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

Bron

M y bear rips through my control, filling my head with everything he senses. The hot sun beating down on my back. The dry air scorching my chest.

And the witch’s scent.

Vanilla. Like ice cream that might have melted on my tongue.

Whatever rope she was using to bind me falls away as my bear snaps through it, thumping his feet to the ground and towering over her.

His limitless bloodlust threatens to overwhelm me and I battle to regain control, but he’s fighting just as hard to be free.

For the first time since his heart broke… since we broke… he won’t let me cage him.

I’m fucking terrified of what he’ll do.

It took the entire Triarchy to cage him when he first lost his mind. This witch is clearly powerful, but she won’t stand a chance.

Mentally, I roar at him, Don’t you fucking hurt her!

He isn’t listening, lowering his head to hers while she stares up at him, her face deathly pale, her mouth dropped open as if she can’t even scream.

I don’t blame her.

Then he snarls a single word that paralyzes me.

“ Mate .”

My world stops. My heart, my soul, my foundations. Everything suspends.

Too painful.

Not possible.

Our mate was killed in the Great Sacrifice. Her death broke us. Me and my bear. I can’t even utter her name without feeling like my chest is being cleaved into pieces.

But my bear is moving without my permission, dropping to all fours in front of the witch, nudging his big body forward, lifting his head as if he’ll nuzzle his cheek against hers.

She’s frozen. No doubt as terrified as any rational supernatural would be when he presses his big head to hers, his jaw large enough to bite her head off, and then he…

He fucking purrs .

The rumbling sound seems to break the witch out of her shock.

Lightning fast, she wrenches herself backward and lets fly with a slap across his face.

It smarts.

But it seems to surprise him enough that he loses his iron grip on our consciousness along with his control of our form, allowing my mind to surge back to the surface.

I shove him down as hard as I can, forcing the shift back into my two-legged form.

Mate , he moans in my mind before he retreats.

He was on all fours, so that leaves me on all fours, my ripped clothing barely hanging on, the hot sand burning my knees and my palms, and my pride…

Well, my pride is shattered.

Before I can raise myself upward, the witch pokes her finger in my face, close enough to jab my nose. “You tell your bear—” She gasps for breath. “You tell him?—”

Her gorgeous lips press together so hard, her fury appearing so complete that I’m not certain she can finish her thought.

My forehead crinkles before I venture, “Tell him to fuck off? Keep his paws to himself? Quit purring like a damn kitten?”

“You tell him!” she snaps, her cheeks flushed and her chest heaving.

Wrenching her hand back, she gives a flick of her fingers and the broken vines, which were abandoned on the sand, snap toward my wrists, reforming and wrapping around my arms.

I could stop them if I wanted to, but hell, I should be restrained.

I don’t know what this witch wants from me, but the Crone could have killed me without any bother, so I’m assuming they need me alive.

If the vines make this witch feel safer, then so be it.

Of course, the unwanted consequence is that my wrists are drawn so quickly together that, because my weight was bearing down on my arms, I face-plant on the ground, barely missing her feet.

Oof .

Bum up in the air. Sand stuck to my face. Pride well and truly in tatters.

I raise myself up to my knees to find the witch quickly moving a full five steps away from me, her hands raised defensively, as if even my face-plant alarms her now that she’s seen my bear.

I clear my throat. “Uh…”

I want to ask her name and what she thinks I stole, but I’m not sure if now’s the time, especially when my pants threaten to fall off my hips.

“Right,” she says, when I stay where I am, not daring to move, for fear I’ll lose all dignity. “You’re going to walk.”

“Which way?”

She points past me. “That way.”

I twist. Only a little. Very carefully. “There’s nothing that way.”

“Even so, that’s the way we’re walking.”

I squint into the glare, taking in the vast expanse of sand dunes around me. Actually, there’s nothing in any direction. “How did we get here?”

“The Crone sent us on our way,” she answers cryptically. “Now, walk.”

By some miracle, I manage to rise all the way to my feet without my pants falling off. It seems they’re holding on by enough threads that I won’t give her an eyeful of my junk. Yet.

Still, the sooner I present her with my back, the better.

“Where is the Crone?” I ask, using my bound hands as best I can to grip the front of my pants and hold them up while I take my time turning, praying I won’t end up swinging in the breeze.

I guess the witch thinks I’m stalling because she huffs and stalks toward me, seeming to overcome her need to keep her distance.

Along the way, she bends to scoop up my boots, which, by some marvel, must have slid off my feet without tearing during my shift.

She rights herself, my boots in hand, and that’s when she trips.

Her eyes fly wide as she stumbles into me.

In the split second before she reaches me, I predict her trajectory. She’s going to smack into my tied hands, which, given the way they’re held in front of me, will feel like ramming into my fists.

As fast as I can, I lift my arms up and out of the way and dig in my heels, bracing to take the brunt of her fall.

She knocks into me, my boots go flying, and her now-empty hands slap against my chest.

There she freezes, leaning awkwardly into me, as if her foot is caught on something and she can’t right herself.

The angle of her body is concealing whatever might have snagged her foot, so I can’t see what it is. It can’t be hurting her because she didn’t cry out in pain.

I drop my bound arms around her shoulders to keep her steady, which only makes her startled gaze flash up to mine.

She takes a quick, shaky breath, blinking rapidly, her cheeks flushing. I’m certain it’s because she’s embarrassed about falling, but damn…

She does smell nice.

There’s no way I can allow her nearness to affect my body in my current partially-unclothed state, so I focus on thinking about blue skies and boring chores and anything but the way her hands are flexing against my chest and the alluring scent of her hair.

For a long moment, she stays where she is, her head nestled against my heart, her dark-brown eyes closing briefly, a nearly imperceptible sigh on her lips.

I force myself to find my voice, throaty and growly, which only makes me sound aggressive, which is not my intention, but I can’t help it. “Can you stand?”

Her cheeks flush brighter and she jerks backward, only to encounter my arms, which are still lowered around her.

Her palms tighten against my chest, pushing backward, pressing, somehow finding even more of the bare skin beneath my tattered shirt. Warm strokes as she slithers downward to escape—even though I’m trying to lift my arms up from around her—her fingertips grazing my hips on her way down.

Blue skies, boring chores…!

I’m left holding air for the split second it takes me to turn around and present her with my back.

At which my pants slip partway down my backside and I freeze.

Luckily, she seems more interested in snapping at me than worrying about my nearly naked ass. “Of course I can stand!” She scoops up my boots again. “Hurry up and move.”

I take a step and then stop.

She’ll think I’m being obstinate. I would too.

But no. I suspect that on her slither downward she broke one of the crucial threads keeping my pants up on the left side. One more step and I’ll need to cover my junk with my hands.

Feigning outrage, I mutter, “Pardon me for helping you when you tripped.”

She gasps, moving up beside me. “I didn’t trip. I never trip .” She gestures firmly. “Now, go.”

I arch my eyebrows at her, some reckless part of me determined to antagonize her. “I’ll move when you admit you tripped.”

She scowls furiously at me. “I. Did not . Trip.”

I lean closer to her. “You. Tripped.”

She lets out a howl of frustration and stomps her foot.

I’m not sure why she’s in such a hurry. Of course, the sun is really hot. Any reasonable supernatural would want to get the hell out of it. But it’s not like there’s some cool haven nearby.

“How about this?” I offer smugly. “Why don’t we blame your fall on the sand? We can say the sand tripped you.”

She blows out an exasperated exhale. “If that will make you move?”

“It will.”

“Fine. The sand tripped me.”

I give her a grin. At least if I lose the shredded remains of my dignity in the next two seconds, I’ve had a win.

As I step forward in painfully slow increments, the expanse of amber grit at the corner of my eye catches my attention and my smile fades.

For a moment, I’m certain the surface of the dune moves, and not because of the wind. Some sort of protrusion, blue in color and maybe woody-looking, disappears beneath the surface.

Huh . Maybe the sand did trip her, or rather, something in the sand…

“Did you see?—?”

“Listen to me, Bron.” She steps right up to me, her hair billowing across my chest and tickling my chin in unhelpful ways. “I’m hot and I’m in a hurry?—”

She’s hot , my bear pipes up within my mind, his tone completely innocent of any innuendo, while I grit my teeth and mentally order him to pipe down .

Meanwhile, her shoulders slump and she gestures to the sky. “Are you not boiling?”

I grimace. “Yeah… I don’t really feel the heat. My senses are a bit…”

Fucked up.

Losing my mate really did a number on me. So much that I can’t even think, let alone speak, her name.

Her forehead puckers. “Well, it’s blistering out here. Would you mind being a good prisoner and stepping on forward? We’re so close to our destination.”

If she says so.

I make out a crumbling sandstone wall maybe fifty paces ahead of us, but it isn’t much more than a small section of collapsed rubble.

Taking another step in that direction, I discover that my pants might cooperate, after all.

Dignity intact for now, I make it all the way to the only doorway still standing within the crumbling wall that seems to be our destination.

There I stop and arch an eyebrow at her.

“Go on,” she prompts, as if she thinks I already know where we’re going.

I move through the doorway, only to blink at my surroundings.

What the…?