A Mother’s Love

BAMBI

I had to get Matthias away from me.

Luckily, I had an upper hand. I might have been blind, but he was basically ~dead~.

I punched him in the stomach, and he groaned; the blade at my throat fell away for just a moment…

Which was all I needed.

I spun away from Matthias and tore down the hall. I ran my hand along the bookshelves, and I realized I was able to orient myself in my exact location in the library.

My heightened senses and spatial awareness allowed me to gracefully duck behind a bookshelf out of sight before Matthias recovered.

“Where are you?” he snarled.

I heard his heavy footsteps, clumsier after my attack, crash toward me. He was one row of books over, heading toward me.

As his scent became closer, I dashed back the way he had come.

“Here!” I called.

I knew the only way I would make it out of here was to outsmart Matthias.

I ducked around the end of the bookcase and, from the shelf of large volumes before me, I pulled a large, heavy tome…

He came staggering my way, this time in the row where I’d just been.

The only thing louder than his steps was my own heart, banging in my ears…

When I sensed that he was right where I needed him, I sprang from my hiding place and whipped the tome around like a baseball bat.

~WHACK!~

Matthias whimpered and then slowly crumpled to the ground.

~Who knew the book club would come in so handy?~

EKON

With a snap of Devina’s fingers, the flames erupting all over my body extinguished.

But the vines still bound my legs, tethering me in place.

I snarled at her, baring my pointed incisors. I had just about had enough of my sister’s fucked-up jokes.

“Uh oh, Alpha’s angry,” she said mockingly.

~Who does this bitch think she is, taunting me?~

My wolf came up to her willowy shoulders. And if I stood up on my hind legs…I could end her.

But things were never so simple with Devina.

“That’s always been your problem, ~brother~. You fight against everything,” Devina shrieked. “When our fate has already been decided!”

“You fight the darkness inside you for your little mate,” she went on.

I struggled against my bonds, ready to tear her apart.

“But you can’t fight the prophecy,” she hissed. “~We will~ start the Third Great War! The war to change the entire realm…you, Matthias, and I.”

Another growl rumbled from my depths.

“And ~you’re~ the only one who resists. And Ekon, if I may ask: what’s the point? Join us!”

With the last phrase, her voice deepened from her shrill sickly-sweet whine to a demonic roar.

She lifted her bony hand once more, and finally I was torn from my restraints.

But only to be thrown back, careening through the dining room at the speed of light. When I hit the stone fireplace, for a moment, all life was knocked clean from my body.

Shock.

The next moment, my wolf was crumpled on the ground before the crackling fire.

As I breathed in, my ribs and back ached in a way that told me something was desperately wrong…

Devina watched me for just a second, a triumphant smile on her face.

And then she turned to my mother…

ROSE

My daughter zeroed in on me.

She was even more depleted, more haggard than when I last saw her.

But it was clear that a vital, dark, and wild energy animated her form. ~That~ was what I needed to fight.

Her evil life force.

Holly threw herself before me, her arms raised, sending a bolt of energy toward Devina. She easily deflected it, not even acknowledging Holly with a glance.

I placed my hand on Holly’s shoulder.

“This is my battle, and mine alone,” I told her. “Tend to my son.”

Holly nodded before she turned toward Ekon.

Then it was only Devina and I.

“Mother,” she said by way of greeting. Venom dripped from her voice.

She snapped her finger, and a razor-sharp boomerang sliced through the air—straight for my neck.

But I was ready.

“Steel skin,” I whispered, before catching the weapon in my armored hand.

Devina stomped her foot like a frustrated child.

But a moment later, she let loose another attack.

A lasso of razor wire materialized, its loop already cinching around my neck.

“Enough!” My voice echoed throughout the room.

I wanted to remain on the defensive…

Even after everything she had done, I didn’t want to attack my daughter.

Not until I had tried another strategy.

“Freeze,” I said beneath my breath.

When Devina raised her arms to come for me once again, my spell stopped her in her tracks.

It was an anti-charm that would block her magic. Though it was a powerful spell, I needed to hurry. I doubted it could hold her for long…

“My daughter, hear me,” I demanded. I could tell she was straining against the anti-charm.

“The greatest regret of my expired life is what I did to you and Matthias. I abandoned you. Left you on your own. Without a mother, what’s a child to do?”

I noticed Devina’s jaw quiver. ~Is it possible that I’m getting through to her?~

“I would give ~anything~ to go back, Devina,” I pleaded. “To go back and give you the life, the family you deserved.”

My words hung in the air.

What was she thinking? What was she feeling?

The evil woman before me was far from the child I had left so long ago…

The girl who had needed me.

Because of the prophecy that had surrounded her young life, I had feared Devina, even when she was a defenseless child.

Before she could hurt a fly.

Before she had grown into the evil witch who had fulfilled the prophecy beyond my wildest nightmares.

Time itself slowed as Devina clenched her fist so tightly her whole body quaked.

I watched as a lone tear coursed down her cheek…

~She can still feel.~

~The little girl I knew is still there.~

A moment later, Devina’s hands went still. I knew she had finally overcome the anti-charm.

At any moment, she could lash back. So why wasn’t she?

I was struck dumb as I stared at my daughter. She had surprised me before…

~What will she do next?~

“How sweet, mother,” she boomed, her voice low and demonic, “that you feel ~sorry~.”

Devina dropped her hands to her side. We were no longer fighting with magic. We were using something even more potent…our words.

“But it’s too late,” she said softly in her own voice. “It’s far too late. You’ve made your grave…now ~lie in it~.”

With that, Devina lunged toward me. Before I could process what was happening, I was thrown back by a shockwave of magic.

“I’ve killed you once already, mother,” my daughter sneered as she suspended my body, helpless, in midair. “I’m getting sick of it.”

She drove me down onto the hardwood floor.

I gripped my shoulder as I rolled back and forth. The worst part of Devina hurting me was that it wasn’t my body at stake…it was Tyler’s.

I had already taken time from the young witch. I didn’t want to take her vitality too.

As the magic continued to come, like wind plastering me to the ground, I knew something even worse was coming.

Once again, I had underestimated my daughter. I thought there was something left in her soul to save.

I could no longer deny that she would stop at nothing until I was dead.

As she continued to blast me and the entire room with shockwaves of black magic, an emergency alarm began to wail.

If Devina wasn’t stopped, she would tear down the whole compound with her wrath.

And I no longer knew if I was the one who could stop her…

BAMBI

~Ekon.~

~Pine needles. Smoke.~

~And…blood?~

My heart seized as I prowled the wall of the library, back to the dining room. I needed to find my mate.

And I could sense that he was unwell.

Though the whole compound was a battleground and I couldn’t know what enemy was lurking around any given corner, I had to press on.

All that mattered was finding Ekon. Making sure he was okay.

The alarm wailed, making it hard to hear anything else.

But as I felt the broad doorway of the dining room, I listened closely for his voice.

Finally, I heard the whimper of Ekon’s wolf.

I stumbled forward, and a moment later, Holly caught my arm and led me to Ekon’s side. “Baby,” I whimpered. When I touched Ekon’s wolf, I felt warm and sticky blood.

He was wounded—badly.

And constant shockwaves of magic assaulted my ears with pressurized blasts.

It could only mean one thing…

Devina was winning.

I pulled Ekon toward me, gripping his massive furry torso in my arms, stroking him behind his ears…

He shifted to his human form, and I could sense just by the way he held his body that the injury was worse than I thought. His back was broken, and badly gashed.

“Bambi,” Ekon rasped, nuzzling into me with his tear-stained face, “leave me. Get to safety.”

“No,” I replied simply.

He protested, but I would have none of it. I wasn’t leaving him if it was the last thing I did.

~And it very well might be…~

“I’m not leaving your side,” I promised as the whole room shook with blasts of Devina’s evil magic.

I heard Rose grunt as she faced off against her daughter. Without my sight, it was hard to know who was winning the battle.

As the walls shook, Ekon and I held each other like we were the last things in the world.

Even as the compound’s very foundation shuddered, threatening to crumble to the ground…

I knew in my heart…

“This is exactly where I’m supposed to be,” I whispered softly.