The Mating Season: Werewolves of Montana Book 6 (36 page)

“It was me, glamoured to look like Mara. I am Fae. I mated with Drust to watch over his children. I agreed to aid him in the war, and in exchange he kept my secret and told everyone I was dragon. It was easy enough to cloak myself as a dragon, even easier to mask myself as Gideon’s sister and make you think I gave you the potion that took your life. Drust won the war and then he settled for peace with my people. But then he found out I was sleeping with my former lover, and banished me. I was left with nothing!”

“Tristan,” Nikita moaned. “Help me…”

Camilla kicked her in the side and Niki screamed with pain. “Your powerful wizard can’t help you now, just as he could not back then. Nor could he aid you in the Shadow Lands. I had my spies in Drust’s cavern—blowflies—to alert me so I could summon the Shadow Eaters to the Dark Gate.” She snorted. “Alas, I failed to consider Tristan’s damned nobility. He just had to sacrifice himself for you.”

With all her might, Nikita began crawling across the kitchen floor, forcing her weakened limbs to move. Niki drew upon the flickering life inside her, willing herself to the counter where the butcher knives were kept. A sudden burst of strength filled her, and she pulled herself upward and grabbed a knife.

Turning, she flung it at Camilla. Camilla looked down as it landed in her stomach. Then the Fae laughed and pulled out the knife. No blood coated the blade.

Camilla turned over her palms. On the left one was a black pointed star. “No one can kill me. Not even your wizard. I gave my soul to the Dark One, and in becoming his servant, I am now indestructible.”

“Please,” Niki moaned, sliding back to the floor, her limbs growing paralyzed once more.
I can’t die again, not like this…not when I have so much to live for…all this time I’ve longed to be free and experience life. Have great adventures. Climbing mountains, waltzing at a formal ball. Tristan gave me all that.

He gave me the freedom to be myself.

And the greatest adventure of all was falling in love with Tristan all over again, and recapturing the passion we once shared.

A flash of brilliant silver smoke filled the air. Tristan stepped out of the haze.

He tossed a ball of energy at Camilla. But she dodged it and laughed. The energy globe hit the wall and destroyed part of it.

“You can’t destroy me, wizard. Your mate will die in agony, just as she did all those centuries ago. And with her death, the second time I killed her and this time a sacrifice to the Dark Lord, I will have power second to none, even you, Tristan! No one can control me ever again!”

Tristan threw another energy ball. This time it hit Camilla in the neck. She screeched and writhed, and changed, no longer an attractive young woman.

Gasping for air, her windpipe constricting, she struggled to remain conscious. The back kitchen door opened and Aiden and Nia rushed inside. Aiden took one look at Camilla, her hair now turned to a mass of writhing snakes, her eyes dark pits, and ugly gouges on her face.

“Son of a bitch! What the hell is THAT?” the alpha yelled.

“Stay back, Mitchell,” Tristan warned, lobbing another energy ball. It smashed into Camilla’s chest, making her stagger backward.

Nia rushed to her side. “Honey, don’t leave us, please.” Her twin held her tight and began breathing slowly. “Don’t panic. Listen to my voice, Niki. Conserve your air. Remember how we once swam in the pond and you taught me to hold my breath. Slow. Easy.”

Nia’s calming voice and her touch grounded Niki. She struggled to keep at bay the panic now consuming her oxygen, making an effort to draw in short breaths.

Her sister’s mate looked at her and his expression grew infuriated. Then Aiden looked at Camilla.

“No one messes with my family, bitch!”

Aiden, dear feckless Aiden, ignored the wizard’s warning. He shifted into wolf and the alpha rushed the demon, but she flicked a bolt of black energy at him. Aiden the wolf yelped as he crashed into the table.

“Aiden,” Nia screamed.

The wolf bounded to his feet and shook his mighty head. Tristan raised his hands skyward. “Caedryn, Gideon, Xavier, to me NOW!”

Xavier and Gideon, and another man she did not recognize appeared in the kitchen. Camilla threw a stream of black energy at Xavier. It slammed into his arm. He looked down at his burnt shirt sleeve in amazement.

Snarling, he flung out a hand and a crystalline net, spiked with shards of quartz, encased Camilla. She froze in time.

“That will hold her, but only for a little while,” said the wizard she did not recognize, the one with long hair the color of gold, the tips dipped in gray.

As Xavier went to fling an energy ball at the demon, Tristan stayed his hand.

“No! Use all your powers to maintain the netting, Xavier.” He turned to the wizard she did not recognize. “Cadeyrn, you’re the strongest and the eldest. Destroy her, and Gideon and I will aid you. Now!”

All three of them conjured glowing balls of energy. Silver for Tristan, red for Gideon, gray for Caderyn. The wizards chanted and the deep notes of their ancient spell lifted some of the terrible pressure off Niki’s chest. It was like listening to an ancient choir, she thought in a daze.

The magick net around Camilla began to crack and she struggled to escape, poking one arm through. Xavier growled and more crystals appeared on the net, but the demon cackled and poked another arm through. Strain showed on Xavier’s face.

“Hurry,” Xavier urged. “She is freeing herself and I can’t hold her much longer!”

“Now,” Tristan roared. “Aim for the heart!”

Tristan, Gideon and Cadeyrn threw scores of energy balls at Camilla, hitting her square in the chest. As the good, powerful magick of the wizards consumed her, she writhed and screamed. And then she exploded into a shower of black ash.

Tristan, breathing heavily, leaned over and braced his hands on his knees.

“That was one tough demon to kill,” Xavier said solemnly. “You have always been able to kill them on your own, Tristan.”

“A very bad omen,” Cadeyrn said. “We have never had to fight such evil.”

“We may have to do so again,” Gideon warned.

“Forget about that,” Nia screamed. “Save my sister.”

The four wizards became a hazy blur as Niki struggled against the ensuing grayness pushing at the edges of her vision. Gasping, she tried to draw in precious air. Tristan, her beloved wizard, dropped to the floor beside her.

“Niki.” Panic flared in Tristan’s dark eyes as he gathered her close. “No, goddess, no, you can’t leave me. Not again.”

She could not speak, for her throat closed up and the grayness pushed at the edges of her vision. With all her might she touched his face one last time. “I…sorry.”

And then she closed her eyes and the darkness rushed up to greet her at last.

Chapter 22

Nikita was dying, just as she had nine hundred years ago. And he, the immortal, powerful Silver Wizard, could not stop it.

Do not interfere with her fate, Tristan.

The goddess Danu’s warning rang in his mind, but he ignored it, staring at Nikita’s pale face and her mouth, opening and closing like that of a fish, as she tried to suck in air.

His three fellow wizards crouched down beside him.

“I am sorry, Tristan,” Gideon said gently. “I am so sorry, my friend.”

“No.” He rocked her back and forth in his arms, placing a palm on her belly, and with his powers, felt the tiny flutter of life inside her struggling to remain alive.

Xavier squeezed his shoulder. “I am so sorry, Tristan.”

The trio stood, but not before Caderyn, the oldest of them and the most powerful, flashed a warning with his gray gaze turning to pure white. “Do not interfere in her destiny and do not give her your powers.”

With a wave of their hands, they vanished.

Kneeling beside him, her cheeks wet with tears, Nia sobbed. “Niki, not again, please, I can’t lose you again.”

Then she pointed a shaking finger at him. “You bastard wizard, the prophecy was right! You killed her! You found her, made her your lover and your bride and you killed her!”

He could not meet her gaze, for she was right. He spoke to Aiden. “Mitchell, get out of here and take your mate with you. I need a moment alone.”

Aiden shifted back from wolf and went to his mate. “Come, my love. Give Tristan time to say his good-byes.”

The Mitchell alpha tugged his mate out of the ruined kitchen.

Tristan held Nikita close as he rocked her in his arms, singing softly to her as he brushed back her hair. He put a hand on the slight swell of her belly, the tiny life inside slowly perishing.

His song turned into a moan as he clutched her. So many regrets. Should never have released her. Why had he let her go? He could not foresee her future, for it was too intrinsic to his own. Too interwoven with his.

Tristan lay Nikita down and wiped his eyes.

Call upon me in your greatest hour of need.
The words Drust spoke to him echoed in his mind.

He started to, and hesitated. Drust was a new wizard by now, but he could not save Nikita. Only he, Tristan, had that power.

Do not interfere in Nikita’s fate
, Danu had warned. Those were the rules, the absolute truth that governed his power.

Fuck the rules.

Nikita came first. He promised to protect her with his body and his magick. His chest tightened.
One last kiss, my love. One last kiss before I lose you forever and I turn to shadow
.

He knew what he must do. Bending over, he gave her one last, sweet kiss.

I love you. I shall love you through all eternity. You will live forever in my cold, dead heart, my dearest love, though I shall never see you again.

Summoning all his magick, he closed his eyes and made a fist with his right hand. Power hummed and sang in the air like an electrical line. Tristan flicked a finger and the knife Nikita had used to stab Camilla sailed into his left hand. With his magick, he purified the blade. No demon blood must touch it in the face of what he was about to do.

Tristan looked skyward. “I, Tristan Kearny, the Silver Wizard, guardian and judge of all shifter OtherWorlders, do this of my own free will, as wizard of the Brehon.”

He stabbed Nikita in the heart.

Tristan did not hesitate, for Niki’s light was fading quickly. He summoned all his powers, his aura pulsing in a silver-white glow. Blinding white light filled the room.

Tristan forced his powers into his right hand, and then placed his palm over the bleeding wound in Nikita’s chest. A brilliant, luminescent, silvery-white glow encased her body. Her chest began to rise and fall once more, and the wound sealed shut.

Dropping his hand, he sat back on his haunches.

It is done.

His aura faded. A terrible pain seized his chest and he gasped.

The back door opened and Aiden and Nia rushed into the kitchen. Nia ran to her twin. By now the glow surrounding Nikita’s body was fading.

“Niki! Niki!” Her blue eyes wild with grief and hope, she looked at Tristan. “She’s alive, isn’t she?”

Beyond weary, he nodded. “She lives. She will take a moment…or five or fifteen, to awaken.”

Ah, at least he still had a sense of humor. Perhaps it would sustain him in the shadowy world he was now cursed to live in for eternity.

I wonder if they have cable in the Shadow Lands?

He smiled, but even that gesture proved too taxing, and he let his mouth go lax.

Aiden crouched down next to him. “Tristan, you’re looking bad. What the hell did you do?”

He gave a little laugh. Typical Mitchell. Always direct. One reason he liked the fierce alpha Lupine.

“I gave Nikita my powers. My immortality. She can never die now, and the babe she carries in her womb will never die, either. My love, and my legacy, will live on.”

He started to stand and then collapsed.

He knew it was the end for him. But Nikita would live.

She would live.

He himself would be banished to a living hell—as a ghost damned to walk the Shadow Lands forever.

It was so quiet, peaceful and lovely in this transition place. Niki blinked and looked around, seeing nothing but grayish fog. Yet she had no fear. Someone whispered to her, words of such deep love she felt immediately secure.

And then she began walking toward a brilliant yellow-white light that her spirit recognized from her time with Tristan.

Tristan! Where was he?

Barely had she time to contemplate that question when suddenly the light in front of her winked out and she felt herself lying on a soft surface.

Niki opened her eyes.

She was on a wide bed, several of the ranch Lupines surrounding her. She recognized Darius, Kyle and Dale, and their mates. Aiden stood by the bed, looking grief-stricken. Nia sat beside her, holding her hand. Her twin gasped and hugged her tight.

“It worked! You’re alive!”

Confused, she blinked. “What happened? It felt as if I died and was entering Tir Na-nog.”