Page 93 of Hybrid Moon Rising

Six days.She’d been lying there, cradled in fur, for six days, and Draven was going out of his damn mind.

He had nothing to go on, no manual to tell him how long it would take for her to turn. Joseph was a fledgling in two days. Two. Flora had been unconscious for nearly triple that.

It was a miracle he still had hair for how much he’d run his hand through it, tugging the roots in frustration. Not that it stopped him from doing it. The pain reminded him he was still alive, still breathing for the both of them.

The silence in the cabin was unnerving, but not as much so as the lack of movement in his chest. His wolf refused to budge. He wouldn’t shift, wouldn’t hunt, wouldn’t so much as growl as long as his mate remained unchanged. They were stuck in limbo, the two of them. Flora fighting for her life, and his wolf waiting for the moment his mate returned to him or he lost her forever.

Draven couldn’t consider the latter. It wasn’t even something he’d allow himself to entertain. She had to come back. He couldn’t live in a world she didn’t.

He sipped the stale water he’d gathered from the barrel one of the cabin’s previous occupants had created. Flora would know which.

Fuck.

Every thought brought him back to her.

“She’ll survive. Now stop gripping that cup so hard or you’ll shatter the clay.”

Draven whipped around to where Rieka stood beside Flora, his fangs lengthened by the time he locked eyes with her.

Every bit of anger he’d been tamping down for the sake of Flora and his wolf rose to the surface, only lifting his head enough to growl at the Goddess. Draven slammed the cup down on the table, not giving a shit if he broke the clay. He stood, throwing the wooden chair out behind him and crossed the short distance to Rieka.

“You dare show your face here after you ended her life? After you forced her to become something that should have been her choice alone?”

“She wanted to become this.” Rieka spoke slowly, but there was a quiver in her voice that gave away her true feelings.

“She didn’t know what she wanted, Rieka,” Draven bellowed, losing the last bit of control he had on his anger. “Flora was the last pure human the supernatural world had or at the very least my world had. She didn’t need to become one of us to do great things. She didn’t need the darkness that comes with the bloodlust or the self-righteousness that makes us wolves. You took away the last bit of light we had.”

Draven’s shoulders hunched, and he choked back a sob, allowing himself one moment of visible emotion. Not that Rieka deserved any of it. Which is why when she took a comforting step toward him, Draven stilled and reined it in. After one long inhale, he stood back to his full height and hardened his gaze.

“What are you doing here?” he growled.

Rieka looked down at Flora, and a hint of a smile tugged at her lips. “I came to reassure you she would survive, but also to let you know that when she does, you need to reunite the stone and get back to your realm. There is no more time to waste.”

“Why what’s happened?” He didn’t think his nerves could take any more without fraying. It was amazing how before entering the realm he was determined to take everything on alone, but now that he’d had a taste of what it was like to have her, to lose her, the very thought of facing the world without her threatened to break him.

“The fates are taking control. War is imminent between the factions, and you must join your brother as soon as you’ve righted things in Moon Ridge.”

“What does Callum have to do with this?”

“Nothing, and everything.”

“Do you always have to be such a cryptic bitch?”

A knowing smile painted Rieka’s lips, and Draven could only imagine what was running through her mind. “You are going to make a fine leader of my packs, Draven.”

Draven mulled her words over as she sauntered toward the door. She opened it, and his mouth fell open when he didn’t see the clearing filled with purple trees on the other side. Daylight shone through, a stark contrast to the forever night he’d been trapped in.

His eyes moved over to the window and widened, confirming the clearing in the moon realm still sat outside the cabin. Which meant wherever Rieka was going, it wasn’t where they were.

Rieka looked over her shoulder and pinned her gaze on him. “She’ll wake soon. Don’t forget what I said.”

Draven nodded, left with more questions than answers. Par for the course with the Goddess of the Moon. He righted the chair he’d thrown and knelt down beside his mate, taking her pale hand in his.

In his chest, his wolf let out a low and mournful howl.

“Please come back to me, Bubbles,” he whispered. “This world needs us right now. I need you.”

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