When my fingers connected with the drawing, however, I released a shriek when, with a roar that felt like the flickering of flames in that last wildfire we’d had, what appeared to be ashes surged from my skin, coalescing in front of me until they formed a shape.
The three of us gaped at it, before we shot each other bewildered glances that in no way described what the hell we’d just seen.
“That wasn’t real, was it?” Knight choked out.
“It couldn’t be,” I confirmed his denial.
“It was though,” Cade whispered, ever rational, as he stared at the book that, once it soared into being, calmly lay itself on my lap as docilely as a cat who’d just finished a saucer of cream.
He reached for it, taking the heavy tome into his palms. As I watched him, even though the situation made me nervous, equally, seeing him with it made me antsy.
I loved watching him touch books. I knew it was weird, but it always made me think of how he’d touch me when he eventually could. When we were able to do more than just kiss and hold each other’s damn hands.
I watched his long, spatulate fingers—digits that stroked a piano as sensually as they stroked this book, which made me think about what he’d do to my clit—seek out the heavy gilt clasp on the side. There was a strange kind of hook that kept the gold-edged pieces of paper secured, and all over the leather cover, there were markings that looked as though it had been sprayed with glitter.
Before he opened it, he pressed a hand to the front, closed his eyes, and sucked in a deep breath.
He seemed… hopeful.
That was the only way I could describe it.
Would he look like that when his fingers were touching my pussy—
Okay, now wasn’t the time for those thoughts. Not when the book juddered open, pages quivering until they settled at a page which defied gravity.
Books opened in the middle, usually, or where there was an indented crease in the spine. There was no such indents on the spine, and this one opened closer to the end than the middle.
I watched, in awe, as he tried to flip between the sheets, but every time he tried, it was like they’d been stuck together with superglue. Which made no sense because they’d fluttered open a handful of seconds ago.
Gaping at it, then him, and satisfied that he was gaping back at me, we all just stared at the book, wondering what was happening here.
There was that saying, ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ Well, for the first time, that reason was totally otherworldly and, to be honest, freaky as fuck.
Gulping, I reached over and traced my fingers along the paper, but as I did, I realized it wasn’t paper like I knew it.
“What’s it made of?” I asked softly, taking it for granted that Cade would know.
He knew everything.
And he hadn’t even come into his powers yet.
“I’d say vellum,” he mused as he raised the tome closer to his face. For a handful of seconds, his head disappeared behind the massive book, but then, I heard him inhaling, and he murmured, “I think it’s leather, though. It scents of animals.”
Well, that wasn’t gross, was it?
I pulled a face at the idea.
“I guess the Mother wants you to read only that page,” Knight murmured uneasily.
Resting against him, I agreed, “I think you’re right. Cade, what does it say?”
He cleared his throat as he replaced the book on his lap, and not for the first time in our lives, he told us a story.
Except this one was, apparently, true.
“Nevaehai is a unique land that both exists and doesn’t. It is where the Mother can walk if she so chooses, but she rarely does, preferring to leave it to her chosen children who require the respite this land brings.
“It is one large plane of existence, yet, the totems which act as a key to accessing this place all open onto a unique part, meaning that no two packs will ever meet. They are not destined to congregate here. Nevaehai is for communion, appreciation, affirmation.
“It is here where a mated alpha pair can come to terms with what they are. It is here where an endangered alpha can seek healing from the Mother. And it is here where the Sun Child, when she is born, will bring about a change in the evolution of her Mother’s children.”
Cade’s voice broke at the mention of the Sun Child which, thanks to his dad’s habit of oversharing, we knew was me.
I was the Sun Child.
Born in the light of the Moon Child’s ascension.
I bit my lip, nerves hitting me as I rasped, “Does it say what that evolution might be?”
“The keys to Nevaehai are not what could be considered human,” Cade carried on, not answering me but feeding us information that he seemed to think we needed to know. “They have no heartbeat, no brain, but they can die. They do not live, not exactly, but they can and will perish unless sustained.
“The Sun Child will sustain the keys to this kingdom, and as she does so, she will fulfill her destiny that has been long in the making.” He cleared his throat, then twisted the book around so we could see what he was looking at.
It was a picture of a small… what I could only describe as a plum. It was that size, dark too, but all around it were small insects. The illustration was so beautiful that it was almost life-like. I felt as if I could reach through the pages to retrieve one of these odd items that were apparently important enough to be in a book of this nature.
Because the urge was so strong, I reached out and traced the lines of the drawing as I had my tattoo. When it also surged into being, gossamer-like strands pulling out of the air and twisting into the shape of the tiny fruit, then hundreds of even tinier insects appeared out of thin air, formed out of minute strands of glitter, I did the only sensible thing a girl in my position could do.
I screamed.
And inadvertently elbowed my mate in the balls as I clambered to my feet to escape.
Eight
Daniel
For the tenth time in as many minutes, I checked my phone to see if Knight had called.
He hadn’t.
I never answered him, but when he called, I’d find a way to communicate with him, getting in touch because I knew he wouldn’t disturb me unnecessarily.
And, usually, whenever he called, I felt a disturbance in the air. Felt something shifting inside me as whatever affected my mates, affected me.
But since last night, there’d been no call, and that was when things had started to change, turning weird. I’d called him then, and was calling him now, but he wasn’t picking up.
It was like…
Mother.
No.
I knew they weren’t dead.
But neither were they here.
With me.
On this plane.
Maybe it sounded crazy, or maybe I’d just been hanging around the Blanc-Blanc too long, but that fit.
If it was just one of them, I’d assume they were going through their covenant. But Cade wasn’t going to have one, and he was the only one left to experience it because the others already had.
I’d known when Knight and Grace had shifted for the first time because I’d felt the sudden distance that went beyond yards and feet. It was as if our bond was up in the International Space Station. Tangible, but equally, ephemeral.
This was like that, but worse.