Page 10 of Crown Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #3)

Adeline

“ M other!” My horrified whisper strangles me as I back away from her, violently shaking my head. “This can’t be happening. You’re gone!”

“Oh, darling, I’ll never be gone.” She drags her fingernails across my shoulder, somehow staying right beside me, no matter how fast I move backward, no matter how desperately I try to get away from her.

She taps her finger against my forehead. “I won’t be gone for as long as I continue to live in your head.”

A sob rises to my lips, all the power she had over me surging to the surface, forcing me to a stop, my hands shaking. My whole body is shaking.

“How about we play a little game? For old times’ sake.” Her lips stretch into a cold smile. “You get to choose who lives and who dies.”

She waves her hand at the nearest two cages, and a person appears in each.

One is a young witch, her face tear-stained, and the other is a warlock who leans nonchalantly up against the side of his cell with a smirk on his face.

I remember this game. My mother made me play it once. It seemed an easy choice between the innocent girl and the warlock who was a known murderer. When I chose the girl to live, my mother didn’t free her. She killed her and kept the warlock as one of her willing pets.

He met his justice. Eventually. It was his power over fire that I stole and later used against him.

Now I tip my chin, fighting the tremors racking my body and the instant fear my mother’s presence brings over me.

How is it that I can fight any other fight, stand tall in the face of any other power, but when it comes to her…

My voice is a hoarse whisper as I try to push past the control she has over me. “No more games.”

She pouts. “Well, you’re no fun.”

At that, the two figures disappear, leaving the cages empty again.

“You used to be fun,” my mother says, her lacquered fingers reaching for me, curling as if she’ll wrap them around my forearm.

I jolt backward with a gasp. “No.”

She arches her eyebrows at me, stopping where she is, letting me go. “No?”

No.

I’m struggling to breathe, telling myself she can’t be here.

She isn’t really here.

She doesn’t have any power anymore.

My next backward step takes me into a rocky tunnel and, to my surprise, the rocks on both sides of me build inward, quickly forming a wall between me and my mother.

I can’t see her anymore and I slump with relief.

She was an illusion. She must have been. A momentary apparition risen from a nightmare that’s over now.

Spinning away from the wall, I hurry along the new tunnel, determined to get back to Bron, only to jolt to a stop once more.

On my right, the tunnel wall shimmers, a pool of silver liquid forming like an oval mirror on its rocky surface, large enough that it extends from the dusty ground to the stone ceiling.

Within the silver liquid, figures take shape and my breath catches when the images become clear.

A man crashes through a door, although the background is unclear and I can’t see what kind of room he was so desperate to get into, only that his focus is purely on the woman standing within it.

She’s beautiful, a shimmering, black gown highlighting the depths of her red hair and green eyes.

He speaks, but I can’t hear what he says or how she replies, and the silence is painful because their body language is heart-wrenching.

The space between them is filled with untold pain, a separation that tugs at my heart.

The woman’s chest rises and falls with visibly shallow breaths while her eyes remain locked on the man, whose sharp jaw and slightly crooked nose indicate a life of hard-fought battles. He’s dressed as formally as she is, although his charcoal-grey dress shirt is rolled up at the sleeves.

I lean closer to the surface of the silver liquid, dangerously close, and that’s when sound rushes out from the images.

“I’m not here to force anything,” the man says, his voice low, the hint of an animal’s growl in it. “Not the bond. Not your wolf. Not us. I’m just… here.”

The woman’s lips part and for a moment, I think she’s going to step into his arms, but it seems as if something’s holding her back. Something is caging her.

My instincts prickle at the magic I detect around her. Some kind of binding…

“If it takes a day or a year or even a century,” he continues, “I’ll wait. Whatever you need from me—space, silence, fury, fire—you have it. All you have to do is ask.”

He takes a careful step toward her, closing the distance between them, reaching out, the lightest touch of his hand to hers.

I sense the fragile hope between them, holding my breath as I wait… and he waits… for her to respond.

“I…” she begins, her voice quiet.

The silver surface ripples, whisking the couple away.

No!

I need to know what she said. I need to know that they have hope. Because if they have hope, then…

I can have hope.

“Why did you show me this?” I rage at the mirror.

“Because they’re fighting for their future.” My mother’s crooning voice makes me shudder. “Unlike you.”

She materializes through the rock wall ten paces behind me, gliding toward me, her velvet gown trailing behind her. “You don’t believe you’re worthy of a future.” She smiles. “Which, of course, is true. You don’t deserve happiness, Adeline. You never did.”

I back away again, only to step into a solid, rock wall now at my back.

The tunnel has closed over behind me and I’m trapped in this new cave with my mother.

She glides to the other side of the tunnel, tapping at the bare rock.

The wall shimmers again, another pool of silver liquid forming.

Within it, the image of a dance floor forms, illuminated with soft lights and starry strands overhead.

The dancers are all blurred except for one.

A woman in a red gown, her long, blonde hair cascading down her back, is dancing with a shadowy figure whose features I can’t make out. All I can sense is how unsettled the woman is, her shoulders tense, but I’m not sure if it’s because of her current dance partner or…

A man steps toward her through the throng, his features as clear as hers, his focus on her unbreakable. His hair is dark, his jaw slightly shadowed, and he appears completely comfortable in the suit he’s wearing.

With every purposeful step he takes closer to the woman in the red dress, the other dancers disappear from around them, until it’s only them. Nobody else exists.

His hand slides into hers and the breath stops in my chest when that simple contact brings a visible peace to the woman’s entire body.

He guides her hand up to his shoulder, his other arm adjusting her stance until they’re moving to the rhythm between them, their bodies pressing close.

At one point, she tenses again, her head half-turning in my direction and, at the same moment, the man’s eyes rise to me.

I freeze because it’s almost as if… they can sense me.

But then, the man returns his attention to the woman, she relaxes, and the focus between them resumes.

With every step and turn and glide, he shields her from the other dancers, whose forms flicker in and out of view now, protective of her until her breathing evens out.

But with every step he takes, he’s maneuvering her toward the exit at the side of the ballroom, where they finally draw to a slow stop.

My eyes widen because it’s clear to me that he’s giving her choices. To stay or to leave?

His quiet voice breaks through the silence of the image. “You move like you were made to fit here,” he says. “In my hands.”

In that moment, the look in her eyes…

I recognize the fear of accepting love. At war with the terrible need to build walls against all the vulnerability and pain that comes with giving one’s heart.

The woman takes a step, but it’s unclear if she moves toward or away from him because that’s when the silvery image vanishes.

“Will she choose love?” my mother asks with an indifferent shrug of her shoulders. “Who the fuck cares?”

“ I care!”

My mother’s eyes widen. “Oh, Adeline, what right do you have to care about strangers when you don’t care about those closest to you?”

She glides to the side of the tunnel, where the first image appeared, and again, she taps the rock.

This time, I recognize the couple within the silvery mirror. My queen’s dark-brown hair is tied back. Her husband’s arm is around her shoulders, both of their gazes cast downward, where she cradles a sleeping baby in her arms.

Oh. Their baby.

Tiny, perfect, and beautiful.

My heart wrenches within my chest at the happiness in their faces, their quiet contemplation of their child, this moment of new life that takes my breath away.

Instinctively, I step protectively toward them, needing to stand between them and my mother.

I expect her to threaten their safety, but instead, she cuts at my heart with painful ease.

“Their happiness is not your happiness, darling,” she says. “You’ll always be on the outside. You’ll never be trusted. In fact, forget trust. You may as well not exist. They don’t need you. Nobody ever did.”

While the image fades, leaving the rock wall bare again, she steps toward me, bringing dark shadows with her, shadows that creep toward me across the floor, threatening to engulf me.

“The Crone and the Mother replaced you with their other Maiden,” my mother continues. “They abandoned you. Your new queen will replace you too. Just wait. You’re simply not worth keeping around.”

The shadows have reached my feet and they may as well be fingers of fear.

All my fears. Too many of them.

“Come back with me, Adeline,” my mother whispers, beckoning from within the shadows. “Come back to the darkness, where you belong?—”

“ No. ”

My shout echoes around the cave, strong and fierce, and for a moment, I’m shocked at how furious I sound. I’m not even sure why until I realize I’ve pressed my hand to my heart.

It’s the hand I pushed against the nearly-naked chest of the most ferocious bear shifter I’ve ever met.

In my ears, suddenly, all I can hear is his bear’s happy purring. Calming and irritating and oh-so-soothing.

Suddenly, all I can feel is the way that bear pressed his fucking scary head to mine, the brush of his fur, the weight of his vulnerability in that moment as he opened his heart to me for no discernible reason whatsoever.

He didn’t know my history. Had no idea of all the things I’ve done. And yet he was prepared to accept me with all my flaws because that was what his instincts told him to do.

I have choices too.

“You don’t control my future,” I say to my mother. “I’m done letting my fears dictate my choices.”

She tilts her head and arches an eyebrow at me. “Are you, though?”

She’s so skilled at cutting through my confidence that I could crumble at that single question.

But I take a deep breath and give her question all the respect it deserves—that is, none.

The shadows that were reaching for me retract sharply when I seek my powers again.

This time, my powers answer my call, all of them at once like a dam bursting, exploding outward in a rain of fire and snowflakes, a tornado of air, a rush of vines, and even a dizzying blast of shadows because those belong to me too.

They tear through my mother’s form and into the cave walls.

Rock explodes outward, shards of stone shooting through the air, a storm of broken pieces as the cave disintegrates around me, so many pieces like the shards of my heart spiraling and crashing around me while I reach for the sound of purring again. The memory of comfort.

That’s when each sharp shard transforms into a flower petal.

They float to my feet and, when the air clears, I find myself standing in the middle of a field, mossy ground at my feet, tiny blooms trailing beneath patches of larger flowers of all colors rising up toward the sun.

A blue sky stretches overhead, fluffy clouds wafting lazily past.

It’s peaceful.

I can finally breathe.

But I sink to the ground, pulling my knees to my chest.

For too many years, I fought for my freedom, finally attaining it without realizing that I never truly freed myself.

For the last five years, I’ve had outward peace and yet, in that time, I never let myself scream at the past or weep for what was lost or even acknowledge the parts of me that were broken.

I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Determined to prove myself.

Persevering, until now…

I gasp when a giant claw cleaves the air only three paces away from me, ripping and tearing as if through a solid wall.

A moment later, Bron bursts into view, both hands pulling the very fabric of the air apart as he forces his way through, his chest heaving and sweat pouring down his brow.

Bessy bursts through the jagged opening behind him before it closes, her little chicken legs carrying her to my side, where she clucks softly.

Bron stays where he is, his chest rising and falling, his dark gaze on me while the air seals up behind him, resuming its seamless appearance.

I don’t have the emotional energy to worry about whatever magic is currently holding us in its thrall. Whatever illusions have been cast around us.

All I care about is that he’s here.

This bear I’ve known less than a day, whose body is thrumming with undeniable concern and whose arms I crave to hold me.

His growl is a lifeline. “Adeline.”

I’m barely able to speak, struggling to push past the walls I built around myself for years and years, protective layers I need to tear down if I’m ever going to allow myself to feel .

To really live for the first time in such a long time.

“I want you in my life,” I whisper, and that’s all I can manage.

He drops to his knees in front of me, gathering me up into his arms, pulling me close, cradling my head to his chest, stroking my hair and my back, growling so softly at my ear that once again he’s… purring like a damn kitten.

I close my eyes and, finally, I let myself cry.