Page 185 of Claimed

I glare.

“Well,” she shrugs, “do what you must, then. But I will, too. It’s who I am now.”

Heat blazes behind my eyes as I stare into hers knowing if I don’t end this, she’ll hurt others. She’ll hurt me by coming for my power, Erica’s, the rest of my coven, for my children because they are part wolf shifter, part witch.

I have clarity. This might be why Fate bestowed telekinesis on me. Because the day would come when I’d need to pull the knife from Wyatt Meadows, yes, but it would also come that I’d have it to pull that poison from Mom… Carrie… and now to pull magic from Soleil in order to protect everything I love from the woman who grew me in her womb. The woman who made me can’t help what she has become because she’s so fucking weak against the call of dark magic.

“I wish,” she says brokenly, “I wish it were different. That I’d been stronger.”

She’s being truthful.

“Goodbye, Mother,” I grind out as my grip on her throat tightens. And her face crumbles with the wordmotherbut only briefly before her expression hardens. She’ll fight to keep her magic. She’d kill me if necessary. She loves me.

Soleil Young is madness. Broken madness.

Something inside her grips my own windpipe from the inside and I choke on my own spit. I cough, feeling her strength rise, feeling how she’ll fight like anyone would to survive.

I half-shift to wolf which allows me to pull more air into my lungs and hold it there while red sparks arc between us in battle.

Her eyes light up with a red glow to them. I see ugly, greedy rage there as she physically struggles to fight me off. As she tries to siphon from me.

Fire bites my skin from her sparks, which also land everywhere, catching fire to the furniture. And it feels like I’m lighting up inside, too. I push through the pain and squeeze her throat tighter, pulling harder to haul the magic from her, aware Jase is physically pulling Stacy out of the space.

Stacy is frantic, calling my name, fretting, but finally Jase lifts her and carries her out. He’ll see to her through this.

The coppery orange lights are under my fingernails again, power trickling back into me as her pulse weakens. But she fights more, making it surge back and forth between our bodies.

The walls in the room begin to groan, the floor quaking before the walls around us show fissures and drywall begins crumbling.

Electrical sparks shoot out of the wall sockets. Glass shatters in the coffee table and in the bar-covered windows in front of us.

Now fire rapidly circles us before I do what I need to do.

Soleil Young, my father’s original fated mate and the other soul who made me who I am looks into my eyes, the bright silver light dimming in hers.

“My son,” she says.

I slow the pull from her while I wait for her to continue.

She moistens her lips and frowns with obvious pain. “I’m so sorry.”

I’ve pulled my magic back and right now I know I’m pulling the darkness from her.

She struggles but she’s losing. In my mind her voice sounds clear. “In the afterlife, I’d like it to be my job to make sure you don’t have to battle the darkness like I did. I’ll do my best to chase it away. To protect you, because that’s always been my job and I don’t intend to continue to fail.”

“Rest well, Mother,” I say. “I don’t need that from you. The darkness won’t win against me.”

She whimpers from her mouth, but in my mind I hear, “Please filter the magic you took back. In case it crept in. Tell your father I’m sorry. That I let them sever me from him but never severed him from my heart. I have thought of our love every day. Do that? Both things.”

“I will.”

Her expression goes to resignation, but then a glimmer of silver returns and I suspect it’s a grain of darkness hanging on, about to make a last-ditch effort, keeping her in that stranglehold until the very end, so I add my other hand to her neck and twist, ending it. Her mouth goes slack and that bright silver light blinks out.

Pain in my chest sharpens as I feel the rest of the magic she took back click back into place inside me. I search internally, sifting through it, feeling for anything that seems different.

It feels like it did before.

I press my palm to her face, soaking in the last of her warmth before it leaves her and her expression is one of peace.

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