Page 170 of A Bond with the Dark

Turning slowly and carefully, I see the wolf sitting on the mountaintop, looking right at me. A large, gray wolf with yellow eyes. I feel the wolf's waiting for something.

“We should go,” I say, backing up toward the cliff's edge.

“Where can we go?” Bash asks, “The minute we head to the car, the wolf can pounce. Look,” he says, pointing out how close the wolf is to the car.

“So where do we go, then?” I respond, my tone edged with fear.

“Down,” Bash admonishes, pointing to the steep mountainside path. “Once we get far enough away, hopefully, the wolf will leave, then we can vamp flash back up.”

“Okay,” Dom says. “But we should go now because he's coming.”

Without thinking twice about it, Dom absconds with me and moves me with him as fast as he can. I feel the world whip by me, the acceleration of his feet at his inhuman pace, the steep decline of the mountain making my stomach lurch upward as though I'm on a roller coaster. Visibility is non-existent while the evening mountain scenery flashes by me, and before I know it, we're at the bottom of the cliff we'd been on top of, a dark sandy beach in the shallows.

Bash arrives shortly after, looking around for the wolf.

“I think we're in the clear,” he says breathlessly.

“Not so much,” says a disembodied feral voice.

Turning around in shock, I see a woman, perfect shades of white ivory, in a red blouse, black jeans, red heels, and her fiery red hair ablaze with the sun setting behind her. Her green eyes are blazing into me, and I blink a few times to make sure I'm not hallucinating.

“Laureya?” I ask incredulously, blinking wildly to make sure.

“Miss me?” She gives me a dark and nefarious smile, the cloying scent of her insulting my senses.

Bash and Dom gape from me to Laureya, knowing as much as I do as to what the fuck is going on.

“How in the hell are you here right now?” I ask in consternation.

“Of course, you would know nothing that has happened to me,” Laureya spits venomously, sauntering to me. There's something weirdly renewed about her. Not only does she look healthy and sober, but she also looks like she'd aged backward a decade. “When all your life shit happened, it happened to me too. Everything. And I know you've been running with vampires. I know because I am a formweaver.”

The words pierce perfectly through me and shatter whatever calm and collective notions I'd been trying to gather. Gravity is pulling me into that depth again, and I need to regain my composure. I breathe deep, trying to cling to that calm with all of me. I am about to shatter.

“I'm sorry,” Bash interjects and slides between me and Laureya, “I'm Sebastian. Laureya, is it?”

Her smile turns wistful. “Hello, Sebastian. Yes, I'm Laureya.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bash says, pulling her away from me and toward the water's edge. “Now, tell me again what you said to your sister over there. A formweaver?”

“Yes. And you are a vampire. Your brother, too.”

“Yes, but LaLa, can I call you LaLa? Anyway, what's tripping me out about this is how you know all this and how you're here right now. I mean, I know you're part witch and all, but?—”

“I'm not a witch,” she answers.

I remain close to them to hear what she's saying.

I know that Bash is trying to keep me calm and Dom from going dark, which is why he pulled her away from us.

But I have to hear this.

Bash's brow furrows in confusion. “Come again?”

“Fran was not my real mom,” she says, and like summer lightning, everything flashes in front of my eyes at Laureya's words.

“What?” I say, moving closer to her.

“You heard that right, sis; we're only half-sisters.”

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