Page 80 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

No time had passed, my exchange with the Dark God little more than a flicker of flame. But my skin still tingled where he’d pressed his lips to my throat. I’d begged for his help for a second time, and he’d given his answer—a resounding no .

My past self was gone, her form merged with my own. My coven sisters stood on the points of the pentacle, all except for McKean, who advanced on Garrick with her curved dagger.

Choose , Xyta whispered in my ear.

Coven—power—life.

Or Garrick—Lifebind—lover.

Without my coven, I would eventually waste away. My power would dim. I might save Garrick, but eventually, the second death would come for me. When it did, the Dark God would be waiting.

McKean lifted her hand overhead, so caught up in her bloodlust that she did not even realize as she sliced through several strands of her own golden hair. Isanara growled. I recognized the sound of her wings flaring wide. But she could not intervene—I would not risk her incurring Xyta’s wrath.

Xyta demanded a choice. Zeph, the God of Memory, demanded a change.

But unlike those first two flashes of the past, it was not the memory that needed to change.

It was me. I had already changed. When I killed McKean to save Kyrelle, I’d been driven by guilt, by a heart that I refused to embrace.

But now, standing between my coven sister and my bonded, I could not lie to myself any longer.

The organ in my chest might be dead, but my heart was very much alive.

I could recognize that because of the dragon at my side and the man kneeling before me.

Choose .

I’d made my choice standing before the Dark God’s throne, with his lips pressed against my skin.

I threw out my hand, daggers of deadly ice spearing through the air. They impaled my coven sister through her throat, her abdomen, her chest. Before the blade she held could clatter to the ground, the memory dissolved around us.

We landed hard on the rock-strewn pathway between the mountains. Garrick kept me upright, his hand digging into my upper arms as my body pitched sideways. I clung to him, curling my fingers around his leather tunic, desperate to feel his heart beating, his breath against my face.

We’d survived. Both of us were alive on the other side of the Memory Gate.

Garrick pressed his forehead to mine, breathing me in the same way I was him. I savored the slide of his silken silver hair against my cheeks.

“I am so sorry. You should not have had to?—”

“It is done,” I said, cutting him off by pressing my mouth against his. I needed to taste him, to reassure myself that we were both still here, still alive, if only for this moment in time, for the space of seven gates.

He caught my face in his hands, holding me in place as he drew away. His eyes met mine, the turquoise irises as intense as ever.

My throat tightened, but I did not try to talk. I let myself get lost in his eyes, the otherworldly mixture of clover and cerulean that formed a pattern as unique as any fingerprint. I’d never seen eyes like them, except… except maybe I had.

Gods, my mind was a frazzled mess. I was misremembering memories that did not even belong to me.

“I am so sorry,” Garrick said again.

I nodded, releasing my grip on his chest to curl my hands around his wrists. I leaned into his caress where he cupped my cheeks.

I could never return to my coven. But if limited time remained before I was summoned to the Dark God’s side, I wanted to spend it with Garrick. For as long as the Seven Gates would allow.

“It was my choice,” I choked out. And in the end, it had been an easy one once I realized how I truly felt about him. “I would make it again, because despite everything that is going to tear us apart, I lov?—”

Pain ripped through me. Visceral and instant, like someone had ripped a limb from my body. All thoughts but one were eclipsed by the sudden emptiness inside of me. I stumbled out of Garrick’s arms. He let me go.

“Where is Isanara?” I choked out, reaching for the nearly vertical wall of rock behind me to steady myself.

“Do not worry, sister. I have your familiar well in hand,” the head witch of the Midnight Coven said as she stepped into view.