Page 47 of Haunted Nightmares
“Which is why you, more than anyone, should understand that none of this was in our control.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment. “Wraith is my mate and our king, he was destined to be those things well before either of us were alive and you need to accept both as truth.”
“As long as there is air in my lungs I willneveraccept that the gods purposely bound an innocent and pure prophet to the very embodiment of depraved evil.” Nate spits a little blood onto the floor. “Good of the race or not, damning you,cursingyou with your love for such a despicable, heartless monster will never be more than a cruel twist of fate orchestrated by another power hungry beast.”
My eyes flip open as soon as the energy around us begins to change; the air grows heavy and thick as if it’s a physical weight bearing down on us. The walls of Lorna’s tent begin to shake before they start to violently flap in a gust of wind no one can actually feel, the dirt floor cracking while little cyclones form above them.
Ana jumps from the table with her weapons in hand, the goddess of war taking a protective stance in front of me as the ground beneath our feet rumbles and quakes.
“He’s here,” I whisper as the low hanging reeds of the surrounding willow trees pelt the sides of the tent, almost whipping them to shreds from the sheer force.
“The king is angrier,” Anat says with a grin, sheathing her blades before moving to the rear flap. “Simplydelayed.”
She slips out quietly laughing to herself while Nate looks completely unfazed and ready for a fight as he waits, making no move to leave, only holding his ground.
Even when the shadowy flames begin to roll in.
Black and blue, icy hot, my mate’s shadows snake under the linen walls, twisting and curving, slithering up and down along the off white material. The spirals dart across the floor, inky tendrils surrounding the legs of the scarce furniture, touching the toes of my shoes as they blanket the dirt completely.
The flames begin crawling up my legs, somehow tightening around my calves before racing up my body to restrict my arms and legs then wrap firmly around my neck.
“You cannot argue this, Zephyr,” Nate growls and glares at me over his shoulder as he quickly goes for the knife hidden in his boot. “You’re just too naive to see it. He’s been the death of you once, he will be again.”
I narrow my eyes and shake my head because my death wasn’t Wraith’s fault, and things are going to be different this time. Everything will be different, better, and death will never separate us again.
Unfortunately I can’t say any of that, though.
I can’t say anything at all as my mate’s shadows continue up my throat to cover my mouth, squeezing to the point of pain and nearly constricting my airway.
Nate finally spins to face me as I lift off the ground, my sworn protector trying to pry something he can’t actually touch off of me. “He is going to kill you himself. Why can’t you see that? Stupid, naive?—“
Suddenly and almost too fast to track, the warrior is sucked out of the tent, his arms and legs stretched toward me as he flies backward through the air as if there’s a black hole looming beyond the tent’s flap. And maybe there is.
For all I know everything outside this flimsy little tent is gone, the entire bayou laid to waste and all that’s left is a smoking crater and the linen walls separating me from the only monster I will never fear.
Even as he appears in a burst of sparks and smoke in front of me.
“Witch,” Wraith hisses as he moves toward me, his gait steady and stronger than it has been in months. “A demon full of deathmyjaksent here to torture me.”
His flames tighten and grow taut, squeezing until my bones start to bend but I hardly feel the pain. I know it’s there, it has to be but it’s not strong enough to snuff out the way my heart breaks while looking at the male I love.
“Give me one reason I shouldn’t slowly rip you apart and make you watch as I feed your pieces to the alligators.”
Gods, he looks so tormented.
His body looks better, thicker than it has in a long time thanks to Lorna’s transfusions but Wraith is only about seventy percent of what he was before. Too thin, unhealthy, tired, and the way his madness has physically manifested is both a punch in the gut and oddly attractive.
My mate has always looked menacing between his size and those bottomless eyes but he’s almost feral now and the way the darkness inside him has marred his beautiful ivory skin, Wraith is downright terrifying at first glance.
But not to me.
He still looks like the male I didn’t think I deserved, the one who taught me how strong I truly am and did everything in his power to give me control when I’d never had itbefore. Wraith looks like my mate who loved me brutally and unapologetically, who would kill for me without hesitation then share those precious few moments of sweet vulnerability behind closed doors. My mate is still inside that insane and reckless shell, and my king is sitting right under the surface waiting to do everything he intended to do long before our paths finally crossed.
Wraith fixes his button up shirt, tugging the collar of the fine black material as he schools his features into the mask of eerie calm I’ve seen him wear dozens of times before.
“Tell me, witch, who was the one to send you?” He begins circling me slowly, scanning every inch of my skin in a stare I can feel while he rolls up his sleeves. “Another tribe or coven? Perhaps one of the few remaining Descendants?” Wraith goes silent when he’s out of sight before my head is jerked back. His breath is sweet on my neck, the smell of tobacco and something unfamiliar flooding my senses as he whispers, “My bitch mother, maybe? She’s always been good at eliminating those of Atticus’s loins.”
My head snaps upright as my mate moves around to my left, still looking me over, his gaze angry and hot as it continues to scour my body. “No, this is much bigger than her, too complex for her simple mind.” Wraith lifts a few strands of my hair, fingering them gently, watching the pieces fall to my shoulder before his eyes flip to mine. “Hecate?”
I furrow my brow without trying, it was an instinctual reaction really because for all the conversations I had with my mate, never once did he mentionanygods by name. He’s not exactly spiritual, and he has a major chip on his shoulder when it comes to authority figures, especially ones who allowed the discovery of our kind and the Species War to happen.
