Page 89 of Emerald Flame
She swept a hand through the air dragging the bizarre mist with it.Because I’m connected to the afterlife, of course. I’ve seen the future. Warren dies in a terrible altercation with Glissane but only if you stay with him. If you leave, he will survive. Search your heart, Kiara, you’ll know I’m speaking the truth.
From the beginning, Kiara had believed her time with Warren had an expiration date. She wasn’t a wolf and at the very least, with everything Warren had endured, the man deserved a wolf to serve as his alpha female.
She was a witch, someone he could never fully trust. A witch had scarred him on his first week of arrival in Five Bridges. She knew on a deep level, Warren undoubtedly carried a level of distrust toward her.
I know you’re right.
The mist formed another smile. But at almost the same moment, Tonya’s ghostly form began to writhe as though fighting a battle. She watched Tonya’s neck jerk back and as had happened before, her mouth opened wide and black smoke poured out.
The ghost-form vanished in a sudden swirl of mist, then nothing.
Kiara, now fully awake, eased down on her side then rolled onto her back. There was a faint odor in the air as well, something like the pungent scent of tomato leaves.
She folded her hands across her chest. Her heart had begun to ache. She’d called her time with Warren a stolen season. But in this moment, the reality of her situation hit her full-force.
She loved Warren, body and soul, dreams and desires, from one end of heaven to the other. He was her man, the one she would choose if she had the ability or right to choose.
But she didn’t.
This was Five Bridges and so little was fair in their shared five territories, including the differences in theiralterspecies.
How she’d fallen in love with a wolf, she would never fully understand. Yet it wasn’t ‘the wolf’ she loved. It was Warren himself, the fine, sacrificial man she’d come to know, always doing what was best for his pack and for Savage.
He’d stood by his wife, tending to her once-a-week for eight long, difficult years. He’d watched her waste away to nothing, with never a hope she’d recover and become the woman he’d once loved and who he needed by his side.
He didn’t even recognize her as the woman he’d fallen in love with and married, a surfer-girl with strength andjoie de vivreuntil analterserum had stolen her human life. Her transformation had rendered her a helpless, demented patient in a Revel Territory asylum.
Though Kiara’s heart broke, the time had come and there was only one decision to make. She would have to leave Warren for good.
~ ~ ~
That night, Warren sat on the heavy wood bench at the foot of his bed, hands clasped between his knees, eyes glued proverbially to the floor. He focused on taking air into his lungs because he swore he’d forgotten how to breathe.
One long, deep breath in.
Release.
Take in more air.
That’s it.
He began to shift, just the initial part during which his ears elongated, and fur prickled at their tips. With his wolf-hearing at the fore, he detected a thousand different sounds coming from all parts of the compound. He began separating them out, picking up a sound, casting it aside until he registered Kiara’s footsteps on the stone of his long foyer.
When her footsteps ceased, he knew she’d levitated. He mentally followed her up into the air as she flew east. Her refuge wasn’t far away, less than a mile. She would go there, but only to pack up then she would leave Savage. She would turn the management of her refuge over to another witch capable of managing her complex security spell.
She’d said these things as though reciting a page out of an encyclopedia. She’d said his wife had come to her during their day’s sleep.
He had no reason to doubt anything she’d told him. He was certain his wife had appeared and prophesied his doom.
The black smoke, however, disturbed him, though he wasn’t certain why. His first assessment had been simple. The demented state had created an anomaly in the visitation. After all, she shouldn’t have been in a ghostly state in the first place. She was still alive.
He rubbed his forehead. A pain had formed between his eyes and was now sending lightning strikes into his brain.
He retracted his intense wolf hearing until it returned to a human version of normal.
But Kiara was gone.
Gone.
