AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shrieked in agony, using everything she could at that moment to pierce the snout of the wolf with a spell that shot out the finest of porcupine needles into his open gob. He let her go instantly and went whimpering off to safety, but his seizing of her sole weapon gave the rest of the wolves the chance they needed.
One went for her ankles, while another took the chance to leap onto her body, sinking the protruding piece of metal from the accident even deeper into her shoulder. She fell onto her back, smacking down and splashing in the puddle, as the wolves began to flock around her like vultures to a dead carcass.
She stared up at the sky, her vision darkening by the second. She squeezed her eyes closed, an image of the future with Fletcher dwindling like feathers in the wind. With her jaw tightened into iron and the wolves surrounding her ready to feast, Madison gathered the entire will of her lineage and released every inch of energy from her fingertips.
Her power roared outward, creating a circle of light that pushed the wolves back. The rain continued to pelt Madison as the sky above began to fade, her vision blurring, her consciousness sinking away into the blackness of her mind.
The pain in her arm disappeared, her entire body morphing into one single blob of existence. She lay there waiting for her doom as the hot darkness swathed her when a cataclysmic sound shattered the silence.
A howling cry emerged, followed by slashing and thrashings of violence. Madison didn’t know where she was, but she somehow knew that she was safe.
She continued to feel the humming, spinning glow of the emblem as she held on for dear life. It synched with the beats of her heart, rising in ghoulish green, cardinal red, and lavender shades into the hazy air. She desperately wanted to move her limbs to at least sit up, but it felt like an anchor had been set on her chest, pinning her debilitated body to the soaking wet ground.
So she closed her eyes, waiting for the dark again. Noises of growling and snarling wolves echoed through the night, with Madison hoping and praying in the depths of her heart that they were Fletcher’s men. She wanted to speak, but all that would emerge was a croak. She needed them to save him.
She would be utterly lost without him.Her King.
Her eyes fluttered shut, giving in to the weight. The abyss that surrounded her was comfortable, like slipping into a cozy bed. She imagined Fletcher’s arms around her, pulling her taut to his chest, the sounds of rain and thunder distant and lulling them into a magnificent slumber.
Is this what death is like?
Madison’s body instinctively gave in. She had lost a fair amount of blood from the shard of metal that penetrated through her shoulder, a pool of rust-colored liquid gathering under her body. The last thing she heard before disappearing into the void was something galloping through the wetness. Then fur grazed her body. Something about the scent carried her into a field in her mind, somewhere plush, loving, and welcoming.
There was a future in the touch, in the arms of the creature embracing her. Inside, something growled. Something reverberating through space and time.
I will not let go.
SIXTEEN
FLETCHER
Fletcher woke with a start, the scent of blood having tickled his nostril hairs and brought him back to consciousness like a catapult. A ripple of lightning crawled across the sky in a shimmer as the King of Willowfrost looked around the destroyed vehicle, panicking when spotting a long trail of blood trickling out the passenger’s side door.
He tried to pull himself up and over the seat but found himself wedged. He was stuck where his side was pinned between the door and the tree.
“Fuck!” Fletcher grunted.
He tried to pull at his limbs, which were stronger than the average human, of course. But the force in which the car had slammed into the tree had crushed nearly every bone on that side of his body. The pain radiated like a massive throb, straining like a long, drawn-out thread the harder he tried to pull.
Sounds of snarls and bodies being thrown into the air increased the king’s attempts at escape. Looking at the passenger’s side door, streaks of multicolored light blurred in the rain, traveling at astronomical speeds and lighting up the night sky. It was then that he heard his beloved, his fated mate, Madison Hart, let out her own cataclysmic howl.
It fueled the king’s movements like electricity surging through him. He smirked to himself, muttering under his breath with pride as his wolf rose from the depths of his soul.
“My girl,” he whispered.
Fletcher’s arms and legs began to bulge, along with his jaw cracking and snapping to make space for his elongated snout and extra rows of fangs. It hurt his human skin to grow out against the car, but the strength and size of his wolf form were sufficient to shove the car smashed around him completely out of the way, his arm and leg slipping out from between the tree and metal with ease.
The pain became transmuted as his wolf began to heal him, evolving more into a kind of numbness rather than excruciating agony from before. He leapt out of the car, destroying the rooftop as he did. His clothes split from his body like shredding paper, and the king landed in the dark on the side of the road, where he was then aghast at the sight of gathering wolves.
His woman, his mate, his perfect, was battling four, five, hell, maybe even six shifters all at once, using her magical prowess to divert them from the scene of the crash. He watched with amazement how snaps of cyclic green and purple light smashed into the shifters with the force of a rocket launcher. Madison was a fucking goddess, that powerful, sexy violet spin in her eyes causing the king’s heart to burst with the utmost pride.
But she wasn’t able to fend them off completely. The stream of blood that Fletcher had noticed in the passenger’s seat led all the way up to her shoulder, where he spotted the source of the injury.
A large, protruding piece of metal glistened under the blasts of light coming only from Madison’s right hand. It was clear that she was severely wounded because her left arm hung at her side like the detached limb of a marionette.
That was when chaos erupted into even more chaos, all before the king had a chance to protect his beloved.
Another car spun out of the corner of his eye, a multitude of new shifters spilling out of it. They shifted, not noticing him lingering in the dark, and instantly went for Madison.
