will meet us up on the ridge, but they’re going through the caves and that takes a little longer. Unless your father has lookouts posted within the cave system, it will allow more of us to get to the site without detection.”
“Good. But, Lily?”
She stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder, and all he could think of was taking her as his mate. Not the reason why, that it would strengthen their magic, but because he loved her and he didn’t want to ever risk losing her.
“What?”
“He’s not my father. Not anymore. He’s Aldo Xenakis, a crazy-sick bastard who needs to be taken down.”
She flashed him a huge grin. “Gotcha. So . . . let’s go take him down, okay?”
He followed her out onto the deck and stripped off his clothing as quickly as she removed hers. This time, he called directly on the Mother for the power to shift. He felt her energy pour through him, over him, and become a part of him. Within seconds they were both leaping off the deck and cutting across the big meadow. Wolves were arriving from all directions, and though he didn’t know them, he sensed their common goal. Their power would be his tonight. More power than he’d ever wielded in his life.
He thought of his first attempts at magic, how he’d envied his father’s magic and wanted that kind of power. How he’d considered the ethics of blood magic, found them wanting, and yet had skirted a fine edge before choosing good over evil. He’d come close, but he hadn’t succumbed to the darkness, and it was Lily who had made him see the light.
Quite literally.
He couldn’t help but think of what Lily had told him, how the power from a blood sacrifice was finite, that it was strong at first, but when it was gone, it was gone forever.
The power he and Lily would be working tonight was fueled by love. He saw it firsthand, here in this huge meadow bathed in the soft light shimmering from gaslight lamps along the deck stretching across the back of Anton Cheval’s lovely home. Saw it in the dozens of wolves converging here as he and Lily raced beyond them and into the dark forest.
The sky glowed in the east where the moon would soon crest the highest peaks, but for now, the two of them ran in darkness. Ran knowing Annie’s life depended on their speed and their ability to work together.
He’d never felt stronger. Never known such a sense of purpose as they climbed the mountain, heading toward the huge oak where he’d first communed with the Mother, thinking her nothing more than a simple dryad, a tree nymph. She was so much more. Would she be there tonight? Would she be forced to bear witness to the murder of one of her beloved Chanku?
Not if he and Lily had anything to do about it.
They were almost to the ridge when Lily took a quick jog off the trail and raced through a thick tangle of bracken fern. He followed, trusting her. She knew these trails better than he ever could. She’d grown up here, hunted here, and made love here.
And then she was pausing in the quiet darkness, a shadow among shadows, yet still a perfect visual in amazing contrast through wolven eyes. Her ears perked forward. Are you sure?
Heart pounding, he stepped closer. Here? Now?
She blinked. A slow lowering of lashes over amber eyes. Yes.
Desire surged. Not the carnal lusts of a man knowing he was about to score, but an arousal of heart, mind, soul, and body, so deep, so pure, he trembled. More certain than I’ve been of anything in my life. I love you, Lily, and we will bond. If not now, at another date, but you are mine. If the bond will help us save Annie, knowing we’re going to do it anyway, I say we do it now. Ceremony isn’t needed. Not for my promise to you. It will be as strong tonight as tomorrow. As strong tomorrow as an eternity from now.
Agreed. I love you, Sebastian. And I pray to the goddess and the Mother that this bond is true, that you are the man I think you are. I believe you to be Chanku.
Chanku or not, Lily Milina Cheval, you are mine. You will always be mine. I love you. Life would not be worth living without you. This bond will be true, and it will be forever.
There was