Page 12 of Hunted on Halloween

“Tell me, Tia,” Tieran’s father said. “You have mated with my son. Will you stand with him through thick and thin? That’s a lot to ask for, in a relationship that is less than twelve hours old,” he said. Tia stopped swaying to look at the male because he was right.

Her relationship with Tieran was less than twelve hours old. Would she stick with him? All her past relationships made cameo appearances. She had known then, and she knew now, that they weren’t the ones.

The thought of losing Tieran, the thought of walking away from him, made her sick. She knew she would follow him, even if following him meant following him into death if that was the only way for the two of them to be together.

“Yes, I’ve never heard of mates, and I don’t understand the concept. This is what I do know. I am tied to him in such a way that I will never be free.”

“Witchling, you are an intelligent female, and I appreciate your answer. Because you have answered my question, we will answer yours,” he said.

“The veil between the worlds is disintegrating faster than anyone knows,” Mael said. “But what the humans don’t understand and neither do the monsters understand that if their world is destroyed, if the world Tieran and his people are living in is destroyed, then their original world will cease to exist because they are tied to the Earth.” Mael stopped to stare at Tia, hoping she understood.

“Without them, there is no Earth. So, if Tieran and his people die, everybody dies.” Tia couldn’t conceive of the planet she was living on just going boom.

“How much longer?” How long did she have to fix this problem? They could get everyone involved.

“This is the last All Hallows',” Tieran’s dad told her.

“What do we do to stop this?”

“Not we, you,” Mael said.

“Me?” Tia shouted. “I’m human. What can I do?”

“Do you doubt that you were born for such a time as this?” Mael asked.

“Um, yeah, I doubt that very much.”

The music increased in volume, and Tia found herself swaying once again to the beat. It seemed to reach out and touch her, stroking the anger and the disbelief that she was feeling until calmness touched her soul.

“Come here, daughter.” Tiernan’s dad called her.

She drifted towards him until she was standing at the foot of the throne.

“Approach,” he said. Tia climbed the steps until she was standing on the platform right in front of him.

“It is up to you and Tieran to form a brand-new world, but before you can form it, I need to give you something that he can’t.”

“Say what? That doesn’t sound shady at all.” He started laughing.

“You will be an entertaining daughter-in-law. Tieran’s mother, my queen, was destroyed when all of this happened. Before she passed from this world to the next, she granted me a boon to one day pass on to her daughter-in-law. I would tell you to close your eyes, but you’re a little stubborn for that.”

Tieran’s father touched his chest with his hand and when he brought it back, hand flat palm up in the air on it sat living fire. Tia could see the flames and feel the heat from where she was standing.”

“From one queen to another.” He blew on the fire, and it consumed her.

Chapter Six

Tia woke up screaming.The memory of being surrounded by fire was so prevalent that she could feel the flames licking at her flesh. When her eyes opened and she looked down at her body, fire still surrounded her, but it wasn’t burning her.

It didn’t matter; she kept screaming. Tieran pulled her into his powerful arms, hugging her tightly as she pressed herself against him. She could feel his heartbeat against her chest and his warm breath against her forehead as her head lay on his shoulder, resting against his neck.

“My mother, the fire queen,” he whispered. “She’s been gone for so long; I miss her.” Tia couldn’t imagine what she would do when her mother was no longer here.

It was a given. Humans died one day. God, just the thought broke her heart.

“Your mother,” she said softly, unable to deal with the pain that she could feel swamping his body.

“My mother was called the fire queen, and what is surrounding you right now is her fire. It is slowly dissolving in you and soon you will become the next fire queen.”

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