Shadow Of A Mate (15 page)

To his surprise it was Rogo that came between them. It was an even bigger shock to see that the black lion shifter wasn’t facing him. He’d forgotten the other shifter since he’d been so quiet and very careful not to get involved in the disputes between him and Merrick.

Yet now, Rogo was actually stopping Merrick from going anywhere in Katrianna’s direction.

“Go, alpha. Kill the witch.” Having said his piece, Rogo shifted into his lion form again and planted himself firmly in Merrick’s path. The lynx was strong, but Rogo’s lion would still be amped up from the crystal healing. It should be enough to make them evenly matched at least for a moment or two.

Weirdly he trusted the lion to keep Merrick at bay. Kyle didn’t even look back. He shifted into his jaguar, picked up his trousers in his mouth and ran, knowing his betas would follow.

The jungle around them didn’t have time to try to close them in because as cats they were just too fast. They leaped over and ducked under outstretched branches and roots and crashed through and around the trees as fast as they could.

It was only a little further. He could feel it. Katrianna’s dark, evil spells called on the air and sent unpleasant shivers down his spine that felt like skeletal fingers stroking him.

Yowls from his friends told him he wasn’t the only one it was happening to.

He pressed onward, his muscles burning as he ran.

A figure came into view beyond the trees. Katrianna.

He roared a battle cry and charged ahead. His pulse pounded in his ears faster and his paws thundered on the dirt.

This was it.

Mack echoed his roar, as did Tryst.

A female voice on the air hissed in his ears and his whiskers twitched. He realised what it meant and skidded to a stop. Mack and Tryst stopped as soon as he did, but he’d figured out the warning too late and all three of them slammed into an invisible barrier. Their clothes scattered in the crash.

Their feline instincts had saved them from a dangerous and possible fatal collision with a sheet of magic erupting from the ground and into the sky. He couldn’t see it, but his whiskers could sense it and vibrated intensely through the follicles, making him want to put his paws over them to stop it.

When he could grit his teeth and think past the disorientating pulsations, he hauled himself to his feet and butted Tryst’s side to push him to his feet as well before moving to do the same with Mack. From the screwed up expression on their leopard faces, he guessed he wasn’t the only one having trouble.

Pawing at his nose, Mack meowed and shook his head. He sympathised.

The sensation was like a mad dentist had run riot in his mouth. However, even though his face ached, he gingerly stepped closer to the barrier until his nose touched it and he sniffed.

Sourness seared his nostrils until he sneezed and had to move away.

Damn it. The barrier was pure magic. Old magic.

Staring through it, a growl escaped from deep in his chest when she twisted to face them, smiled then turned away again, dismissing them.

Kyle slammed his shoulder into the invisible wall like a battering ram, but it didn’t falter. Tryst and Mack tried scratching and climbing it, but nothing happened. The witch had prepared for if they made it past all her obstacles and enchantments. Evil bitch.

Every time one of them hit the wall there was a slight ripple in the air as if the energy and pressure reverberated.

Pawing the ground, he flicked up a pawful of dirt into the air and it flew straight through the barrier as if there was nothing there, but a second later when Tryst leaped at the wall he met the solid barricade with a painful thud and mewl.

Tryst stumbled to his feet and shook his head, tilting his golden head down and grumbling. Mack tried to scale it like he would a normal wall, but ended up the same as Tryst, crashing and sliding to the ground. They weren’t going to get through this way.

He could smell blood. Blood. The word rolled around his mind in an endless echo.

Blood.

Could blood crystals be how she was keeping them out?

Snuffling the floor, he dragged his claws through the earth and followed the scent. He chuffed to get the betas attention then continued searching. They joined in and soon after Mack growled and nosed something out of the ground. Kyle went to get a closer look and saw it was a fabric bag, but the stench coming off it was similar to the blood crystals Merrick had found earlier.

Seconds later Tryst found one, too, then another.

Three bags of blood crystals. Fuck.

He couldn’t disperse the energy in them. As far as he knew the only person that could was Merrick. Double fuck.

Initiating his shift, Kyle picked up the bags and moved them in his hands. There were a lot of rocks inside. That meant Katrianna must have killed dozens of witches for the power she had now.

“Take these to Merrick. He’ll know what to do with them.” Kyle had expected the twin roars of outrage and protest. “We don’t have time. Take them to Merrick and he might be able to take some power from her. Go,” he ordered in his alpha voice.

Both betas hesitated, but ultimately the undeniable authority in his tone won out and they had to leave him, taking the bags in their mouths.

The moment the yellow and black tail tips disappeared back into the blackness of the forest, Kyle returned to staring at Katrianna’s back. He hoped like hell Merrick could break those crystals because without them, there was no way to get to the devious witch.

Remembering the phone his father had given him in his trouser pocket he bent down and thumbed the outline of the device through the fabric and thought about the contacts he’d given him as a last resort. Rain. He looked back to where the witch stood, the weight of indecision lying heavy on his shoulders.

Clearly mocking him, she glanced over her shoulder and grinned a sinisterly Machiavellian smile and raised her voice so that he could hear. Hear and do nothing.

Keep smiling. I’m coming for you, bitch.

“Circle I cast.” Katrianna’s arms spread wide and sluggish green smoke formed a circle around her.

The bowls of fire, earth, water and the empty one rose into the air and began to spin along the outline of the circle, getting higher and higher until Katrianna’s smoke stopped moving and the circle solidified and transformed into a ring of emerald fire, burning the earth beneath and within it. The bowls lowered to the ground and Katrianna kept her arms raised, speaking to the sky.

“Goddess Cerridwen, dark face of the goddess and keeper of the Amen Cauldron of Divine Knowledge and Wisdom. Goddess of mother and crone, I seek you. I seek you and demand your power for my own for I am to be sovereign of all. My token is the great river, I drained it as an offering to you. I am worthy to carry your essence.”

First nothing happened, then just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, the wind began to pick up and howl through the trees. The earth beneath his feet trembled and the bowls of elemental offerings exploded into flames.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

Katrianna’s circle glowed with power, but somehow he knew it wasn’t her doing this. A deafening crack of thunder came from overhead and lightning struck the ground at the centre of the circle. The shockwave from the impact raced across the ground, breaking rocks asunder and knocking down trees. In fact, the wave tore through the barrier as if it was made of paper.

A figure composed entirely of light appeared where the lightning had struck and it was so bright it burned his eyes. Even from this distance Kyle had to look away.

“Goddess, I greet you,” Katrianna cried out in glee.

“Greet me? Do you not mean demand from me?” Whatever was speaking definitely wasn’t human, the words sounded as if they were created by thousands of birds and almost danced in his ear.

Katrianna clearly didn’t hear the edge of danger in that musical voice because she eagerly stepped forward. “Yes. I demand your power, give it to me.”

Edging his paw out, Kyle tested where the barrier had been before the surge ripped through it when the Goddess appeared. When nothing stopped his paw passing over the line, Kyle tried his luck and hopped over it. He’d braced for impact, but...nothing. He landed smoothly on the other side of the divide.

Tryst, Mack, Logan and the others must have just felt the wave as well because mournful howls and roars echoed through the forest. They must think Kyle had taken on Katrianna already.

Fuck. They probably thought he was dead.

“You think me a genie to grant wishes? You are unworthy. You would befoul the light and dark and seek to control that which is not yours to do so. The token offering was not yours to give. The river had stood for an age and you disgraced it.” The figure glowed even brighter and Kyle felt the heat of it upon his skin as he crept closer. “I strip you of the power stolen through life and blood and leave you mortal with only the power granted you by birth,” the light thundered, crackling with energy.

“How dare you!” Katrianna screamed at the light, shooting spells and curses at the Goddess, but nothing landed. Every vile incantation Katrianna threw fizzled out like a dead firework before it got within three feet of the Goddess.

When he reached the circle’s rim, he paused and poked it with his foot. He’d heard stories about people being incinerated when crossing a witch’s circle. Again nothing happened and he sent a silent thank you to whoever might be listening.

The light hovered around to face him and he froze.

Ingrained etiquette took over and he bowed deep from the waist. “Goddess, I greet you well.” He stayed bowed and waited, praying that he had remembered the protocol correctly his mother taught him when he was younger.

“Well met, alpha born. You may rise,” the light said with a melodic lilt to her voice.

Frustrated with the ineffectual revenge, Katrianna turned to him and he could see death in her eyes. Her hand shot out and black lightning flew forth.

Nothing he did would be quick enough to duck this spell. He tried anyway. Kyle lunged to the side, but the spell curved and followed him. He tensed to jump again when unexpectedly a body ran into his path and jumped up. The spell hit whoever it was and struck them down with a heavy thud.

“No!”

Scrambling up, Kyle spun around to see Logan in his wolf skin on his side, unmoving. He stared, watching his friend’s chest rise and fall slower and slower until it stopped completely.

Logan wasn’t supposed to die.

“Stupid mutt. I should have drowned you at birth,” Katrianna spat with contempt. The spell must have wiped her out because she stumbled and made no move to come at them again.

That spell had been meant for him. Kyle would have gladly given his life to stop Katrianna and save his mate. That had been his price to pay. “I’m so sorry, Logan. This was my fate, not yours,” he whispered softly, smoothing Logan’s muzzle and placing a kiss on Logan’s head.

“Do you truly mean that, alpha born?”

He should probably be more freaked out that a Goddess was speaking to him, but right now he was deathly calm and numb. Nevertheless he chose his words carefully. Making deals with Gods was a tricky affair. “Yes, I would have paid that price to kill the witch.”

“I can save your wolf, but he will no longer be yours. He would belong to me. I have need of a guide in this new world.” The Goddess’s light gentled and Kyle was able to make out a beautiful female face in the glow.

“Yes.” Anything to save Logan. He deserved better than this, certainly better than Katrianna. “Except...”

“Say what it is you think,” advised the Goddess.

“Logan prefers the male form,” Kyle hedged. He didn’t think the Goddess would force herself on Logan, but belonging to someone had a lot of different meanings. His instincts said that this was important for Logan that he specify this now.

“I see.” If possible, the face of the divine light smiled. She knelt at Logan’s body and breathed a kiss onto his muzzle. Immediately Logan’s chest rose as he started breathing again. “I will return for him, alpha born.”

“No! Give your power to me. I summoned you, give it to
me!
” Katrianna’s desperate screeching was almost enough to make his ears bleed.

“You want power? Then take this!” Kyle yanked off the psychic plaster Merrick had placed over his power and let it fill him and grow with his fury. When it built to its peak and his skin began to split in order to contain it, he shoved everything he had at Katrianna, forcing it into her.

She screamed in pain and Kyle felt his body crack and split apart in the intense inferno of power. He showed her no mercy. He kept cramming power into her, into her mouth, her skin, her heart until there was nowhere for the power to go.

Katrianna’s voice cut off abruptly then there was a deafening explosion like a sonic boom or a balloon that had expanded past its limit and popped. On a much bigger scale.

Roaring in agony, he collapsed, utterly spent and empty.

The only regret he had was that he wished he could have seen and held Jay one last time. But it was not to be. He opened the bond and pushed the very last of the energy through to his mate in the hopes that Jay was okay and would be able to stop whatever Katrianna had done to his home.

The last thing he saw was a white light and he smiled as a warm glow touched his cheek and he let himself believe it was Jay.

Jay

Surrounded by the blank whiteness of this in-between place he was trapped in, Jay once more used the conjuring window to see his home in Pack Valley.

It was almost too tempting to watch Kyle, but he couldn’t see him now. The last time he’d somehow sent his lynx to Kyle and kicked some no good little shit’s ass who thought he could take Kyle from him. It had fried his side of the bond and Kyle wasn’t letting him in anymore. The damn alpha probably thought it was protecting him instead of driving him insane.

The picture in the window stabilised and Jay looked down on himself in the bed. He watched people from the pack come and go as if they were attending some funeral procession and he wanted to scream at them that he wasn’t dead. He was right here.