Page 9 of Crown Me (Immortal Vices and Virtues: All Hallows’ Eve #3)

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B right light flashes across my view, but my next step carries me into darkness.

“Adeline!” A shout tears from my throat and my arms close around nothing as she vanishes right in front of me.

A second later, my ears fill with screams and the chaotic shrieks of magic, and I inhale the scent of smoke and bloodshed.

The cave is gone.

I’m standing in the middle of a street I recognize all too well.

This is where my mate died.

I try to back away, but I’m frozen.

I’ve buried this memory. Buried it so deep, I don’t even remember the name of this place. I convinced myself I’d never have to relive it.

Smoke billows across the air, clinging to me while the clashing sounds of battle tear at my heart, striking hard.

I didn’t make it to my mate in time to save her. We were separated in this battle between Houses, before peace was forged, torn apart during a fight in which other supernaturals vied for power.

All I wanted was peace. I was built for war, a bear with all the skill and strength to tear my enemies apart, literally limb from limb, but I didn’t want this bloodshed.

And now, to my horror, I hear my mate’s scream. Her desperate cry echoing across to me and I’m running, trying to fight my way to her.

Supernaturals are battling each other along the street, blocking my way, some of them coming for me the second they catch sight of me.

I duck a flying dagger, evade a bolt of fire, and leap over a pair of fighting shifters, their faces so bloodied, I can’t identify them.

Up ahead, the smoke clears for long enough that I catch sight of my mate. Her blonde hair flies around her face as she tries to get away from a cluster of vampires. She’s in her two-legged form, her claws extended, but it’s four against one.

She’s fighting hard, half-shifting, and I’m only five steps away from her.

Five agonizing steps.

A heartbeat.

She drops to her knees just before I reach her.

The vampire who ripped her throat out rises up behind her and that’s all I see.

The rest is red.

Blood sprays, bodies thud onto the ground. I’m tearing and ripping until there’s so much blood I’m slipping on it, but I don’t fucking care. Death is my only vengeance and even that’s over too soon.

Within minutes, there’s nobody left to fight.

A cold silence descends around me.

I remember I didn’t stop here. I didn’t stop until the witches made me stop.

But this time, I drop to the ground, reaching for my mate’s broken body, pulling her into my arms, gently carving a space for her on my lap, willing her to wake up. To fight. To live.

A roar of pain fills my throat as I inhale her scent, but…

My mouth fills with the taste of vanilla, and now, when I turn her face toward me?—

My breathing halts.

It’s Adeline.

Her gorgeous, fierce, stunning eyes are lifeless. Her head lolls in my arms. Her red hair, dark with blood, trails across the ground.

Something in me snaps.

Some thread that was tying me to my past, keeping me suspended in those horrifying moments when my mate died, forcing me to live swallowed by the awful guilt that I survived and she didn’t.

That chain, it breaks.

And now, all I know, all I feel, all I can think is that…

I can’t lose Adeline.

She’s alive. She didn’t die like this.

This whole place must be some fucking illusion. A trap designed to mess with my mind.

But I have no doubt she’s in trouble.

I may not believe I deserve a second chance, but I won’t fucking let her die.

I can’t.

When I look down again, her body is gone.

I rise to my feet with a roar, extend my claws, and then I rip at the air in front of me, tearing at the illusion as savagely as I can, determined to get to her.