Chapter 12
MEGAN WAS SO furious, she could barely concentrate. She couldn’t afford to be angry though. One small mistake and her sisters would be torn apart by the fury of the tornado they’d so recklessly created.
And the minute that happened, she’d lose all control and the bar and its patrons and her mate – her mate – would be gone as well.
Damn her sisters.
Dragging more energy from the earth, which was way harder standing inside a building than if they’d done this outside, she cast that energy around the tornado like a thousand lassos and started to pull.
She yanked as hard as she could and the tornado moved.
An inch.
Maybe less.
But it moved.
Slowly, so slowly it felt like eons passed, she dragged the tornado closer and closer. As she pulled it toward her, she also pulled the barrier in so that the tornado’s world became smaller and smaller.
She felt the yank and pull when the tornado jerked past where her sisters stood at its center.
She couldn’t see her sisters, but she could feel they were all right, though exhausted and perhaps a little terrified.
As they should be.
Dragging more energy from the earth, she yanked the tornado one last time and it swallowed her whole.
* * *
Cole prowled around the perimeter of the barrier. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it and when it suddenly contracted, he felt that too.
He moved with the barrier, getting closer to his mate with each contraction.
He didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late.
Yes, the barrier was contracting, but the tornado was moving.
Toward his mate.
Everything happened all at once.
The tornado moved one last time, revealing Lara and Jessica, who looked as if they’d stood at the center of a tornado for weeks. Their hair was insane, a wildly moving tangled mass, and their clothes were full of rips and holes.
They both stumbled and nearly fell, then whirled to face the tornado at their backs, which in that instant, enveloped Megan.
“No!” Cole shouted, hearing Lara and Jessica echo his pain.
* * *
The tornado was vast. A wild power her sisters had called from the earth that fought for its freedom.
It was all Megan could do to maintain the barrier between herself and the rest of the bar while also fighting the tornado itself, struggling not to be devoured by its fierce, fiery soul.
She stood at its center and sent soothing energy into the heart of the storm while slowly siphoning off the worst of its wild fury.
When she had sipped so much of its energy, she felt she might fly apart if she didn’t let some of it go, she slowly backed away from where she sensed her sisters stood. She was blind to everything now, just a tornado of energy at her core.
She contracted the barrier so that all it contained was her and the tornado that was her sisters’ greatest and worst casting ever and continued to stumble back. She moved on instinct, aware that many forms outside the barrier followed.
She heard a cougar’s scream and thought it might be her true mate.
The thought of Cole spurred her on and she kept moving until suddenly she was outside and the whole of the earth was open to her.
* * *
The tornado that contained Megan disappeared through the front wall of the bar and everyone made a beeline for the door.
The shifters poured out of the bar and froze at the sight before them.
The barrier and tornado had contracted to such a point they appeared to lay over Megan like a second skin. It was as if all three were fused together. As if Megan were the tornado and the barrier, and they were her.
Megan threw back her head, clenched her fists and screamed.
The tornado pulsed one final time, then dropped at an incredible speed, slamming into the earth with such power it flung everyone to the ground.
When Cole looked up, he saw Megan on her knees.
The tornado was gone.
He surged to his feet, stumbled to his mate and caught her up in his arms. He kissed her fiercely, pulled back, then grabbed her and kissed her again. “I’m sorry,” he muttered in her ear. “I’m so sorry.”
* * *
Megan clutched at Cole and burrowed into his strong chest. “Why are you sorry?”
“For not believing you. For forcing your sisters to cast more and more magic, just to prove what I should have always known. That you were perfect and that I should always believe in you. Your sisters risked their lives and yours because of my idiotic stubbornness.”
“That wasn’t your fault.” Megan pulled back and sent a glare her sisters’ way. “They’re the ones who should be sorry.”
Lara and Jessica were both sitting on the ground a couple feet away, utterly spent from their casting and looking quite subdued.
“What were you thinking?” Dan shouted at Jessica, but she didn’t even look up.
He dropped to his knees in front of her and grabbed her up in a hug.
Jessica looked like she might struggle for a minute, but then she relaxed and hugged him back.
Karl settled at Lara’s side and slung an arm around her shoulders. “So I guess you really are witches, huh?”
Lara let out a watery laugh. “Yeah, witches who almost killed their sister and everyone in that bar. I thought we’d be able to control it, but–”
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Glory asked.
Everyone looked at her.
She grinned. “Phoenix won the betting pool this time.”
Travis let out a bark of laughter and Phoenix giggled.
Karl groaned.
“That is so wrong,” Pete exclaimed.
Megan shook her head and looked up at Cole. “I just can’t even.”
He grinned and hugged her hard. “Well, you know our life will never be boring.” He laughed. “I’m so damn glad the universe gifted me with you, my love.”
Megan made a face. “Yeah, but was it the universe or was it my sisters’ out-of-control casting?”
Cole chuckled. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
“Figured out what?”
“If witches can’t cast on shifters…” He raised an eyebrow.
Megan gasped. “Their spell didn’t work on you!”
“Not at all. Which means, my dear, that you are really, truly mine.”
Megan jumped up and wrapped her arms and legs around Cole and kissed him hard. “And you’re all mine.” She was almost giddy at the thought. This amazing, crazy, stubborn, ridiculous cougar was her true mate after all.