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Chapter 21
Lilita’s voice fluttered through my skull, her laughter shredding my grasp on reality as my vision blurred in and out. I clasped my head with both hands, trying to steady the spinning. Dread punched me in the gut, emptying my lungs. I gasped for each breath as if it were mylast.
Focus. Raze’s kiss, his touch. Electric warmth. I have control.I repeated the chant, picturing myself surrounded by white light, its energy passing through me, cleansingme.
When a roar exploded from the woods in the distance to my left, I sprinted faster. With a quick look over my shoulder, I didn’t see any guards following. My spell would have confused Len, and he wouldn’t remember me, so that bought us time. But notmuch.
Terror raged within me, Lilita lingering closer in my mind. My kiss with Raze hadn’t been enough. Attempting to do the same with Len had failed, but I’d tried out of sheer desperation. The curse connected the princes and me. But it was more than that, I felt it in my bones. They’d shown me their caring natures and returned my desires for them threefold. I craved them every moment of the day. And I wasn’t saying it was right to feel that way about all four men, but I could barely hold on to my sanity, let alone sort through myemotions.
We should have left the manor the moment we’d found out the duke was hunting and no way should I have taken my eyes off Talin and Raze. I’d hate myself for eternity if they died. I kept picturing them stuck mid-transformation, bolting home toward the castle. Exactly as Talin had said he’d done on their previous attempts to visit hiscousin.
Then I’d be stuck in White Peak woods, and Lilita would make a meal of me—and probably kill everyone in her path. My knees wobbled beneath me. I’d rather diefirst.
Once I passed through the gates, I veered left to where the roar had come from. I trampled snow-coated shrubs and foliage. The constant heaviness of my thoughtslingered.
Raze, where are you?I rubbed the cold out of my arms, thankful my dress had layers offabric.
As I jumped over a dead log, a snap of energy shook me at thecore.
Bee. Lilita repeated my name over andover.
“Shut up!” I pushed onward, hitting my palm against my temple. “You’re not coming out.” I staggered through the woods and ducked under low-hanging branches. “Raze,” I yelled. “Talin?”Please let that be one of themgrowling.
My vision toggled between blurring andsharpening.
Another roar from my left, and the promise of finding the princes propelled me forward. I wove past trees, the chill in the air freezingme.
Night crawled across the heavens. But that didn’t matter if I didn’t track down my bearshifters.
When the land sloped downhill, I lost my footing. Snatching the air, I caught a branch, righting myself. My stomach swirled with bile. Falling down a gorge and killing myself would be a painful way to go. But at least Lilita would no longer have been aproblem.
When a grunt came from behind me, I scrambled upright, the tree to my back, and found Talin, disfigured and snarling in his half-bear, half-humanform.
He sneered, the corded muscles in his neck tense and ready to snap. His eyes narrowed, and his long, furry ears twitched as if he heard sounds Ididn’t.
I froze, unable to find my words. Kissing him seemed an impossibility in hisstate.
His lips peeled back over sharpenedfangs.
Trembling, I recoiled away with the tree at my back, well aware of what an attack posture looked like. He charged. My foot slipped out from underme.
Arms flayed outward, I hit the ground and slid down the snow, the momentum dragging me fast, foliage and shrubs tearing my dress and hair, stabbing and ripping at my flesh. I screamed, the world tumbling aroundme.
Darkness snapped across my vision, and all sounds faded, replaced with the repetitive thud of my heart, the constricting sensation of beingstrangled.
And in my head, Lilita shoved me aside like a rag doll and chargedforward.
* * *
I crackedmy neck and pulled myself up. I stood at the bottom of a hill—on a damn iced-over river. “Well, one could go worse ways. About time that whiny Bee got out of the way.”Enough of this being nice bullshit, and who the hell delivers a stranger’s baby? Seriously.Now if there had been an option to use the bundle for a spell, then there would have been a purpose. Though, that was still a possibility once I got themanor.
The baby would help me open the doorway to the underworld. I’d build myself a small army made up of a few thousand demonic spirits. Then the rest of the pieces would fall into place. Take over all of Haven, destroy anyone who stood in my way, and rule this world how the ancients had intended. With war andbloodshed.
Shaking snow out of my hair, I huffed and stomped up the slope. I jutted my hand outward, drawing on the energy Bee had ignored for so long. A spark of black threads snapped out from the tips of my fingers, hitting the forest floor. “Winds, lift me. Carry me to the duke’smanor.”
The ground trembled beneath me, as if it had thundered. Wind battered into me. I smirked, slightly turned on by mypower.
Someone tackled me from the side, and I yelled from sheer surprise, fallingover.
