Page 94 of Bewitching the Wolf

“What about?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

When I lean down to give her a kiss, the cape suddenly arcs up. Mom grimaces. “I think it’s a little overprotective. It hasn’t been able to look after me for the past fifteen years.”

“It’s not a bloody guard dog.” I glare at it. The cape does a weird little movement that I swear is a huffy shrug, before it drapes itself back down. I sense it’s still watching, waiting for Mom to give it a command.

When we’re all seated and eating, Otis, in his usual sheriff fashion, outlines the plan for the day.

“The drive will take about two hours. Now, some important housekeeping. When we arrive, I will be staying at the lake’s edge with Clem. We can’t guarantee that she can breathe Earth air, her part-human heritage may not allow it. And I’m sure as fuck not taking a risk with her health, or that of our youngling.”

“You’re sure I can breathe it?” I query.

“Yep, we know you can, Jax. I’ve consulted with Traggar on that. With your wolf and your mom’s genes, you will have no problems at all. The rest of you will climb up through the fallen rocks until you reach Earth. Aurora will call for the Golden Book just before sunrise. And it will be brought forth by its guardians. Everyone got that?”

“Got it,” we chorus.

We pile into two jeeps and drive through the quiet tunnels. It’s too early for most of the workers to be up and about, but already there are some crates of goods waiting to be transported up to Sparkle.

“What happens to Sparkle and the other domes afterward?” Tippy asks me, frowning.

“They will continue to operate on reduced capacity.”

“And the humans, they won’t starve or lose out on essential medicine?”

“No, we will never allow that to happen.”

“Good. Because that would make us just as bad as Marsha.”

“We want freedom, Tip,” I say firmly, “not vengeance.” And she nods and rests her head on my shoulder as we drive on.

Finally, we see light in the distance.

“Is that the dawn?” I ask, craning my neck.

“Not yet. It’s the light around One Moonbeam Lake,” Otis explains.

And then the jeep rounds the corner, and the lake stretches ahead of us. A great expanse of deep green water, with soft light illuminating ferns and water lilies. I’ve heard monsters speak of it as a special place to visit during family times and festivals. I was never party to these customs, hence I’ve never visited this sacred place.

But now… now I belong. This is my sacred place, too.

Its beauty takes my breath away, but I can’t work out the source of the light. Does it come from lumen lamps? I don’t see any.

“Look closer,” Tippy points out, seeing my confusion, and suddenly I see tiny moving beams of light, so close together it appears to come from one source.

“What are they?”

“Fairy moths. They make light from feeding off a special plant here. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and used to be the only source of light in here.”

“Until the recent rockfall,” Otis points upward.

We all look up at the gaping hole in the cave above, the deep blue of Earth’s pre-dawn sky above it.

“I guess we’re heading up there,” I say wryly.

“I guess we are,” Tippy says.

CHAPTER 28