Vera's POV

The silver-eyed man approached closer, and my new senses shouted danger. Truth-sight revealed to me something off about him – shadows that moved not in line with his body, coldness where I should see warmth. He was not completely human.

"Who are you?" I maintained my voice level, although every nerve in my body was screaming.

"Somebody who is doing the same thing you're doing right now." His grin exhibited teeth that were a little too sharp. "My name is Darius. I've been watching the corruption increase in your pack for months."

"Watching and doing nothing?"

"Waiting for the time. For the individual." His silver eyes fixed on me with uncomfortable intensity. "Thalia discussed her plan before she acted on it. She told you'd be the way to stop what's coming."

I experimented my truth-telling ability with his words, honing the manner Thalia had taught me. His words were true-sounding, but there was more to them than that – folds of covered-up meaning that I could not quite catch.

"What exactly is going on?"

"Kane isn't working alone. He's been in touch with forces of the shadow world, beings that live to feed on death and destruction." Darius moved closer, his steps quiet on the ground of the forest. "They've made him promises of power for opening doors between worlds."

"Shadow world?" The words sent a cold shiver down my spine. "You mean demons?"

"Beasts of the dark that between life and death. They cannot enter our realm without invitation, but once they do. They'll consume everything. Every living being will be fodder for their hunger."

I thought of Marcus on the ground, Kane's cold manipulation, pack members who had so quickly turned on me. "How do we keep them from coming?"

"Survive the next few hours, first." Darius gestured toward the entrance of the temple. "Kane will discover Thalia aided you in your escape. Men are already sent to search the forest."

As if summoned by his words, I heard the voices rising from the trees. Commands, the sound of men moving through leaves, the clashing of weapons and armor. They were still distant, but closing in.

"They'll find the temple soon," I breathed.

"Let them. They'll locate Thalia's tomb and believe you died in some failed magic ritual." Darius produced a black cloak from beneath his jacket. "But you need to be out of here when they arrive."

I grabbed the cloak, which was interestingly absorbing of light instead of reflective. As I wrapped it around me, I felt my existence sort of fade, like I had become more difficult to see.

"Where should I go?"

"Safe from Crescent Pack territory for now. You have time to hone your new abilities before you see Kane again." His silver eyes glowed a clearer intensity in the growing light of dawn. "Three days' travel north of here is a safe house. Other servants of the light visit it as a meeting place."

"Other servants?"

"You are not alone in this war, Vera. There are wolves throughout the territories who've sworn to protect our world from shadow realm incursions." Darius put a little crescent moon-shaped silver pendant into my palm. "Show them this, and they'll know you were sent by Thalia."

The voices were closing in. I could now hear individual words – commands to search all the structures, to discover traces of magical use, to take me in alive if possible.

"I have to go," I said, but did not rise. "What about you? Won't they suspect you here?"

Darius smiled, and this time his sharp teeth looked almost wolf-like. "They don't see me unless I wish to be seen. Shadow world beings are not the only thing that lives between worlds."

I was unable to question him what he was saying before he disappeared into the darkness between trees as though he had never existed at all. Only the pendant held tightly within my hand convinced me that the dialogue had actually taken place.

I pulled the hood of the cloak up around my head and walked out into the woods, taking roads I'd trodden all my life. My new awareness was daunting – I was able to hear heartbeats for a couple of hundred yards, feel fear and excitement on the wind, feel the life force of every creature in my vicinity. It was as though I'd entered another dimension.

Behind me, shouts of discovery were emanating from the temple grounds. They'd found Thalia's tomb and were arguing about what it indicated. I caught pieces of what they were saying on the breeze.

".priestess is dead."

".no sign of the Luna."

".search the grounds around the tomb."

Kane's voice cut through the others, cutting through them with fury. "She can't have gone very far. Find her."

I walked more quickly, taking detours from trails and along game trails which merely brought me deeper into the wood. I stopped to listen in intervals of a few minutes to make sure that nobody was tracking me. The cloak Darius gave me to wear also appeared to suppress both sound as well as sight – my steps were barely heard.

By lunchtime, I had a few miles on me from the temple. The shouting of the search party had long since been out of hearing distance, although I did have a sense that they were somewhere. Kane would not so easily give up.

I took shelter in a cave at the back of a waterfall, one that I had found years earlier on early childhood outings. The roar of the waterfall would mask my own, and the cave was spacious enough to hide me if others were to pass by.

Exhaustion overwhelmed me like a punch the moment I was out of danger. The ritual had drained more energy out of me than I had expected, and my body was still learning how to use its newfound abilities. I curled up into a ball on the cave floor and slept soundly and irrevocably.

I woke up to find it was evening. The waterfall illuminated the cave in golden light, showering rainbow hues on the walls. I was stronger then, more centered in this new body.

Something was not right, though. My new senses were picking up on a familiar scent drifting on the evening breeze. Pack scent. Crescent Pack, I figured.

I shifted position to the edge of the cave and peered down through the falling water. Three wolves were opposite me across the stream, their forms stretched tight with the intent of hunting. I recognized them – Derek, the warrior who'd been willing to kill me, and two of his men.

"The trail ends here," Derek said with annoyance in his voice. "It's as if she just disappeared."

"Magic," one of them said. "That old crone must have done something before she died."

"Beta Kane wants her found," Derek said. "Dead or alive, he wants proof of what happened to her."

"Maybe she did die in this ritual. Maybe there's nothing to find."

Derek's head shook back and forth. "Kane doesn't believe so. He says she's too stubborn to die so easily."

They spread out in both directions along the stream for any sign that I had come through. I held my breath and continued deeper into the cave, praying the waterfall would cover my scent.

"Wait." the third man yelled. "I smell something."

My heart stopped. Had magic from my cloak failed?

"What is it?"

"Blood. Fresh blood."

I looked down at my hands and noticed I was still bleeding from the ritual cuts on the wrists. My altered blood had seeped onto the floor of the cave, making a trail even human noses could detect.

"This way," Derek ordered, moving in the direction of the waterfall.

I got seconds before they found me. There was no rear exit of the cave, and I could not fight three trained men even with the new powers. I was cornered.

But then I remembered something Thalia had spoken to me when we were in the ritual – the power would be greater during times of utter need. I focused on the reality I needed most: I was not here. I left no trace. There was nothing for them to find.

Power flowed through me, separate from my healing gift but somehow known. It flowed out to the three adventurers, brushing their minds with soft persuasion.

Derek stopped dead, his head tilted in the way a person listens to a sound. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Voices. North of here." He turned from the waterfall. "Someone's calling for help."

The other two men looked confused, but Derek was gone already. "Come on. Someone might be in danger."

They disappeared into the forest, following like ghost voices heard by only themselves. I leaned against the cave wall, shocked and terrified at what I'd just done. I could manipulate thoughts, plant suggestions, make people believe the impossible.

The power was thrilling. And lethal.

I waited until darkness before I left the cave. The night forest was unlike anything during the day – full of sounds and odors that my new senses could detect. I could hear voices miles away, smell emotions as if they were tangible objects, feel the pulse of life everywhere.

According to Darius's orders, I followed the northern route to the hideout. Three days of travel, three days to get used to these new abilities and ready myself to go back to Crescent Pack.

But walking under the moonlight in the woods, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. Not by Kane's trackers, no, but by something else. Something which moved in shadows and left no trail.

I stood at the edge of a moonlit glade and stretched my senses to their limits. There – something strange lurking in the trees. Not living, not dying, but following me with hungry attention.

If I looked straight at it, the thing evaporated like smoke. But I could still sense it, chill and hungry and waiting.

Darius had warned me of shadow realm creatures trying to invade our world. What if they already did so?

What if Kane had already succeeded in creating gateways between worlds?

I tightened the black cloak around me and headed north, but now shadows all seemed to hide perils. The war for my world's survival began, and I was walking into the very heart of it.

Behind me, something howled in the distance. It wasn't any wolf sound that I ever heard.

It sounded hungry.

Vera's POV

Six months had passed since that fateful night Selene died, and I was born. The safe house Darius had forwarded me to was my personal training area, where other slaves of the light taught me how to harness the power flowing within me. Now I stood on the edge of what was home before, looking over the pack lands I'd grown to know.

Crescent Pack looked no different from a distance, but my enhanced senses detected subtle variations. A stench of terror clung to the colony like a mist. Pack members moved about with restless energy, glancing nervous looks over their shoulders as if anticipating attack. Something had changed in this colony, and not for the best.

I had my nomad healer's pack slung over my shoulder and headed down the slope. My appearance was changed enough that even wolves that had known me well would take some time to recognise me. My hair was longer and darker now, my face shape had shifted in the change, and I moved differently as well. Where Selene had been quiet and innocent, Vera was cautious and vigilant.

Border guards stopped me at the border of the pack. Two young wolves I recognised, but who did not recognise me, their hands on swords.

"Speak your business," the taller snarled.

"I'm a travelling healer," I said, my voice steady. "I heard your pack was having some health problems. Figured I could help."

It was not entirely a lie. During training, I had heard whispers from other domains of bizarre sickness spreading among members of Crescent Pack. Wolves vanishing into inexplicable comas, others breaking out into violence. The attacks were akin to what Darius had told me of shadow realm manipulation.

"We don't need outside help," the second guard said, but I could sense doubt in his eyes.

I let a tiny slice of truth-forcing power into my words. "Your pack healer is overwhelmed, isn't she? Too many patients, too many questions with no answers. I could be of use."

The guards glanced at one another. My power worked quietly, suggesting the possibility rather than forcing it. They wanted to think that help was available.

"Wait here," the tall one said. "I will go inquire of the Beta."

My heart constricted at Kane's name, but I kept my tone even. "Of course."

I stretched out my senses to the pack community and waited. The familiar energy signatures were all there – Corwin's strong Alpha presence, the elderly council members, the families I'd known since childhood. But underlying it all was something else interwoven, something that caused my skin to prickle. Dark energy that had a flavour of hunger and chill.

The guard returned with permission to travel, but he would not let me go by myself. Crossing the settlement, I could see how many of the pack's members were ill. Pale faces, dark rings under their eyes, a general look of tiredness that spoke of sleepless nights and round-the-clock worry.

"Something's been going on here," I told the guard quietly.

"Odd things. Folks are getting ill for nothing. Others are violent, like they're no longer themselves."

He scanned the area nervously. "Some people say that it's a curse. Retribution for what happened to our old Luna."

The irony wasn't wasted on me. The pack believed they were being punished for killing an innocent woman, when in fact it was the man who'd set her up.

"Your old Luna?"

"Murdered the prince six months ago. Alpha had her done away with." The guard's voice was tinged with regret.

"But since then, nothing has been right. Makes you wonder if maybe she was innocent after all."

I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from responding. Kane's version of events was being questioned by people, and that could be my advantage. But I needed to be careful and not reveal too much too quickly.

The guard brought me to the pack infirmary, which was a plain wooden structure that had been expanded since I'd last visited. The old pack healer within was thin and grey-haired, with loose hair coiffed around a face furrowed into concern.

"Another healer?" she asked when she saw me. "Bless the goddess, I'm drowning in these cases."

"I'm Vera," I said, holding out my hand. "I cure unusual diseases."

"MARGARET," she said, reaching for my hand with gratitude. "And bizarre is not quite the term to apply to what we're treating."

She walked me through the medical ward, presenting me to patient after patient with unexplainable symptoms. Some were comatose so far down they would never respond. Others fought at restraints, rolling their eyes with unnatural rage. A few endlessly muttered in tongues that sounded non-human.

"When did it start?" I inquired, even though I already knew.

"Perhaps three months ago. Started with one or two cases only, but it's spreading." Margaret slapped her hands on her apron, leaving stripes of exhaustion. "I've tried everything – herbs, potions, old remedies. Nothing works."

Three months ago would have been approximately the time that Kane had started to accelerate his agenda. The timetable coincidentally matched what Darius had told me concerning shadow realm interference.

"Any other unusual occurrences? Unusual deaths, people acting out of character?"

Margaret's face fell. "The former Luna's execution was intended to mark the start of it all. And then the case of Prince Marcus's murder was reopened last month."

My heart froze. "Reopened?"

"Alpha Corwin found discrepancies in the proof. Started questioning whether his wife was really guilty." Margaret had a low voice. "Beta Kane tried to discourage the investigation, but the Alpha wouldn't give up."

I hadn't been looking for this news. Corwin was starting to doubt Kane's story. That would be useful, but it also meant things were riskier. Kane would be desperate to cover his tracks.

"What did the Alpha find?"

"I don't know all of it, but rumour has it, some of the witnesses recanted. They said they'd been coerced into lying." Margaret glanced around nervously. "Folks are afraid to discuss it openly. The Beta's been. Short-tempered lately. Quick to anger."

The rest of the day was taken up with examining patients and recording. The symptoms were all symptoms of shadow realm contamination – the comas, the flashbacks, the strange speech, all fitting what I'd learned during training. Kane was testing these people as laboratory rats, probably to open a wider doorway between worlds.

When night came, Margaret invited me to remain in the healers' quarters. I agreed, realising that I had to be inside the pack's defences to take in information effectively.

That night, I slipped out of the medical compound and cut through the dark settlement. My super senses guided me to where I'd felt the dark energy coming from previously. It led me to a building I'd never seen before – a stone structure that oozed evil as a fire gives off heat.

I circled the building carefully, noting the guards posted at regular intervals. Whatever was inside, Kane wasn't taking any chances with security. But I needed to know what he was hiding.

I used the shadow-walking techniques I'd learned back at the safe house, merging with the shadows and slipping by the first guard. The skill still felt uncharacteristic, as if becoming momentarily insubstantial, but it worked.

Inside, I found something that froze blood in my veins. The middle room had been converted into a kind of ritual chamber, with rings carved into the stone floor and filled with black liquid that stank of death. Candles made from what seemed to be human fat illuminated the walls with unhealthy light and were covered in symbols that throbbed to look upon directly.

But the middle room's cage made my breath catch.

Three pack members I had known were held in iron bars, but they were no longer themselves. Their eyes glowed with silver light, and dark things slithered beneath their skin as if alive. They'd been possessed by shadow world beings, been used as hosts for things that did not belong in our world.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" a voice I recognised said behind me.

I glanced back to find Kane standing in the doorway, his blue eyes aglow with victory. He was thinner, paler than I remembered – dark veins visible on his skin. The corruption was changing him, too.

"The transformation process is almost complete," he continued, stepping into the room. "I shall be able to transform populations as opposed to individuals soon."

I kept my face blank, but my heart was racing. "I'm just a travelling healer. I don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about."

Kane laughed once more, the sound like breaking glass. "Did you really think I wouldn't recognise you, Selene? Or would you like me to address you as Vera these days?"

My blood turned icy. He knew me.

"The ritual changed your appearance, but not the signature of your soul. I've been waiting for you since the old crone set you free." Kane moved closer, and I could feel the craziness in his eyes building. "My new friends taught me how to pierce magical appearances."

"Your friends?"

"Bodies as strong and smart as your little brain could not comprehend them. They've shown me the truth – our world is weak, vulnerable, ready to be devoured by something larger." Kane motioned towards the possessed pack members. "These three are just the beginning. Soon, all the wolves in the territory will belong to the shadow world."

"Like you?"

"I'll be their general here. Commanding armies of turned wolves, their power extending over all the packs." Kane's smile was absolute insanity. "And you, lovely Selene, will be my first willing convert."

"I'll never be your servant."

"Won't you?" Kane held out a small crystal that hummed with dark energy. "This contains the concentrated power of shadow realm energy. One touch, and you'll know the loveliness of surrender."

He stepped up to me, the crystal glinting more brightly in his hand. I drew back, but there was nowhere to run. The crazed pack members trapped in the cage were straining through the bars, trying to grab me with claw-fingered hands.

"Don't fight it, Selene. Let the darkness take you. Let it show you how wonderful it feels to worry less about right and wrong."

The crystal was inches from my cheek when the building doors blew open. Corwin stormed in, surrounded by a band of his devoted warriors, his expression twisted with fury and betrayal.

"Back away from her, Kane!" he thundered.

Kane spun around, a flash of actual surprise crossing his face. "Alpha. How did you-"

"I pursued the stench of corruption." Corwin's eyes swept the ritual room, the pack members who were demon-possessed, the black glyphs scribbled on the walls. "Goddess save us, what did you do?"

"What needed doing?" Kane snarled. "What you were too weak to do yourself."

"Weak?" Corwin's words dropped to a killing whisper. "You murdered my brother. You used my wife. You've poisoned our pack with shadow realm rubbish. And you call me weak?"

Kane stood over him, the crystal held tight in his hand, its black light rising to wildly shining brilliance. "I say you're obsolete."

He flung the crystal at Corwin's feet, and it broke, releasing a cloud of unadulterated shadow which spread itself on the floor like living smoke.

"Run!" I shouted, but too late.

The shadow-smoke engulfed Corwin first, its fingers clamping about his ankles like hungry tentacles. His eyes grew wide with horror as darkness slithered up his body, hunting for his heart.

Vera's POV

The smoke-darker wrapped around Corwin's legs like chains of life, and I watched my former husband's face contort with pain as the darkness crawled up his body. Not a moment's hesitation, and I leapt forward and grasped his arm, imbuing him with my priestess energy.

Silver flames danced off my fingers, consuming the black tendrils before they had a chance to surround his heart. Corwin recoiled, choking, as Kane berated me with rage and amazement.

"Impossible," Kane growled. "Shadow world magic cannot be countered by"

"By power of the moon goddess?" I decided, unleashing my real potential for the first time since I'd come back. Silver fire burned on my fingertips, fiery enough to make the demon-possessed pack members in the cage scream and cover their eyes. "You've lost the ancient ways, Kane. Lost that light will overcome darkness."

Kane's men approached us, but Corwin's men held their own already. The room of ritual was reduced to chaos when wolves fought each other while shadow-smoke swept the air like toxic fog.

"Fall back!" Corwin commanded his men. "Get out!"

But Kane was not finished yet. He drew out another crystal, bigger and pulsing with malevolent power. "If I cannot recreate you, I shall destroy you all!"

He waved the crystal back and forth through the air, cursing under his breath in a language that stung my ears. The air between us began to fray, revealing to us glimpses of another place beyond. A place of interminable darkness where hungry things waited to consume our essence.

"He's opening an open portal," I cried out, recalling the ceremony from training. "If that portal sustains, creatures of the shadow world will flow through in thousands."

Corwin slapped his hand onto my shoulder, his grey eyes beseeching. "Stop it."

"Maybe. But I'll have a little time."

"You'll get it." Corwin turned to his soldiers. "Form a perimeter! Nothing gets through to her!"

Outside, his warriors were grouped in a shield wall, and I knelt on the blood-soaked floor with my hands braced against the stone. The ground of the building thrummed with black magic, but beneath the corruption, I sensed the untainted earth of home. The wild magic that had lain here for centuries before Kane started to interfere.

I stretched further, calling on the power that Thalia had granted me. Silver light flowed through the stone, seeking out Kane's ritual circle anchor points. If I could destroy them, the portal would be obliterated.

But Kane noticed what I was doing. "Kill her!" he shouted to his men. "Kill her now!"

Three of Kane's men charged through Corwin's line, swords raised to slay me. I couldn't fight back and risk disrupting the ritual, couldn't hold them off and keep the rest at bay.

And then Corwin appeared, striding with the silent killing precision of a prime Alpha. His sword took down the first attacker before he had time to blink. The second warrior's sword scraped innocently against Corwin's armour as my ex-husband plunged a dagger into his heart. The third took just a fraction of a second longer than it was worth, and Corwin moved in to catch him by the throat and spin his neck in one smooth motion.

"Keep going," Corwin told me, bending over me like a guardian angel. "I won't let them touch you."

Now the portal was opening, and dark flashings of the shadow world beyond. Something was moving there – things that were torment to look at directly, things of unvarnished hunger and cruelty. Some had already begun fighting their way through, their outlines assuming shape in our world.

My silver light flooded over the ritual circle, but Kane's magic fought back with ferocity. Black energy lashed back at me in powerful sweeps, trying to break my focus. Blood ran down my nose as magical backlash tore through my head.

"It's not working," I gasped. "The anchor points are too heavily defended."

"Then to the root," Corwin growled. He looked past the wild melee to where Kane muttered near the widening portal, its energy increasing by the second. "We bring him down together."

"You can't reach him. The shadow magic will-

"Not if you protect me." My eyes locked with Corwin's, and for an instant, I saw again the man I had loved so many years before. "I trust you, Vera. Whatever you are or whatever you call yourself, I trust you absolutely."

He still did not understand that I was Selene. Even watching my powers, fighting with me, he thought that I was a mysterious healer who had come to help his pack. The irony was almost too awful to bear.

"Then together," I said, standing and taking his offered hand.

We burst into the room battle-worn, silver fire erupting all around us in a sheath of defence. Kane's followers tried to keep us back, but my strength flared them off like dawn mist. Pack members had in the cage spread along the bars with knife-fingered hands, but Corwin's sword repelled them.

Kane saw us coming and placed his portal magic in our path. A wave of purified shadow struck my silver shield, trying to tear it off. The power sent me off kilter, but I kept the shielding in place.

"Your power is great," Kane shouted, his normally abnormally warped voice as he spun more of the shadow plane. "But you're still only a single priestess against powers you can't even start to comprehend."

"She is not alone," snarled Corwin, advancing on Kane with supernatural haste.

Kane escaped the Alpha's blow only by rolling out of its path towards the portal. The movement left him dizzy from staying alert through the ritual, and the portal between worlds began to destabilise wildly.

"Fool!" Kane spat. "If the unstable portal blows when it does, it'll turn half the forest to ash!"

"Then you should have thought of that before trying to destroy our world," Corwin snapped, coming forward.

But Kane was right that there was risk. I felt the magical energies building for a blast that would flatten everything for miles in both directions. The gateway was too unstable to be closed properly, too hazardous to remain open.

There was only one solution, and to lose it would be to lose all that I had won in the previous six months.

"Corwin, hide!" I shouted.

I did not have time to wait for his response. Gathering all the strength that Thalia had given me, I launched headlong into the unstable portal. Silver light met shadow magic in a shock that wracked the very fabric of the universe.

The explosion was unthinkably terrific. Every molecule in my body seemed to be torn asunder and reorganised in the wrong location. I was in a state beyond existence where the rules no longer applied, where up was irrelevant and down was irrelevant, and time both moved on and went backwards simultaneously.

But somehow, I held it together. My resolve was the pivot that kept the gateway ajar until it closed harmlessly. The gateway between worlds crashed shut in blinding blaze, taking most of the energy I had accumulated along with it.

I landed on rock terrain, my raw-magic flesh cracking with backlash. Every breath had the flavour of shattered glass in my mouth, and I had blood on my tongue. But we survived. The portal was closed. Kane's ritual had failed.

"Vera!" Corwin fell beside me, his hands inches from my battered form. "You're going to be all right. Don't die on me."

I tried to speak but could only croak out a weak hack. Closing the portal had drained most of my powers that were augmented powers. I was still superhumanly powerful compared to an ordinary human, but the god-level strength that I had briefly accessed no longer existed at my command.

"Where's Kane?" I managed to whisper.

Corwin's expression darkened. "Lost. Vanished when the portal collapsed. Likely escaped to regroup with what remains of his forces."

I winced to sit up, ignoring the pain that sprinted through my body. The ritual room was in ruins around us. The bane pack members in the cell lay over, the shadow creatures appearing to be banished when their anchor died. Corwin's soldiers were attending to the wounded while they cleared the building for other threats.

"We have to get you to the healers," Corwin said, starting to lift me.

"Wait." I held on to his arm. "There is something you need to know. Something about the death of your wife. About what really happened that night."

Corwin froze. "What are you talking about?"

"Spiked it. The whole – the poison, the clues, the witnesses. Spiked it to simulate that she killed Marcus." I had to push the words through the pain. "Selene was innocent."

For a moment, Corwin's face was completely blank. And then anger and mourning wrestled across his face as he realised the full weight of my words.

"How do you know this?"

"Because I've spent months reaching the real murderer. Because I've overheard people believe the truth when they did not know I was listening." I regarded him directly. "Your wife died for nothing."

Corwin's hands were shaking. "She's dead. I killed her. I sentenced to death an innocent woman because I was deceived by a traitor's lies."

"She's." I started to attempt to tell him the truth, to attempt to make him understand what I was. Words stuck in my throat as I beheld the raw devastation in his eyes. This was a man who had six months' worth of guilt from murdering his beautiful wife. Learning she was alive but a whole different woman might just be enough to destroy the last shreds of sanity.

"I apologise," I said to him instead. "I'm so sorry you found out like this."

Corwin stood up, his countenance locked in a mask of cold determination. "Kane will pay for this. I don't care if I have to pursue him to the ends of the earth. He will pay for what he has done."

"Corwin-"

"No." His voice was cold as winter air. "He killed everything that I cared about. He made me a killer. He poisoned my pack and attempted to open doors to demons." Corwin's grey eyes flamed with the anger of a true Alpha. "When I get my hands on him, death will be too kind for him."

I remained quiet and observed as my former husband walked away, his shoulders squared in determination and pain. I wanted to scream at him, to tell him what I was. But what would it do? Selene had walked in on all the important things. Vera was an entirely different individual.

And Vera needed to head into work.

I pushed myself up, groaning on the edges of my remaining strength. I was weaker, but not powerless. I could still discern truth from deception, could still pry honesty out of someone. It would have to be enough.

Because Kane was still somewhere out there, trying to decide what he was going to do next. The portal could be shut, but he had proven that he could open others. And the next time, he might not make the same mistakes.

I was limping towards the chamber door when I heard it – a sound that caused me to shudder in my own blood. Slow, rhythmic clapping coming from the darkness at the back of the room.

"Immersive," a voice I recognised said. "I have to say, I didn't think you'd ever manage."

A form stepped out of the blackness, gaunt and tall with eyes that shone like silver in the shadowy light. Darius smiled at me with teeth that were too sharp, but now something else about him. Something that called my last remnant of power in from automatic revulsion.

"You," I gasped.

"Me," he told me amiably. "Though I suppose I owe you one. Your little display of bravery just gave me what I needed."

"What are you speaking of?"

Darius lifted his hand, and I saw something that made my heart freeze. Spirals of silver magic coiled around his fingers – my magic, the energy I'd relinquished in closing the gateway.

"Did you really believe closing one little door would stop what's coming?" Darius bellowed with laughter, a laughter that shook the temple like ringing bells. "You've just given me so much priestess power I can open a portal even you can't close."

I stared at him in growing horror as the realisation dawned. "You're not a good guy. You're collaborating with Kane."

"Working for him? Oh, my darling Vera." Darius smiled wider as he showed rows of needle-point fangs. "I am his master."