Page 81 of Spirit Storm

All right, I’m somewhere new. Somewhere he chose.

I exhale a breath of relief. At least if he’s here, the people I care about are safe. Aren’t they?

I press my palm flat against the nearest wall and start moving along it, feeling for a gap, a crack, anything that might be an opening.

The stone is slick and cold under my fingers, but I keep moving.

I sense the presence of another before I see him. My legs stiffen, and a low growl vibrates at a frequency that races up my spine.

The darkness before me parts, and the giant ebony wolf steps forward. It’s massive, its gleaming black coat matted and lying flat against muscle and bone as it prowls closer.

It looks up at me, its red eyes level and burning.

This is Tharuzel's wolf.

The piece of shit monster that killed Asher.

My hands are already moving, spirit magic rising fast and hot through my chest, to my arms, and pooling in my palms. I intend to throw it, but something stops me.

It’s not an external force but something internal.

I press my hand against my sternum, and my magic dims, not by choice but by confusion. There's something in the bond—the blood bond that's been blessedly quiet for weeks—that keeps me from attacking.

It’s Tharuzel.

It’s not the vibration of him I feel during his rituals. Not the distant pulse of his satisfaction we share when I see through his eyes. This is closer.

This is inside me. He is inside me.

My stomach lurches. And fragments of the battle I was fighting flicker through the waves of confusion fogging my mind. No. This can’t be happening.

I feel him shift, and it’s like a hand moving inside a glove. I’m his puppet.

Through every other nightmare I've been a passenger in his head—riding along behind his eyes, watching through the glass of his consciousness. But the direction of observation has flipped.

I’m not inside his mind—he’s inside mine.

The wolf circles, but I barely see it. All of my attention collapses inward, feeling the shape of him moving through my thoughts like he's reading them.

The sensation is oily and cold and intimate in the worst possible way. My skin crawls from the inside. "Get out. Get out of my head!"

His laugh doesn't come from the cave. It comes from inside my chest, rolling through my ribcage like thunder from below. "Oh, I’m not going anywhere, little witch. I’m exactly where I want to be."

The voice is everywhere and nowhere, all his borrowed souls speaking at once, and I feel each word like a stone dropping through still water.

I press both hands to my temples like I can physically push him out. "Get out!"

"You are not strong enough to stop me, Poppy. You never were." His smug amusement makes me ill, which makes him all the more amused.

"This will go better for you if you accept the inevitable. The lockstones will be destroyed. I will release my master. You are an unwilling participant, but make no mistake, you have been the key to my plan all along."

"If you think I’ll help you, then you haven't been paying attention." I grind the words out through clenched teeth. "We know about the lockstones. We know they can be reinforced and repaired. You’ll never win."

He lets off another laugh, and the fondness he feels for me makes my skin crawl. "Do you honestly believe that will be enough?"

"We'll make it enough."

"You would need to reinforce every lockstone before I reach it. Every stone. Every seal." The voice settles, certain and cold. "Even if you knew where they were, it would not be enough. Because I have the key."