Lycan Legacy (A Soulmark Series Book 5), page 43
“Atticus?”
Her smile dims, and the goddess dons a look of mild reproach. “Do you think I would allow your great sacrifice to go unrewarded? Merida’s curse on the soulmark was weak but protected by her first and last of concealment. That you and your mate would willingly sacrifice my greatest gift to you for that of your kind… I cannot bear the thought of it. Be at peace, my child. Your soulmark remains.”
I shudder a cry. The song of the wolves a sudden symphony—and then gone as the air around me shifts. The cold air of night is like a slap to the face.
“Winter? Winter, wake up!”
The passionate words are more than just a plea but an order. My lashes flutter valiantly to shake the filmy haze that still clouds my senses. My sight sets upon the figure cradling me in their arms.
“Atticus?” A whimper of relief sounds from my husband as he pulls me into a crushing hug. “Too much,” I wheeze. “Too hard.”
His hold relaxes, guiding me back as red-rimmed eyes study my weak form with grave intensity. “You weren’t breathing,” he says, his jaw shaking with barely suppressed emotion.
“Be at peace,” I murmur, my hand smoothing over his chest to his heart. “All is well. Everything is back in its rightful place.”
Atticus inhales deeply several times. “I thought I lost you,” he confesses quietly, almost too softly for me to hear.
“Never.”
The world around me comes back into focus as Atticus presses his face into my neck and inhales once more. I scan the crowd. They are crying with relief and hold each other close.
You cannot feel it because your wolf spirit is part of my pack now….
“It worked,” I whisper, growing weaker by the minute. “The curse—”
Atticus shushes me, his teeth grazing the skin at my neck lightly in rebuke. I bend my neck submissively—old habits still etched firmly into my new human life.
“Yes,” he says. “And now we’re going home. We can’t stay here any longer.”
I pass my troubled frown to Atticus, but he only shushes me again. Love and reassurance, so sweet and full, flow through our soulmark bond. A whimper of relief slips past my sore throat as I rest my head on his shoulder. I slowly begin to succumb to the darkness treading into my vision.
“Atticus?”
He hums his response as he pulls us up and strides away from the tree and the Blanc pack—from the hardest decision either of us has ever had to make. I spy Jax already several feet ahead of us, casting curiously dark looks over his shoulder. His face is terribly pale and drawn, but when he catches my eye, the dark expression immediately melts away and he sends me a wink.
“Excellent work, Mrs. Hayes," he says.
I can barely muster a nod, my train of thought lost one moment before regaining it in the next.
“Atticus, everything is going to be different now.”
As much as hope and happiness swell inside my chest at the thought of my pack running free as they were meant to be, fear follows closely after. With all lycans free of the curse that has bound us for centuries, what chaos might ensue? As the thread of my distress runs through our bond, Atticus slows.
“Everything is different now,” he agrees solemnly, his crystal blue eyes locking onto mine. “But not between us, Winter.”
I smile softly back, completely unaware of when I finally lose consciousness to this tiresome day. Never between us.
Epilogue
It wasn’t the fairy’s first winter in the decidedly human dimension, but it didn’t lessen her utter astonishment at just how cold it could be here. She didn’t like the cold. The only things that survived it were ghastly tall evergreens whose attitude Lunaria found particularly standoffish.
The fairy missed her home.
She missed the Hollow Wood. She missed her closest and dearest friends, Alekos and Celosia. She missed the nightly revelries and even the tedious chore of pruning the underbelly of the rafflorondi.
This dimension, with its unpredictable weather and people, had lost its shine to the fairy long ago—right about the time she realized the witches who gave her shelter and food had little interest in truly helping her home.
And why would they? the fairy thought. I provide protection against their enemies, even from afar.
The fairy was connected to their precious crystal, the one they proclaimed hailed from Dan Furth. Her nose scrunched at the thought. The witches were wrong about its name and origin, but her attempts at explanation when she first arrived had gone awry. She had never bothered to correct them again for it mattered not.
The crystal’s mystical powers were what mattered, and the witches had known that at the very least. The fairy smiled. The crystal was indeed special for it had dual abilities to bolster the land where it resided and protect it.
Lunaria did not understand the specifics as to why her presence increased the crystals ability, but she assumed it came from her own ability to bolster and nurture the land.
“You know,” the sorcerer piped up from the driver’s seat, his hazel eyes slanting from the road ahead and to the fairy. “You’re not the first mind I’ve gotten to peek into, but yours is by far the most… magnificent.”
Lunaria blinked, and tiny rosebuds blossomed on the apples of her cheeks. “Oh?”
Jax smirked and turned his eyes back to the road. “Truly. I—” He cleared his throat. “—also saw a few glimpses of your home,” he said, more subdued than his usual bright commentary. “It was beautiful.”
The fairy looked to her lap for an answer and then out the window to her right. When neither offered their advice, she took to chewing her bottom lip until the appropriate response came to her.
“Thank you,” she said, matching the soft inclination of his voice. “No place compares.”
“Now that I believe. So what made you leave, gorgeous?”
The fairy’s eyes widened considerably as she kept her sights trained out the window. “The crystal called for assistance as it was in disrepair, and I was the nearest to help. Really, it was quite by chance that I arrived and helped its passage. It could have been any Cultivator, really. The only problem is… I haven’t been able to find a way home after seeing it through to this plane.”
Lunaria peeked back to Jax whose face was caught in a look of concentration. When he noticed her regard, it slipped away to be replaced by a lazy grin and sparkling eyes that didn’t quite capture the fading light of the sun. Lunaria didn’t pay much mind because it was startlingly easy to find herself spellbound by the sorcerer’s good looks. Well, his good looks and sweet compliments.
“Well, gorgeous, you’re just in luck for I have the favor of multiple gods. If you like, I can take a crack at sending you back home.”
“Thank you,” Lunaria said bashfully, “but Winter is going to help me. But perhaps, if she cannot, I shall call on you?”
Jax nodded, and Lunaria relished in his generous offer. A rush of feelings swarmed her body—appreciation, hope, and excitement from anticipation and attraction. Her bottom lip found its way back between her teeth again, and the sorcerer let out a rumbling chuckle. Jax glanced quickly at the road before his eyes looked back to Lunaria. He reached over carefully and pried her bottom lip free with the pad of his thumb.
“You’re going to eat your lip if you keep gnawing at it like that.”
The action lit the fairy’s face on fire, and Jax released another confident chuckle. He was well aware of his effect on the fairy and was unafraid to take advantage of it. Not to mention, he found her innocent reactions genuinely refreshing after time spent in the Dark Court, where the innocent were eaten alive—literally. Jax slanted another look in her direction and winked when she caught his gaze.
What remained of Lunaria’s weak glamour shuttered away as her body became inflamed with red roses at the suggestive wink. Jax blinked, taken aback by her rather enthusiastic reaction.
It was there and then, only an hour’s drive away from Branson Falls on a backcountry road, that Jax almost killed them all. Lunaria had finally torn her eyes from the charming sorcerer and taken one glance at the road before she released a shrill scream. The brakes let out an ear-splitting shriek as Jax slammed the pedal, his eyes now glued to the body laid out in the middle of the road.
The others in the van came awake with a jolt, letting out curses and prayers as the car came skidded to a stop.
“What the hell, Jax!” Atticus snarled and snatched the sorcerer by his jacket to shake some sense into him. “Are you trying to get us all killed.”
Jax growled back as he tried and failed to release himself from the beta’s grip. “There’s a body in the road! Or did you want me to drive over it?”
Winter gasped and began to look out the window. “A body?”
“Keenan, go check it—wait, Luna!”
But the fairy was already out of the car and running to check on the male outside. The car had stopped a few feet away from the prone body. It was clear that the male was injured. The others had joined her by the time she knelt at the muscular man’s side.
He must be a giant, Lunaria thought, for even prone on the ground he seemed to dwarf her.
“Oh my God,” Winter whispered.
Luna reached out to the deep cut across the bridge of his nose. Perhaps she could—
“Don’t touch him!” Winter shouted. Lunaria froze and peered back at her friend, filled with sudden fright.
“What’s wrong?” Lunaria asked as she noted the confusion laid bare over the men’s faces.
A roughened palm and fingers seized Lunaria’s wrist, and the fairy shrieked in surprise. Her regard lashed back to the figure on the ground to see the man’s dark eyes cracked open. Lunaria sucked in a sharp breath as her violet eyes clashed with the stranger’s own abysses of black. No, she thought with great fear striking her body still. His grip belayed a dangerous aura, one Lunaria knew all too well.
“Rokama,” she stammered as recognition dawned upon her.
The stranger’s eyes lit with anticipation as greater consciousness found him. “Lunaria.”
Did you enjoy Lycan Legacy?
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Ready for the next installment in A Soulmark Series?
Coven (Book 1) — Out Now
Midnight Scoundrel (Book 2) — Out Now
Wardens of Starlight (Book 3) — Out Now
Mr. Vrana (Book 4) — Out Now
Lycan Legacy (Book 5) — Out Now
Lunaria (Book 6) — TBA 2019
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Acknowledgements
To my incredible husband who has been there every step of the way—thank you.
Thank you for pointing out the holes in my plot.
Thank you for encouraging my ideas.
Thank you for pushing me and constantly asking, “Have you finished your book yet?”
While a majority of the time this question made my eyes roll as you insisted on asking it in the earliest stages of my writing and frequently, it nevertheless remained a driving point to complete my work. So thanks for that too, I guess.
To my friends and family, you are wonderful and mean so much to me. Thank you for your belief in me all this time and introducing me to your friends and family as your “writer” friend. It’s very cool and will never get old.
And an extra special thank you to Hot Tree Edits, especially Virginia, for her editorial efforts!
About the Author
Rebecca Main published her first romance novel—Coven (A Soulmark Series Book 1)—in June 2017 and hasn’t put down her keyboard since! Quitting their respective jobs in May 2017, Rebecca and her husband now travel the world. Their calico cat, Dorcas, waits patiently for their return to become a “city" cat once more. Rebecca is an avid reader, travel-hacker enthusiast, and karaoke queen (after a shot or two). Her current writing passion is romance with a hearty dash of supernatural and paranormal thrown in for good measure.
Tear-inducing accomplishments include hitting #1 on the Amazon Top 100 list in Fantasy Romance and Paranormal Witches & Wizards, free climbing out of Belize’s Crystal Cave, also known as the Mountain Cow Cave, and starting a publishing house—Via Graphia LLC—with her husband.
Rebecca Main, Lycan Legacy (A Soulmark Series Book 5)
