Page 109 of Anaki

Abuela petted my hair. I felt her kiss the top of my head. “You both have your mates, you have the Iron Fang now. I have warned you, my sweet child, that I would be departing soon. Especially since Luis has been born.”

Tears streamed down my face, and my voice cracked. “I didn’t believe you.”

Abuela chuckled. “Mmhm I thought as much. I leave you with much, but our time is up, Elena. I want you to know I love you very, very much. Luis knows how much I love him, and I will be watching his training.”

I sobbed in her arms as I fell to my knees. The pounding in my head grew, and I wailed.

“Emm knows how much I love her, but please tell her it was not her fault. None of this was. My death was on my own terms, and she’s not to blame herself.”

My body shook, and I felt my heart was about to explode, like the worst heartburn ever.

“No, no! Please do not leave!”

Steps from behind us caught my attention. They were stealthy, but they were loud in my ears. It was like, an instinct that I didn’t understand. A chilling emotion crawled up my spine like frozen ice, stopping at the base of my neck.

The person behind me let out a sardonic chuckle. “Isn’t this just a lovely scene?”

I twisted my head and saw black, shiny shoes. They were completely out of place in a forest like this. As my eyes roamed up dark, dress slacks, a three-piece onyx black suit, along with a cape. His skin was borderlinegray and white with dark flecks of black and silver on his cheeks. He was a fae from the looks of it, with pointed ears and a near cat-like appearance with his slitted eyes and sharp fangs.

I gasped when he pulled off his leather gloves and saw the dark black claws that came from them. He crossed his arms and raised one finger to twirl a long, black piece of his perfectly straight hair.

“Lovely evening, isn’t it, Elena?”

The fae wasn’t looking at me on the ground, on my knees in front of Abuela, though he was looking at Abuela.

Confused, I turned my head to look at her, and it wasn’t her at all… it was… me!

Chapter Thirty-Six

Anaki

Before I was able to get too far out of the village, silence fell behind me. My ears immediately perked up, and I stuck my finger in my ear to shake it.

The birds stopped flapping their wings. The bugs that crawled on the forest floor stopped moving. Luis groaned in my arms, and I shook my head, trying to listen for the all too familiar sounds of the forest.

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

Damnit, he called me dad.

“Focus,”my dragon growled inside me.

I whined.“But he called me dad.”

“He won’t keep calling you dad if something comes out and kills all of us,” he snarled.

Yeah, I did not like having a talking animal. I much preferred them staying quiet.

His growl of annoyance didn’t deter me, and I hugged Luis tighter. Scales was right, though, we needed to find out what was going on, andmy gut told me it was happening back at the village. “Luis, I need you to do something for me.”

Luis tilted his head in curiosity. His eyes were red-rimmed from crying at whatever Abuela had told him earlier. He was a strong kid. I could feel it radiating off of him. He left me and his mother alone to bond, like he knew it was important, and now he has to deal with—well, this.

“I need you to stay here.” I rubbed my cheek against his, letting my scent radiate off my body. It was thick and heavy, not to mark the scent of a mate, but for a fledgling. It was to help hide the human scent he had and to have him blend into the forest.

Nothing would find him. Even for a shifter’s nose, it would be near impossible. That meant I had to come back for him. I wasn’t even sure Elena could find him with her slowly emerging abilities coming to the surface.

“Stay? But why?”

I carried him off the path and to a nearby tree. It was large, like most of them, but there was a crevice, enough for him to sit inside. Luckily, he was small for his age, and he fit inside nicely. I pulled several bushes and branches away for a place for Luis to hide, and pushed them back in front of him.

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