Page 64 of Forever My Siren Luna (The Hidden Cove #2)

Lachlan

When we got to the place where Percy and the rest of the hunting party were waiting to receive further instructions, I was mortified to see the damage my mate had done. Mortified and impressed.

I knew she was strong, stronger than most, but she alone took out a dozen experienced and bulking warriors.

All on her own. The carnage was unimaginable.

Killian was oddly proud, but still a bit disturbed that she could handle this level of fighting without any help.

Cherum's Lycan looked sick, coughing and gagging as we passed the worst of it.

“She saved herself,” Percy said as Cherum, King Brennus, Cedric and I came to a cropping of large rocks. "She told us not to follow her and that she saved herself."

The other warriors that traveled with us spread out to join the search for all the severed body parts and to see if there were any more traces of her scent.

The gore was littered everywhere and Cherum ordered her guard to be sure that she wasn’t missing a limb or so much as a toe among the massacred warriors.

The evidence of her bloodshed was getting to him.

He was in Delta mode, ready to save her, but unsure how given this scene.

We still haven't gotten close enough to her to get our connections fully restored.

Neither of us can feel her, through the delta or the mate bond.

We have no idea how she is faring right now.

We don't know yet if she is wounded in any way.

Killian sniffed the bloody lettering on the rocks, confirming none of the blood was our mate’s even though her scent was everywhere. She was a savage. She ran out of room to write on the rocks, so she dragged the broken and torn body chunks of her victims to finish the job.

As Killian was sniffing the last body, a low growl ripped out of him. Her blood was sprinkled along the ground and on the body, and then there was her necklace. It had blood caked on it too and was lying there over a message just for me.

‘TELL LACHLAN I LOVE HIM’

She loves me. She brought a whole body chunk over to say it, and even left the necklace for me to find. I wish she had just stayed here instead.

“ She just left,” Killian groaned, his tone a mix of a whimper and a snarl. “ Why would she just leave without waiting for help? Where did she go?”

‘FOUND NILO + BERETTA. SAVING THEM. DO NOT FOLLOW. GO TO BORDER. NO SURRENDER’

“She is going to try and save your Beta and the pirate wench on her own?” Cedric frowned at the writing.

“ She won’t be on her own,” I mind linked him. “ We’re going after her.”

She can't stop me from doing so.

I scoffed at the “do not follow” in her message.

Twice now in the past she has run away from me.

Both those times I didn’t have the opinion to follow her.

This time, I did. I will follow her to the ends of the earth, to hell and back, anywhere I have to, not to drag her back, but to run alongside her.

None of this was adding up, and I'm guessing there has been no attack at the border yet because something bigger, more sinister is planned. My senses in battle are never off, and this is no different.

We are going after my mate. My Luna.

Her father bent to lift the necklace in his hand, running his fingers over her blood. His eyes glow with his powers, then he gasped, staring up at me in surprise before looking down at the necklace again.

A wide range of emotions crossed his features, but then a fearless, determined look set in place. A tenacious resolve that had me questioning what was wrong with the necklace and what was going on inside his mind.

He closed his eyes tightly, clenching the pendent in his fist and holding his fist against his chest. His entire fist glowed, radiating magic that grew brighter and brighter every second.

After ten seconds, the magic was so brilliant that Killian had to squint and look away, along with everyone else around, many stumbling to the ground and groaning in discomfort.

When the magic faded and Killian could open his eyes again, King Brennus looked noticeably different.

His hair was no longer the same golden shade as Lira’s, but now all white.

The pale, colorless tendrils are sweeping down his broad shoulders and back.

The green in his eyes was shining brighter than ever before.

“ What the bloody hell was that?” Cherum asked.

I don’t know, but the look on Cedric’s face looked sorrowful. Tears were glimmering in his eyes and he quickly turned his head to wipe them away.

“ What was that?” I asked Cedric.

He shakes his head softly. “ Nothing, Alpha. Just…. My king was just putting more of his magic into the necklace. Seems Ela drained it before leaving it for you. That’s all.”

That didn’t seem to be all, but I know his loyalty to his king far outweighed his loyalty to me, no matter how much he likes me now.

King Brennus took the chain in his hands, using magic to mend the broken parts. It seemed to get longer as he coiled it around his hands, stretching it, then unraveling it again. He did make it longer. It’s far too long to be a necklace for his daughter now. It would go to her knees.

He approached me, his now alabaster hair blowing behind him and his emerald eyes shining with their full authority.

He stared up at Killian, those eyes communicating some unknown magic.

He lifted his hands and then a tremor ran down Killian’s body.

Like gravity was pulling him downward. Killian knelt, bowing his head forward.

When he lifted his head again, the necklace was now around our neck, the pendant pulsing lightly right against his hammering heart.

“You, my son, keep this on at all times until your family is back home and safe again.”

My confusion tangled with Killian’s, neither of us knowing how to respond. The magic around our neck felt…..strange. Extraordinarily strange. I feel a comfort from it I could not identify.

“My daughter awaits,” King Brennus whispered. “We must help them. At all costs.”

~

Angelina

When I saw the Lycan's giant fur-covered head looking around the large doors, watching the haunting army from the mound-like castle of the dark fairy lord, hope started building inside me. Hope because I saw I wasn't alone.

I had been trapped there in this nightmare thinking I was all alone.

When my father told me it was time for me to be introduced to my mate, I was excited to leave our pack, even when he loaded all those slave girls to come with us.

I had so many ideas about what being mated would be like.

I had dreams of a fairy tale mating with a handsome and loving alpha from a powerful pack allied with my father.

What I encountered was nothing like my dreams.

This place is in every sense a nightmare, and the mate that I was given to was the devil himself.

My father simply kissed my head, told me to be willing with the dark lord and things would be easier for me.

My tears and pleas were background noise to him.

The father I thought was always treasuring me, pampering me with expensive perfumes and oils, providing me with the best clothes and gifts, having my maids keep a special watch on my diet, was all along just grooming me to be this demon’s pet.

Not even his only pet. I hear Lord Tenebris has a room full of sex slaves somewhere in his castle. Why one of them couldn’t give him his heir he desires, I do not know, but I will never forgive my father for doing this to me.

I have heard the talks between my father and the dark fairy lord.

I kept signaling to the Lycan and his group that I saw by the door to wait, because I knew my father would be back any moment with a captive from the south, and the army, my father's men and the dark fairy lord would all march together to force a surrender from some Alpha in a southern pack.

If the Lycan and his friends just wait until the dark army and the Lord are gone, it will be much easier to escape.

I knew that only a small number of the weaker dark fae would remain.

I was praying that by helping them in this small way, they might save me and take me with them.

But….then I saw my father entering the field with only one other person.

I was baffled by what to make of this now.

Watching my father being led through the ranks of all these different demons was shocking enough, but then I realized who it was that was walking behind him.

Elelira.

I haven’t seen her since she was sent to a pack in the south.

A pack that my father had always had nothing but horrid things to say about.

She used to be solemn, weak, her eyes always staring at the ground.

She was like a frightened mouse in the past and I didn't think she would survive a mating with a vicious alpha.

I didn’t recognize her at first, because weak and solemn is not anything like the woman leading my father through the crowd with a blood-covered tree branch pressed to his back.

Father looked ragged. He was completely naked, cuts and scars everywhere on his body and a thick metal collar around his neck. It matched the ones he put on the slave girls he brought with us here.

Elelira looked savage. She was wearing rags that were torn in most places, the fabric hanging from her body.

Her golden hair was wild. The green of her eyes could be seen, even at a distance.

They seemed to shine like jewels. Her entire being seemed to shine, like a diamond covered in mud and filth.

She looked deadly. Her small frame was imposing. Even the demons and dark creatures around her were eyeing her warily, giving her a wide breadth.

After falling to my knees out of fear from the dark lord’s touch, I studied his expressions as he stared down at her.