Page 93 of Wild Wolf

“No!” I roared, dropping to my knees, trying to gather it in my hands, bringing it to my chest and feeling its essence swirling around in my palms.

Rosalie howled in grief over my loss, running to me and abandoning Vard.

The Seer shoved to his feet, tearing away across the snow and I barked at Rosa, “Don’t let him go!”

She turned from me reluctantly, a mournful howl leaving her as she raced after Vard, the monster who had stolen my Lion from me.

I knelt in the snow, trying to gather the shadow of my former self against my body, desperate to keep hold of it.

“Please stay. Don’t go. Don’t leave me,” I pleaded, cupping the shimmering smoke in my hands and watching the life fade out of it. A vital part of me would die with it and I would never be whole again. “I can’t let you go.”

My Lion glimmered, its glow growing fainter and fainter until it was nothing but smoke, evaporating into the freezing air. My hands shook as I tried to grasp at the emptiness in its wake, but there was nothing there.

It was gone.

The absence of it was terrifying, its loss a pain I couldn’t bear to accept.

My fingers flexed, each of them tingling, slowly drawing my attention to them as that sensation grew.

A shimmer of silver light made me turn my arm over, finding my mate mark gleaming on my wrist. A ragged breath left me as I touched it, the silver glow turning molten gold, flaring to life and making my heart thunder in my chest. That flood of light washed along my skin, dousing me in its beauty and making me gasp in confusion as it sank into my blood. The light of the moon slid into my chest and I could have sworn it was stitching the pieces of my broken soul back together, weaving something utterly beautiful into my being. With a feel of rippling, heated liquid, something settled inside me and I shivered at the sensation of my Lion reuniting with my body, the power tumbling through me, giving me a head rush.

I glanced up at the moon in shock, sensing her watching me and a thanks parted my lips in a heady groan. She had done this, granted me this gift and allowed my Lion to return to me. I could feel how easy it would be to shift, to return to that incredible, natural form of mine and let it free at long last.

I was made anew, reborn as a beast that was built from the man I had once been as well as the man I had become. A man who belonged to that stunning creature out there in the snow from now until eternity.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Icouldn’t bear to look back at the shattered glass, at Roary scrambling to capture what he had lost but as I closed in on Vard, my teeth bared and his death screaming through my ears, a sound akin to the singing of the stars themselves tore through me and hope simmered within my soul.

I pounced, slamming into Vard and flattening him beneath me, his screams drowning out all but that most beautiful of sounds.

My teeth sank deep into his shoulder and I whirled around, hurling him from me, the roar of a Lion echoing through my blood as my eyes fell on my mate in his shifted form.

Roary roared again, shaking his mane of stunning, dark hair before breaking into a run, his eyes locked on the screaming, crying Vard who was trying to crawl away through the snow.

I sucked in a sharp breath as Roary shot into motion, his powerful body moving so fast that it became a blur. Both Lion and Vampire at once, two Orders housed in one Fae.

He leapt at Vard, his teeth sinking through flesh and bone, the screams of the bastardo who had caused him so much pain and suffering falling to silence at last as his head was torn free of his body and hurled away into the heaped snow beside us.

I paced forward, my eyes wide as I stared at the miracle who was my mate, my kindred spirit, the man I had loved since I was too young to even fully understand the meaning of the word. My Lion. My Roary. My mate.

I nuzzled against him and he leaned into me, the wonder in his eyes sparkling in the moonlight before he released a powerful roar which the others echoed in cries of triumph over the bodies of the beasts they had vanquished in their own battles.

And as the snow tumbled from the sky in clumps lit with moonlight, a howl broke from my lips to join with theirs and I knew in my heart that our pack was whole at last.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

Icoughed as the scent of smoke filled my lungs, my chest heaving as I inhaled and a clump of hair lodged itself in my nostril, causing me to choke and panic as I flailed for air.

My arms collided with folds of flesh, my forehead slamming into something which slapped loudly against my skin before crashing into my nose and mouth, making me cry out in alarm as I found myself pinned down by a weight poised just over my head.

“Arghhh!” I cried, flapping and flailing, tears leaking from my eyes as I begged for death because surely the embrace of that couldn’t be so cruel as this truth which was life.

“I got ya, lad,” Plunger crooned, standing at his full height and finally releasing me from the smothering weight of his body.

“Why?” I gasped while desperately trying to force the hair from my nostril.

“I was protecting you, see?” Plunger said. “This whole place is going up in a flame and a flam with us in the depth of its bowels.

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