it, the rain fell. Merinda didn’t flinch, but her mate did.
“Your lineage is secure,” I murmured, telling her the truth just as I had Sabina.
What I couldn’t tell her was that fate could be changed.
Free will…I had no say in that.
And that was my burden to bear, not hers.
“Go with peace, Merinda. Enjoy your second chance as Paul cannot now, and do not cross the circle again. Your world is not mine anymore. Your world is Eli, Sabina, Ethan, and Austin’s. Your purpose is to safeguard them. Do you understand me?”
She wept at my words, but she nodded, and in seconds, she was back as a she-wolf outside the circle, her mate at her side, nipping and nuzzling her, comforting her…
The sight brought peace to me, and the rain clouds dispersed and the wind ceased to roil.
Love could win, and I prayed that would be enough in the coming days.
Lara
“Lara?”
My brow puckered as I registered that voice.
Kali Sara, it had been so long since I heard it. So long since…
I blew out a breath.
No, I had to be wrong.
Unless a ghost could pick up a phone and contact me, I was just imagining the likeness in her voice to my sister’s.
My dead sister’s.
Things had definitely turned crazy, so maybe this was just another step toward the asylum. I’d always been headed that way anyway…
I reached up and rubbed my forehead where an ache was gathering.
The ache had nothing to do with memories of Sabina that flooded me, along with the grief and misery over her passing, but with my current situation.
I was tired of being scared.
So fucking tired.
I rubbed my temples a little harder as I squinted out of the window.
I knew he was out there.
I knew it.
He was waiting on me to come out, but I wouldn’t. Not yet. I still had a few ramen packets left. I could last a week on them. I wasn’t going to let him get me.
I wasn’t.
“Lara?”
Fuck.
The woman sounded so like Sabina, it was unnerving.
I cleared my throat in an effort not to sound petrified. If the ghost asked why I sounded terrified, I couldn’t tell her the truth. Then I really would be locked up for good. “Yes. It’s Lara Krasowski. How can I help you?”
A relieved sigh sounded down the line. “Lara. I know it’s you. God, it’s taken me so long to find you! Look, I know this is weird, but I need your help. It’s me…Sabina.”
Even as my brow furrowed, I snorted. “Yeah, right. My dead sister has access to a cellphone.” I huffed. Then, my eyes narrowed. Was this a ploy?
I had no idea how I’d been plunged into a world where men could turn into different animals, but here I was, terrified to leave my house because I knew, I knew point fucking blank, that there was a goddamn hyena out there waiting on me.
Waiting to pounce.
My mouth turned to cotton at that, and I started to sweat. My arms ached where the bastard had gotten me before, scraping me up and infecting some of the wounds so my body still ached from the depth of the tears.
I’d never even seen a fucking hyena besides on TV! When one had veered in front of my car the other day? I’d thought I was taking another step toward insanity.
Maybe I was.
Maybe this was all a hallucination.
But as painful as the wounds on my body were? They were proof too.
I’d been targeted.
By a creature.
A creature who could turn into a person. And back again.
A creature who was pissed at me.
My mouth quivered at the memory of running over what, I’d thought at the time, was a cat.
Only, when I’d gotten out, sobbing all the while as I went to see if I could help the creature who’d been injured, a second beast had come at me after I’d heard a very real, human shriek of fury.
I’d screamed, managing to scramble back as it attacked me, and only good fortune had helped me get into my car before it could hurt me further. With no other choice, I’d swerved out of the way, put the pedal to the metal, and driven home.
I’d been here ever since, and—
The howl. Fuck.
It was there again.
My entire being prickled to life, the hairs on my body standing right at attention as I processed just how that sound was viscerally plaguing me.
It kept on doing it.
Kept on reminding me it was there.
Like I could forget.
Every now and then, it would ram into my door, and