1. Prologue - Roan

Prologue - Roan

Inside the cottage, the door explodes open with a spirit-jarring sound, as wood and debris fly. My friends—the witch Edith and the shifter Seff in his wolf form—are beside me, ready, we think, for whatever lies on the other side. But we are completely unprepared for the sight before us.

At first, I can't quite comprehend it—her—as she stands before the table in the centre of the room, magic swirling around her like a golden gossamer cloud. Her arms are held aloft, something wicked gleaming in her hand. Her form flickers repeatedly, almost as if it's a trick of the light. It looks like a photograph I'd seen as a kid, back when we still used film in cameras, and someone had used the same roll twice.

All at once, she is a glistening, ethereal being, her golden hair floating delicately about her head. But somehow, also decaying and rotten, haggard rags slipping from her misshapen form. She is both; she is neither. She is wrong .

Awestruck by her magnificent and horrific visage, we lose any advantage we had from Edith's dramatic entrance. The thing pins us with her foul gaze, splintering our ears with her blood-curdling cry.

As the fae begins to recite magic in long-dead tongues, the spell pulses around us, choking the air from our lungs.

May the Gods ever bless Edith—she alone manages to resist, snapping to action and blasting back with her own magic.

That's how the fight begins. Edith charging across the chamber, sword raised, Seff's gold and grey wolf form gnashing his teeth at her side.

It's my job to find him, Theo, the one we've all risked our lives for. Find him and get him out. My heart seizes when I realise he's there, on the table, where the fae had stood with the knife. With only the singular conscious thought—get Theo to safety—I summon the power of my fae and berserker blood for protection as I run the gauntlet of the chamber to him.

To Theo.

He looks so fragile on the table. What has happened to him here?

Around me, I am vaguely aware of the blasts of magic, the explosions of glass jars and ceramic pots. Their contents fly as the ancient fae defends herself against the furious attacks of Edith and Seff. The latter's growls echo somewhere close to me.

Theo looks so small. I am not even sure if he is breathing. There is no rise and fall of his breath. No flicker of his eyes under his lids. Just stillness.

His skin is unnaturally white where his golden lashes brush his cheeks. There is a smattering of freckles there, too. They look so harsh against his grim pallor. We're here to save him—it's why we risked everything to come. The fear that we are too late, that we'd risked ourselves for nothing, is overwhelming.

Theo .

The room is chaos, the air rippling with magic and power. I need to get him to safety. Everything in my very being screams at me to do so. To run. To keep him safe. Protect him. Like a caged wild animal gnashing its teeth, something vicious inside of me rattles its cage demanding I save him. Take him. Claim him.

Mine .

He is warm to the touch, which is a relief, but before I can slide my hands beneath him, there is a screeching next to me. I feel it in my bones rather than hear it. The air wraps itself around me, flinging me like a pebble instead of the hulking mass of fae I am, pulling me away from Theo. I barely register what is happening before I slam into the stone wall of the cottage with a grunt, the air knocked from my chest. My horns slam into the wall with the impact, protecting the back of my head, but the hit vibrates through them, ringing my skull like a bell.

Fuck. That fucking hurts .

Pain blooms everywhere, but I shove it down, lumbering to my feet to face the she-bitch attacking my friends. We came too far, and too much is at risk to quit now. We journeyed for days to reach this point, never knowing what we'd find at the end of our search or if Theo would still be alive.

My friend, Caelan, who is somewhere in this Godsforsaken cottage attempting to rescue his bonded mate, Tor, travelled the longest. Risked the most. He faced the evil here before and lived to tell the tale—but only barely.

On Caelan's and Tor's initial journey to find Theo, they were joined by Edith. Together, they had faced the unimaginable.

It was only Tor's love and magic that had rescued them, but it had cost him his own freedom. Tor had been trapped here with Theo.

Apparently, they are brothers, Theo and Tor. Even though I'd never met either of them, I joined the journey. I'd been late, but I'd come. My fae knowing—or "fae-tuition" as Seff would call it—told me I had to come. It screamed that it was vitally important that I joined Caelan, Edith, and Seff in their mission to rescue Theo and Tor.

And so here I am.

This fae is like nothing I have ever seen before. The cottage itself, and the grounds on which it stands in the middle of the enchanted Whisper Woods, is already steeped in a heavy sense of foreboding. Wrongness. Her presence corrupts the balance of nature itself.

It is unnatural for any being to live forever; death is an important part of life. But for centuries, she's skirted it, perverting the magic here.

Dazed, I watch in horror as Seff, fur matted with dirt and blood, charges down the flickering, formless fae once again. She flashes rapidly between her images, of haggard crone, golden floating fae, in the eerie glow of the green sacred fire burning in the hearth behind her.

Her arms dance magnificently, drawing up monumental power to blast at Seff as he bears down on her, jaws twisted in a snarl.

Protected by the charmed amulet hanging from his neck, another blessing from Edith, the magic is nowhere near as lethal as its intent. But Seff is still sent sliding across the debris-littered floor on his back. I can only watch in horror as he whimpers before launching himself to his paws, shaking the muck from his fur, growling in outrage, hackles raised.

Edith, the most powerful and strangest witch I have ever met, seizes on the distraction, summoning wicked blue balls of fire in her hands, circling them for a moment, then tossing them at the fae, her red mouth drawn into a shrieking laugh.

My head clears enough of the ringing fogging my brain to take advantage of the chaos surrounding me. Dodging the minefield, I return to Theo, still lying in the middle of it all, still encircled by the rocks and candles and incense from her abomination of a ritual.

The carved bone boline is still there, discarded next to him, the one she held raised above his chest. The wicked blade catches my eye, the strong magic imbued in the relic calling to me like a siren's song with its promise of power. But the pull to Theo is stronger.

With gentle hands that belie the adrenaline and berserker rage running through me, I slip them under his shoulders and knees, cradling him against me. The knot that had tangled itself up inside me loosens as his slight weight settles in my arms, but only barely.

Only enough to take a shallow breath and make my, our , harried escape from the room.

But she spots me.

Her screech once again howls through my very being. A pulse of power waves through the air, like a rip in the current trying to pull me to her.

Her magic is strong. So fucking strong . Only the protection spell I weaved over myself before we entered the cottage and the primordial need to protect Theo grant me the strength to move through each agonizing step away from the fae and her power until I am far enough to slip from her hold.

Free at last, I run from the room, catching Edith's eye as I leave. Her white face is ferocious, smeared with blood, sweat, and dirt from the herb jars she exploded when she burst into the room.

She is always one for drama.

There are growls behind me, but I refuse to look back, instead flipping Theo over my shoulder in a fireman's carry, freeing myself to run faster.

I want to stay and help my friends, but Theo needs to get out. Every instinct I have burns within me to get him somewhere safe.

The magic pulsating through the air has time, existence itself, feeling like molasses, completely unreal.

All I know is that he still hasn't moved—I still haven't felt him breathe—but I need to hope. Faith is the only thing keeping me moving, keeping that caged beast inside of me from unleashing unchecked destruction upon us all. My berserker side, the brutal strength and lust for blood, is already rattling my sanity. This crazed need to make Theo safe is shaking the last vestiges of my mental strength.

I make it to the next room, the small antechamber we'd entered through earlier. In here, reality no longer feels warped and twisted, but there is no time for relief.

My stomach drops as I run into Caelan dragging a healthy but haunted-looking man who can only be Tor behind him. Tor's beautiful purple face cracks into devastation, tears pooling in his bloodshot, icy blue eyes, when he spies his brother slung over my shoulder.

"Is he—?" His voice is hoarse, like he can't get the words out around the pain.

I grimace against the hard lump in my throat. I cannot tell him that I have no idea, that I may be carrying his dead brother. Not when I can't even face that myself. "Barely." The lie falls from my lips easily. "Come with me, I am taking him—"

There is a shriek from Edith in the other room, and I duck instinctively.

Fuck this .

The thing inside me roars to fucking go, and so I listen, slamming the final door open and jumping down the wooden steps into the unnaturally warm sunlight, running as fast as I can away from the mayhem raging in the cottage.

I run until we clear the maze of overgrown, monstrous flowers. I run until my legs are screaming and my lungs are blazing. I run until my instincts tell me I am clear, free to finally collapse, my blood burning every raised vein in my body.

I fall to my knees, sliding Theo around my body to cradle him gently to me like the most precious of jewels. Still in my enlarged berserker form, my red-veined hands look monstrous against his delicate body. But I let myself hold him for just a moment and bask in the feel of him in my arms. His scent, sweet like honey, wraps around me, invading the core of my being, latching on, settling in, taking root.

The enormity of it all floors me, my gut bottoming out as I place him on the soft bedding of grass and leaf litter covering the Woods floor with trembling arms.

Mine!

That thing inside of me screeches. More primal than my fae instincts, it rages inside of me to take Theo and run , run further, hide, keep him safe, and claim him for myself.

Instead, I sit back on my heels, taking one deep breath after another, forcing them into my quivering lungs, steadying the buzz under my skin.

Mates are common practice amongst beings. A stronger bond than human marriages, most being species mate for life—pairing off on instinct or love or choice, they are bound by magic.

Shifters are generally known for mating more instinctively, fae less so, often choosing to mate for love or power. Beings of all kinds fall along the whole spectrum in between. There are even some beings, such as fauns, whose traditions are not to form permanent mating bonds.

Maybe it's my berserker heritage making this feral, greedy flame flare to life.

Berserkers, especially full-blooded berserkers—which I am not—are rare nowadays, but the stories of their matehood are legendary. They were known for being fiercely, dangerously protective of their mates, their families— basically anyone or anything they proclaimed as theirs. Hence a lot of the fighting and warring that went on. They just couldn't leave shit alone.

Is that why Theo, small, fragile Theo, who I still haven't seen breathe, is triggering this violent need in me? Or is it just the instinctive urge to protect something, someone fragile?

Despite my lizard brain screeching to claim Theo, my more rational brain knows this is insane. Dating hasn't even been on my radar lately, let alone taking a mate .

I don't have the time. The Black Stump Tavern takes up my entire life. When I'm not crashing through the Woods on hair-brained rescue missions with my friends, that is.

Well, too fucking bad, we're keeping him, that voice spits back at me. I completely ignore the hard lump that forms in my throat when I consider my internal conflict may all be for naught. Theo may not even wish to be kept. He's not even conscious yet.

The smell of fire rouses me from my contemplation of Theo's still body and my mental spiral.

I glance up and finally see my friends running towards us, violent green flames licking at their heels as they dash for their lives across the grassy field between us and the blazing inferno.

I snatch Theo back into my arms, scurrying backwards—away from the fire or my friends I am not sure—but a final explosion rocks the earth, knocking them off their feet, and we scramble as far into the Woods as we can until we all collapse in safety.

It's gone. All of it. The gardens, the cottage, all engulfed in the blaze. Any doomed creature still trapped inside is completely swallowed in the sacred fire purifying the land, black smoke billowing into the sky.

"Is it over?" Seff is human now, having changed at some point in his escape. Naked and dirty, bloody and bruised, he curls his large body around Edith. She strokes his hair, holding him tight. Caelan and Tor are slumped together, wrapped in each other for comfort.

"Yeah, hun, it's over. She's gone now."

I look down at Theo still nestled in my arms, and finally see the faintest movement in his chest, the warmth of his delicate breath making my soul soar. And something tickles my intuition, a horribly beautiful knowledge that for me, this may only be the beginning.