She grasped his hand in her wee ones. Her skin was freezing. Because his mate was dying. Dying. “It will work this time.”
“Even if it did, you’d become a rabid newling.”
“You’ll help me control it. You’ll teach me.”
That would take decades, assuming he transformed her. He’d proven he couldn’t! Munro met Lothaire’s red gaze. “You! With your age, you might be able to turn her.”
The king examined his black nails. “If the silly wench doesn’t crave my exalted blood, then she isn’t worthy of it.”
“Leo!” Ellie slapped his arm.
“Kristoff is right anyway,” Lothaire told her. “Female vampires can’t be made. Not even by one as legendary as I.”
Kereny murmured, “Munro, everything is different now.”
He faced her again, struggling to remain sane. “What is?”
“This is my choice. I won’t fight the transformation.” Her breaths grew labored, her lids heavy. But she raised her chin and steadied her words: “I am ready for your beast’s fire. I am nothing but kindling. My determination will carry me back to you. Believe in me . . . in us.”
His little female was in so much pain, striving to be brave, and he couldn’t fucking fix this. “You told me that you doona make it to the end of the story.”
“That was when I thought it was only my story. Now I know it’s ours.” Her brows drew together as she said, “Munro, it’s fated to be ours.”
A wolven chuff left his lips. He was helpless to deny her.
Balery said, “You need to hurry. Her lifeforce is dimming.”
Ellie told Lothaire, “Let’s give them privacy.”
“Are you kidding me?” the vampire scoffed. “I wouldn’t miss this for all the worlds!”
“Please, Leo.”
He grumbled, “Very well, hellbilly.”
The others left Munro alone with Kereny and madness. The bleeding edge. When he’d lost her in Quondam, he hadn’t yet loved her.
The need to fight for her overwhelmed him, as if the aggression from a lifetime’s worth of battles surged inside him.
Choking him.
Kereny laid her cold hand on his cheek, her big copper eyes glinting. “I know, Munro. I know how hard this is.” She could see his feral desperation? “But you can do this. I believe in you.”
Canna frighten my little mortal. Imbuing his words with confidence, he vowed to her, “Something is different from the time before: I’m going to give you everything I am, down to my verra soul. I hold nothing of myself back from you. Nothing, Kereny. So you must hold nothing back as well.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Yes. We can do this . . . together.” Her hand fell away from his face.
He began to release his beast. Please, beast. Please, bring her back to us.
“That’s it, Munro.”
At a time like this, his psyche clamored for control. Instead, he ceded it to the creature inside him. No control, no rationality, no defying the odds to save the day. A warrior whose fight was finished, Munro could only . . .
Surrender.
Accept.
Trust.
So he did.
With a primal roar, his beast took over, leaving Munro to exist in the background. As the creature bared its fangs and eased down, Munro heard her heartbeat slowing. Beat-beat . . . beat-beat . . .
He expected the beast to deliver a frenzy of bites like the last time. Instead, it pierced her neck cleanly; she didn’t even cry out.
Snarling against her cool flesh, the beast injected its essence, a part of itself, through a single, solemn bite. The Lykae flame.
Kereny’s body fell limp. Beat . . . beat . . .
Silence.
Her final breath escaped her, carrying her last words: “I . . . love . . . you. . . .”
She died before he could say the words back.
FIFTY-SIX
Glenrial, Louisiana
“Return to me, Kereny.” Munro stroked his thumb over the rise of her cheekbone. “Come back to me.” Madness loomed as his anguished vigil continued on for a fifth night.
When he’d awaited her resurrection before, his heart had not been in play. Now he was all heart. Nothing but heart. And it was bleeding from a wound only Kereny could heal. . . .
He vaguely recalled Lothaire kicking them out of Dacia—“Newlings are outside pests”—and Stelian tracing them to Glenrial. Ben, Rónan, and the entire pack had gathered to help. But Munro had shaken his head, and everyone had butted the fuck out while he’d carried his dead mate into the lodge and to his bed.
He’d called Loa: “Bring your snake and your voodoo. Do whatever you bloody must.” She’d been unable to help Kereny. He’d contacted Mariketa—the leader of the House of Witches and mate to his cousin Bowen—and offered all he had and all he could steal. But Mariketa had told him, “I’m so sorry, Munro, but I can only heal the living. It’s up to her now.”
He’d even considered pleading to Dorada for that ring. But he couldn’t find her again, and her talisman wouldn’t retrieve the dead anyway.