Page 77 of Wolf of the Storm
The vision is too perfect. Too clean. Too simple. The Fomori feeds on discord. Conflict. Division. A world where it walks free isn't a world of peace—it's a world where chaos rules. Where the strong devour the weak. Where nothing stable can exist because stability is anathema to what this entity is.
The little girl in the vision isn't real. The peaceful coexistence isn't real. The perfect mate bond isn't real.
It's all lies wrapped in my deepest desires.
Then I look at Declan, the real Declan, bleeding and broken at the convergence point, using the last of his life to protect everyone here. I look at Finn, standing dragon-proud between me and chaos despite his wounds. At Grayson, Rafe, and Kian, maintaining their positions even though they know it's probably hopeless.
Real and messy and imperfect, but true.
Through the bond, something changes. Not me pushing toward Declan, but him reaching for me. His consciousness wraps around mine, and suddenly I'm seeing what he sees—the seals, the magic structure, how they're failing.
Finn's grandfather didn't kill his mate.Declan's thought bleeds into mine, certain and clear despite his weakening state.She gave her blood. Freely. The Fomori feeds on discord but it can't process unity. Can't metabolize love. That's how the seals held for so long.
Understanding crashes through me.That's why it's been trying to corrupt our bond.
Exactly. It needs us divided. But if we do the opposite—if we become the bridge instead of letting it use us as one...His consciousness pulses with desperate hope and absolute terror.Eliza, I need you to walk toward it. Become the conduit. Let me reach my power through you. Through us. But you have to trust me. I'll guide the magic. Protect your mind. Keep you whole.
You're asking me to walk into that thing.
I'm asking you to be the bridge while I wield the storm. You be brave enough to stand in chaos. I'll be strong enough to protect you in it and bind that bastard back where it belongs.
The mate bond flares between us—not corrupted, but bright and pure and chosen.
"No," I say aloud, and the illusion shatters.
I'm back in the ritual site. The Fomori's corruption still pulls at me, but I'm anchored now. Certain.
"No," I say again, louder. "You can't have us. You can't have this world. And you sure as hell can't have my mate."
I start walking toward the tear in reality. Toward the Fomori.
The first step is easy. My legs are steady, my wolf lending me strength.
The second step—harder. The air thickens around me, becomes viscous like walking through water. Or blood. The corruption radiating from the entity intensifies, and my vision starts to blur at the edges.
By the third step, my nose is bleeding again, fresh blood mixing with what's already dried on my face. The ringing in my ears intensifies to a shriek. Reality bends around me, and for amoment I see double—the ritual site overlaid with somewhere else, somewhere dark and wrong and full of things that should never exist.
The Fomori strikes at my mind. Not physically—psychically. Trying to shatter my sanity, to break me before I can reach it.
Declan's presence slams into place around my consciousness like a shield.I've got you. Keep walking. I won't let it touch your mind.
Through the bond, I feel what it costs him. He's already dying, already bleeding out his life force to hold the failing seal, and now he's fighting a psychic battle on top of it. Protecting me while simultaneously trying not to collapse.
Declan—
Keep. Walking.His mental voice is iron wrapped in love.
The fourth, fifth, sixth steps blur together. Each one harder than the last, my body shutting down incrementally. The ground feels wrong beneath my feet, like it might give way any second and drop me into whatever void the Fomori came from. My wolf whimpers but doesn't retreat. She's with me.
I can feel Declan reaching for me physically now, sense him attempting to stand, to run to me. But he can't. He's keeping the seals together with everything he has left, and if he lets go now, the Fomori will break through completely.
He's holding the line. Making my walk possible.
Seventh step. Eighth. I lose count. All I know is forward. My skin starts to burn—not from heat, from wrongness. Like my body is rejecting reality itself. Blood vessels burst in my eyes, and suddenly I'm seeing everything through a red haze.
I hear voices behind me. Shifters calling my name. Jax's voice cuts through the chaos: "Someone stop her!" But nobody moves. They can't. The Fomori's presence has them all paralyzed with a primal force they can't deny.
My bones ache. My joints feel like they're being pulled apart. The entity is close now, and its corruption is overwhelming. I can see the wrongness of it clearly—limbs that phase in and out of existence, eyes that look into dimensions I can't perceive, a form that refuses to be bound by three-dimensional space.
