Danny’s calm murmurs floated over me, but were replaced by a horrid screeching inside my brain. My whole head ached, quickly filling with a thick, orange haze. It enveloped my wolf. She was fighting, working hard to clear it, but it wasn’t easing. The haze just kept getting thicker.
I was transferred into a new pair of arms. “You must stay strong.” Naomi’s voice echoed in my ears like thunder, her mouth right next to my ear. I latched on to it like a lifeline. “I am taking you up the mountain. You have had Selene inside you already, Ma Reine. Use it to your advantage. She will have left antibodies in her spells, and if these spiders are her creations, you can fight them using her essence. The same essence that ran through your veins a short time ago. Find it.”
My human side had trouble processing her words, but my wolf started to howl, clawing at the ground in my mind, trying to uncover something we had buried deeply. I saw the glimmer of red as she kept digging, her paws moving quickly, the orange so thick I almost couldn’t see her. Then like a fountain, red sprang forth again, its tendrils sprouting in the air like a vicious web. My wolf jumped back, letting it flow outward.
My back arched, my spine bowed backward. The intensity of the reaction was forcing me to change. I embraced it.
Anything to stop the howling pain.
The red veins of Selene’s essence hit the orange poison, and where they met, it burned clear, making a pssst sound as each tendril seared a little more. My muscles danced under my skin.
“That’s it,” Naomi murmured. “Fight this. You must fight. Use your power.”
My body arched again, my full change coming on fast. My legs bucked, shifting, my clothes tore, and my jaw lengthened. I tried to calm myself to make it easier, but that was impossible. I knew if I couldn’t clear my body of her vile spell, I wouldn’t wake up.
This was it.
“That’s it, Ma Reine. Let it come,” Naomi spoke softly.
Tyler’s voice echoed in the background. “Step back,” he instructed. “Give her room.”
“It is within you, Ma Reine,” Naomi said, her voice getting thin and hard to hear. “Selene is not stronger than you. These things are a child’s plaything compared to your power. Eradicate the spell they carry from your being, using what Selene has left in you, and you will be free of her forever.”
Ma Reine. I finally understood.
My Queen.
18
“Jess! Jess!” Tyler yelled straight into my ear canal.
His voice was so loud it shocked me.
“Wake the hell up. Do you hear me?” he continued. “Jessica! I’m not going to let you leave now, not after all of this.” I felt his hands on me, but they felt odd, like he was pressing on me from outside a bubble.
“She hasn’t moved in ages, not even a twitch,” Danny said, his voice filled with something that sounded close to remorse. “Even if she’s not dead, she won’t be the same. Did you feel that power? She blew herself up trying to fight off that spell.”
“If she was dead, we would feel it. I can still feel her energy. Can’t you sense it? Plus, she would’ve changed back into her human form. She’s still a wolf,” Tyler argued. I was still a wolf? I didn’t feel like I was in my true form; in fact, I felt insubstantial, like I was hovering. Our bodies changed back to human when we died. It’s an insurance policy so humans don’t come across a dead werewolf. “She’s alive. She just has to wake the fuck up,” he yelled right next to my ear. I cringed inwardly, but I still couldn’t move.
“Well, that might be true. I do feel her,” Danny said. “But she hasn’t taken a bloody breath in hours! How many wolves do you know who don’t have to breathe?”
I wasn’t breathing?
How was that possible? My wolf twitched in my mind and I noticed for the first time she was lying on her side, facing away from me. Can you hear me? Can you move?
No response.
“Go check the entrance for those insects and do a sweep,” Tyler said. “I’m not taking any chances letting one in here. If she gets stung again, she’ll never wake up.”
“Fine,” Danny murmured. “But when the vamps come back, we have to make a decision.”
“I already told you, we go for the cat as planned,” Tyler said. “Then we kill the bitch who did this to my sister. I’m going whether you join me or not.”
“We don’t stand a chance against a goddess on our own. It would be suicide to go in there,” Danny argued. “We can get Jessica home and have her figured out, and then come back with reinforcements later.”
“We go, Selene dies, and we save the cat.” My brother’s tone broached no argument. “When we’re finished, we come back here, Jessica wakes up because she’s dead, and we all go home.”