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  Turning the open locket, she aimed the light of the Goddess Stone at the greying darkness in front of her and channelled her power into opening a doorway. A sliver of light widened quickly, large enough now for her to slip through. ‘Thank you, my Goddess.’ She tightened her grip on the locket as she stepped through the doorway, the warmth of the light chasing the cold chill of death from her limbs.

  The door snapped closed behind her. The grasping hand that had reached out to grab her pulled back from the burst of power exhaled into the ether from the Goddess’ light.

  Alone in the purpling dark it howled its misery into the silence.

  ***

  Cain stumbled on through the scrub and trees. Morrigan was waiting for him. The Darkness had told him. She had a car. Not far now. He just had to keep going.

  His legs were wobbly. He’d been out of his body for too long and the bloody Were hadn’t done enough to keep his muscles from getting weak. Thank the Old Ones the Darkness was still with him. A living presence in his chest and mind, it had been driving him forward since he’d come back to his body and all their plans had fallen apart. Ruined. By Eloise.

  He still couldn’t believe it. His quiet little mouse of a twin had somehow managed to grasp a hold of the power that should never have been hers and use it against him and the Darkness.

  She’d pushed him out!

  His lip quivered, a throb in his heart. His sister had rejected him.

  She had never rejected him before.

  She’d always loved him. Looked up to him. Deferred to him. Had thought it only natural when Morrigan showed him preference over her. He’d always been the more powerful. The one with more talent. He’d always been everyone’s favourite, the golden child. The one who never disappointed. Who did no wrong. And Eloise had always been there for him, happy to live in his shadow, never aware that he was feeding from her power to buoy his own. He’d been unaware of what he’d been doing for a very long time. It was simply a natural part of their relationship. Starting in the womb, continuing on afterwards. It was Morrigan who’d made him aware of it. Had taught him how to refine his use of his twin’s power, to gather more of it to himself, to twist it to his use so that it wasn’t just a bolster to his own, considerable powers.

  Eloise had never said a word in complaint. She’d never been jealous of his ability or shown any inclination to stop him taking from her what was meant to be his to use anyway. That’s what Morrigan and the Darkness had said to him. She was his twin. She was supposed to share everything she was with him. What was hers was his. She was lucky to be alive. She wouldn’t have been without him. He was the stronger. He could have subsumed her in the womb, all of what she was becoming his—but he hadn’t. He loved her as he thought she loved him. She’d given a part of her essence to him, and in return he’d protected her. Gladly. Even when he began to grow away from her in his work with and for Morrigan, he’d still done what he could to protect her from her own weakness. They were one being.

  But tonight, they’d become separate and she’d done the separating. She’d chosen another over him. She’d brought him back as promised, returned soul to body, but then she’d denied him what was his by rights and chosen another path that was truly her own. It was wrong. Infuriating. Inconceivable.

  ‘The power of the Nexus should be mine!’ His voice, harsh and angry, echoed in the branches of the trees over his head.

  ‘Shh. They’ll hear you.’

  ‘Fuck them!’ he snarled to the Darkness. ‘I’ll kill any who come after me just as I killed those two in the caves. I’ll make them pay for taking my sister from me.’ He began to turn around but the Darkness stopped him.

  ‘You don’t have the energy. You need to keep moving. You need to get to Morrigan. Once safe, we can plan your revenge.’

  Yes. Yes. His revenge. He’d kill all of them. The Were. He and Morrigan together. Once they were gone, Eloise would be free to come back to him once again.

  ‘We don’t need her. I already have a plan. You simply need to get back to Morrigan.’

  ‘But what about the Nexus’ power?’

  ‘You have what you need of her inside you already.’

  ‘No. She took it. She took it all.’

  ‘You are wrong. You took some of her power inside you during the ceremony. Look inside. You’ll see I’m right.’

  Cain stopped—not for long, the Were weren’t far away. He closed his eyes and went inside himself, to that central place in his mind where he could not only tap into his power, but see it.

  The Darkness was there. It had grown larger. Which made sense, given he’d taken on the shard that had been inside Eloise. He stroked it as he went past. But he didn’t stop. The Darkness wasn’t near his power. He’d always kept it separate, no matter how much the Darkness had said they would be stronger if he allowed it access to his power centre. Cain loved the Darkness, had let it guide him all these years, but something inside him stopped him from giving over to it completely.

  He travelled deeper inside.

  There.

  A deep spark of red, glowing like lit coal, deep inside him. His power.

  So beautiful.

  And there, at its heart, was the flame of green that had always signified Eloise’s power.

  It was diminished. Less emerald and more of a faded grass colour. But still there. Still imbued with the power that was unique to his sister. A part of the power that made her the Nexus.

  His to use.

  He smiled and continued to run. Everything wasn’t ruined. In fact, it was going to be fine. He had his sister still in the deepest heart of him. She hadn’t abandoned him completely. She never would. And somehow, he was going to use that bit of power to get everything he wanted.

  He began to laugh as he ran back towards where Morrigan waited for him.

  Chapter 3

  Shelley was in the dam again. Her head ached with the pounding of a million wails, a million needs, a million cries for help. She was sick of it. So sick of it. She just wanted to be left alone.

  Then he was there. Wading through the water, reaching for her. His touching her didn’t pull from her in the way the touch of others did. He’d never needed anything from her except her smile, her laughter, her happiness. She looked up at him, unable to hide the longing, the want, her own need, from his gaze.

  He seemed to know, as he always knew, what was deep in her heart, what her emotions cried out for.

  He took her face in his hands and then his lips were on hers and everything turned to flame.

  She’d been cold in the water, but now his lips on hers drove fire through her veins, a fire she was helpless to fight anymore.

  ‘Adam,’ she gasped.

  ‘Michelline.’

  Her real name on his lips loosed something inside her. Her hands dug into his hair, pulling his lips tighter against her. She opened to him, giving him her tongue, tasting him, the deep searing intensity of his scent filling her, heating her further. She’d always loved the way he smelled; the fresh citrus and sunshine smell of him always made her want to smile, even as she fought its attraction. Now she breathed it in, soaking it up, tasting it on her tongue. His tongue.

  His hands pulled her closer and he whispered her name against her lips again.

  The sound of it drove her wild. She ran her hands down his back, digging her fingers into his jeans, pulling him closer. She groaned as his erection pressed into her pelvic bone. So close. But so far. Separated by wet clothes and too much time.

  She’d wanted him the first time she’d seen him the year before, up at the snow. Wanted even though she had vowed never to trust anyone with her heart—not after her family and her ex-fiancé’s betrayal. Hated that she’d wanted him, and so she’d been prickly and sarcastic. An absolute bitch. And yet he’d kept being nice to her, flirting and trying to make her laugh, annoying her and attracting her in equal measure every time he walked into the room with his stupid smile on his stupidly handsome face, his stupidly enticin
g scent wrapping around her, his stupidly deep voice full of open emotion reaching out to stroke the most intimate, secret places in her heart. Touching her soul.

  ‘Stupid. Stupid,’ she whispered against his mouth.

  He pulled her tighter against him, deepening the kiss and she let him. Oh god, she let him. She wanted to tear at his shirt, to rip off his jeans, to fill her hands with the hardness of his erection, make him groan and jerk and come so hard that she’d feel it as deeply as he did. And then she wanted to clamber up his body and impale herself on his amazing cock and ride him until she couldn’t think, until she was nothing but the pulsing, aching need firing through her blood and let it build and build until it wiped away her frustration and emptiness, the horrifying sense of being alone in the constant crowd around her, until she screamed her repletion into the night sky as she came like she knew only Adam could make her come.

  Oh God! Oh God! She jerked against him as just the thought brought her almost flying off the edge. Water sloshed around them, pushing at them. She wanted to push back. Drag him out of the water so she could fulfil in reality the images filling her mind.

  No. Not entirely filling her mind. There was something else there too. A noise had begun in her head, a low hum.

  She wondered briefly if Adam was purring.

  She’d made a Were purr.

  The thought made her smile, her lips curving against his. He sucked her lip into his mouth. Oh god, that was good.

  The sound continued. Became louder. Began to push out the erotic images, replacing them with something else. Something dark and horrifying and desperate.

  It wasn’t coming from him. The noise was in her. Coming from her.

  No. No.

  She tried to stop it. To shut off the sound. But she had no control over it.

  Another sound joined the first. Wings beating, swooping down out of the night sky, grabbing her and hauling the essence of her away until she was nothing but the darkness, the desperation, the terrifying thing that had lived within her all these years, lying dormant, but now irrevocably alive.

  Death.

  It was coming.

  And she could do nothing to stop it.

  She could only sound out its arrival and hope it didn’t touch anyone she loved.

  But it was too late—it already had. The world swirled around her and she found herself standing in the room she’d had as a child in her family home. Someone was lying in the bed—herself as a ten-year-old. Sound asleep. But not peaceful. No, even then the burden of her gift brought shadows to her dreams.

  ‘What is this?’

  She turned with a start. Adam was standing beside her. ‘You shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here,’ she said, wanting to push him away. Never wanting him to see what was coming. But once again she was helpless, unable to stop the inevitable from happening in this memory she’d forgotten.

  Hands appeared over the edge of the open window, followed by a head, covered in cuts and blood that showed through the brutally short hair. Pale blue eyes glowed in the semi-dark, lit by the moon that gave her lunacy its name. The woman smiled as she spied the body in the bed and pulled herself over the window ledge, her lips a horrible mess of bites and scabs and scars where she’d chewed them.

  ‘Who is that?’ the Adam of her dream asked.

  ‘My aunt.’ The admission was a sword slash to the gut. Lilyanna had once been the most beautiful of her family, gentle and loving and kind. She’d helped Shelley when she was younger, protected her from the needs of the family, taking the burden of that on her shoulders instead, until one day she’d begun to slash at herself with a knife and scream and scream until she’d been dragged away. However, even when she was long gone, Shelley could hear those screams. She could hear them now as she watched this memory unfold in her dream, unable to stop them from joining in the song of the banshee that was building to a wail inside her.

  Lilyanna began to scratch at her arms, digging her nails into the cuts and sores as she rocked back and forth, the grin never leaving her mouth as her gaze skittered around. ‘I know. I know. I must warn her.’ Her head snapped to the side. ‘Of course I won’t hurt her. I would never hurt Michelline.’

  Shelley swallowed. She knew her aunt was talking to the dead people who had gathered around her bed, and she willed, with everything in her, for her sleeping ten-year-old self to not wake up, to not bear witness to what happened next. ‘Don’t wake up. Don’t wake up.’

  Lilyanna’s gaze snapped to her suddenly, eyes widening. ‘You cannot stop this, Michelline. It has already happened. You may as well try to push water uphill with a sieve.’ She laughed, a wild shriek of sound. It was her laughter that finally woke Shelley’s ten-year-old self. ‘Oh good, Michelline, you are awake.’

  Then Shelley was on the bed, in her childish body, looking up at the thing that looked like her beloved aunt if she’d come from hell. ‘Aunty?’ She edged away, knowing even then something horrible was about to happen.

  ‘Yes, it’s me, Michelline. They took me away. Wouldn’t let me see you. But I got out. I had to come to you. I had to tell you what I saw. What I learned.’

  ‘What? I don’t understand.’

  ‘No. You won’t. Not for many years. In fact, you will forget this until the time is right.’

  ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Shh.’ Lilyanna put her bloody finger against Shelley’s lips. ‘There’s no time to talk. The spirits tell me they will be here at any moment to take me away and I must tell you what I saw.’ She paused, her wild gaze pinning Shelley to the spot. She could barely breathe, couldn’t move, as her aunt’s words wove around her, her tone soft, mesmerising.

  ‘There is a winged creature inside you ready to take flight, little Michelline. When it opens its mouth, it will swallow you whole and the entire world will shudder with the death its scream will foretell. But do not fear the scream, because if you do, if you give in to the fear of what you could become, it will drive you insane.’ She leaned in closer, her breath smelling of blood and rotting things. Shelley gagged, but couldn’t move, could only watch in horror as this thing that had once been her aunt climbed onto the bed and laid her head against Shelley’s small chest.

  ‘Ah, your heart. It beats so strongly. I can hear the flutter of wings in it already. A promise. A whisper of what is to come.’ She pulled away, replacing her head with her hand, the stickiness of her blood seeping through Shelley’s cotton nightie. ‘Your heart is the only thing that can save you from the madness. Trust it more than you trust anything else. It will lead you true.’ She swayed back then and laughed, a mad shout of sound, and turned and pointed right to where Adam still stood. ‘Don’t let the madness kill your love. It is the only thing that can save you.’ She turned back to Shelley, her eyes dark wells of insanity that caught at Shelley, sucked her in. ‘Now, let the wail rise and shape the world to your will.’

  Her aunt dissolved and Shelley was standing in the dam again. Her mouth opened—she couldn’t stop it—and as the wail released, her gaze found Adam. His face was screwed up in pain, blood pouring from his nose and ears and mouth and when his gaze met hers, she saw the shadow of Death within. She was killing him. She was killing her love with this insanity and she had no idea how to stop it.

  ‘No. No!’ Pain shot through her, worse than anything she’d ever felt before. The only sound coming out of her was death’s cry. Tears ran down her face, smelling of salt water and the copper of blood. Her heart was truly broken and could never be made whole again. Oh god, oh god. She’d never be whole again.

  ‘Shelley. Shelley. Wake up!’

  No. No. She shook her head. There was no waking up from this.

  ‘Shelley. You’re dreaming. A nightmare. Wake up.’

  Something cold touched her shoulder and she jerked upright, eyes snapping open, and cracked her head on the shelf on the wall next to the desk.

  ‘Fuck a duck! That hurts.’ She rubbed at the bump on her head and scowled angrily at the offending s
helf. ‘The fuck who put that shelf there is a fucking moron.’

  A laugh behind her startled her into turning around.

  Adam! It was his voice that had woken her. He was grinning at her in that way that both infuriated her and made her hot all over.

  Oh God. She could see him still.

  Her gaze flitted over to the bed where his body lay. Nope. Still there. She swiped at the tears on her cheeks. Goddamned dream.

  ‘Off with their heads!’ he said in a squeaky, English-accented voice. ‘Death to all makers of shelving over desks!’

  Her gaze was pulled back to the image of him despite her best efforts not to look his way. She wanted to laugh at his ridiculousness—trust him to quote a line from one of the most ridiculous and annoying of all literary characters. She hated Alice in Wonderland—and he knew it—particularly the bloody Queen of Hearts. There was no sense to her! She’d never understood people’s infatuation with that stupid story or the stupid characters in that stupid book. She bristled to argue with him about his choice of quotes.

  No. She couldn’t engage. Not again.

  He wasn’t really there. Couldn’t really be there. Because if he was really there, that meant he was dead—or as close to it as made no difference. She only saw dead people. It was what people like her did. She was a banshee and a medium. Not that she fully understood what the banshee side was, but from what she’d gathered, it was more than just being the medium she’d always thought she was. But even though it was different, it was still tied entirely to death and the afterlife. She could feel when death was coming. Her banshee wail proclaimed deaths—like Marcus’. Not Adam’s. He wasn’t dead. She wouldn’t let her aunt’s words be true. They couldn’t be true.

  She remembered that night now—how had she forgotten it? But her aunt was insane, and despite the fact that she’d predicted the banshee rising inside of Shelley, nothing else made sense. Especially the part about Adam and her heart and killing him. She hadn’t killed him.