Page 54 of Sinful Shifters

In the middle of a clearing, surrounded by circles of werewolves in their human forms, Klaus stands in front of an elderly woman with a stone basin in her hands.

I don't recognize the woman, but I know instantly what she's holding.

The wellspring.

Chapter42

Rina

I've never seen a wellspring like this one. It's a small basin made of stone, rounded like a bowl. Four carvings are equally spaced around the rim, though I'm too far away to see what they are.

What Icansee frightens me. Rows of werewolves ten deep surround Klaus and the woman with the wellspring in her hands, watching raptly. Behind Klaus, Eli stands submissively at Teller's side.

As we race into the clearing, prepared for battle, Teller looks over at me and meets my eyes.

And I feel a shock of vertigo as his mind invades mine again.

Suddenly I'm standing in my human form in an alternate reality, my wolf form flickering at my feet, straddling two worlds.

The real world, and the world Teller has concocted so that he can speak to me.

He freezes the scene around me, telling me, "I understand why you might object to this, but it has to be done. It could be different though, if you join me."

"What are you talking about?"

"Easier to show you, rather than tell you. Here—the future as of two minutes from now."

He twists his fingers in the air, and the scene we're standing in flickers and changes in an instant.

Dead bodies litter the ground around Klaus, who holds the wellspring in his hand. Thick, ropey magic stretches between him and Teller, who channels more ancient magic than should even be possible.

He's using it to slaughter the entire Fury Park.

I gasp and stumble pack in horror, my stomach roiling.

"Their sacrifice," he tells me, "makes it possible for me to join myself to the wellspring. It's the only way I can save it from dying the way the land around us is dying from blood rot."

I can only shake my head in mute horror. "You would kill them all."

"Really, this pack did it to themselves," he says, motioning around him to the bodies slumping to the ground. "It had to be done. They killed their alpha, and now they'll have to pay the ultimate price."

"You're a psychopath," I tell him, shuddering as time ticks forward a second in the real world, feeling us get closer to this possible reality. "No one made you kill these people. You don't have to do it. Youchooseto."

"I do," he admits. "But there's another way, a way I'd prefer more than this one."

"What way?" I snap at him. "You lay down and die, along with your fucking lackeys?"

"You join me." He says it so simply, like he hasn't turned me over to my would-be rapist without a care in the world. "If you mate with Klaus and become his omega, you can subdue all the werewolves in this pack without a fight. Their magic will be mine to channel where I wish to—without any kind of human sacrifice."

"I don't want to be mated to Klaus, so you can just forget that."

"Oh, I know that," Teller says, strolling towards me, looking me up and down. "Klaus is just a tool I'm using because he's stronger and more pliable than his brother—believe it or not, he doesn't resist my influence the way Eli did. At least, before I neutered him. But I don't intend for you to be mated to Klaus forever."

"How benevolent of you," I spit out. "What's the plan, are you going to throw me into the wellspring?"

"Of course not—that would be a waste of precious resources." He reaches out to stroke my cheek, and I shudder, unable to move in this frozen place he's created. "I would mate with you, and we'd reign over the remaining packs together.

"With your abilities, my intelligence, and all the ancient magic of North America at our fingertips, there'd be no more war. No more treaties or vampire covens or... any of it. Just peace, finally. That's all I've ever wanted—peace. I even mutilated my own body to make it possible."

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