Page 29 of The Witch's Fate
I pause at the foot of Idalis’s bed and look down at her.
She’s curled on her side, her head on the pillow, her breathing slow and steady. Gorgeous and peaceful.
My mate. My mate. My mate.
I thought the curse could never be countered. I thought there were no loopholes. No wolf would ever be paired with me, so I would never have a mate. It seemed so simple that it could not possibly be wrong.
And yet the cursewaswrong. Or it was only right in terms of one aspect of my life, not all the others.
Idalis is my mate.
Chills run down my arms. My dream was the first to try to tell me. My wolf was the second. Now it is my own mind screaming the truth.
Andthistruth cannot be wrong. The way everything shifts inside of me as I lay eyes on her. The way my body begs me to love her. The need I feel to tell her. To nip at her neck and make love to her under the full moon.
I should think this through.
But I cannot tear myself away. I cannot make myself stop staring. I cannot shake off the shock. I do not know when it will ever fade.
I have a fated mate. And she’s a witch.Idalis is my mate.
IDALIS
It’s been a long time since I slept like this. The last time I can recall sleeping so easily, and so soundly, was when my coven was still alive. When I wasn't alone. When there was love in this home.
It was impossible for me to find peace after they died, and it took months for me to sleep more than a few hours at a time at all, and then it was never as restful as it used to be. I wasn’t used to being alone, and then, when I became accustomed to it, I grieved that, too. And then even that grief faded into acceptance.
What else could I do? I couldn’t bring them back. I couldn’t trust a stranger to watch over me. The only safety was in solitude, no matter how much I craved the company of people like my coven.
Eventually, I managed to convince myself that my sleep each night was deep and restful.
Now, as I fall into a vivid dream, I know that it was not. With him here, I am protected. I know this to be true.
I am deeply certain of it, down to my bones. This is adream, thick as honey in my tea.
In my dream, I’m walking in the fields I have called my home for years. I know each dip in the earth and each tree on thehorizon. I’m at peace with my fingertips grazing the tall grass and the warmth of the sun soaking into my skin.
I move a few more paces across the lush grass and realize in a blink that these arenotthe same fields that surround my cottage. I know every inch of those fields like the back of my own hand, and this place is different.
Although my heart skips a beat, I do not fear it. I am at home here. Comfortable. It is my waking mind that feels the difference so sharply. The dream-version of me feels nothing out of the ordinary.
I stroll through the fields, in no hurry to get anywhere, pausing often to fill my basket with flowers whose names I do not know. I bend to pick another, then another, and they blow in the breeze, their stems curving gently as the wind moves over them. They seem happy to see me, somehow—they reach their petals toward my fingers and come easily from the earth, content to be gathered. Everything I touch is warmed by the sun.
I straighten from plucking a violet flower and shade my eyes with my hands. Everything about this land—the hills, the wind, the trees in the distance—whisperswelcome home.
The skyline is not the same. There are unfamiliar mountain peaks and patterns in the trees that do not belong to my forest. The scent I inhale is one I know intimately, yet I have never smelled it before this moment. Before this dream. It is not the scent of my valley in any of the seasons. It is totally new to me, but in this dream I know it so well and find it comforting.
I’m meant to be here. It’s missed me so. I was always supposed to be here.
A white cloud moves across the sun, hardly dimming its light.
I become aware of a person next to me. He’s nearby in my waking life. In my cottage. And he is at my side in the dream, though I do not turn my head to see his face.
Out of the corner of my vision, his form shifts, becoming larger and more muscled, on four legs, and then he is a man again. He is a wolf shifter, and his scent is on the wind. I know that scent as well as I know the scent of the earth under my feet.
Ryker. My love.
Then this must be Ryker’s home. This must be where he traveled from, or where he intends to go one day when he is no longer a soldier.
