Chapter 79
Eden
Even though Cedar doesn’t believe that I will win against Mara I can’t sit back and do nothing. There’s a portal eating up everything. It is letting out monsters from the magical realm and if I sit here, it will destroy the Dream pack.
As the Alpha, I can’t let that happen.
My eyes drift to the forest. It’s already alive with motion, wolves shifting, howls splitting the air. I can hear them through the mind–link.
‘Protect the Dream pack!‘
‘Run!‘
‘Where is our Alpha?‘
‘She is coming!‘
My heart pounds faster. The Dream pack is newly formed and yet my pack members already have faith in me.
But I’m no wolf. I’m a fix, and even though I’m strong, I don’t think I can get to the portal fast enough.
Elvira must read my mind. “Ride on my back,” she says and shape–shifts without hesitation.
Her blonde fur erupts in a flash of light. Then she is standing there, an enormous, sleek wolf. She watches me with her ears folded back, and then she lies down on the ground to offer me her back.
I guess this is her trying to make amends?
Since the pack needs me, I climb onto her back, grabbing fistfuls of fur. She then surges forward, carrying me faster than I could ever run on two legs. The trees blur past us. I hear the pounding of paws, the urgent snap of twigs, the distant calls of wolves in motion.
The air is sharp and cold, but underneath that chill is something worse–heat.
The scent of smoke and ash from the Nightmare Court.
Mara is coming.
We run faster past trees and bushes. Elvira is panting, and I’m gripping her blonde fur for dear life. Both of us know that this battle might be our last.
The ground is unnaturaly blackened, steam rising from what was once a snowy forest floor. Ash swirls in the air. Fire crackles in bursts. And in the center
of the devastation there’s a jagged tear in reality.
I shudder.
How am I supposed to close that portal? Can I do it?
It pulses with sickly green and violent purple light, humming with corrupted magic. It’s like the world is trying to sew itself shut but failing.
And the monsters…
They’re pouring through.
Twisted creatures with uneven limbs, some crawling, some leaping. Their bodies writhe like nightmares given form. Patchworks of bone and shadow and screeching maws too wide to be real. The smell alone turns my stomach.
Disgusting creatures.
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Chapter 79
i slide off Elvira’s back just as Axel crashes out of the brush, shifting into his giant brown wolf form mid air to tackle a monger. He dogun fall for None of us does.
We charge.
The Dream Pack meets the monsters with fury.
Wolves clash with horror, teeth sinking into rotted skin, claws raking shadow. I summon my fox magic, my nine glowing tails blazing around me. I duck and spin, sending blasts of power into the enemy lines. Where I hit, they shriek and fall, vanishing into black sludge.
“More are coming!” someone shouts.
And it’s true.
Every second, the portal pulses and more nightmares spill out.
Cedar appears beside me. Water ripples across his skin, then he’s a white tiger, then a falcon, then himself again. His seashell glows around his neck, a beacon of Azriel’s magic. Together we push forward.
A warped shadow–beast lunges at me, all teeth and claws. I duck, rolling beneath its swipe, my tails whipping upward to slice through its underbelly. Black ichor sprays across my face, burning like acid. I scream, but don’t stop moving.
Beside me, Axel tears through three monsters at once, his massive jaws crunching bone and shadow. Blood matts his fur, some his, most not. He roars when a creature with too many limbs latches onto his back, digging in with barbed claws. I blast it off him with a surge of fox–fire.
“Eden, behind you!” Elvira shouts.
I spin just as a nightmare attacks me. This one is shaped like a woman with her face turned inside out. She reaches for me with elongated fingers. Her nails scrape my cheek before Cedar materializes between us, shifting into a bear. He crushes the creature with his large paws, then shifts back to fae.
“The portal’s growing!” he yells over the chaos.
He’s right. The tear is widening, its edges now crackling with black lightning.
Then the temperature plummets.
And she arrives.
Queen Mara herself.
She glides through the portal like a shadow given skin, her black gown trailing ash across the ruined earth. The very magic in the air recoils from her. Her eyes are bottomless and find mine. Stay there. Lips curling.
“Well, well,” she purrs. “The little fox has grown teeth.”
Wolves around us falter. Even Cedar stills.
With one raised hand, she sweeps her arm through the air.
Three wolves collapse in agony, twitching as smoke rises from their fur. Dead.
“No!” I cry, but my voice sounds distant.
She doesn’t even blink.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Mara says sweetly. “But I’m glad you did. Saves me the trouble.”
Axel is suddenly in front of me, teeth bared, growling low.
Chapter 79
But I step past him.
My voice shakes. “This is my fight.”
His voice comes in through the mind–link, ‘Eden-
“I said this is my fight.”
I can teli that Axel doesn’t want to let me fight her. He knows she has had centuries to master her magic, while I’ve only had a few days. But he respects me and backs off.
My body shifts.
In a flash of red light, I’m a fox. My form glows with power, nine tails flaring behind me, each one has violent magic. I feel fire coursing through me. This is my birthright. My fury. My strength.
Mara smiles wider.
The earth trembles.
And the battle for the Dream Pack begins.
May the best leader win?
田
