Kalina ~ Book Four

The gun rang out, but the hit never came. Sylvie opened her eyes as Claudine’s body dropped in front of her, a hole straight through her shoulder.

Will worked on pulling the barbed plant free from his back as she crawled over, pulling Claudine's hands away from the pool of blood. The bullet had no exit wound, but Sylvie could only hope her body pushed it out.

She returned Claudine's hands to the wound to stem the bleeding, and she placed hers on top for equal pressure.

The lion shifter's lips moved, her face a mess of bruises, tears, and blood, but Sylvie couldn't place a word. She shushed her lightly, like a mother hushing a newborn, and raised her gaze to see Fray.

He had worked through the last chain around his neck and stalked straight past his brother behind her. Will called after him, but when he snarled, Sylvie realised his request had gone unheeded. She panted and shook her head, willing the ringing whine to go away.

When Will had almost freed the plant, she sent another wave of energy to it, making it loop around him and hook on his back, tugging at the gaping wound of his chest. He roared in anger and stared daggers into her as he writhed and reached for a weapon.

She sent another plant to steal the gun out of his reach and another two to tether his feet to the ground.

As long as he couldn't escape, for now, that was all that mattered. He spat insults at her that she could barely understand, and she averted her eyes.

Slowly, painfully slow, her hearing returned, and a chaotic din of roars filled her ears.

Huh?

She turned her head, only to find her mates, her parents and sister, fighting back the masses of possessed shifters pouring from behind the building.

“Don’t kill them,” she tried to yell. “Use my gun!” Kerensa already had a similar weapon, a trail of retching shifters in her wake, and Kora grabbed the two pistols on the discarded Harley.

“Sylvie,” Claudine tried again. “I’m sorry.”

“Claude, stop. You’re fine. Keep pressure and stay here.”

“Will-” her voice broke and wobbled.

“He isn’t your true mate, Claude.”

She sobbed, the wound spurting, and Sylvie clapped her hand over it again.

“Sylvie-”

She tried to hush her again, to calm her down, but her tone grew desperate. “Sylvie, I’m pregnant.”

Will looked up, face unreadable as the weight of a freight crushed Sylvie's chest. Pregnant. Oh god. She let the information process for a moment and nodded.

“That's something for another day, Claude. Today, we survive.” With that, she stood, lifted Claudine into her arms, and carried her past a still-staring Will into the packhouse, laying her on the first bed she could find. “Keep the pressure on. Do you understand me?”

Claudine nodded, although the motion pained her, making her wince, and Sylvie sprinted from the room into the chaos beyond.

Over a third of the pack had been immobilised, some of Sylvie's defecting pack members joining the Fray while the rest were unrelenting. Sylvie darted past the Harley to the open expanse of dirt road beyond and shoved a shifter off her father, the jaw only inches from Magnus’ face.

“Don't let them bite you!”

“Don’t worry about me!”

“It’s my job to worry. You’re my father.” She didn't wait to see his response, her legs carrying her like the wind to her mother, surrounded by the black-eyed monsters.

Sylvie leapt over one body and used the momentum to throw another she grabbed on the way down. The break in concentration gave Kora the opening she needed. She unloaded the clip into ten shifters in quick succession.

“Are you okay, honey?” she hissed at the fallen and regarded her daughter, her face still pristine, not a drop of sweat on it.

Sylvie hated to think what she looked like right then. “Yeah, fine. You?”

“Better now.”

They shared a look, and Sylvie turned, seeking her mates. Back to back and holding off a crowd of snarling shifters, Sylvie couldn't get to them.

She gaped, spotting Fray tearing through the group in Lycan form, forming a path for Kerensa, who had since dropped her gun and opted for banishing wards instead. The demons escaping shot off over the horizon like the shadow of a bird, a fucking huge bird.

The horde seemed to be shrinking in on her mates, so she dropped to her knees, palming the earth and seeking any life at all. The weaving path of roots and plants sang under her hands, and she smiled, forcing them to swell and bulge. The earth rolled underfoot before cleaving in two right through the crowd.

She gasped, seeing her mates drop down into the crack, but soon after, they shot out from under the dwindling possessed and ran for her, relief clear on Rowan's face and exasperation on Elias'.

“Hey,” she whispered, her face falling with shame. She’d run out on them like a coward, and now they were fighting for their lives- again. Neither spoke and just when her heart was about to shatter, she lunged between them, shoving her body into the barrelling approach of a bear, its maw just about clasping around Elias’ neck.

The earth shuddered again underfoot, dropping them down a half meter. Her mates grunted behind her, holding off another wave. The bear bore down on her, its stinking breath coating her face in moist heat. She fucking hated bear shifters. They were always bad news.

With a jolt, she recognised the bear bellowing in her face. Hayden. The same shifter that had claimed he wanted to be her protector— Now trying to bite her head off. It wasn’t Hayden anymore. Its dead, soulless eyes proved that. Only another inch, and all he had to do was close his jaw.

She groaned under his weight, her feet slipping on the uneven ground until another body shoved him away from her, and another, and another. One after the other, shifters she recognized, ones she had once called friends, ones who had left to live with their mates in Fraser's pack, shoved the bear back, guarding her with snarling faces.

Her heart swelled as she protected their backs, pushing shifters into the aim of Kora’s gun or Kerensa’s wards.

The fight turned from outright violence to restraint. Every available body held down the last possessed until there was none left, and everyone sat, heads between their legs, or sprawled on their backs, or curled in the foetal position, exhausted.

Sylvie dragged herself from the hole and ignored Fray's stare, running straight for where she had left Will.

As expected, he was gone, the plants she impaled him with dead on the ground saturated with blood. She almost said, ‘Good riddance’ when the trail of blood leading from the plant caught her eye. It led up the front stairs and through the open door.

No.

She ran back inside to where she had left Claudine and only found him standing above her bed, the last remnants of her a blood stain on the blankets. He phased in and out of view, and her whole body vibrated with rage. He took her and his unborn child, and he was about to get away, too.

Sylvie lunged and gripped his arm just as he fell through the floor, her body dematerialising and returning to solid as they landed hard on the ground.

The world was grey.

A thick blanket of misery, moans, growls and hyena laughs echoed in the space as she blinked, trying to take in the world. She vomited bile and clenched her belly. Whatever portal Will had used felt like being squeezed through the eye of a needle. Hell.

The liminal realm.

Will’s form disappeared, leaving her alone in a void. Once her cramps eased, she wiped her mouth and stood. The world around her remained grey even as she took a few tentative steps.

“Very funny,” she ground out, pausing and crossing her arms. “I suppose I look like an idiot, walking around blind. Isn’t that right, Sam? Or is it Samael?” It was a bluff and a convincing one, as it paid off almost instantly.

A sly laugh filled her ears, and the greyness receded. An ornate, gloomy but beautiful castle grand hall materialised around her. The walls were dank and filled with rot and webs far too large for an ordinary spider.

On a throne of flesh directly ahead, Mr. Sam Grey reclined, watching her with a smirk. His son and Claudine were nowhere to be seen. It seemed she was alone with the Demon.

“Welcome, Kalina Sylvie. I wondered when you’d figure me out.”

She controlled her expression to show only boredom and picked at her nails.

He continued. “You took far longer than I anticipated.”

She scoffed, dropping her hands to her sides with a slap and took a brazen step towards him. “What is it you want? I don’t care to hear your devious monologue or thoughts about my stupidity. I heard enough of that from your bastards. Just tell me what you want.”

He smiled but didn't answer. Typical arrogant asshole. She suppressed her anger and put on a mask of neutrality again, even as her marks buzzed as if her mates were trying to reach her.

God, she didn't want them coming there. For all she knew, she was trapped. Kerensa and Kian always said not to let go when portalling, or they’d be lost in the liminal realm. And she felt pretty fucking lost right then. She wasn’t hopeful.

“I suppose you’re plotting the ways to kill me.”

She squinted up at him. She hadn't even got that far with her mind. Torture was first. Fingernails. Peel the skin from the bone from the flayed cuticles and pour acid into the wounds. That was as far as she had gotten.

“Why would I? Did you do something to me?”

“You don’t truly think my ‘bastard’, as you called them, orchestrated everything, do you? Every incident, every death,” he hissed the word, “was thanks to my careful calculation.”

She nodded— she had already figured that out. Will was too angry and too young to think deeply enough to plan a ten-year revenge.

“So,” she said, pacing a little ahead of him, fluffing her aloof attitude. It was easy there- pretending, burying the pain and anger, the revenge she would soon get. “You weren't keen on Fletcher Industries' work environment? I just want to ensure the next person in your position has a little more longevity.”

He smirked, but a muscle twitched next to his eye.

She smirked back. Will dragged himself into the room from a curtained side wall. Grey didn't even glance at him as his son stood on the steps facing her.

“I’ve been watching you, girl. You're wasted where you are.”

She rolled her eyes, though his words grated on her. “Teaching and healing is more my style.”

“Waste,” he hissed, raking his fingers down the flesh on the arm of the chair. An arm, Sylvie realised with horror. The skin goosepimpled under his touch, and she swallowed the acid in her throat.

“I am of use when I need to be.”

That piqued his attention again, a smirk returning to his lips. “Yes. You are rather resistant to death, aren’t you? A useful trait.”

Her brows furrowed, but refused to ask him to explain. He did, anyway.

“We searched for your mother for years the second we heard of your conception and found nothing.”

Yep. Figured.

“I warned my daughter of you the instant I even suspected your ties to those creatures she wished to enslave, and I sent that lesser Demon to smother you in your bed. Yet you lived. I sent the hybrid to your vampire's office, and you survived. The possessed bear shifter to his cabin. The vampires to run you off the road. Each and every time, you bested them.”

With each admission, her heart skipped a beat. Then another. Then, it slowed until she wasn’t even sure it was beating anymore. He was the reason her mother hid her in the hands of humans and spiralled into solitary-induced madness. Everything she did was to protect her from him.

“The doe-eyed child to slit your throat.”

Her breath whooshed from her lips, and she shook her head. A cold chill coated her skin in goosebumps. Bea. “Why?” she whispered. “Why?”

“You don’t think I know about you? Fates Champion? Long before you were even born, the Fates boasted of your arrival. Demon purger, curse breaker, division healer,” he spat every title with such venom she backed up a half step. “Weapon of the Gods.” He chuckled darkly, the sound humourless. “They like to think they are gods, but the Fates are just as beastly as we are.”

She didn't want to hear it, didn't want to listen, but she couldn't move, couldn't speak.

“We were their first creation. Seekers of pleasure and self-actualisation, but they decided we weren't worthy. They shunned us, withheld mate bonds, and trapped us in this realm, only allowing glimpses of freedom when someone else opened the gateways.

"I suppose I should thank you for that. It had been years of darkness before you came along, flitting from realm to realm with no thought of the consequences or who or what you let slip through behind you.”

She suppressed a shudder, parting her lips to speak, but he lifted a finger to his mouth, and a brush of wind caressed her own. “I didn't say you could speak yet, child. Wait your turn.”

Her lips pressed together against her will, and she steadied her shaky breathing as Sam and Will grinned wolfishly back at her.

“Now, let's see what fun we can have,” Sam purred.