Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
The girl was getting weaker.
The scent of death clung to the dirt where she walked.
She didn’t know.
She knew absolutely nothing.
But I knew.
Before she stepped into such frail bones and fragile form, she’d tasked me with her trust. She asked my pack to watch and protect from the shadows. To follow her. To remember for her. But she didn’t want us interfering. She wanted the chance of a mortal life. A life she seemed to be failing.
And even though I tasted her faltering existence and heard her fading heartbeat, her commands had been simple.
Do. Not. Interfere.
As long as her life remained untouched by her past and power, I was to stand back and let death take her by normal methods. I was to let her die. Because that was a part of life and she wanted to sample it.
But...there had been one rule.
One unbreakable rule.
If death came for her in the same mortal form she wore; if he sensed her power and awoke with memories he should not have; if he tried to claim her for his own...
Then we were to stop him.
To intervene.
To do whatever it took to keep them separate.
Death wasn’t to be killed.
He could become our pack and share our shadows.
But he could not share her.
Because she was not his.
She was ours.
She was all of us.
She was the reason we all existed—
I jerked back as the vision ended. The alpha’s gaze locked on mine as he backed away from me, bowing his giant horned head.
“You knew,” I whispered. “All this time.”
He whined once, his tail wagging.
“You adopted Darro because he’s a creature of the night...like you. He’s the reason you have horns and tower over other wolves.”
His eyes narrowed with agreement.
I rubbed my chest above my heart. “It’s true, then? That it was us who set such rules? We willingly chose to forget...”
His tail wagged again.
“But now that we’ve been together—”
Salak dropped his mighty head with a long whimper. Images of death, chaos, and carnage fed from his mind to mine. I shuddered as smoke from a burning world filled my nose.
“And if I don’t want that to pass?” I choked.
His muzzle came up, and he licked my cheek with a soft huff.
He didn’t share his wolf sight or grace me with mental images. Instead, he let his silence speak volumes.
My shoulders slouched as I fully understood what I’d done.
What Darro had done.
The elements and beasts had tried to carry out our rules and failed.
There was nothing to fight against now, no reason to intervene.
The future could not be changed.
Behind him, the other wolves whined. A smaller male lifted his head and howled, the haunting melody sending prickles all over my skin.
“Salak?” a deep, wonderfully familiar voice asked. “What is it? Why is everyone—” Darro appeared from the cave, his hands balled and stomach strained. His smoky hair looked as wild as the day I’d met him, his cheeks shaved, and his earthen skin stained green in places as if he’d tussled with growing wolf pups. A silver ring appeared around his gaze as our eyes locked.
I jerked at the intensity of being near him again.
Of choosing him.
Of finally understanding why we were never meant to be, all while knowing I would always be his.
I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t want him over a past I still couldn’t fully remember.
I shouldn’t be so selfish to desire him over a future I was tasked to save.
But I couldn’t stop the love pouring out of me, flowing with golden light and pearly stars, binding us together.
We might have been forbidden.
By our decree and no one else’s.
But this was me, breaking that law.
I flinched as our hearts fell back in sync.
He sucked in a breath as he felt the bond snap into place.
We didn’t need blood binds or fire ceremonies.
After all, we weren’t mortal.
I accepted that.
I bowed to that.
Even with patchy memories and so much still hidden, I accepted that I was a spirit of life and sun, and he was a shadow of death and darkness. And the past week of missing him revealed just how badly we’d messed up these mortal existences. Just how much we’d end up paying for the brief snatches of belonging.
“Darro...” I spoke through my heart, silent and true. I wanted to tell him what Salak had shared. What I’d seen.
But...words wouldn’t come.
Tears fell down my cheeks and, with a sharp inhale and effortless grace, Darro leaped down from the cave’s entrance and prowled toward me.
He didn’t speak.
He merely stalked fast and fierce, making my heart thunder and stomach clench as he brushed past Salak, ignored the pack all watching him with their yellow, haunting eyes and buried his hands into my hair.
I trembled at his touch.
I gasped at his possession.
My worries quietened beneath the wash of his everlasting affection.
Biting his bottom lip, Darro drew his dark gaze from my toes to my mouth, then tugged me into him. His head lowered, and his fists tightened in my hair. “About time you came to find me.”