Fated Legacy Complete Collection

Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

T hat evening, the elaborate plan for the event to celebrate the bonding of Rémy and Piper kicked off just before dusk. Jean-Michel would remain in his and Darby’s room, ostensibly too injured to join the party. When the Darkness and its host arrived, the plan would be set in motion. Rémy had gone over the details multiple times, sharpening and streamlining the plan to give them the best chance at success.

As the party geared up, he stood with Jean-Edouard watching the festivities. “Are you sure about this?” asked Rémy’s older brother.

Rémy nodded. “ Oui. Piper and I will have no trouble joining as the dire wolf. We are as one already. She completes me in a way I never thought possible. I keep looking at her and wondering how I survived so long without her.”

“I agree. Sometimes I wonder what it is Bre sees in me and then realize I don’t much care as long as she continues to see it.”

Rémy had equipped all the principals with earbuds and wireless mics so they could keep in communication.

“We’re on,” said Branson. “The host has just come up from the river. I’ll move Renata into position.”

Rémy spoke to the group next. “That’s your cue, Jean-Edouard. Keep the party going and all of your people...”

“They are your people too.”

“ Non , big brother. They are yours. I am Wolf Meadow now. I’ll see you later at the real bonding ceremony, but do not forget your pledge to me.”

Jean-Edouard shook his head. “No, brother I will not forget, but do me a favor and live. I’m not sure I could handle that hellcat of yours.”

Rémy smiled. “She is quite spectacular, isn’t she?”

Jean-Edouard called to all those who were gathered and moved them down to the gazebo, where they would be safer… out of the line of fire.

Rémy slipped in beside Piper, taking her hand in his. “Ready?”

“Always,” she said, leaning back against him to wait.

The success of their plan depended on the Darkness being predictable, and for each of the combatants to play their part in its destruction.

I t had been feeding almost continually since it had returned to New Orleans. The host took a fiendish delight in stalking, killing, and then disposing of those on which they fed. The host liked to remove the hearts of their victims and consume them. The police had managed to keep it quiet, which was a shame. It could have fed on the fear of the city itself, had it been great enough.

So the great Jean-Michel had been injured. And his arrogance had led the Alpha to continue with his plans for a party for one of his offspring. Good, it made him more vulnerable. The host had plans for some of the women—especially the bitch that the Alpha of New Orleans had taken to mate. It only wished Jean-Michel would be alive to watch the host rape her again and again.

It considered destroying all those at the plantation. It could feed on their lifeforces for years, allowing the place to decay and eventually turning it into a haunted horror. This had once been the home of one of its hosts. It had liked the graceful plantation and had been able to feed as often as it liked while it had been there.

Then the pirate had come and ruined it all. He had challenged the host to a duel, choosing only to wound him and make him forfeit the plantation to pay a gambling debt. Lafitte had freed those who had previously cowered in the dark and made the place his own, often helping those it once had fed on as they tried to escape their enslavement.

Tonight, things would finally come full circle and it would be victorious and have its revenge.

T he host came out of the river, having swum the last two miles to reach the plantation via the water. Rémy had posted men in hidden positions all along the most likely path the Darkness might take from the river to the house. There were other guards posted around the property, but the plantation was most vulnerable along the river. He watched from the shadows as the man who had so obviously given himself over to the Darkness crept toward the main house, entering through one of the side doors and making his way up the grand staircase and turning toward the room in which it believed a gravely injured Jean-Michel lay.

Branson and Renata, with Mawmaw Chantal’s help, had been able to piece together much of the history of the entity they called the Darkness. It had been born in the Great Swamp, venturing out and finding a host amongst the family who had originally built Rivière Du Loup. It, like the plantation itself, had been passed down along the male line until one of them gambled the great estate away and Jean Lafitte had claimed it for his family.

“It was fascinating,” said Renata. “Between Bran and Mawmaw Chantal, they’ve been able to trace this thing’s history back more than a thousand years. It has moved between New Orleans, the eastern seaboard, and the UK.”

Bran drew his hands down over his mouth and chin. “Truly frightening to realize the extent of its destruction. The only time it ever went west was with Kat, and she left a bad taste in its mouth.”

“Do you think you can handle it?” Rémy asked Renata.

“My part isn’t all that difficult. Necessary, according to Chantal, but not difficult. It needs substance so the dire wolf can destroy it, but it’s simple to do.”

“Says the sorceress who conjures the Northern Lights at home so my father can brag that he has a better light show than either Marco DeMedici or our host.”

“Oh, God, don’t get him started,” said Darby. “He and Marco both will be scouring the earth for a sorceress to bring into their clans.”

“Sky?” said Rémy, “You’re up.”

“We’ve figured out that the Darkness feeds on fear. We’ve managed to keep the lid on a string of particularly gruesome and violent murders around the city,” said Skylar

“Aren’t all murders by their nature violent?” asked Cameron.

“Yes and no. The argument could be made that they’re violent as someone dies, but these have been just as bad as the ones we first discovered that were based on those paintings. Each of these women has had her heart ripped from her chest and at least partially consumed. Trust me, if they knew about these, the press would have a field day.”

“But they got lucky. One of the victims had been using her cell phone to take pictures at the time of her abduction and managed to get a blurry shot of the host. We sent it to Marissa Storm, who was able to clean up the image. Here he is,” said Travis as he passed around the picture.

Piper shuddered and he rumbled to her. The face was horrific—scarred in a way that revealed both deep gashes and severe burns. It was a huge beast of a man, perhaps even as large as Rémy.

“What happened to his face?” asked Piper. “It looks like he was in some kind of fire or industrial accident.”

“I told Sky I thought maybe it was scarring from boiling water,” said Travis.

Riley shook her head. “No, something clung to him. My guess is some kind of sugar or candy. If it explodes it sticks to everything, including human flesh.”

And now the Darkness was headed for his father’s room. His mother had wanted to hide in the closet as a backup, should his father not be able to defend himself, but his father had been adamant, and his mother was currently being held at the adjacent plantation. Rémy didn’t like his father’s chances for once again basking in his mother’s love and affection… well, not anytime soon.

I t crept up from the river, using the foliage and shadows to hide its approach. The full moon lent him power and the dire wolf, its one mortal enemy, had tried and failed to destroy it. It had thought all the dire wolves to be dead, but one had survived. But now there were none, as the dire wolf could only join together once.

It moved down the hall, coming to the door of the descendant of its greatest enemy. Silently it opened the door and saw that the multiple sets of French doors opening onto an expansive balcony stood ajar. Good. It would have an easy way to escape unseen when it was finished.

The host snuck in, closing and locking the door behind himself. Its next victim was lying in bed. It almost seemed unfair to kill the Pirate Lafitte’s offspring when he wasn’t at full strength, but then it had never cared much for fair. The host crept closer, raising its billy club over its head. The host liked to incapacitate the victim before ripping out the heart. The victim often lived long enough to see its own beating heart in the host’s hand before it took a bite.

It waited with eager anticipation, already savoring its victory. As the host began to bring the weapon down, the descendant of the pirate opened his eyes, rolled to the opposite side of the bed, and fired a gun he had concealed under the covers.

The Alpha of New Orleans fired into the host’s heart several times, causing the great hulk to lumber backward before falling to the ground. Before he died, it severed its hold on the host, consumed the rapidly vanishing lifeforce, and fled, exploding from the host’s nose and mouth. It hung in the air over the host’s lifeless body, turning toward its intended victim, the Alpha of New Orleans, meaning to kill him.

A beautiful woman stepped from the closet, surrounded by a protective aura of magenta. Magenta, a combination of the colors indigo and red, representing strength and intuition. Only one creature could be a combination of both—a witch! It hissed at her and turned to Jean-Michel only to find the witch had cloaked him in the spirit of his own aura—strength and fearlessness.

No matter. It would flee into the swamp until it found another. There was always another.

It escaped out the French doors into the night, lit by a fresh full moon. Suddenly, it felt the lower portion of its shape start to harden as icy tendrils began to fight for supremacy of its being.

An elemental sorceress. It must evade her magick at all costs or it would be trapped again. How had they come to know? The wise woman. They had hidden her from it. She must have revealed its secrets. It would find her and kill her. The sorceress had followed it outside and now stood on the balcony as its misty form hung in the night sky, whirling in a funnel to confuse those who might see.

“ R émy, do you see it?” called Renata as she and Jean-Michel ran to the balcony.

The moon had been playing amongst the clouds all night—drifting in and out in a random pattern. Renata had assured them that she could handle her part of incapacitating the Darkness and remove any cloud cover that might obstruct the full moon’s light. Good on her word, she swept her hand at the clouds, brushing them away, leaving the cold orb shining brightly, surrounded only by stars.

The lunar sphere was now their ally, and it cast its light on the swirling inky mist that was the Darkness. The moonglow illuminated the evil presence so that Rémy could see its complete outline clearly. Time to call his mate to him.

Rémy called forth his wolf and then his mate to join with him. All around him the shimmer that normally accompanied a shift began to intensify. The air became charged with electricity and the shimmer crackled and spat with lightning-like bolts of electricity and magick. Travis and Skylar had told them what to expect but it still hadn’t prepared him for the intensity of the experience.

Piper galloped toward him, leaping into the shimmer as she howled, calling upon her ancestors to join her to her fated mate and allow them to become a powerful supernatural dire wolf. Rémy felt Piper’s body join with his, slamming into him, becoming part of him. The two distinct and supercharged shimmers joined as they emerged together as one enormous La Guerrera Lobo .

“Now, Renata!” he heard his father call.

The sorceress focused her energy on the Darkness and brought up from the earth around them a stream of frozen water. It cascaded upward and grew higher and higher, catching the tip of the entity and then fracturing into tendrils which began to freeze the mass and tether it to the ground. The Darkness let out a deafening screech-like noise as it tried to escape the icy prison that was forming around it.

The dire wolf circled the ice that continued to expand and envelop the Darkness, muffling the entity’s death screams as it continued to be encased in ice, running around the ever-increasing icy mass, leaping and barking with joyous abandon. It seemed La Guerrera Lobo knew its purpose and rejoiced in destroying the dark mass. Rémy found it interesting that he could feel both he and Piper’s distinct beings as well as a third one from the dire wolf as a separate being, but one which existed only from their joining.

He’d never felt weak as a wolf but was surprised by the exponential strength of the dire wolf. It was more than just Piper’s strength combining with his. It was far greater. It was if together they were exponentially stronger, smarter, faster than they were as unique individuals.

The Darkness was trapped in its icy prison, unable to move or escape. Now even the ice itself seemed to have a prevalent sense of evil—the feeling of an ancient, primitive force of malevolence and malice. The dire wolf dropped back to give itself room to gather speed and charged, leaping straight toward the mass of ice and shattering it on contact. A thousand shards of Darkness fell to the ground.

As soon as the top of the structure which had contained the Darkness was destroyed, the rest of the ice melted away instantaneously and also rained to the ground. The dire wolf howled to the moon, and it raised its hackles as an instinctive knowledge that they were not yet safe took hold. A smaller wisp of darkness that resembled a mass of oozing tar began to rise from the ground.

“No you don’t!” shouted Renata as once again she drew water up from the ground and turned it into ice, trapping what remained of the Darkness.

The dire wolf pounced on it, stomping on each of the black drops that exploded from the ice. It backed away and watched the spot on the ground where second cloud risen from. It searched in the moonlight for where the other bits of black had fallen.

Rémy could feel Piper still close to him, still bonded in spirit and body.

“That’s the last of it,” said Renata. “Move away. Chantal sent something to purify and sanctify the ground where it was destroyed and then I have some salt from my homeland that Bran is going to spread over it.”

Renata’s knees started to buckle and Rémy saw his father step up to catch her as Bran started to race toward the balcony to be with his mate.

“I have her, Bran. Do as your mate wishes. I will bring her to you,” said Jean-Michel.

Bran stopped and turned back to the task at hand, sprinkling first the potion from Chantal and then Renata’s enchanted salt, Rémy could feel Piper’s soul separating from his own. He felt her loss until he heard her whisper, I am here, my beloved. I will always be here. He shimmered back into his human self and accepted a pair of sweatpants from his brother who also handed Piper a silk robe, since Skylar had mentioned that her skin felt overly sensitized for several days after joining with Travis.

By the time Branson was finished, Jean-Michel had emerged from the house and set Renata down on her feet. Bran wrapped his arm around her to support and steady her.

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” Bran asked his mate.

“Yes. No. I mean, I will be. Touching something that old and that evil can be a bit overwhelming.”

“Look,” said Piper, jumping back to stand closer to Rémy. “What is that?” She pointed to the place on the ground where Bran had just spread the salt.

Emerging from the ground was a fully formed evergreen shrub. Its greenery was dense and had spiraling white flowers throughout, which stood out in stark contrast to the dark, glossy leaves. The rounded shape made it look almost like an orb.

“That, ma chére , is crepe jasmine—something we here at Rivière Du Loup hold in great esteem. It would seem that it marks the defeat of the Darkness,” said Rémy.

Jean-Michel nodded. “We’ll build a beautiful garden right here with the crepe jasmine to mark the spot where a great evil was destroyed by the power of the fated mates.”