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My heart throbbed with dread, and I cried out, “Tristan, pleasestop!”
The others battled with savagery, teeth, fur, and blood.Chaos.
Fear buried me, and I pushed up. My body spiraled with overtiredness. One leg in front of the other, I approached the fight and raised my arms. “Goddess, fill me with yourability.”
Nothing came out. No pop orflicker.
Lilita hummed in my ears once more,unrelenting.
A sense of hopelessness enveloped me, my muscles aching at the inability to keep Lilita back. Yet I didn’t stop trying, and I staggered toward the guards, needing to protect myprinces.
Tears drenched my cheeks as a guard drove his boot into Raze’s gut. His chest heaved with each breath. Talin wobbled on his feet, and five guards circledhim.
Overhead, the moon shone like a beacon, but it wasn’t a salvation, onlydeath.
Lilita crowded my mind, shrieking, deafening me. In my haste, I tripped over my own legs and fell into the snow. But I hurried back up, rushing toward the men who’d captured myheart.
Maybe it wasn’t too late if I could get them into the water and try the reversal spell. “Goddess, please, I beg for yourhelp.”
Tristan slammed into Talin, and my prince grunted, foldingover.
Rage owned me, and a sudden explosion of pain seared down my arms. I unleashed it from my palms, striking all the guards. They all fell over atonce.
An invisible wall of fatigue smacked into me. I wavered as my visiondanced.
I gulped for air and found Talin staggering back up, half-bear, bloody, and bruised. The wind pulled at his hair, one sleeve still hanging on an arm but the rest of him wasnaked.
“Talin,” I calledout.
He turned in slow motion, his mouth agape, and my gaze fell to the blade stuck in his gut. Talin’s eyes rolled back, and hecollapsed.
I screamed, my throat raw. “No!” Terror tore my heart to pieces, and tears gathered in my eyes. The other bear shifters weren’t moving, either. Tristan lay on the ground,unmoving.
Each breath rattled my lungs, but I hurried to Talin. They had to survive. Skidding next to him, I cupped his face, still warm to the touch. He gasped for air, gurgling. Blood trickled out from the side of hismouth.
A jolt of desperation took me. I tapped into my reserves, remembering who I was. A bloodborne. The curse was moon-related, straddled between light and dark. Magic coursed through myveins.
I controlled my destiny. I had the ability to do anything.Don’t fight who you are, Mom would tellme.
Yet I’d never understood what she’d meant, terrified of working with the darkness and Lilita takingover.
Her magic was stronger. She’d snapped the princes out of their transformation states with a single zap from herenchantment.
My princes weredying.
Despite the terror chewing on me, I raised my hands and pinpricks fluttered down my flesh. I imagined myself pulling back the shackles I’d worn for years to keep Lilita controlled, tearing back the layers, and stood therevulnerable.
I opened myself to thedarkness.
Lilita shuddered through me, gushing out like a starved wolf. I flinched but instead of crumbling, I inhaled the darkness. Mom’s words swamped my head about accepting who I was. Tears rolled down my cheeks. Numbness owned me, and my heart battled between fighting and staying open to Lilita’smagic.
I concentrated, grinding my teeth, curling my fists. Earlier, our threads of energy, light and dark, had woventogether.
That was the answer… working as one, notdivided.
Summoning every ounce of strength forward, I felt the tendrils creeping along the surface of my skin. “No division. One person. One magic. Oneheart.”
Lilita’s scream boomed and talons clawed at the inside of myskull.
