Chapter 18

18

R hi

“It isn’t real!” Azlan calls out.

And I know he’s right. We were warned these waters were haunted and Tristan explained what might lurk out here in the mist.

It doesn’t matter.

The voice that calls me is so vivid, so alive, so real. My heart won’t accept it as a fake. It just won’t.

“Aunt,” I whisper back to her as she calls my name through the mist, just like she’d call me back into the house in the evenings. “Are you there?”

She laughs, and I can see her face, her head thrown back, her mouth pulled wide in a smile, her eyes alight.

“Come back,” I urge, “come back to me.”

I was so mad at her, so angry. All of this could have been so much easier if only she’d told me the truth, if only she’d explained.

All of those emotions fade now and all that remains is a hungry ache in the pit of my stomach, a longing that hurts so much.

It’s been so hard with her gone. So lonely. So difficult. I miss her every single day. I just want her back. Back with me now.

As if understanding me, she reaches out to me, hands stroking at my skin, many hands, not just hers, stroking, caressing me gently, and then tugging at me, slowly urging me closer and closer towards the water.

“We can be together again,” she promises, and I let her take me, let them take me.

Until I feel something else in my stomach. The bonds, pulling me just as hard in the other direction, back towards my mates.

Azlan’s words ring in my ears.

It isn’t real.

I push back against the pull towards the water.

“Not yet,” I say, “I’m not ready to leave just yet.”

At my words, the grasps become stronger, more violent and more biting. They drag me now and I fight them, swiping at my skin, struggling in their grip.

“No!” I scream. And then I have other hands, warm hands, solid hands, strong hands, gripping my arm and my shoulders, hauling me back.

My mates.

The ghouls hiss at me as I’m snatched from their grasp but not before one swipes forward and rips the locket from around my neck, sinking with it into the water.

“My locket!” I cry, diving forward .

“No, Rhi, No!” Tristan yells, his hand the one gripping my arm. “Let it go!”

“But it’s the only thing I have,” I cry, swinging my head to look at him through the thick fog.

Azlan crouches next to his cousin, holding onto my shoulder.

“No, Rhi, you have us now, all of us.”

My aunt’s voice calls to me in the distance and I close my eyes.

He’s right. I have them now. My mates, my family. I’m no longer alone.

I take a deep inhale, grounding myself.

“They’re too strong,” Tristan says. “You need to drive them away.”

I stare at him. Me?

I shake my head. “I’m not strong enough.”

“You are,” Azlan says.

I shake my head more adamantly, tears freezing on my cheeks. I’m not. I nearly succumbed. Nearly let them drag me down into the water.

“Then we do it together,” Tristan says. “We combine our magic. Just like before. You remember how?”

This time I nod.

And it’s easier. Even easier than before. My magic has always been eager to play with Tristan’s, to twist around his and become one. Now it seeks his out, prompting his to come play and my body thrums as our magic spins around one another.

But it doesn’t stop there, it nudges at Azlan’s too, urging his magic to stream from his hands, and soon all three of our magics twine together.

“How do we do this?” I call out. “How do we make them stop?”

“With light,” Tristan says. “We drive away the shadows with light.”