So Munro had spent these days and nights discovering what gut-wrenching agony truly was. He’d pulled at his hair. He’d roared at Kereny; she’d promised him she would return! He’d curled up around her to keep her body warm. Rocked her. Fought his emotions and his beast.
Minutes were years. Hours were eons.
Though his bite mark showed no regeneration, she looked and smelled alive because that witchly stamp continued to work, and already his mind played tricks on him. At times, he thought he could hear her sigh. He would jerk upright, only to find her chest still.
At other times, he swore her pulse flickered. But whenever he pressed his lips to that sweetest butterfly flutter, only stillness greeted him—
“Bràthair, I came as soon as I heard.” A hand that looked exactly like his own appeared on his shoulder.
Munro dragged his gaze from Kereny. “Will? Are you really here?” His brother had never looked so healthy in his life. “Hallucination?”
“I’m here.” He glanced to Kereny and back. “Your mate will return to you. There’s time yet.”
“No mortal has ever resurrected past three days, not in all of the warlocks’ history. It’s been five.” She was out of time.
“Then she will set a record,” Will insisted. “I feel this. Good things are on the horizon for both of us.” Will’s eyes held no trace of bleakness, and he sounded optimistic about the future; definitely a hallucination. “Madadh told me everything about Quondam and the Forgotten.”
The warlock threat felt like it’d happened in another lifetime.
When Munro and Kereny had first arrived behind the boundary at Glenrial, he’d removed their cloaking cuffs and her mystical blade. It lay on the bedside table, awaiting her.
But she’s no’ coming back.
So he would find her in the ether of death and be with her there. Where your mate goes, you follow. He didn’t dare wait much longer. His beast would soon take over. If it rose up irretrievably, he wouldn’t be able to end his existence.
Will said, “Munro, let me be of service to you, as you were to me for all my life.”
“Service?” Only a pit of unnatural flames could help him now.
“I’ve forever asked myself one question: What would Munro do? And if our situations were reversed, you would be out fighting for my future. You’d be out fixing shite. Your mate will rise, and when she does, she’s going to need help.”
As much as he wanted his brother with him at the very end, Munro had to get rid of him. Otherwise, Will would try to prevent him from setting off for the Fyre Dragán—just as Munro had stopped Will.
“Aye, then,” Munro said. “We must have water from the Well of Souls in the rage demon realm.” Questionable sources swore it cured newling rabidity, but Munro had concluded it was merely another Lorean MacGuffin. “And we need Garreth’s cuff from the belly of a giant caiman in the Amazon.” Would that magic even work on a newling?
Does no’ matter now. “Such a cuff would be a temporary solution,” Munro forced himself to say, “but mayhap it’d work long enough for her to gain control.”
“That’s all? We’re on it! We’ll return by the full moon.”
A couple of nights from now? You’re dreaming.
Will squeezed his shoulder. “She will come back to you.” As Munro had once said to Will about Chloe, he added, “Brother, give the lass a chance.”
FIFTY-SEVEN
full moon eve
Stone pine, wildness, and man. The most addictive scent Ren had ever imagined.
She had to investigate that scent. Curiosity flared, and it was enough to lure her out of the darkness.
Her fingers twitched. Her toes. Her eyes moved behind her lids.
Hadn’t she heard Munro’s voice, raw with emotion? Return to me! But a lot of time seemed to have passed since then, and he’d stopped talking to her.
She cracked open her eyes. Where am I? Why do I feel so amazing? Her body was boundless, filled with life.
Hazy memories surfaced. She’d been clawed by a Wendigo! Munro had bitten her! Why were those memories so dim?
Because you died, dummy.
Ah.
One thing she remembered with a crystalline clarity: she was in love with Munro MacRieve.
Her sight cleared until she could see him standing by a window. Phone at his ear, he spoke to someone in a monotone voice.
Though the last rays of the sun painted him in a golden light, he looked like death. Eyes bloodshot. Skin pale. He must be worried sick about her! How long had she been gone?
She sat up to reach for him, stunned to see the black claws tipping her fingers. Her tongue rubbed one of her new fangs. Her heart beat faster as realization sank in. I’m—she swallowed—immortal.
When she inhaled Munro’s scent, a voice spoke into her mind: —YOURS!—
That must be the Instinct. They’d done it! He’d made her into a werewolf, had spread the fire to give her a beast of her own.