeat his dying body manages. The rift strains. Widens. Four feet. Five. Six.
The seventh seal cracks.
Not breaks. Not yet. But I hear it—a sound like ice fracturing on a frozen lake. The seal Eliza strengthened is the only thing standing between our world and what lies beyond.
And it's failing.
All around us, the battle falters. Shifters on both sides slow, staring at the rift as it tears wider. Eight feet now. Ten. Twelve. Even Connor's mercenaries hesitate, their training warring with primal instinct that screams danger.
Something presses against the barrier from the other side. Something vast and ancient.
The seal fractures further. Splinters of ancient magic falling away like shattered glass.
Then it breaks.
The Fomori emerges.
Chaos given form. Looking at it makes my eyes burn, makes my mind try to reject what it's seeing. Limbs that bend in directions that shouldn't exist. Too many eyes. Too many mouths. Darkness that writhes and shifts, never holding one shape long enough to understand.
It shouldn't exist. Can't exist. But it's here.
Connor's body lies at its feet—or whatever passes for feet in that writhing mass. The ritual complete. Six seals broken. One Storm Alpha sacrifice. The convergence point activated.
And the door to the old world standing wide open.
The thing fixes its attention on me first. On the Storm Alpha who failed to prevent its release. Its voice speaks directly into my mind, bypassing sound entirely. The words scrape across my thoughts like claws on stone.
Finally. Freedom. And such delicious irony—the protector becomes the liberator.
Lightning strikes all around us, but for the first time in my life, the storm doesn't answer my call. The power that's been mine since birth, that flows through eight generations of MacRae blood, is suddenly absent. Silent.
It's not mine anymore.
The Fomori turns.
Toward Eliza.
I reach for the lightning. Nothing. I call the wind. Silence.
My power is gone.
And I can't protect her.