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The End to my Beginning.

My eyes flew open, fixing on the night sky—the stars and the moon.

“Sera,” he gasped.

That name. That name. That name.

It was important, but something…something was still happening inside me. Raw, Primal energy pressed against my flesh, seeping through my pores. My skin hummed—

Time stopped. There were no sounds of water or wind. No rustling animals or distant calls. There was just him leaning over me, his silver eyes wide as he held me in his arms, keeping me afloat.

“Liessa,” he rasped.

Eather erupted from my chest, shooting into the air in a spinning, sparking funnel. The stream of eather slammed into the sky. Time felt as if it stopped once more.

Arms tensed around me. “Oh, shit.”

The surge of power throbbed, and I saw the shockwave before I heard it, rippling in waves through the air, extending in every direction. With a massive, deafening boom that shook the land in all the realms, the intense silvery-gold light rippled across the skies, stretching as far as the eye could see and beyond. That shockwave reached us—

He was torn from me, thrown back into the trees as I was lifted into the air. The water of my lake flew out and up, halting as shadowstone cracked beneath us and gave way. Tall elms groaned as they quaked, bending back and then pitching forward, their roots ripping free of the ground. They began to slide and topple, sinking into the rushing water as the eather returned to its vessel.

To me.

Essence wrapped and churned around me, crackling and spitting sparks, encasing me in its light until it was all I saw.

All I became.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I slept.

And I dreamed.

I was at a lake, floating in the cool water. It was so peaceful. Tranquil.

I was never alone.

A silver-white wolf sat on the bank of the lake, watching and always alert, keeping guard while I floated and…

Listened.

Someone was talking to me as I slept.

The voice was full of silky shadows and smoke. There were others, too. A raspier one. Softer, feminine tones. Quiet murmurings. But his, the voice of midnight…his I tuned into. It soothed me. Meant something to me.

He meant something to me.

“The first time I saw you—really saw you? You were just a child, but I didn’t look like this. I’d taken my wolf form.”

I looked at where the silver wolf sat. The wolf…it was him.

“Not that being in that form makes it…how did you say it?” A rough, low laugh traveled across the water, bringing a smile to my lips. “Any less creepy.”

I…I’d said that?

“You were this little thing carrying your weight in pebbles, your hair a pale tangle of moonlight. When you saw me, I thought you’d scream and run away. Child or not, most sensible mortals would do that when confronted by a wolf. You did neither of those things.”

I didn’t think I… I was known to be sensible.