Chapter 20

Fear seized me, strong and true. I was shifting, and as I dropped to the floor, the first bone breaking, a tortured scream ripped loose as I heard Sydney’s pickup pull up in front of her home.

SYDNEY

I didn’t know what the hell it was, but it was coming from inside my home, and it sounded like it was dying. After my last adventure of tip-toeing through the tulips with Declan’s werewolf, I was not taking any chances. So, turning, I hauled my ass back into my pickup. Afterward, grabbing my phone out of my purse, I hit Leighton’s phone number. On the second ring he picked up.

“Everything okay, Syd.”

“Hell, no! Something is dying inside my house! Or at least it sure as shit sounds like it,” I replied.

“Are you safe?” he asked.

“Shit if I know. I’m in my pickup, if that makes any difference,” I informed him.

“Well, that depends on what it is,” he returned.

“What the fuck you want me to do, go in and find out? I mean, Christ, Leighton, whatever it is, it literally sounds like it’s dying!”

The last words came out as the most horrific sound I had ever heard echoed out from within the walls of my home. I couldn’t say the sound was as much terrifying, as it was hard to listen to. It sounded like something was being butchered—alive.

“Okay. Just stay in your pickup, and if you see anything, and I mean *anything* that looks remotely threatening, get the hell away from the cabin. I’ll be there in five minutes.” With that he ended the call.

I scrutinized my home, then shook my head. What the fuck *is* that? I wondered, as another tortured cry reached my ears.

Just as he’d said, Leighton made it in five minutes. I expected him to show up in his pickup, but when he materialized beside me on the seat, I jumped, and screamed, “Fucker! Don’t *do* that!”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he apologized.

“How’d you get in here, anyway?” I asked.

With a shrug, he replied, “Through the vents.”

“Oh,” was all I could think to say.

Peering out my windshield as another tortured scream echoed out, Leighton shook his head. “Damn! He does sound like he’s dying.”

Peeling my eyes away from the outside of my home, I looked at Leighton questioningly. “Huh? He? You sound like you know what it is.”

He nodded. “Pretty sure I do.”

“Oh really? Care to enlighten?” I inquired.

“Declan.”

"What?” I gasped. “You think *that* is Declan?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Oh my God, Leighton!” I made to get out of the pickup, but Leighton put a restraining hand on my arm, shaking his head. “No, Syd, he’s not exactly *Declan* right now, remember?”

“Oh.” The word came out on a squeak. “But Leigh, listen to him!”

Leighton shook his head. “He’ll be all right, but it’s time we go. You aren’t ready to face him by a long shot.”

With a deep breath, I reached out and started my pickup. “Are you sure we should leave him?

Leighton nodded. “Positive. Now let’s get. He’s howling at the moon now instead of in pain. It’s definitely time we get some gone.”

With a nod I pulled the shifter down into reverse and began barreling backward out of my drive. “You sure this is the right thing to do?” I questioned, for I was absolutely unsure.

“For now,” Leighton replied.

As I hit the end of my drive, the pickup bounced out into the road, and throwing it in drive, I pushed the gas and we shot off toward Leighton’s.

Minutes later, as I placed the pickup in park and killed the engine, I carried my hands to my face, my fingers resting at my hairline as my thumbs rested at the base of my cheek bones, then, using my fingertips, I began rubbing along the edge of my hair in a downward sweep, tracing the outer curve of my face, only stopping when my fingers greeted each other on my chin.

Leighton, seeing my obviously worried move, whispered, “He’ll be alright, Syd. The only thing that can hurt him is you.”

I nodded. “I just hope I never have to.”

“Me too,” he returned.

DECLAN

Every bloody fucking thing hurt! The change to my werewolf form was coming quicker with each shift, but the return to my sylph shape was taking longer and longer, and twice as painful. You would think it would be the opposite, that bones and tissue would hurt more stretching and breaking as they elongated than shrinking, but decreasing was much worse, torturous in fact. I now understood why a person prayed for death. I was, at this point, ready to find that fucking silver bullet, but for a Darkmore, silver was not the weapon needed. The weapon was in the hands of the woman I loved, and she, though powerful as hell now, was a baby to what she would become. She still had no idea of *what* she was. Even the Lafoa people, though magical beings, had no clue of what had been among them. I was old, very old—older than the Lafoan civilization in fact—but Sydney’s soul was older even than mine: she was eternal and had been since the beginning of time—maybe even before then, no one knew. Brielle, though Sydney’s twin, as well a witch and soul-reader, was genetically different—she did not carry all the genes Sydney did, and was not even in the same playing field as Sydney, in fact, no one was. *She is it*. In fact, no one even knew if there were *ever* others like her. The tale of Sydney’s existence had come from the most powerful soul reader ever known, and had been told time and again until, through the passing of time, it eventually managed to be written upon a papaya; a tale of a soul born time and again.