Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 132582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
But then I hear a voice.
Caz, I’m here.
My eyes pop open, and the black figure stands only a few steps away, it’s dark cape billowing in the cold wind. The inside of the cabin is now cloaked in ice that splinters across the walls and floors.
I sit up and look out the open door.
Show me where you are. Willow. Her voice rings through me, and that weakness I’d once claimed disappears. I stare at the dark figure as it stretches one of its taloned hands toward me.
“What are you waiting for?” I demand.
It doesn’t move, and I realize this is clearly my choice. This is not an attack. It’s a request of submission. If he touches me, I go. I’ll leave this world, and all will fade.
But if I stay…
I use as much strength as my body will allow and climb off the couch, walking through the cabin and past the dark figure. When I reach the door, I look back at it, curious why I’ve been given the choice. I assumed there was none—that it’d come for me and be done with it.
“Go to her, and you’ll die.” Its voice is hollow. It crackles, echoes. It’s a threat that feels anything but.
“I don’t believe you.”
It remains floating, reaching.
“Come with me. Make this simple…unless you wish to suffer.”
“Caz!” Willow’s voice is growing louder. She’s close. I can feel her. Wherever she is, my body senses it. She beckons to me, and I have the sweet, sweet yearning to be with her.
“Well, if I must suffer,” I murmur, dropping my gaze. “I’d rather it happen while I’m in her arms.”
The cold wraps me up further as Mournwrath raises its hand higher. I feel the weight of its pull like a magnet, reeling me backward, but with one loud yell—one that slaps the air like a clap of thunder—I break the pull and stumble out of the cabin, hurrying to find my mate.
Sixty-Four
WILLOW
Silvera’s pace picks up from a trot to a run.
“Wait!” I scream. If she goes any faster, I won’t be able to keep up. She doesn’t wait—she keeps running, maneuvering between the trees, jumping over dense, mossy logs.
“Willow!”
I gasp and stop running when I hear the voice. His voice.
“Willow, do ya hear me?”
“Caz,” I whisper. It’s just like the dream. I look all around me, his voice filling the void, then I look down at my arm, at the purple haze that’s beginning to fade. My brown skin is breaking through. I’m returning to his world—to him. It’s not too late.
I’m close.
I run in the direction Silvera went, as hard and as fast as I can. Darkness descends, swallowing the trees behind me, chasing me, but I keep running, refusing to let it catch me. The wind whips at my face, my locs, and a chill strikes me in my stomach. It takes everything in me not to double over in pain. I glance back as the darkness climbs behind me, moving faster. I clutch my belly with one hand and don’t stop. My lungs work harder. They feel like they’re freezing inside me.
Shit. Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe Leah Bianchi was wrong too. It could be possible that this Tether doesn’t make you stronger at all, and what Beatrix said wasn’t a lie.
“Willow!” Caz’s voice is louder. Closer.
“I’m here!” I scream. The darkness is blinding now. My purple light is fading. The cold begins to paralyze me, my toes becoming numb, the soles of my bare feet pounding into the ground.
I’m here. I’m here. The thought is fleeting. I hope he can hear it.
And just when I feel I’ll be engulfed in darkness and cold, swallowed whole by this evil that doesn’t want us together, I spot Silvera, and her body clashes with a blur of black fur. Cerberus. And not too far behind Cerberus is Caz.
He’s wearing his trench coat, no shirt beneath. His chest—the black veins that have taken over his pale body are prominent, but that’s not what catches me off guard. It’s the way he looks right now—his face sunken in and hollow, the dark bruises around his eyes, most likely from lack of sleep.
He’s dying and Mournwrath is lingering, trying to take him before I can get to him.
When he sees me, my heart slows in rhythm, but I don’t stop running, and neither does he. Every second counts. No breath can be wasted.
We run, racing against darkness, racing against the cold. The mist in the air clings to my skin, ice shooting through my limbs, but I don’t care because he’s here. I’m here.
And when we meet, we clash. We clash hard, my arms locking around his neck, his going around my middle. He holds me close, and I squeeze my eyes closed, waiting for the pain to sweep through me, waiting for the dark cold to steal us away and suck us dry.