Summon (40 page)

Screaming, Breandan tore at his face.

A mangled clump of dull metal sank into the mud.

Dazed and staggering a circle, Marinette’s hands
failed to cover the fist-sized hole where her heart should beat.

She toppled over and landed face first on the dirty
bank.

The riled shifters pounced on the werewolves and
tore them to pieces.

I ran to Breandan and dropped to my knees.

He stared past me whispering nonsense, broken
apologies to his family, and pleas for forgiveness.

“You reached me when I was lost so deep dreams were
reality.” I cupped his face, and tried to make eye contact. “I did need you to
follow me. I’ll always need you. I left because I wanted to avoid you
suffering. It’s all gone wrong.” He didn’t realise I held him. “We’ve lost
people, but so many have faith. Can’t you feel them?” I tearfully searched his
blank face. My voice broke. “Please look at me.”

Insane laughter echoed through the night.

The winds picked up, and the river surged
violently. Rain pelted. Forked lightning split the sky and stabbed the earth in
jagged spears.

Marinette heaved her torso from the ground. She
balanced on her stomach, legs spread. “I’m patroness of the undead,
you fools
.” Pushing onto her feet, she
remained stooped, and the hole in her chest gaped obscenely. Her tattered dress
flapped against it. “I’ll possess another vessel, younger, with greater beauty.
I’ll use the white witchling.”

Gasping, Ana jerked. Twisting her hands into her
stomach, she backed away, frantic, swinging her head side to side.

Marinette flailed an arm. “Kill all my pets. I’ll resurrect
new zonbi to grovel at whim. I’ll make the bear my plaything.” She smirked.
“I’ll pervert the one you love until he curses your name.”

I kept my concentration on Marinette trying to
sense the depth of her remaining power. Maeve hadn’t sacrificed her life in
vain. I suspected Marinette herself helped craft the amulets.

By design
or accident, Maeve used Vodoun power against its maker.

“Ana has a habit of seeing nasty problems coming. I
have no fear for Baako, he’ll never be yours.” I stood and glared over my
mate’s head. “Breandan is
mine, as I
am his.” Taking a leap of faith, I pressed a kiss to Breandan’s lips, stood,
and faced my enemy. “Our love is something you cannot break.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Breandan

Darkness
is not just the absence of light. It can be pressure. So heavy the lightest
breath weighs the world. Clean darkness. Crisp. It was so unlike the sweltering
heat of light. Blinding light. Painful. I’d always turned from darkness to
embrace the light, ever hopeful, ever ready to be its champion.

And now….

I no longer knew myself. Grief made me a stranger.
I clung to sweet nothings whispered by my heart, and I despised the organ for
it.

Holding
onto love should not be so hard. Why does the promise of a future with her cost
this much?

Love demanded too high a price.

I saw their faces. Maeve and Lochlann,
my kin.
Memories of when we were
children flickered on the veil cast over nightmares I struggled to be free of.

Love was worth fighting for. Yet what happened when
it stopped being enough?
Does everlasting
love outweigh the consequences of all you do in its name?

People I loved suffered and died.

Yet life went on.

Was wonderful.

‘You’ve
found what makes existence beautiful. Stand up, go to her and live life.’

Bleeding for the one truly lost, my heart swelled
upon hearing the voice. “You’re waiting for us?”

‘Yes,
little brother.’

My knee lifted.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Rae

Silently
weighing each other, Marinette and I faced off with grim resolve, gazes locked.

The wind blew my hair around me in a cloud. Tugged
on my tunic and rustled it against my skin.

Colours became vivid, and sound deafened. I
inhaled. Mingled scents brought to mind diverse memories, most were good,
others ghastly. The good
and
bad
warmed me because they made me who I am.
Someone
strong enough to know it’s impossible to defeat Marinette with violence.
Just
as she knew to weaken me meant removing the most powerful motivation I possessed
– Breandan – I knew a physical attack would strengthen her.

Power surged inside me, the brightest of flames
lighting my very soul. Gasping in surprise and pleasure, I laughed, placing a
hand over my heart.

Startled, Marinette took a step back, wary at the
sudden change in my demeanour. Her eyes popped wide. “
NO
.”

Pure and sweet, an aggressive flourish of sapphire
energy rushed towards me. The sparkling power mingled with my own then
exploded, swallowing Marinette whole, restraining her in chains of radiance.

Each kiss, smile, heartbeat and touch Breandan and
I spent loving each other strengthened the strike. Marinette possessed no
defence against the magnitude of our love.

Darkness was nothing against the light.

Breaking eye contact with the thrashing godling, I
turned and lost the ability to breathe.

He was beautiful.

All we’d suffered and the harsh words spoken in
pain and fear meant nothing because we were together.

He defied his brother and defended our bond. He’d
challenged the laws of nature to resurrect me. He’d witnessed his family ripped
apart and his sister taken in the most violent of deaths.

Despite everything, he walked towards me with
singular intensity, knowing it ended, and he smiled.

We’d won.

Shredding into dust, the ground fell away. Suspended
in the vast nothing I felt pure joy. The deafening grinding of earth merged
with the trilling of the circling winds. I scarcely perceived the surrounding
typhoon of power.

There was no hesitation as Breandan gathered me
close. His arm around my back shielded me from harm. His magical essence
enfolded mine as he thumbed my lip. “I yearn for tomorrow.”

Sighing, I curled my fingers at the nape of his
neck. “Why?”

“I yearn for tomorrow because each day the sun sets
I am certain loving you more is impossible. Each dawn I am proven wrong.”
Lowering his head, he closed his eyes not to the blinding light, but in awe of
us. “You belong to me.”

“I know that.”

Breandan cupped my cheek. “They wait for us.”

Blissful, I smiled, tightening my hold as my heart
swelled. “I know that too. I love you.”

Our magics ignited around us in apocalyptic
destruction.

Unable to wiggle free, Marinette’s scream of terror
lingered, a shrill peal that ripped through our plane of existence and beyond.
She exploded into a swarm of black
moths. Their fluttering wings caught fire then disintegrated to whitened-ash.

The world stilled beyond my notice.

There was only him.

He kissed me.

EPILOGUE

Cael

Demons
mourned at the boundaries of the watery crater left in the wake of battle. So
many died. It felt sacred, a place of eerie tranquillity. I stood pensive at
its smouldering edge beside Conall, dealing with a tremendous sense of loss as
he struggled to breathe though his.

Incapable of expressing my feelings, I hesitantly touched
my Elder’s shoulder.

Shuddering at the touch, he fell to his knees and
sobbed.

There is
nothing to say.

I turned on shaky legs and fled, breathing hitched
and blinking fast, hoping against hope the pain tightening my chest would ease
with time.

There was no trace of the Loa, or of the bodies of
Breandan, Rae, Lochlann or Daphne. Already there were whispers that the gods plucked
them from life and set them down in the Otherworld.

Ana was inconsolable, detached.

She’d sighed and shrugged when word of the
grimoire’s disappearance reached her ears. Despite the heartbroken Pride
Alpha’s firm assurances to the contrary, Nimah blamed her for Amelia’s death,
and Ana said nothing to refute it. The Coven Daughters called her Mother and
would do so until she was ready to acknowledge them as her Children.

I longed to hold her and offer comfort, but none of
the words I thought of seemed worth saying. Maybe one day I’d be brave enough
to mend the broken paternal bond.

After journeying back to the fairy Wyld, I couldn’t
say why I felt the need to leave Conall’s dwelling and walk the woods. Perhaps
it was fate. Perhaps her hand guided me even then.

Heavy breathing had me spinning and peering into
the darkness. The werebear appeared to me from the mist. It led me deeper into
the forest then disappeared as if conjured from nothing but my confused
imaginings.

Behind me, someone hummed thoughtfully. “Would you
hate me if I said I’m proud of you?”

My heartbeat thundered at the softly spoken words.

It cannot
be.

I turned.

Slowly.

She stood alone in dappled moonlight.

I have so
much to say.

Night after night I dreamed of facing her again.
Some nights I apologised, others we laughed, and some she held me as she had
before, and cried tears of joy not sorrow.

“Why?” I breathed. “Why me? Conall would give
anything to see you.”

Her nose wrinkled. The saddest smile teased her
lips. “He’d beg me to stay. I wouldn’t be strong enough to tell him no.” She
studied me. “But I knew you’d understand why we can no longer remain so present
in this world.”

“We?”

Breandan appeared at her side. “You think I would
let my heart roam without protection?”

I cannot for the life of me tell how he got there
without me seeing.

He kissed her temple and brushed the hair away from
her neck. Rae leaned into him and stared adoringly.

“She needs constant looking after.” Daphne
sauntered from the shadows and the hairs on the back of my neck lifted.

Rae sniffed.

Breandan chuckled and kissed her pointed ear.

Daphne paused and looked over her shoulder. “See. I
told you. They’re fine without us.” Her black eyes glowed green and blue at the
edges. Her gaze slid to mine curiously. “He’s not a threat anymore.”

I felt a presence at my other side. With a heavy
sense of foreboding, I turned to find a lord who had become a legend to the
fairy Tribe.
The same fairy that run me
through with a sword.
The old wound ached as he glowered at me.

Lochlann stirred.

I flinched, waiting on the hit.

His eyebrow lifted in amusement. His arm harmlessly
crossed my chest so his hand could tenderly cup the vampire’s face. Daphne
leaned into his palm and sighed with contentment.

The moment her attention diverted, Lochlann
narrowed his eyes, viciously baring his sharp fangs.

Opening her eyes to catch him in the act, Daphne
walloped his stomach. “Enough.”

Lochlann’s eyes softened in contrition as he gazed
at her, but they managed to slip me a glare. “I do not trust him.”

“I know, big guy.” Grabbing the waist of his
trousers, Daphne yanked him towards my sister and her life mate. “We’re going
missing for a day or so.” She grinned wickedly. “He needs the occasional
reminder of why listening to me is worth his while.”

Flushing, Lochlann shrugged, and allowed her to
lead him away.

Shaking her head at them, Rae looked at Breandan
beseechingly. Kissing her temple whilst nodding reluctantly, he let her go.

Flinging her arms around my neck, she hugged me.
“You did great, little brother.”

Outlandish as the embrace felt, I stiffly moved my
arms to hug her in return.

Stinging, my eyes slipped closed. Raw emotion
clogged my throat, and overflowed for this female. Believing I was more than
the summation of my past, she’d risked unfathomable pain. “Will I see you
again?”

Letting me go to rock on her heels, Rae grinned and
shrugged. “I don’t think you’ll need me. Nobody does anymore. There’s balance.”

“
I
need
you,” Breandan murmured gathering her into his arms. “All to myself.”

She lowered her lashes, blushing fiercely.

Enchanted, Breandan scooped her into his arms,
turned, and left.

Rae wrapped her arms around his neck and wriggled
her fingers at me as he strode away. Our gazes locked one final time. She
winked then they disappeared.