Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,97
are privy to what will happen.”
I gulped at that. “Why can I smell Jana?”
“I don’t know, but we can go and find out.”
So we had.
And we’d learned that Jana was a psychotic bitch with a god complex, and she’d just murdered my mate.
I blinked up at the sky, wondering if I could freeze time again, hoping to the Mother and the Father and Kali Sara and whichever God was listening in that it would work and that Todd would be frozen until I figured out what to do, but nothing changed.
Nothing except for one thing.
I heard pounding footsteps, dozens of them, and out of nowhere, we were surrounded in a circle of those strange wolves. The big ones again.
The female, who’d told me about the totem, was there, bleeding and weary, but alive. She moved toward me, and I didn’t even have it in me to be scared. Not even when I looked into her eyes, when all I saw was her until I didn’t even see her.
Not anymore.
I blinked, taken aback at her sudden disappearance, expecting to find the other wolves there, to see Sabina running toward me trying to help.
But I saw nothing.
It was full night, but wherever I was now, it was twilight.
I peered around, intent on understanding where the hell I was, when it hit me.
Lidai’s soul.
Where her heart bore fruit, the past was stored, and the future was written.
Todd was panting, but his wheezing breaths told me he was near the end. He wasn’t even looking at me, his eyelids were closed, but I knew what to do.
I needed a heart fruit—a loenai.
Spinning around, I disregarded the dozens of beautiful trees, all of them coming in colors that were otherworldly, literally from another plane, until I found the one I needed.
It was big, and I wasn’t. I’d never climbed a tree before, but I didn’t have time to worry about any of that. I just had to do.
So I did.
I took a running jump as I leaped into the air and managed, barely, to catch a hold of the lowest branch. It was so thick around the middle that it didn’t even quiver at the momentum of my jump or at my weight, and I hung there, wasting precious seconds as I figured out how to get from my dangling position and onto the branch itself.
As I peered up, I saw a heart fruit was actually on this level.
It hadn’t been there before.
“Thank you, Lidai,” I whispered, and like I’d done as a kid on the monkey bars, I managed to move forward, jerkily shifting down the length of the branch as the jaenerai, a strange fly that I knew accelerated healing, buzzed around the fruit.
When I made it there, my arms aching, my body electrified with adrenaline, I snapped out a hand, knowing I had only one shot—I had to grab it, because the second I let go, I’d fall to the ground.
Lidai must have been on my side, because the fruit was in my hand, and I was back on the ground, heading back to Todd.
As I ran, I tore open the fruit, revealing the flesh of the Mother’s heart. I grimaced at the sight, my human sensibilities making me want to puke as I skidded to a halt at my mate’s side, shoving the loenai at him.
He was too far gone though.
He didn’t even scent the blood.
I shoved it in his mouth, uncaring if I hurt him or if my hands were nicked on his teeth, and I forced him to eat. I went so far as to push it down his throat. Weakly, he swallowed, and I felt like weeping some more with relief.
I knew this would work. I knew it.
When the hum of the jaenerai made itself known to me, I carried on shoving the loenai down his throat, making him eat all of it, not content until he’d swallowed every fucking bite.
And then, and only then, when the jaenerai came, did I take my eyes off him. I didn’t move away, even though I knew the jaenerai, as they healed, caused a massive explosion of energy, I stayed for the fallout. My hand on his paw, sticking with him like I’d stick with him through everything, as I let the Mother heal my mate.
When the heat and light came, I was thrown back because of my proximity. But as the jaenerai died, as they gave their life for Todd’s, I started sobbing, even as my eyes ached from the