Pursued: Silver Falls University 4, page 7
“It’s not that bad,” she promised, though her eyes were filled with sadness. Then she caught sight of the others behind us, and the sadness disappeared as quickly as it’d arrived. “Hi, boys. I’m so happy to meet you—any friends of Ryder’s are welcome here.”
My mates exchanged greetings as his dad approached, drawing my attention. His head tilted, studying the group. “Ryder, your sister—”
“Is not here, and we won’t be for long.”
“Your grandfather will be livid,” he said, his eyes moving to me. “Especially if you took the jet and left him stranded.”
“That’s right, he went for the mate announcement,” Ryder’s mom said to herself, then looked at me with a soft smile. “Which means you must be Effie.”
So they knew about me being Ryder’s mate? Had he told them? Had his grandfather? Or had Aanya mentioned it? I knew she talked to her parents fairly often.
“It’s nice to meet both of you,” I offered, hoping that was truly the case.
“It’s nice to meet you as well; I just don’t understand why my son would bring you here,” Ryder’s dad bit out. “Son, you know the risk associated with involving her in any way—”
“We need access to the Homura Stone.”
Both of his parents froze, an odd look coming over his father’s face. “What? Why?”
“I can’t explain,” Ryder said, “but it’s why we came here, even though we don’t have much time before he returns.”
“Something is going on,” his mom said softly, looking between the two of us.
“Something big,” Ryder confirmed.
With a sharp nod, his father looked towards the door. “We’ll show you where you need to go, then.”
7
EFFIE HARLOW
I didn’t know what to look for—and had no clue what the Homura Stone would look like—but the further we went into the estate, the warmer my pendant grew against my skin, which I assumed was a good sign.
Or maybe it wasn’t a good sign. I had no idea. Honestly, it was much easier to focus on that than the awkwardness between Ryder and his parents.
They were talking, at least his mom was, but it was very surface-level. There was anger on Ryder’s end, changing the tone of his voice to one I’d never heard before. I had a feeling it was about them choosing to return here even after everything they knew he’d been through at the hands of his grandfather.
It was really confusing especially because I now knew that when Ryder was a child, they’d left him with his abusive grandfather while they and Aanya moved to another country to be safe. But now that Ryder was an adult, they were back in Japan… I had to be missing something. Especially since their love for their children was clear to me in the way they asked about Aanya and looked at their son.
I didn’t know for sure, but I had a feeling that their choice to return was based on more than just wanting to come ‘home.’
The others were following behind us, and I knew they were uncomfortable as well because all of them were silent. Although Julian, who seemed a bit more relaxed now, offered me a wink when I looked over my shoulder. I fought the urge to go back to them, knowing Ryder needed my support right now.
“I have to ask why,” Ryder’s dad said. “Why do you need to see the stone? You’ve never held any interest in it.”
“It’s really not important—”
“It really is,” Ryder’s mom argued. “And dangerous, especially if he finds out.”
Ryder softened at his parents’ concern. “Something is happening at Silver Falls, and we need to get our eyes on the stone. We can’t really say more than that.”
“Just try to be as quick as possible when we get in there,” Mr. Bosu said after a small nod of understanding.
“Speaking of school, I haven’t heard from your sister since last week.” His mom’s brows dipped. “How is she doing? Effie, have you met Aanya?”
“Yes.” I smiled. “She was one of my first friends at Silver Falls. She seems like she’s doing really well. Her mates are really nice also; I’m not sure if you’ve met them yet—” Realizing I was rambling, I cut myself off, but Ryder’s mom had eagerly absorbed every word, a smile flitting to her lips.
“I haven’t. I’m so glad both our children found their mates. That’s all I can ask for as a mom,” she said wistfully, Mr. Bosu nodding in agreement.
Ryder’s lips tipped in the smallest smile at her words, one that he couldn’t hide despite his best efforts. Maybe…maybe this would be good, this trip. Maybe it would help his relationship with his parents. Not that it was any of my business…
No, I needed to stop thinking like that. Ryder was bringing me into his life; I wasn’t being invasive. At least I hoped I wasn’t.
I hated feeling this insecure, but these were situations I had never been in before, so I was playing it all by ear.
“We’re nearly there,” Mr. Bosu said as we traveled down a set of stairs that led underground. I’d always imagined basements to be dark and dank like the one in my old apartment building, but this space only grew more luxurious as we descended, the lighting creating a cozy atmosphere.
There were also runes on the wall. I didn’t know what they said, but I could feel the magic radiating from them, and I had to fight the urge to walk over and run my fingers over their carved edges. A shiver ran up my spine at the idea, so I focused my attention on the stairs beneath my feet—not overly steep, but as we stepped down each one, the noise echoed louder and louder.
After we turned a bend, we reached a set of tall golden doors. The same runes were repeated on the doors as well, the familiarity really calling to me. I wouldn’t touch them, though. Any runes that could evoke a reaction like that in me wasn’t to be messed with.
“The stone is in there,” Mrs. Bosu said. “We’ll stay out here and wait for you—just be careful to not disturb anything, especially if you don’t want him to know you were down here.” Which we didn’t.
I was sure we wouldn’t be able to hide that we were here—I mean, all the house staff had seen us, twenty people at least—but I was hoping that it would be under the guise of meeting his parents or something.
“Let’s go.” Dakota appeared from behind me and led me forward, Ryder grabbing the door. As I stepped into the circular room, six beams of light shone from the circumference, bathing the pillar in the center in a soft glow. On it rested a rich orange spessartite garnet that sparkled under the lights. It matched one half of my pendant almost perfectly, as if my piece had been made directly from it.
“Mona said that this is where the magic was lost?” I asked as my mates spread throughout the room, checking for any potential threats. “Why is that here? Or did she just mean in the general area?”
“This is where the decision was made to hurt the lykos—the very spot,” Ryder explained, his eyes shading with darkness. “The downfall of the lykos—their capture, slaughter, and enslavement—was the start of the loss of true magic.”
“Is that why the gate was closed?” Caedmon asked.
“In part, but we can go over that more later,” Ryder murmured, returning his gaze to the Homura Stone. “I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do. Mona didn’t explain what we should do once we got here, right?”
“She mentioned your pendant,” Julian stated.
“It’s been getting warmer,” I said, wrapping my fingers around it. Tore approached and felt it as well, and after a moment of contemplation, he motioned me towards the stone in the center of the room.
His thoughts apparently mirrored mine, something telling me that the key was to get closer to the stone, maybe even touch it. I moved towards the pillar with slow, deliberate steps, my fingers tracing the runes that ran along the edge of the pillar once I’d reached it. Immediately visions flashed before my eyes, causing my body to go rigid with shock.
Women’s fearful faces. Lykos. Pain. Agony. Like a tattoo imprinted here where deceit and murder were planned, I could feel and see their fear. The metaphoric blood stain was permanent, this place filled with a level of fury that slammed into me. Anger at the injustices that occurred caused me to tremble, and I realized that something was infecting me—something was pulling on me.
I lifted my fingers from the runes.
The visions disappeared, and as I blinked my eyes open, I understood that those runes were placed there for a reason. They were for protection, warding off those that looked to hurt the stone. Although I wasn’t positive that made sense since it was Homura Stone…for kitsune. So why would the lykos want to protect it?
Shaking the thought from my head, I decided to be bold in approaching this situation. Lifting the pendant from my chest, I held it over the fiery stone.
A spark flashed between the two of them, and like a lightning bolt, it shot right through my chest. A small cry left my lips, pain surging through my torso alongside a weird sense of euphoria.
Around me the room turned pink, the stone walls vibrating, and despite feeling that my mates were trying to break through the forcefield that my magic was using to keep them away, they were unsuccessful. It was necessary to keep them protected.
It was a second later I realized what from.
A searing, deadly inferno like I had never experienced before blasted from the stone, flames erupting all around me. I was momentarily blinded by a flash of light that felt like the sun itself had entered the room. My knees broke, and the skin on my body felt like it was about to melt off, my form hanging suspended by the pendant’s connection to the Homura Stone. I cried out, but no sound left my lips, as a deep bass sound filled everything.
It vibrated my bones and formed blisters on my skin that immediately began to pop. I let out a sob, tears leaking down my face, but they evaporated right against my flesh. Something was trying to break out from my chest, beating on my ribcage as the blood under my skin began to rise to the surface, boiling up and evaporating.
It was excruciating, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it.
The sun ignited the thing that was trying to break out of me and it absolutely detonated, the thing escaping the confines of my body, pulsing out and combining itself with the essence of my magic.
Sound returned, and my scream nearly broke my own eardrums as the walls themselves began to shake. I watched in horror as my skin began to melt off my arms, but it was nothing compared to the gaping, light-filled hole in the center of my body. I didn’t know what was happening, but I was terrified.
It was almost like I was in a dream. A nightmare. I experienced every single emotion and physical change, but I had departed, watching it all from a distant place.
I was being transformed.
Then I was snapped back into my body as my heart was dragged from my chest. I couldn’t lose any more of myself, I just fucking couldn’t. I cried out for my mates as power pulsed through the pendant, into me, and spread throughout the room. I was going to pass out, I knew it, the room turning black on the edges—
“Effie!” Mona’s voice filled the space around me, yanking me from my agony-filled state.
Except everything felt off. Warped.
She was standing over me, her eyes panicked as she grasped my face, looking over me with fast, rough breaths. I blinked and whimpered, feeling like I couldn’t breathe. Flinging up, or trying to, I realized that was exactly the problem—the organs in my chest were just…gone. I was left with nothing but a gaping hole filled by a small, burning inferno. It was radiating its own damn life force, making Mona shy away from it, her own skin beginning to blister.
“What’s going on?” I could barely get a word out, let alone a question. My eyes shut, the blinding pain infusing everything.
“This is your father’s fault,” she hissed, tears leaking down her face. “I told him you needed to practice, and now it’s like you’ve never experienced half of your own magic. Your body is trying to reject it.”
Her words made no sense. Why would I have magic from what amounted to a sun stone? I was lykos.
Wait—why was I even here to begin with? Why hadn’t I questioned needing to come here to unlock my own powers? That didn’t make any sense.
“Listen to me. I can’t explain it fully, not when you’re suffering like this, but you have magic like your mate Ryder. Well, not yet, I suppose—but you can have it. It’s always been a possibility,” she murmured. “Fuck, I should’ve considered this. We have to fix this, it’s going to burn you alive—”
Feeling delirious, her words floated around me as I tried to pull on my connection to Ryder. I needed him. I knew that instinctively.
All of a sudden my skin was set ablaze, flames surrounding me as Mona’s image faded.
Ryder’s hand slid into my hair as he kissed me hard, grounding me. When his hand pressed to my chest, I cried out, the light emanating from it causing fire to travel up Ryder’s arm to…him.
My eyes widened as the world stilled around me, meeting the gaze of my kitsune mate.
He was transformed. His entire body was made of pure light, fire licking his skin, and his molten red and orange eyes were filled with anger and panic as he kissed me again. Despite it burning me alive, the sensation of his magic against mine felt good. I whispered his name, realizing that if I was going to die, I wanted to die while kissing him.
Die?
I couldn’t die.
Why was I—
My thoughts began to blink in and out of existence.
“Effie, I need you to shift,” Ryder demanded. “It’ll equalize your magic. Shift now.”
“I can’t,” I whispered.
“I’ll shift and bring you with me. I’m going to force it, kitten.” Ryder laid me down on the cold stone floor and stepped back, and I watched in a half-dazed state as his form seemed to shimmer gold—before he shifted.
Wow. I’d never seen a kitsune, and for just a moment, the pain didn’t matter. I was in awe of his massive form, his fur a beautiful mix of orange and red streaked with gold. His black eyes were focused fully on me, and there was a painfully bright light which emanated from him that attracted me like a moth.
What really held my attention, though? His tails. Eight beautiful tails, all in different fiery shades, flicked behind him, and when his snout pressed against my face, I realized what he planned to do.
His alpha magic surged through me, forcing my shift.
It hurt. A lot. More than it ever had before, but then it felt like a cooling balm was running over my skin in a waterfall effect. I sank to the floor, breathing heavily and feeling dizzy with relief. Something had changed inside of me—something monumental. There was new energy under my skin, and I had no idea how to deal with it.
The room was suddenly silent, and when my eyes flicked open, I found Ryder staring down at me still in kitsune form, my own body having shifted back to human on its own. The pendant was hot against my skin, but as my eyes took stock of my body as I attempted to sit up, I found it whole. I hadn’t imagined all of that, right? I just felt like something like that should have left a physical marker of some kind.
I wrapped my arms around Ryder as he held me up, my legs shaking. His tails wrapped around my waist as I laid against him, trying to catch my breath.
My gaze moved to my pendant, realizing in dazed surprise that half of it was lit up—the side that matched the Homura Stone. I tucked it into my shirt before trying to stand on my own, my gaze moving around the room to find all of my mates unconscious. My magic had fallen, the barrier having kept them from harm.
How had Ryder broken through it?
“I don’t know what happened,” I murmured, closing my eyes. “Something changed. I unlocked something, exactly like Mona said I would… But when I saw her in my dream state, she said something I don’t understand. She said I have my father’s powers, that I was unlocking them. But if I’m using the Homura Stone which is connected to the sun, wouldn’t that be kitsune powers? Why would I have those?”
I continued, knowing he couldn’t respond. “I…I don’t get what she was saying, but I know something changed. There’s something different inside of me.” I tightened my hands in his fur, feeling a surge of fear.
Suddenly, Ryder shifted back. His bare chest was hard and muscular under my hands, and he scooped me up in his arms easily, staring down at me in confusion and fascination.
“What?” I whispered.
“Turn for me, kitten.”
I did after he gently put me on my feet, my gaze moving back to my mates in concern as his large, rough hand pushed up my shirt. I wanted to wake them, but I was so incredibly weak I shouldn’t have been surprised it was so hard to move, especially after what I’d been through.
“You have them.”
“Have what?” I asked, looking back at him over my shoulder.
“Marks, like me. Like a kitsune.”
“What?” I turned around, trying to see my own back. “What marks?” Why would I have marks like that? Although if they were the same as Ryder’s, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing…maybe it was a mate thing?
Ryder turned, showing me the circle with eight flames in a reddish tone between his shoulder blades. My fingers traced them and he shivered, distracting me for a moment and making me realize my touch affected him that much. It made me want to touch him more.
“I don’t understand what’s going on. Is this why we had to come here? Why didn’t I consider that before?” I whispered again.
Ryder turned and captured my lips in a gentle kiss. “Breathe, kitten. I promise we will figure it out.”
I believed him. I believed him completely. There was such a strength to Ryder, and underneath his calm, collected control, there was something that burned so intense and bright.
“Fuck,” Julian groaned, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. “What the hell happened?”
His clothes were singed, and I moved towards him. He tugged me down to where he was on the floor, pulling me into his grasp and kissing me hard. “What the hell happened? After the explosion, I don’t remember anything. You look different, preciosa.”
