Page 28 of Veiled Fate
Run.
I reached out for my wolf in a panic, calling to her, needing her. We had to get out of there. Away from it, from whatever was going on. Right now.
The she-wolf came barreling out of my mind at high alert as we dropped to all fours, clothing falling from me in tatters. The ultra-sharpness of her vision turned everything a million shades of green.
Go.
“Jada?”
I whirled as Kiel emerged from the bar, his eyes wide, sweeping the area for any signs of danger. But there was only me. I was the danger. Nervously, I backed away from him.
The ghostly image reappeared to my right.
I SEE YOU!
The voice howled at me in time with the wind. Gusts of air bowed the trees and swirled loose debris in mini cyclones across the trail.
“Jada,” Kiel said.
He took a step toward me.
In the distance, thundercracked.
Like a terrified rabbit, I bolted.
Chapter Fourteen
Branches tore at my fur as I barreled through the wilderness, snapping their ends off. Fresh rain hammered at the treetops, swiftly penetrating the canopy to drench me as the storm arrived and unleashed its fury.
Its jade fury.
The drops of water burned with emerald energy, each threatening to burn me when it fell. But they never did. The roar of the rain combined with the shriek of the wind to assault my ears, driving them flat to my skull as I ran panicked through the forest.
I SEE YOU!
The voice hammered at my skull once more unexpectedly, driving my head lower as if to escape it somehow. I missed an upthrust root of a tree and caught my front leg on it. In a flash, I was down, tumbling over the forest floor, down a small incline, and into a clearing.
There I lay for several seconds, unable—or perhaps unwilling—to get to my feet. I was covered in leaves and twigs and other forest detritus, not to mention the mud-soaked ground. I could see nothing but green-tinged everything.
Leave me alone.I can’t help you, I’m sorry.
Nothing happened.
Angrily, I closed my eyes and lay still. Why wouldn’t she just listen to me? I hadn’t asked for that. It wasn’t like I was trying to hurt Fate. I just wanted her free.
A small part of my brain reminded me that, without her interference, Kiel and I would have been trapped by the soldiers in the inn. It was only thanks to her strange powers that I was able to free us.
My wolf howled as something in my mind closed her in a cage. Pulling her away from me. Against my will, I shifted back into my human form.
Where I could see normally again.
“What the absolute fuck?” I moaned, lying flat on my back as the rain continued to pelt me and turned the ground into mud around me. “What was the point in all that?”
The roaring in my ears had faded at some point, leaving nothing but the patter of rain and the slowly increasing rumble of thunder as the center of the storm drew closer.
In moments, it was as if nothing had ever happened. I felt no different. Well, that wasn’tquitetrue, I decided, running a finger over my freshly healed lips.
Was that how it worked? When I was hurt, Fate took over to some degree? A death would send me to her realm, but simple injury gave me wild powers? I dreaded considering what would happen if I broke a limb or got stabbed through the arm again.
