I

A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

Agatha Christie

Chapter 1            I

19^th February - Present Day

Rosalie

The intense rush of sickness rose up my throat and spilled out onto the ground before me. It had been the one thing I had not remembered anything of, the moment I travelled to the past. Only that, one moment I was following the strange voices, and in the next, I was waking up freezing cold in the early morning due, on the worn alter stone that dominated the middle of the stone circle.

This time it was different. I was expecting it. I chose to travel. And this time I had more at stake. Something was coming after me. And I didn’t have time to sit about and wait for them to arrive.

Pulling myself up onto wobbly legs and pushing down the rising discomfort fighting its way up my oesophagus, I race through the undergrowth. The bare branches of the shrubs around me, snagging at my woollen skirts as I follow that now too familiar path that I knew would lead me in the direction of what was Castle Black.

I was already weary, and I could feel the blood dripping down my legs as I ran to get as far away from the time opening as I could. But there was no choice but to push forwards.  

Once I was away from the stone circle, I could make my way to the village that was now the Eclipse pack.

But first I had to make sure that the darkness was off the scent of what I had done.

It didn’t take long for the confirmation that the darkness had indeed followed me.

The demonic roar of anguish sounded from behind.

Ducking into a bush, ensuring that my legs were out of sight, I peek through the spikey gorse bush and watch as it appeared in the same place I was stood only moments before.

“Arghh.” The cloaked figure emerged before me. Like me, he had landed on the central alter stone. Only he seemed a little more stable that I had felt. He seemed to look about himself in confusion. Which was not surprising seeing as he thought he was chasing his prize, my new-born daughter.

“I will find you Rosalie Black, and your daughter. Mark my words.” He stepped down from the stone and stalked the perimeter of the stone circle.

“I know you are there. So, listen well. I can feel that the place you have brought me is not the same as the one we have left. If we have travelled back in time, then I will simply finish the task I failed to do previously. If you have brought me forwards in time, I will seek out the last remaining Walker bloodline and I will kill every single one of them. I will make sure that the price you have paid to save your daughter’s life will be felt tenfold.” He spoke with an air of otherworldly indifference. His words were promises not threats, and the implications reverberated through me with each syllable he spoke.  “I hope the life of one was worth it, wolf.”

With his last words spoken, he turned and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

After six months of endlessly looking for an answer for how to escape history repeating itself, we had come to this plan not really knowing where else to look.

The old croan had been explicit. In order to kill the Tenebris, demon of darkness and shadows, we had to have three generations of walker witches to break the curse and stop Tenebris falling back into the shadowed lands.

In the 18^th century, that was impossible. Alex’s mother was the last known Walker witch, and she was dead. The rest of the Walker coven has either died long before she had, or were scattered across the world by now. And with our new-born daughter, Adelaide, being, well… new-born, she alone would not be able to break the curse, even if it were possible to wait for her to come into her magic. Which meant our only hope was in my own time, where I knew of at least one Walker witch.

I couldn’t know for certain if the Luna of the Eclipse pack could help, or even would, but it was the only hope that I had now. Everything rested on the fact that Alison had a family still living. And, in order to keep generations of walker witches safe, I had sacrificed my family, all in the hope that I would find a way to break the curse which was wrapped around them so deftly.

Pulling myself back to my feet, I follow the path to Castle Black, only this time at a much slower pace. Recalling the last moments of being with my mate and children.

I had made a life for myself in the past. I had no wish to leave. But I would never have been able to live with myself, knowing that I was cursing Ada to a lifetime of being hunted, knowing that I could have done something to stop it.

I just hope to the Goddess that I had done the right thing. Yes, Ada would live a life free from torment and endless pursuit. But I had now brought down a great evil on my friends here.

I had to warn them. And preferably before Tenebris found any of them.

“Stop, who goes there.” I still on the foot path. Every muscle in my body turning ridged as the masculine voice washes over me.

“No,” I whisper under my voice. My mind going blank as the familiar feeling of possession and comfort washes through me. “No, this can’t be happening.”

The man behind me continues to talk, but I bare him no attention. Panic was beginning to rise up in my blood. And I look down to my left shoulder and pull back the fabric of my dress with trembling fingers.

With the layers of fabric gone, I watch in horror, as the once vivid crescent shaped mark that singled me out as mated to the Alpha King, disappeared from my shoulder. It was as if it was evaporating from my skin, dissolving until there was nothing there. Like the last eight years had never happened.

I turn on the spot in panic, to look at the man who had appeared behind me.

Shock registered in my mind as the pieces of my past begin to slot back into place.

“Rosalie?” The man said, his brows disappearing into his blonde hairline. There was no mistaking the man before me. He had not changed one bit in eight years. Landon Coombes stood as plain as day, bare chested and chiselled to perfection, just as I remembered him. The lines that crisscrossed his face told me that his cock-sure demeanour had not changed. He was still as he ever was.

But I couldn’t think about that right now. I couldn’t think about how handsome he was. Or that I wanted to race into his embrace and hold him. To mark him as mine.

“No, no, no” I shout, clawing at my shoulder, hoping above all else that I was mistaken. “No, Alex, no, come back."

I barely noticed the tears falling from my face. All I could feel was the overwhelming emptiness that now resided in my chest, and the irritating feeling of connection to the man in front of me clawing on the outskirts of my heart.