Wild Wolf (Darkmore Penitentiary Book 4)

“Mason?”

The voice was familiar, haunting in ways, but so damn comforting too. I looked up, finding myself kneeling on a riverbank where a golden mist hung in the air. Across the eerily still water was a boy with warm eyes and a bright smile. Merrick looked just as he had the day he’d died, youthful, full of life, but there was an ethereal quality to him here in this strange place.

“I’m sorry,” the words I’d wanted to say to him all these years spilled out and his form burned a little brighter.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he called and the weight I’d been carrying since his death finally eased enough that I could breathe. So simple were those words that it was hard to believe the impact they had. “Benjamin’s soul has been delivered to the Harrowed Gate where all the damned ones go. Come see.” He held out a hand in an offering and the river seemed to shrink, like he was suddenly nearer.

The slap of a paddle hitting the water made me turn my head and a hooded figure came drifting down the water. That heavy gold mist descended and I lost sight of Merrick as the figure approached.

“Mason Cain,” he spoke in a withered voice, my name like a summoning that drew me to him. “It is time to cross into the after. Your soul is perched here because you are clinging to something that no longer belongs to you. Let it go and board my ferry.”

I turned my head, sensing that very thing I was leaving behind, my thoughts latching onto Rosalie. It felt as though she was just there in the heavy mist that had descended at my back, like if I strode into it, I might find her there in the hanging fog.

“It is a blessing to be missed and to miss in return, it means you have lived well,” the Ferryman said. “Now come. It is time.”

His hand reached out from within his cloak, a gnarled, skeletal thing that curled around my arm. My skin lit at his touch as if with moonlight, a glow igniting along my flesh and making the Ferryman snatch his hand back.

“You are Moon Touched,” he gasped. “It has been many, many a century since I have witnessed the power of She.”

I looked down at my hands, the glow in them rushing across me until my soul shimmered like liquid silver. I couldn’t feel my pulse but I could hear it, the drum of my own heart, so close, so near.

I turned and realised it wasn’t my own heart at all but that of the Fae I had fallen so irreversibly in love with that nothing called to me louder than the song of her lifeforce.

“I’m here!” I called, standing abruptly, seeking her out in the mist, somehow sure that she was seeking me in return.

“I cannot take you,” the Ferryman whispered, his voice akin to spitting fire. “The moon demands another fate.”

“Rosalie!” I cried, stepping into the mist, reaching, running, hunting. “I’m here!”

Hands found me, wrapping around mine and pulling, her fingers ignited in moonlight just as mine were. I felt a force at my back, pushing me toward her and was sure the moon herself was guiding my soul away from this hallowed place.

I didn’t look back, certain that if I did, death would find me once again. My gaze was set on the mist as those hands pulled and pulled, leading me back from this realm until a blackness swallowed me up that was impenetrable. The atmosphere was thick and putrid. My lungs hurt, everything hurt and by the stars it felt good because this was life. In all its pain and rawness, this was living.

I heaved in a lungful of air, my eyes flying open as I found myself on my back beneath Rosalie, her skin still shining with all the glittering beauty of the moon. Her tears were silver, crashing onto my skin and healing every wound on my flesh. I gazed at the miracle of her, then to the healed skin of my chest and finally to the bareness of the places the curse mark had once laid.

“Rosa,” I gasped and her eyes flew open, her fear and grief sliced apart by joy.

“Mason,” she groaned then her lips were upon mine and I tangled my hand in her hair, feeling the weight of her and knowing that there was nothing in this world that would ever take me from her again. In life, I would follow her, and in death I would find her.

A rush of power flooded my veins and as Rosalie drew back, we both looked to the waning moon marks that had ignited on each of us right over our hearts, like a symbol of the life she had just restored to me.

“You denied death my soul,” I breathed.

“It wasn’t death’s to take,” she said, her lips finding mine again. “You are my mate.”

Those words stirred a world of desire in me, but as I drew her flush to my body, I remembered there was still much to be done.

“It’s time to finish this,” I said heavily and she nodded, rising to her feet and drawing me after her, our fingers intertwined and my need for her painfully sharp. When this was over, I’d never part from her again.

I took in Benjamin’s fallen body, turning from him and knowing I wouldn’t need to look back upon the past anymore. The future where all my focus lay.

My gaze settled on the entrance to the tower where a furious fight had spilled out onto the snow, guards and monstrous beasts battling with Sin, Ethan and Max, all of them closing in around us.

I felt a protectiveness wash over me that extended beyond Rosalie out to the men she had claimed as her mates and knew I couldn’t see them fall this day.