Page 33 of Collar Me Crazy
Moira nudged the open page with a fingernail. “Look here. It’s not just the Veil that would fail. The Great Unweaving means all the barriers — human, supernatural, spirit. Everything bleeding into one unstable mess.”
“That lines up with what I’ve been seeing.” Sonya’s voice came out thin. “Not just cracks in our wards. Whole seams between realms pulling apart.”
She glanced at Lucien. He was calm, too calm, the kind of calm that made her think of a predator circling in the dark. “You’ve seen something like this before, haven’t you?”
“Not seen,” he said evenly. “Heard. Old whispers about an emptiness between realms. The Void.”
As if summoned, Moira flipped to another passage. “Here. ‘When the Great Unweaving begins, the space between worlds grows thin, and that which dwells in the emptiness shall wake and hunger. It feeds on chaos, grows with each fallen barrier, until nothing remains.’”
Lucien’s eyes flicked to Sonya. “That sound familiar?”
Sonya shut her book with a thump, unable to stomach the eerie illustrations — gaping mouths, black rivers stretching across parchment. “I can feel it. It’s not just in visions anymore. Every time a ward flickers, it’s closer.”
The three of them sat in uneasy silence. The storm rattled the windows.
Moira was the one to break it. “So. Two problems. Too many mate bonds. And a hungry Void that loves chaos.”
"Three," Sonya corrected grimly. "Because according to everything we've read, the eighth bond is the key to either stopping this or making it infinitely worse. And I have no idea which outcome we're headed for."
Neither Lucien nor Moira rushed to fill the gap. They didn’t need to. The truth sat heavy enough.
Lucien tapped the prophecy again. “It says the eighth bond will either save or ruin. That’s choice, not doom.”
Sonya’s laugh came out brittle. “Choice sounds a lot simpler on paper. Out there it’s—” She cut herself off, picturing Ryker’s hand brushing hers in the snow.
Moira slid a fresh book into her lap. “Then we keep looking until we know what that choice is. Prophecies always leave out the practical bits.”
They bent to their work again, pages turning fast. Candle wax dripped. Sonya skimmed through calculations and glyphs until one passage jumped out. “Here. ‘Seven woven threads will strain the fabric, yet one more will tear it open. Only by binding what is meant to break can the weave be made whole again.’”
Moira leaned over. “Binding what’s meant to break…”
“Sounds like the mate bond itself,” Lucien said.
Sonya shut her eyes, the words pressing into her like a weight. Binding what’s meant to break. Wasn’t that exactly what Ryker had tried to warn her of? He’d spent his whole life running from a prophecy that made him a weapon. And now she might be the one who tipped the scales.
The lights flickered overhead, then died, plunging the store into flickering candlelight. Outside, other failures rippled through town, wards crying out in low moans.
“It’s worsening,” Lucien said quietly.
And before Sonya could stop it, a vision slammed into her.
The square flooded with shadows pouring through jagged tears. The seven couples ringed together, light spilling from their hands, but still barely holding. And she stood at the center, Ryker beside her, the decision hanging in the air.
Her hand snapped against the rug to steady herself. Moira grabbed her shoulder. “Sonya? What did you see?”
“The end,” she whispered. Her throat ached. “It’s coming fast. And when it does, Ryker and I will have to decide if what’s between us saves Hollow Oak… or destroys it.”
20
RYKER
The summons came at dawn, delivered by a sparrow shifter.
Ryker had been awake anyway, pacing his cabin while his wolf prowled restlessly beneath his skin, both of them circling the same thought: Sonya. The way she’d looked at him yesterday in the forest—like he might actually deserve happiness.
“Elder Varric requests your immediate presence in the Council Glade,” the sparrow said, her small voice carrying the weight of official business. “He says it’s time.”
Time for what, she didn’t specify, but the knot in Ryker’s stomach already knew.
