Page 2 of Reign of The Beast (Immortal Passions #2)

2

~Mia~

“How did you find me?” I asked, wanting to know how on earth Ryker had managed to break through Immortal magic.

“Very Snow White of you,” he said, ignoring my question, and gesturing at the box through the open barn doors.

There was no humor in his tone.

In fact, that trademark Ryker Morgan levity, the wit and sarcasm in the face of difficult circumstances, was nowhere to be found.

And that wasn’t the only thing that was off with him.

He wasn’t clad in his normal designer get-up, instead dressed in black from head-to-toe in a pair of worn jeans, a muscle tee and a hard leather jacket. His hair was wild and devoid of product, and weeks' worth of stubble plagued his jaw, just shy of beard territory.

With dark circles under his eyes, along with his wearied stance, he seemed exhausted.

Worst of it all was the haunted look in his eyes.

I couldn’t see that spark that was all Ryker anywhere .

“Ry, are you okay?” I asked.

He stared at me for a long while and I waited with bated breath, sensing that he wanted to confess what was burdening him.

But then he blinked hard as though coming out of some sort of trance and looked away. “It’s been three months, you know that?”

Three months?

I’d had no idea how long it’d been, how much time had been passing me by as I’d been safely ensconced in that phantasmal plane of my own creation.

I merely shrugged my shoulders.

His eyes flashed at my laissez-faire reaction to the news.

He strode closer, his boots thumping with an angry fervor. “Three fucking months it took me to find you. I’ve been busting my ass trying to track you down, used every spell I know, almost drained my magic completely a couple of times, invoking power that nearly sucked the fucking life out of me. I’ve been worried sick about you. We all have. You just took off, no word on when you’d be back.”

“I had to remove myself from the situation. There wasn’t time to entertain a lengthy discussion, or allow you all to attempt to convince me to stay. I needed to go.”

He blew out a breath, clearly trying to get a handle on his erratic emotional state. “I know what happened at the Maven Coven was a lot. You needed time to reconcile it all. But this self-imposed exile of yours is over now.” Eyeing me intensely, he announced, “I’m here to bring you back in.”

“No.”

To say he looked shocked by my refusal was an understatement of epic proportions.

“What?”

“I’m not coming back. ”

He shifted his weight. “You have to. You need to resume your Guardian responsibilities.”

“Life as a Guardian is behind me. Life as a sorceress, as an active member of the supernatural world, too. All of it. It’s over. I don’t want any part of it.”

“This is about your loss of control with Draco.”

He knew me far too well.

It could’ve been about any number of things that had happened that day, but he’d known, he’d just known instantly, exactly what had caused me to flee everything and everyone I cared about.

“I tasted darkness, Ryker.”

“You pulled it back.”

“It opened a door.”

“A door that’s now closed,” he countered.

I shook my head. “It’s not that simple for me. You know what I am. That greater power makes me more predisposed to—"

“I get it,” he cut in, impatiently. “You think you’ll end up like Draco. A twisted, broken Immortal.”

It was hard enough just admitting it to myself, let alone acknowledging it aloud.

But I needed to drive it home to him, to make him understand so he’d drop the whole concept of me returning to the fold.

“Yes,” I confessed. “He was good once. He got a taste of unmatched power and he lost control, lost himself.”

“ You’re not him , Mia. You’re nothing like that monster and you never will be. The fact that you’re so worried about it from merely touching a brief spark of darkness is proof enough. You don’t have that kind of evil in you. Some beings are just born twisted. You’re not one of them. ”

“Right, you can say all of that with confidence because of your staunch belief that evil is born, not made.”

“Mia—” he started to protest, knowing where I was going with this, aware that our beliefs on good and evil differed.

“That’s a lovely sentiment, Ry, but if it were the case then what we do matters not, because we’ll end up good or evil regardless. A direct affront to the concept of free will.”

“I’m talking about in the larger sense, about the extreme level of evil that Draco embodies, that he relishes.”

“Well, I believe evil is made, created by our choices, our experiences. And that’s why I’ve retired, to make sure that I’m nowhere near the kind of life that could twist me into anything resembling that monster. No more magic, no more connection to any sort of dark temptation. Power corrupts. I won’t let that happen. I can’t take that chance. If someone like me, with Immortal blood running through my veins, loses it… hell will let loose. Quite literally, in fact.”

Ryker scrubbed his hand over his face, clearly frustrated with my answers. And then he said something that had my blood boiling. “So, the once almighty Mia Snow is nothing more than a coward now.”

His words sparked an instant anger in me and before I could check it, I was bolting from the log unsteadily, fuming at him, “How dare you? Say that again and see what happens!”

He kept his gaze steady, unflinching as he pointed out, “Nice to see your feisty edge is still there, but you threatening me means nothing now.”

“Excuse me?”

“You just told me you’re no longer using magic. ”

“I meant heavy magic. A flick of my fingers would still have you on your knees.”

His gaze shot to my hands and he stepped back abruptly.

I followed his gaze to see that my blue fire was sparking.

Drawing in a deep, centering breath, I strained more than I’d ever had to do before just to call it back.

“You had no idea you’d invoked your power,” Ryker said.

I turned away. “Go home. This discussion is over.”

I growled under my breath when, instead of heeding my words, I heard his footsteps following after me.

“We have a shitload of work to do,” I heard him say, more to himself than to me. “This is unprecedented. It’s going to delay us. Dammit.”

“Delay what?” I muttered over my shoulder, hating that I couldn’t just ignore it, that I needed to know what his cryptic comment meant.

I was so used to taking point, to being in charge in basically every situation that it seemed to be ingrained in me now.

“Preparations for war.”

I spun back around, shocked. “War?”

“Draco has stepped up his game,” he said, his expression grave. “We need to respond with a decisive show of force.”

“A suicide mission, Ryker.”

“There’s no other choice.”

I scrutinized him for a moment. “You’re not telling me the whole story.”

“And if I’m not? You’ve refused to come back in anyway. ”

“After what happened… as I am now… I’m dangerous. A risk to you all.”

His eyes narrowed. “Like father, like daughter.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“All this trouble started when Cornelius turned his back on his duty as an Immortal. Draco’s power grew so quickly because of it, because there was no one to stand in his way. Sure, Cornelius has tried to make up for it over the years, forming the Guardian Movement, for one. But his mistake still stands. A mistake that his own daughter is now making so many centuries later. Wow. Talk about a legacy.”

I couldn’t actually believe he’d uttered those words. Throwing all of that in my face? “Get the fuck away from me! We’re done here! Go!” I yelled, irately.

He held up his hands in an overly sarcastic way, as he called his green fire forth, preparing to teleport.

As usual, though, he couldn’t resist having the last word. “You can’t hold your power at bay for much longer. It will either eat you alive, or you’ll snap and lose control, becoming the very thing you’re so afraid of.”

He was gone in the next moment, but his parting shot had me frozen to the spot long after he’d teleported away.

He was wrong.

He was wrong about all of it.

Besides, if the Guardians were really in trouble and really needed my level of assistance, my father would have contacted me.

Ryker was either overreacting, or coming to find me had been more personal than business.

Blowing out a breath, I took in my surroundings properly for the first time since I’d been unceremoniously awoken.

I strode toward the farmhouse, glad I’d fixed it up and furnished it to my liking before I’d retreated to that phantasmal plane and sworn off magic.

I tried to push down everything Ryker had said in an attempt to get under my skin and influence me to putting an end to my exile.

I was done being everyone’s go-to.

They didn’t understand right now, but I was doing them a favor, sparing them.

Like I’d tried to explain to Ryker, I’d opened a door to darkness.

I was dangerous to everyone. That was why I’d left in the first place.

And it would stay that way.

I was retired.

End of story.