The Wild Moon by Riley Storm
Chapter Fifty-Three
Purple energy cascaded out from where I knelt.
It ran out in a circle, racing through runes on the floor and up the walls, carving an intricate pattern up to the center of the room, which was right above me.
The thing that had called to me had called to that energy. It reached out, and as the entire room cackled with brilliant violet light, it surged back down and into me.
If I’d thought I was being torn in two earlier, I didn’t know a thing about pain. That was like stubbing my toe compared to the sheer blinding agony that filled every part of my body, burning every pain receptor and nerve ending I possessed.
I screamed until my throat bled. My eyes were bleeding. I tasted more blood on my lips as it trickled from my nose.
Nearby, I somehow saw motion. It was Johnathan, his wolf staring at me, mouth open in shock.
“You,” I said, my voice reverberating with astounding strength, filling the room.
This was his fault. I wanted him to feel my pain. To share in my hurt.
Without thinking, I thrust a hand at him. Purple lightning coursed out from my hand, slamming into him and hurling the giant wolf across the room until he crunched against the wall.
I slowly turned my palm to face me, staring at it. Well, that was new.
Getting to my feet, I wavered. My wolf was howling, struggling to get free, the energy pouring through me hurting her, too. The room blurred, and I lost consciousness for a moment. When I regained it, the pain returned with stunning rapidity. I screamed some more.
My senses were flickering in and out of human and wolf, overwhelming me. I abruptly shifted into wolf form and then back in less than two seconds. My body wasn’t designed for that, and I curled up on my side, altering between whimpering and screaming as energy continued to pour into me and then out of me, lighting up the room with its purple glow.
I heard more noise from somewhere behind me. Rolling over, I lashed out, more lighting slamming into the wall just next to the opening.
Vir skidded to a halt, the blast having missed him by less than a foot. He stared at me. I could see the shock on his face.
“HELP ME!” I screamed, the sound shaking the entire room. “HELP ME, DAMN YOU!”
Vir raced to my side. “How? How can I help? How are you doing this?”
His voice was like a whisper on the wind, barely audible over the howling storm of energy around me and inside me.
“I DON’T KNOW,” I wailed, my cry like that of a banshee. Even Vir had to shield his ears. A god. “I CAN’T STOP IT. I CAN’T. I DON’T KNOW. THE BOND IS TOO STRONG! PLEASE.”
My mind was destroying itself, the two powers warring for control over me. I scratched and clawed at my face, trying to dig in, to let the pain out. To free them both. I saw blood on my fingertips, but I didn’t care. I had to stop it. I had to free myself.
Vir grunted, and abruptly, the energy seemed to calm. But not the pain inside me. It went on. And on. And on.
“Please, Vir,” I sobbed, able to speak without screaming for a moment even as the throbbing built anew. “You have to end it. You have to help me.”
“What are you saying, Dani?” the shifter god asked.
I locked eyes with him.
“You have to kill me, Vir,” I pleaded. “It’s the only way. I can’t do this. The Soulbond is tearing me apart. I don’t want to be mated to him.”
Vir swallowed, his gaze heavy. “No,” he said.
I wailed, energy filling my hand as I prepared to strike at him for denying me my release.
“There is another way,” Vir said, taking my hand calmly and pushing it to the ground.
“What?” I whispered. There was no way he could have heard that quiet plea over the cackle and howling of the energy I’d somehow released in the room, but he responded anyway.
“I can sever the link.”
I stared at him, stunned. That was possible? It was a thing?
“You can?”
He nodded.
The Soulbond sensed what he was talking about, and I found myself dragging my body toward Johnathan.
“DO IT!” I screamed as more purple energy rose to combat the Soulbond. I could feel my body breaking apart. It wouldn’t be long before the energy, the golden Soulbond or the purple of this new power, started to pour through my skin, quite literally shredding me to pieces.
Vir hesitated. “If I do this,” he said. “You will never love.”
“I DON’T CARE!” My voice shook the chamber once more.
“You will be alone,” he said heavily. “Forever.”
I looked at him, my eyes snapping open. “I’m already alone,” I whispered. “I have no family. No mate. I have nothing.”
Vir stared at me sadly.
“Please!” I wailed. “I would rather die than be with him. He’s everything I hate.”
Nearby, Johnathan got to his feet. I could sense his every move. I felt his muscles. It was killing me.
“Please,” I whispered.
A loud, powerful roar from outside the chamber filled me with more dread. Lars was coming. He was almost here.
“Okay,” Vir said.
Then, he reached out and worked the energy. It responded to him. He absorbed some of it and grew swiftly in size. His wolf’s head reappeared, as did his weapon of war, the spear.
Reaching out, he touched me with that same worked energy. A line of golden brilliance appeared, rising from my chest into the air and running across the room to where it plunged deep into Johnathan’s chest. Linking us. It glowed so brightly it fought back the purple energy.
“Cut it!” I cried as my wolf started pushing through my skin, taking over.
I couldn’t resist any longer. We were going to mate with Johnathan. We were going to end our torment.
The building was shaking around us as my fur lightened, my hands and feet reshaping themselves into paws. The pain of the shift was nothing compared to the agony in the rest of me.
“I’m sorry,” Vir said quietly, and the tip of his spear came up and through the golden line.
Severing it.
