“Tonight’s festivities are now over,” I said, my voice tight. “Anyone who is not a Lord or Pack will be escorted out.” I gestured toward the right. “Please follow my Omega, Simone.”
Simone’s eyes burned with concern, but she put on a polite, unworried smile and began ushering people out of the Keep, all while Evie burned like a supernova.
“What’s wrong with her?” I said in a low voice.
Moira’s jaw tightened. “Someone sabotaged her, Caelan. Was it you?” Her eyes flashed the vivid green of her kind.
“You know the answer to that,” I snapped.
“Someone did.”
When I started to approach her, Moira reached out and stopped me. “Don’t.”
A golden orb shimmered around Evie, covering most of her features. I squinted to see inside, but seeing past the bright glare of her magic was almost impossible.
I glanced toward the Lords. Rowan’s eyes were wide with stunned awe. Thorvin studied her like a new specimen. Soren wore a slight smile, and Donovan looked like he’d seen a ghost. Ethan looked like he wanted to say I told you so, but Halvar...Halvar was laughing, his eyes on Evie’s glowing form as if she wasn’t doing anything unexpected.
But then...she did.
Strands of red and gold magic mixed with the calming watermelon tourmaline she normally had flowed from her feet and wrapped around the base of the bonfire.
Then her dress came alive. A vine snaked out from the side of her dress and wrapped around Halvar’s leg, jerking him off his feet with a satisfying yelp. Other vines reached out and wrapped around every other Lord, but those vines gently picked those Lords up and deposited them at the edge of the property, far away from the chaos.
Then she picked up Halvar with her vine and slammed him onto the earth repeatedly.
I heard Rowan’s bark of laughter all the way across the yard.
“How dare you!” something that didn’t sound like Evie said from her voice. The orb disappeared, revealing Evie’s glowing golden skin and generous lips. But her eyes...those stunning azure eyes were not the same.
They glowed the color of cut rubies.
Halvar laughed through a mouth filled with blood. “There you are. I knew I’d find you.”
I stilled. They knew each other.
Every single embroidered flower on that dress came alive, building a cage of flora around them, shutting me and Moira, and everyone else out.
“Don’t interfere,” Moira warned. “This was a long time coming.”
I glanced at her in disbelief. “How does she know Halvar?”
The vampire’s smile was filled with grief. “That’s not Halvar.”
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
The Chimera had found me. After all these years, I’d finally found a home and people who loved me, and I relaxed, thinking I was finally safe.
The Lord, who was not a Lord, sliced through my vines with a razor tipped claw and came to his feet, his features melting to a face I would never forget. It was his face that attracted me first, dark hair and brilliant blue eyes, lips that could charm a nun, and a smile that made my knees weak.
I was devastated and grieving the end of my marriage, and I’d come to Scotland for some relaxation, a way to get out of my head. We met at a crowded bar on the third night, and I was a moth attracted to his flame. Within hours, we were dancing, our hands everywhere, our mouths entangled. I’d fallen in love that night, or at least what passed for love when you were so entangled in grief all you could do was stop moving and wait to drown.
But then he asked me to meet him for a moonlight walk, and stupidly, I did.
And it had changed me forever.
“You cannot deny what you are, Evangeline.”
