Filed To Story: Traded To The Lycan King Novel (Colette & Merikh) by MG Wattsons
“Percy, Merikh vouched for Ezrah.” I remind him, but we both know that trust is gone. We can feel it, sense the shift in him. The end of his charade is so close, and he has let his guard down. “Let’s just move, quickly. We are close. I can feel it.”
Ezrah walks first, trying to show that by turning his back, he trusts us. But it’s easy to trust the people you think are beneath you. How often do they ever actually stand up and retaliate? What he doesn’t realize is that we are a step ahead of him this time.
It doesn’t take us long to see her pacing figure. The air around her shimmers like she is a blue flame, my view of her distorted by the warbling of the heat encircling her. I pause, moving behind a tree trunk, Percy taking a similar stance to the right of me as Ezrah continues to walk.
“Ah,” she says in a sigh of relief, a small shake of Ezrah’s head has her tipping her chin to the right before her eyes widen and she turns away from us. “What do you have for me, messenger boy?”
“What makes you think I have anything for you?” He asks, standing in the open, his cheeks turning pink as he shifts to the side. The heat is almost too much for him as he licks his lips and glances at me.
“You always come with letters of the law, meetings or stupid meaningless things. The council is gone. I have nothing to say to anyone and there is no time for stupid, meaningless things.”
“Alpha Merikh would like a truce.” Ezrah Announces to her.
“Too late.” She shrugs. I watch as it looks like her body seems to glimmer in flames that cover her almost naked body. Her skin is skewed by the extreme heat and the more intimate areas seem to be covered in some strange sheen of fire.
“I brought Luna Colette as his offering.” He says, motioning in my direction.
Her eyes snap up and her lips twitch. Then she smiles at him sweetly.
“So the charade is up, then? I no longer have to pretend that it is just me doing all of this?” She asks.
“Alpha Merikh will be here soon to explain everything to her.” He whispers, looking away from me.
I was suspicious before, but I know without a doubt at this moment that Ezrah has been the enemy all along. Pulling strings, and playing us all with the trust he spent years establishing. This fool things he is still fooling me, and with this crazy accusation against my mate?
It’s impossible to hide the bubble of laughter that erupts from my lips. Quiet little giggles erupt into a full stomach laugh, my arms covering my abdomen as I stumble closer.
“Ah, Colette.” She says, not even trying to feign the surprise. She knew I was there the moment Ezrah walked up. Why? Because Ezrah was always meant to bring me to her. He is the delivery boy, after all.
“I am telling the truth-” Ezrah says deadpan.
“Merikh could be the one holding the knife and you still wouldn’t convince me it was him trying to kill me. I trust him explicitly. Always.” I say with a headshake.
“Some people cannot see what is in front of them.” Giselle shrugs.
“And others are unable to understand love. We all have our failings. Some with far less than others.” I snap back at her.
I can sense Percy close by, and it gives me a little more gumption. The ability to push her, goad her like Merikh planned to do all along. What I need to do first is find what hurts her the most. That weak spot in her fake armor. And then I need to lean into it until she explodes. Not a problem at all, super easy job.
Giselle chuckles, waving her fluttering fiery hand away as if my words are an annoying mosquito she can’t quite catch. A smirk curls at the corner of my lip. And just like that, I know I have found the weak spot. It should have been easier to spot. But the way my words clearly annoy her and the way she tries to pretend they don’t.
Giselle is lonely. A bitch, but a lonely one.
“Love is fleeting.” She says in a carefree voice.
“No, fake love is fleeting. Which I am sure you have known many times over. I mean, you had to pretend to be a species you aren’t in order to make a dragon ‘love’ you.” I scoff. “My mate wanted me from the second he saw me, and we have fought for each other since.”
“Your mate will stab you in the back, like he has done over and over again.” She seethes. The surrounding air grows hotter, the moisture in the air leeching away as I take a few steps back, needing to breathe.
“Giselle, you are feeding into their plan.” Ezrah grits out, holding a hand up as he tries to look at her.
“Oh, shut up you stupid Elf!” she roars, her hair going from red to flicking blue flames. “You served your purpose.”
“Careful how you speak to me. I am your fa-courier.” He says, and it dawns on me. He is going to deliver her. Once she is ash and gone, he will take her and bring her somewhere, store her.
“Luna,” I hear Percy whisper from the trees, his eyes flickering to Giselle, an encouraging head nod.
“What was the point of all of this?” I ask, breaking up their heated argument.
“Point of what?” Giselle blinks, looking at me.
“The war, needing me, being a ‘dragon’?” I scoff. “It was all pointless. This whole ‘creature of chaos’ bullshit.”
“Pointless?” she asks, offended. “Pointless? It worked. It all fucking worked. You showed me it could be done, and now, now it is happening. Only thing left to do is kill you so you aren’t a threat to it.”
My brows furrow together and then I watch as her hand glides over her ember like belly. Shit, she is pregnant?
“You are figuring it out, aren’t you?” She giggles. “Surprise! I’m having the dragon heir!”
“They have one.” I remind her and she rolls her eyes.
“He has already been stripped of his title. This little thing will rule over dragons and with it, the ultimate chaos will reign. Not for a short term, but for a hundred years. A phoenix is around for thirty years, at most, before regeneration starts again. But Dragons?”
“Assuming they will want it.” I scoff. “As the only hybrid, I can assure you, there are many who will try to kill it, especially if it is part of you.”
She takes a step toward me, her heat preceding her with every inch she moves closer.
“She is protected. A child in the care of a courier Fae is protected by them at all costs. Aren’t they Papa Ezrah? My sweet adoptive daddy who found my egg in a tree.” She says, looking at Ezrah, who looks almost sad.
“Here is the plan. I am going to kill you, no matter what.” I shrug.
“And what of my child? Does it not matter to you?”
“If you were an egg and dragons are born of eggs, I can only assume when you die, the egg will be left behind.” I grin, a plan forming in my head. “But I promise to raise your child with nothing but love and a respect for all species.”
Her eyes blaze and she sneers at me, the area around us growing lighter as she beams, her light flashing like a strobe in a club. Well, I guess that is her weak spot; I suck in a deep breath, my hand sweating as I hold them at my side, preparing to summon all the water I can.
“It can call me Mommy, and Merikh will be such a wonderful Daddy. I mean, it makes sense. Any fire it lights, I can just put out. Who better to be its parents than us?”
And just like that, she lets out an excruciating cry of agony, a beam of light shooting straight up into the sky as she falls on her back. A wave of heat throws me into a tree as I heave, searching for air. Percy grabs me, pulling me away, behind a rock for shelter.
“It’s now or never Luna.” He says hoarsely, his cheeks burned and his lips chapped. “Time to show everyone what you are made of.”
*Merikh*
“Why is this fucking place so big?” I growl to no one as I sprint through the dying trees and over the once lush green moss under their canopy. How much further must I go to find her? Every ticking second feels like agony as panic and fear trickle down my spine, reminding me how much I fucked up by not listening to her thoughts on Ezrah.
Howls break in the distance, victorious, and for once this wretched night I feel a slight release of tension in my shoulders. I am not entirely sure what the hell is going on, but I see the dragons flying overhead, almost as if they are lost, unsure of where to go or what to do. Lily is dead, she must be. How she met her end, I do not know, but there is no world in which we would win if she still had her control.
But even that thought does nothing to quell the painful stabbing in my stomach. All it does is make the pain burn hotter, an uncontrollable pain like the feeling of loss. One where pain fades to a bleak future of nothing but loneliness and wanting to die. Shit, I need to move faster.
The woods before me explode in light, my arm coming up over my eyes, shielding them from the onslaught. The trees sway in a warm breeze that grows more steady, a warning of what is yet to come. It feels like my lips are sticky as I try to lick them, giving them whatever wetness I have before forcing my heavy legs to propel me toward it.
“No,” I groan, the staggering feeling of despair washing over me. “No!”
The words are nothing against the roaring heat and the cries of agony. It can’t be Colette. I would feel the loss of her. I would know if she was gone. So I do the only thing I can do. I shift and I run blindly into the light, knowing I will find her even if it brings me nothing but death.
The heat grows painful, my fur singing, the scent stinging my nose as my skin’s rapid healing abilities rage against the blisters forming, trying to heal as fast as we burn, only to fail. Then, with no reason or indication of why, the earth shakes, my feet cool as tiny drops of water rise from the ground. My gaze shifts and I see her.
It’s as if the world ceases in a moment of time, the way sound ceases and the water seems to hang in the air. Colette lifts into the air, a large wave forming before her as if a tide is rising and she is riding it.
Her fingers seem to glow, her hair going translucent as if she is the water. And then, her wolf appears, her clothing swirling away in the water that seems to grow taller, wider. A vast liquid wall rising to protect us all.
She is so far away still, too far away as I try to reach out to her through the mind link only to find myself blocked, as if I am underwater. The sound of her in my head is there, but almost garbled as if she is out of reach, even with being close enough to see.
The bright light of Giselle continues to grow brighter, the water only magnifying it as waves lap up against nothing but air, sending a cascading array of tiny rainbows over Percy, who fights off a dragon of a smaller stature, trying to get to Colette. Little does it know there is no touching which has no form but water.
I move toward her, drawn to her like a ship in the treacherous water, seeking the refuge of the lighthouse’s guidance to shore. She is glorious as she grows larger with every passing beat of my heart.