Page 25 of The Wolf and the Chimera (The Witch and the Cowboy #3)

Ryder

Through the looking glass, Elle’s eyes blazed red with power, and my wolf thrashed against Circe’s hold. As my wolf beheld my fierce, daring mate, dominance sang in my blood and roared in my ears. My power staved off Circe’s will like a snake shedding dead skin.

As my howl shook the walls of the domed room, Circe spun to face me.

Elle’s enraged, righteous face was a portrait behind her. Her parents stood frozen at Circe’s sides, but across the room, Kieran, Melanie, and Bo shook free from her spell. As their faces contorted to allow their canines to elongate, their howls joined mine.

Only Elle’s parents stopped me from leaping upon the witch. Neither me nor my wolf would put them in the crossfire. I partially shifted, and my voice was garbled by my humanoid jaw. The command in it, however, was clear.

“Take me to her.”

In a flash of light and sickening tunnel of magic, we reappeared on the hot, sandy floors of the coliseum. Though my vision swam, I rushed to Elle’s side. Blood crusted her nose, but her magic had already healed the wound.

Instead of experiencing an overwhelming need to protect her, I wanted to relish her strength. I wanted our enemies to look upon us and know we were not to be challenged.

I wanted them to know she was mine, and I was hers, and the world would burn before we were ripped apart.

I placed Elle’s hand over my heart, which beat in time with the pulse thrumming under her skin.

In the moment the Minotaur had towered over her, I had seen beneath all her carefully crafted masks.

I had seen the hurt and rage and fear and how it had boiled over—how deep down, it had honed her not into a victim, but a warrior.

A warrior whose beast was finally freed in a realm without the sorceress.

“We will make them pay,” I vowed.

“We will,” Circe agreed, and I snarled at the witch.

Elle and the other wolves replicated the sound.I realized Circe had portaled them and the Guardians into the coliseum. Elle’s parents suddenly gasped for breath and reached for the blades strapped to their sides. The Minotaur inched toward Circe, but Elle glared at the beast, and it hesitated.

“Do you really want to be her favorite toy?” Elle asked the creature.

It grumbled and angled its body toward Circe, but in an offensive stance.

“Incredible,” the ancient witch whispered. Her smile was dreamy. “After so many centuries, here you finally are. The Queen of the Wild Things.”

I growled. “Do you want first blood, mate? Or should I draw it?”

Like a true predator, Elle cocked her head and sniffed her prey.

“Before you try to kill me,” Circe said in a rush, “consider that I’m the only one who can open the ripple from this side of the realm and allow you to return home.”

Elle prowled closer toward the witch, and I matched her pace at her side.

“We’ve escaped the inescapable before,” Elle quipped. “ Come up with a better reason.”

“Because I know how to stop Medea,” Circe said. Her eyes blazed with magic, a brilliant red so similar to Elle’s. “I know how you can connect with your beast and be who you’re meant to be in your own realm.”

“I’m listening,” Elle said, but Lee’s attention whipped to his wife.

“You told me Circe promised Elle a haven here,” he argued and scowled. “Was that yet another lie?”

Elle stiffened, and I growled.

“You expected her to hide away here the rest of her life?” Melanie asked.

Lee glared at the she-wolf, and Bo growled.

“I expected her to be safe,” he spat.

As the light in Elle’s eyes guttered, part of me wanted to rage at the man and part of me wanted to hang my head in shame.

So many times, I had behaved just like him.

I had acted based on my own fear instead of seeing Elle for what she was.

Like him, I had let my anxiety over losing her fester instead of believing her to be strong enough to face the sorceress or the High Witch or anyone else who came at her.

If I had succeeded in stopping her from pursuing her parents, she never would’ve connected with her chimera at all.

“I don’t want to be safe, Dad,” Elle whispered. Her eyes had returned to their warm, brown hue. “I want to be free.”

As silence stretched between father and daughter, I took Elle’s hand and squeezed it.

Elle, the Queen of the Wild Things.

“Why did you call her that title?” I asked Circe.

“It’s who she is,” Circe replied. “Just as surely as you are the next Sovereign.”

“No shit,” Kieran muttered and scratched the back of his head.

“Yeah,” Melanie agreed. “Lyall is scary, but my wolf has never submitted that easily.”

“How do you know that’s who Elle is?” Bo asked. I glared at him, and he continued, “her power is clearly equal to Ryder’s, but where did that title come from? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

My anger relented, and I focused on Circe once more.

“Of course you haven’t,” Circe said, “because no one has claimed that title in eons. It is reserved for only the most powerful of chimeras, creatures once responsible for upholding the peace of all shifters, until the gods saw fit to use their powerful forms as their mortal vessels.”

“We already knew this.” Sort of. “Tell us something we don’t know, or your pet Minotaur bites the dust.”

The beast shivered, and Circe rolled her eyes, then focused on Elle.

“To reclaim your autonomy,” the witch said, “you must first become so well-versed in your power that no one and nothing can separate you from it. Not even Medea.”

“And you.” Circe studied me with her dark eyes. “You must own the power in your veins instead of running from it.”

The witch must’ve seen the conversation I had with Lyall in his cabin. Her gaze flickered between my mate and me.

“Only together,” the ancient witch declared and looked at me pointedly, “can you be free of the sorceress entirely.”

The weight of Circe’s gaze spun the wheels of my mind with horrible speed.

Together.

Though Elle and I were mates, we hadn’t claimed each other yet. I hadn’t even mustered the courage to explain what claiming entailed—how it wasn’t just a sharing of blood, but a binding of souls. Once we were claimed, Elle and I would share a mental and spiritual link.

A link that could bind Elle to me instead of the sorceress.

All this time, I hadn’t realized the key to protecting my mate—I had failed her.

But a claiming wasn’t meant to be a survival tactic—it was a choice.

Elle had been given so few choices in her life .

If I told her that a claiming could blockade the sorceress, she would claim me not for herself, but to protect us all. If I didn’t tell her what it could do and she found out I had kept it from her, she would always assume I had bound myself to her only for her protection.

My mouth was suddenly as dry as ash, and I swallowed. Elle’s fingers brushed mine.

“How am I supposed to harness my power?” Elle asked.

“You do what we should’ve allowed you to do long ago,” Imogen said. “You train.”

Elle eyed me, and I forced myself into the present. I couldn’t let her suspect anything, not until I figured out what to tell her.

“How?” Elle repeated. “Back in our realm, I can’t touch my power without the sorceress.”

“You can,” Circe corrected, “but not until you’re strong enough. That’s why you’ll train here.”

I wondered what kind of training Circe proposed. The cunning in her eyes assured me it would be brutal.

But so are our enemies.

“My father will notice our absence soon,” Kieran argued, “if he hasn’t already. If we don’t return quickly, I fear what he’ll do in retaliation.”

My brother’s gaze shot to mine, and I grasped what he was saying.

“If we don’t come back,” I realized, “he’ll punish my pack to hurt us.”

Kieran nodded.

“Fear not, young wolves,” Circe vowed. “Time moves differently here. Weeks on my island feel like hours in your realm.”

Elle studied her parents.

“If that’s true,” she said, “how long did our time apart feel like to you guys?”

Tears pooled in Lee’s eyes. “You don’t want to know, Ella-Bella. ”

No wonder he’s so desperate to keep her here and alive.

Elle shuddered, and I released her hand so she could hug her father. Imogen joined the embrace, and the rest of us allowed the family their moment of reconciliation. When Elle pulled away, I spoke.

“I think my mate’s had enough training for today,” I said.

Circe nodded. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Before I could protest her method of travel, she snapped her fingers, and light flashed once again.

When I blinked away the brightness, I leaned against a sandstone wall and swallowed bile.

Beside me, Elle stood with drooping wings and clutched her stomach.

Though Circe maintained her easy grace, the others crouched in various states of disarray.

I studied the twilight that poured through the arched windows and illuminated the hall. Tapestries of long-ago battles hung on the walls, and nearby, a fire crackled.

“How the hell does this place keep changing?” Kieran demanded.

“And where did the Minotaur go?” Melanie asked.

“After a millennia here,” Circe said and shrugged, “I get bored, so I change the scenery frequently.”

The witch pinned her gaze on Melanie. “As for the Minotaur, calm down, young wolf. He’s safe in his corner of my realm.”

“Until you make him fight the next chimera you’re testing,” Elle grumbled.

Circe just smiled at my mate. “Luckily, thanks to you, there won’t be a next time.”

We walked farther down the hall, past the luminous windows, until we reached rows of thick, wooden doors. Circe gestured ahead.

“Pick any rooms you like,” the witch said. She focused on Elle. “Training starts tomorrow.”

With a flash of light, Circe disappeared.

“I’m never going to get used to that,” Kieran muttered.

While he claimed a room down the hall, Bo and Melanie agreed to share the nearest one.

“Elle,” Lee said and gently linked his elbow with Imogen’s. “We’re down here.”

Elle and I stiffened, and Lee smiled at his daughter.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he said. “There’s an extra cot.”