My stomach drops. “How did you know he’s my mate?”
“He’s all over you,” she says cryptically, eyes sweeping over me.
I force my shoulders to relax, though my pulse hammers in my throat. “So, that’s what this is? Astral projection?”
Deidre’s lips curl into a half-smile. “In a way.” Her deep burgundy dress spills over her curves like fine wine. She’s elegant and beautiful in a way that feels cold. Like a sculpture. Or a Victorian doll. Unnatural.
“What do you want?”
“To talk. It’s been a long time coming, don’t you think?”
“I have only one thing to say to you.Stop. Just stop what you’re doing. Those wolves—”
Deidre flicks her fingers through the air, and suddenly my voice vanishes mid-sentence. My mouth keeps moving, but thesound dies, like she’s tied my larynx shut. I claw at my neck as the fear mounts in my chest.
“Fascinating.” She tilts her head, lips curving up. “It’s much easier to spell you in the astral realm.” A sigh escapes her lips. “Those deltas barely put up a fight, but the alphas are a real pain in the ass. I’ve lost three witches to their violence. I wonder if you’ll be that easy to spell once I have my hands on you.” Her eyes narrow, studying me.
My throat works uselessly while she waits, as if expecting a reply. Her tone is too conversational, too easygoing. “You were quite the puzzle. Your abilities... they’re unlike anything I’ve encountered.Someonekept sneaking into my silo, disrupting the energy, riling up my wolves, giving them hope of a rescue. Didn’t take long to work out who.”
She flicks her wrist, and my throat opens again. I gasp a breath and rub at my throat, the words spilling out of me, frantic and raw. “Please. Please, whatever your plan is, whatever you’re doing—”
She cuts me off. “I’ve come to make a deal.”
I can’t have heard her right. We have nothing to offer her. She has all the power here, and she knows it.
She continues, “I only ever wanted your blood, Mona.” She reaches out and touches my wrist. Her fingers pass through my skin, leaving a shimmering cold in their wake. I shudder and snatch my arm back, cradling it against me. She can’t touch me here, at least.
“You have it already. You used blood magic on me,” I remind her.
“It’s almost gone. I used it to accelerate the delta transitions. It was potent. Old, but still the most powerful blood I ever worked with. Their transitions are nearly complete. Omegas, every one of them. Still waiting on their pregnancies, though…”
I point to the sleeping alphas in my bed. “Well, I can’t get pregnant unless it’s with them. And they’d die before helping you—as would I.” I don’t admit that they can’t get me pregnant anyway because I’m still on birth control, making her entire plan to use me moot.
She wants my blood, but if I’m pregnant, then it’s not just my blood in my system. It’s mine and my mates. An alpha and omega, with the spark of a third life inside me. That is her ultimate goal—to take blood charged with the Moon Goddess’s raw power and potential. “So your little plan—”
“Well, after working with your blood, I’ve realized how powerful it is. The other omegas I’ve made require pregnancy to produce even a fraction of what your blood naturally has. We do have one omega who’s recently conceived—I’ve already run tests and the potency increase is remarkable—but it’s still not enough. You see, you’re different. There’s just something about your blood… it gives me everything I need even without having to impregnate you with an alpha’s seed. Isn’t that great?”
“Well, you’re shit out of luck. There’s no way I’m just giving you my blood.”
For a moment, Deidre’s face softens into something that might pass for regret on anyone who still had a soul. She tilts her head, her lips pressing in pity. “You’d really allow all those deltas to suffer in your absence?”
I squint at her, then replay her words in my mind. “What do you mean? You’d let them go?”
Every instinct screams not to believe her. Somewhere beyond this astral realm, I swear I can feel Beep’s energy, frantic and warning, like she’s clutching at my sleeve, trying to pull me back from Deidre’s words.
But then I think of Andrea and Ingrid. Of Diya, and all the other women stuck there. The alphas stuck with them, of thethings Deidre is already forcing them to do. Things they’ll never get over.
Silas’s scars are dug so much deeper than his skin, and all those shifters would end up the same. They’d be forced to live with memories of her cruelty—not just what she did to them, but what she made them do to each other.
“I’ll let them go,” she confirms.
A wolf can sense when someone is lying. I don’t know if it’s just her, or this strange in-between world we’re in, but I honestly can’t tell if she is. “Why?” I ask. “What do you want my blood for?”
Deidre’s eyes soften for a heartbeat—so brief, I almost think I’m imagining it. Her hand drifts to her belly, fingers splayed protectively, almost as if…
But no, that can’t be right. According to Grayson, witches avoid pregnancy at all costs—something about their magic becoming diluted if they have children.
But then the moment is gone, and she rolls her wrist limply, as if my follow-up questions are somehow more burdensome than everything else she’s done. “There’s a spell I’m after, but the final ingredient is powerful blood so infused with the Moon Goddess’s magic she’ll have no choice but to grant me what I need. I’m so close, Mona. Once I get what I need, I will let the wolves go.”
