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I called forth all of my new awakening power just as the bond inside me grew stronger, burning in awareness as my mate bore down on my location like an army from the dead rising with vengeance. I felt Kaillen’s power, his rage, his wrath, and his growing presence, and I knew that he was getting closer.
With a huge flare of magic, I whispered a maximizer spell and called upon my wolf’s strength.
She was more than happy to assist as I wrenched my arms apart and broke the cuffs.
Jakub’s eyes widened as the cuffs snapped off of me just as I threw my tentacle power in his direction, slamming everything I had into killing this bastard once and for all.
But the twelve catatonic supernaturals moved simultaneously with me. They lifted their spears and blasts of magic came from each of them, shooting down their spears just as my power arced out of me, aimed directly at Jakub.
The second the magic from the spears hit me, my awakening power changed course. Instead of clamping a hold on Jakub and serrating through his essence like a ravenous shark, it veered downward, right into the constellation pattern beneath my feet. My awakening power slammed into the glowing turquoise symbols as a cold smile spread across Jakub’s lips.
It was the only emotion he’d shown all night.
Power flowed through me from the twelve supernaturals down their spears, and it heightened the magic inside me as more of my awakening power zoomed through the symbols. The symbols glowed brighter and hotter, my heart slamming against my ribs as the energy in the room changed. It grew, yawning open, as though a great chasm had been cracked beneath my feet.
I tried again to throw my power at Jakub, to stop whatever madness was being born, but a new tentacle of power—a foreign one—slithered upward through a crack beneath my toes. My heart thundered because I was staring at another supernatural’s power that was just like mine.
It felt distant, yet familiar, and I watched in horror as a power very similar to my own climbed up my legs to my body before caressing my awakening magic’s octopus-like arms.
My breath seized at the feel of it. It felt as though a mother were stroking her child.
Disbelief flowed through me as those foreign tentacles grasped my power and pulled it from me, yanking and clawing as if finally latching onto the child it’d always wanted.
Jakub watched it all, his small smile still in place. He didn’t utter a word, didn’t applaud, yet I felt his burning interest.
Erupting light cracked the floor even more, and even though the concrete crumbled beneath me, I didn’t fall or move. The power flowing from the spears—from the catatonic supernaturals who held them—kept me in place as my awakening magic co
I grasped again at my awakening power, trying to pry it from whatever was holding it, but it wouldn’t let go. It was as though the newcomer and I played a game of tug-of-war, only I wasn’t the biggest or strongest.
Screaming from the exertion, I desperately tried to coax my power back inside me again, but even though I used my wolf’s strength, those invisible other tentacles turned into claws and sank into me, as though determined not to let me go. I swallowed a yelp as searing pain lashed through me.
The magical spears and symbols glowed even brighter, so blinding they rivaled the sun. All twelve captive supernaturals looked strained and haggard, as though whatever magic they were using to create this ritual was ru
An abrupt memory slammed into me, of what Sinister Fairy Dude had said to Kaillen back in that New York nightclub.
“If nothing else, you’ll be an important spear in Jakub’s collection.”
Shock hit me. This was why Jakub needed powerful supernaturals—to cha
The crack beneath my feet widened more, and then a burst of light flooded the room as a plethora of stars and galaxies exploded into focus beneath me. A universe appeared.
Panic flared inside me, then roared to the surface. No, no, no, no, no, no.
Something burned into my neck, and I gasped and raised my hands to my skin as though trying to ward it off, but the burn only increased as an ancient sense of awareness filled me.
And then I was moving, going down, down, down. Moving at light speed as I plummeted through a cosmic void of time and space.
My awakening power shot to the surface as those claws that had been holding me turned into talons. They sank into me so deeply that I screamed in pain.
I barreled through time and space, dipping and swaying, here and there, yet nowhere all at once.
And then I came to a slamming stop. I found myself staring down at a vast unknown world, hovering above it. Then I moved again, careening through the atmosphere as though I was a jet flying high over its surface. My heart pumped painfully as I gazed at the barren valleys, soaring desert mountains, trickling rivers, and dry fields. It was a world awash with colors of beige and grays, bleak and desolate. A new world. A new planet. Not of my universe. Not of the fae universe. But something different. Something undiscovered.
Cities appeared on the horizon. Ancient-looking cities of stone and brick.
Where am I? It was the only thought I had before that light-speed movement yanked on my form again, and I lurched back, going up, up, up. Time and space flew around me, here, there, everywhere at once.
And then I was back in the center of Jakub’s room.
I blinked, then blinked again as a cacophony of screams, roars, and casting magic blazed around me.
There was a war raging in this room. SF members were locked in battle with dozens of Jakub’s men. The clang of metallic weapons hitting spears reached my ears, then came the scent of casting magic and the sight of flaring potent spells. It all waged around me, as though I were in an untouchable void in the middle of it all.
That portal to an unknown universe still lay beneath me, but it wasn’t open as it had been a second prior. However, I felt that it could be, if only the collectives activated their spears again. But amidst the chaos, the collectives were either fighting or dead, and I knew that it was their loss of power that had returned me to earth instead of keeping me on that alien planet.
Crawling on all fours, I moved as far away from the crack in the floor as I could. I tried to stand, to get to my feet, but my mind spun, and my legs felt like jelly. All of my magic was gone. Whatever Jakub had done with the spears and me as the conduit—his key—had drained me.
My heart hammered in my chest as I caught a flash of dark hair to my right and then a face etched with rage came into view. Kaillen!
He battled Jakub one-on-one as both cast spells at one another. Immense power blasted from their hands. The two of them fought so fast that it all became a blur.
Despite my efforts to try to reach my hunter, I was too weak. I remained near the center of the room, still feeling that tug from that other world—to wherever I had been transported to and had gone—but I pulled back from it, keeping my awakening power buried deep in the void inside me as it began to recharge.
But those alien talons continued to search and hunt for me, sneaking through the crack in the floor every now and then, before retreating when the width halted their progress.
Some instinct deep inside me knew that I needed to detach myself completely from that other world. That I had to close whatever portal had been created to it. A glow still lit the floor, the constellations etched into the concrete still bright and shining, but the symbols no longer flared like the sun, and a part of me knew that was because the cataclysmic power from the twelve supernaturals had disappeared.
But we couldn’t leave the portal open. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I was certain terrible things would happen if we didn’t close it. So I summoned everything inside me. I called upon my witch powers, my forbidden magic, my awakening power, and everything from my wolf as I tried to smother that void in the center of the room.
My vision swam dark as I put everything I had into it.
The crack in the floor began to close, little by little, and the universe that had shined back at me slowly faded.
That’s it. More. More. More.
But just as the floor began to seal, something shot out of it. That foreign octopus tendril burst through it, heading right toward me until it speared my chest at light speed.
The power inside me instantly extinguished, and I screamed as something in me shattered. It felt as though my body had cracked in two, as if a giant hammer had been sent from the heavens and smashed down onto me with the power of the gods.
My i
“Tala!” a roar came from someone in the room.
My wolf vanished, her single yelp the only sound I heard from her before she was gone, completely obliterated.
And then my awakening and forbidden magic rose up inside me, humming through my belly, the chest and cave they’d been stored in within my body shattering into a million pieces. My otherworldly powers flowed together, combining and writhing until they swallowed me whole.
My eyes flashed open as everything in the world grew still.
Power flowed through my veins like lightning. My heart sang. My mind calmed. And a deep instinct came to me from the begi
And then I was free.
Power surged out of me into every single supernatural who was battling my mate and the Supernatural Forces. My awakening magic clamped down onto them, sinking its teeth through their magic, their souls, right through their bones until their forms exploded in a rush of magic and power.
I gasped as the entire room fell silent.
Every SF member stood shaking, all eyes turned on me as disbelief and horror etched into their expressions.
My entire body trembled as I took in the scene around me.
The room was awash with blood and gore. All of the supernaturals that had held the spears were dead, their mangled bodies mutilated and broken.
What have I done? I frantically looked among the dozens of SF members staring at me.
“Kaillen?” But I didn’t see him, didn’t hear him. I searched inside myself for the mate bond, frantically clawing for it, not knowing if he was among the living or the dead.
But I felt nothing. Nothing. Not a whisper or a hint of that delicate thread which had linked me and my mate.
The bond was gone.
And that could only happen if one’s mate was dead.