Star Cursed (Zodiac Wolves #2)(75)

Kaden didn’t twitch.

He can’t be. He can’t.

But the evidence was right there. Kaden had been struck with so many beams of the Sun Witches’ power, and I’d seen much less take down other shifters. There was no way Kaden could have survived that many.

I stumbled toward him and crouched down. Please be alive, I thought, but Kaden didn’t move. The hot slide of tears down my face didn’t even phase me as I touched his blackened face. The smell of burning hair and singed flesh was almost overwhelming.

I pulled him into my lap as well as I could. “Come on,” I said, not knowing what I was hoping for, but trying to pour the energy into him. I had no idea what I was doing, but surely, surely, I could do this to save him. Why have all this power if it meant that he died? Then I remembered. I could lick his wounds closed. I looked over his body, trying to decide where to start. There was so much.

Another wave of light washed over the clearing, but this one was softer than the harsh beams of the Sun Witches. I looked up, but wrapped my arms harder around Kaden and held him against me. I didn’t care if I lived or died, whatever came next, just as long as I could do it holding Kaden.

Women in purple and midnight blue hooded robes appeared beside me as if stepping out of the light, and I blinked at them. Then another woman appeared, and her robe was black with silver thread. She had long white hair and a crown made of glittering stars with a crescent moon in the center. She stopped in front of me, and I stared up at her, not quite believing that she was real.

“You must come with us,” she said. “But you must do it now, before the Sun Witches wake and try to stop us."

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, gripping onto Kaden tighter. “My mate—he’s dying. Or dead, I don’t know.” A sob wracked through my body at the words, at the realization that I couldn't save him. What if it was too late for Kaden? What would I do then?

The woman’s eyes were kind but steely. She rested her hand on my shoulder. “You cannot help him. Not yet, at least. Come, now.”

The light around us became bright, blinding me. I held my hands up to shield my eyes, and then suddenly, I was elsewhere.





Chapter Thirty-Two





I swear, if I open my eyes and find I’m in another damn cell, I will scream, I thought as I squeezed my eyes shut. It was a ridiculous thought, but I wasn’t exactly mentally stable at the moment. In fact, I was pretty sure I was one small step away from a complete meltdown. Kaden was dead, and I was...who the fuck knew where I was.

I finally made myself open my eyes, and it was a small relief to find I wasn't in a cell. Unfortunately, I was on a beach, surrounded by the purple-robed women. They all looked down at me with varying levels of concern, while the soft waves of the ocean lapped at the shore behind them. It was night now, and the full moon hung over us, which made no sense because it had been both daytime and a new moon just a minute ago.

Worst of all, there was no Kaden in my lap, only sand.

“No,” I said, scrabbling uselessly at the sand as if I’d find him underneath it. “No, you can’t do this!” My voice raised in pitch and volume with each word, the desperation causing me to almost scream. “Take me back to Kaden! He’s my mate! I can’t leave him!”

The women just stared at me, though a couple of them looked uncomfortable now. They clearly weren’t going to do anything, so I decided I’d have to do it myself. I didn’t know who they were or what they wanted, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting back to Kaden, helping him, saving him. Maybe there was still time. If I could lick his wounds closed, maybe…

I shoved myself to my feet, trembling with anger and fatigue, and tried to teleport away. It was no use. I stayed right where I was, even with the moon giving me power. They must be blocking me somehow, and it was enough to loose a scream of frustration from my throat, primal in its intensity.

“I don’t think you understand,” I sobbed and screamed, the words hardly making sense. “I have to get back to Kaden. He’s dying. Why did you take me and not him?” I turned to the woman in the front, the one in the black robes and crown who had spoken to me back in the clearing. “Why?”

The woman dipped her head, her crown glittering on her brow. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do for him now."

The confirmation that he was dead hit me like a dagger to the heart. I couldn’t breathe around it for a few seconds, the pain was so sharp. No, no, no. I refused to believe he was gone.

“It was more important than anything else that we got you out of there, Ayla," the woman in the crown said. "The Sun Witches wanted you, and we couldn’t let them have you."

When she met my eyes, I knew that this woman had made many hard decisions in her life. She was used to cutting her losses, even when they hurt. I wanted to turn away from that. I didn’t want to look at her. I wanted Kaden.

“We’ve been looking for you for a long time," she continued. "When you tapped into your power fully for the first time back in that clearing, we finally got a clear read on your location. We could feel it from here.”

“You’re Moon Witches,” I said, flatly. Of course now was when I’d find them, when I’d lost the most important thing to me, when I didn’t care at all about breaking the mate bond anymore, because what was the point? Fate was cruel. So very, very cruel.