Lost Embers: A Rejected Mates Romance (Fall Mountain Shifters Book 8) Read online

  Lost Embers

  FALL MOUNTAIN SHIFTERS SERIES BOOK EIGHT

  G. BAILEY

  Contents

  Other Books by G. Bailey

  Map

  Description

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Bonus Read of Heir of Monsters

  Bonus Read of Heir of Monsters

  Bonus Read of Heir of Monsters

  Lost Embers © 2022 G. Bailey

  All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental and formed by this author’s imagination. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is written in British English, therefore some spellings might differ.

  Cover Design by Rebecca Frank

  Edited by Polished Perfection

  Created with Vellum

  Her Guardians Series

  Her Fate Series

  Protected By Dragons Series

  Lost Time Academy Series

  The Demon Academy Series

  Dark Angel Academy Series

  Shadowborn Academy Series

  Dark Fae Paranormal Prison Series

  Saved By Pirates Series

  The Marked Series

  Holly Oak Academy Series

  The Alpha Brothers Series

  A Demon’s Fall Series

  The Familiar Empire Series

  From The Stars Series

  The Forest Pack Series

  The Secret Gods Prison Series

  The Rejected Mate Series

  Fall Mountain Shifters Series

  Royal Reapers Academy Series

  The Everlasting Curse Series

  The Moon Alpha Series

  Map

  Description

  They say all gods can fall, but I will rise in the embers to save us all.

  Queen. Chosen. Lost…

  My name is Serendipity Fall, and I’m trapped in a world I don’t know how to escape. When the flames burn, I’m shown the way out but at a price. I’m returning to my world as a goddess, and I can’t control the power I’ve taken.

  My world is crumpling, my people need my help, and I have to stop Arawn before he destroys my mates and then my world.

  There are few gods left on this world, and I will be the last.

  This is a full-length reverse harem romance novel full of sexy alpha males, steamy scenes, a strong heroine and a lot of sarcasm. Intended for 18+ readers. Last book in the series.

  Prologue

  Running my fingers through my soft hair, I twirl a silky end around my index finger as I watch over all my males. My dragons. Sometimes I forget that I created them with my powers, especially when they are so much more than I ever dreamed they could be. Their beautiful dragon forms rival the beauty of their male forms, given to them by the fires. I never expected them to be as powerful as they are, or at least some of them. Not all were created the same. I watch over the sparring ring as Draycian and Arawn are tested against each other. The mighty clash of their powers is like watching the night fight with the day for the last minute in this world. Roaring fire and endless darkness slamming against each other over and over.

  It’s striking to watch the display, and many of my males have stopped to watch. To admire their power and to hope they will be like them one day. But they won’t. Arawn was born in the darkest part of the flames, where my magic should not have touched, and Draycian was the opposite. Born from the lightest part of the flame, somewhere I didn’t know my magic could reach even if I tried. Draycian never gave into the darkness because he is the light of the flame. Light always beats darkness, and the flames answer to him like he is their king. His flames are born to life around him, embracing his soul until there is no difference between him and them. Angry, burning flames that roar louder than a dragon. The darkness swims around Arawn, and I have sensed it from the moment he was created. I worked out that he was different, that they both were different. I should have killed Arawn and hailed Draycian as our king. Part of me always knows that I should have killed Arawn outright when he was born so different from those flames. He is a darkness in this world, but perhaps Draycian could not have been created without his counterpart. One must know the dark to know the light, after all.

  They both came to this world to change it. I believe my magic and judgment, even as a goddess, is never going to change that. I want to give Arawn a chance to see whether he can change this world for the better and differ from what he was born into. Not all gods are created in the same way; some are crafted in their experiences.

  I stand up, my dress blowing around me and my feet sinking into the warm sand. I reach for the lead of my creature, and I freeze. An unnatural presence wraps around me, blocking out the world until there is nothing but an empty, chilly place around me I know so well. I can’t be hurt here, but my heart beats faster all the same.

  The cold air turns my breaths into ice, and my eyes close right before fire bursts out of my body in every direction and my powers take over as I become a vessel for them.

  When I open my eyes, I’m floating in the air looking down over a massive, joyful celebration held in my throne room. At the front of the room, in thrones I have never seen before, is Draycian and a female I’ve seen once before in my visions. She’s beautiful, young and powerful. A wolf born but a dragon queen in every sense. A goddess made anew, something the world hasn’t seen before and will need to end all the wars and bring peace. I sense she is a great gift to her mother for her sacrifices in the world. The pair of them sit regally on the throne, two other males at their side shrouded in darkness. I cannot see them, but I sense they are linked by mating to the new queen. Her crown is a mixture of embers, flames and deep red blazing crystals, and it shines brightly as I watch her smile and laugh before placing her hand on top of Draycian’s. The love that shines in his eyes as he turns to her makes my heart warm. This is his mate.

  Suddenly the vision melts away, fading into another reality, one much darker, and instead of feeling peace, I feel misery. Cold, dead horror spreading across the world.

  A twin reality.

  Arawn sits on a new throne, with the female at his feet, on her knees and bound to him. He is king, and the world has lost. Draycian is dead here, and so much has been lost. The female turns her head and looks across the room, her eyes completely black and no longer green like a forest.

  She’s not really here. Not anymore, but merely a shell.

  It all depends on this female. She has to win; she has to fight, and Arawn must die at her hand.

  I fall back out of the vision with a curse, landing on the floor, and my creature curls up on my chest, purring lightly as I run my hand through his dark black fur.

  “We must save her.”

  I look across at the sparring pair.

  One will bring peace, and the other will destroy us all.

  Chapter

  One

/>   It hurts.

  By the fires, it hurts.

  Flinching, I hold my hand on my bleeding wound and start to black out from the pain as my blood seeps through my fingers, dripping into the puddle on the surrounding ground. There is too much blood, and I’m not going to be able to stop this from taking me. From death taking me.

  I can’t die here.

  I bite down on my lip and close my eyes. There is one thing I can do. Fire. It will stop the bleeding, but my hands shake as I even consider burning the wound shut. I look up at the endless black sky, thinking about Arawn using me to kill the Wolven gods and stealing their power through me. I think about Tarrent’s city falling to Sallette and Arawn. My heart near enough stops as I think about them hurting Tarrent or, worse, killing him. Draycian and Nakoa float into my mind, and tears build up in the corners of my eyes. Arawn is going to kill them.

  I try not to think about it. Draycian on that hill. So many swords slammed into his body and how still he was.

  I’d feel it if my mate died. Right?

  They need me, and I can’t heal unless I stop the bleeding. A sob wrenches out of my throat as I push hard on my wound and close my eyes, calling on my power. Flames spread across my palm in answer, and I scream as I burn the wound, holding on for as long as I can before I black out completely. I wake up again, my heart racing and blood coating my tongue from where I must have bitten it. My throat is raw from screaming, and my side is killing me, but as I touch the wound, I find it isn’t bleeding anymore. A rattling cry of relief crawls its way out of me as I blink the tears away, feeling so weak. I search for my wolf, finding her deep within my soul, but I can’t reach her here. Not when I’m this hurt.

  Hours, days, weeks, I’m not sure how long passes as I lie on the puddle-covered ground and focus on my breathing, haunted with memories and imagining things worse than my memories happening to everyone I love. When it gets too much and I feel like I can’t breathe, darkness pulls me under and, for a moment, there is peace. For a second. An empty, hollow second.

  At some point, I find myself waking up parched, and I run my tongue across my dry lips before trying to sit up. It takes me three tries before I manage it and wait for everything to stop spinning out of control. I look around at the endless darkness and the puddled water that reflects the black stillness of this place, and hopelessness crawls into my chest, taking hold of my heart.

  I need fire.

  I pull on my power, anything that is left, but I get nothing more than a trickle of embers on my fingertips before my weak body nearly collapses. I’m too weak. I can feel my power underneath my skin, the new part of it, shining and bright like a flame living within my soul. But I can’t touch it. I can’t get close. This place, my injuries, all of it is against me.

  “Come to me.”

  I jump out of my skin when I hear a female voice breathing down my neck, echoing around me, and I turn to my left, where it mostly came from, but there is no one there. Just darkness.

  I’ve heard that voice before. The stranger in the flames. The female I see when I use the flames to transport myself.

  “Hello?” I call out, my voice croaky and broken, but no one replies to me.

  I’m alone.

  My mates are in trouble, my family is threatened, and they are all in trouble right about now because of me. I let Arawn out. I unleashed him on this world, and I can’t fix it, not while I’m in here. I can’t fix any of it.

  I need to get to them. I need to breathe. I can’t. I can’t—

  A mixture of a cry and scream echoes out of me, over and over again, until I can’t scream anymore and I burst into tears, falling back onto the cold ground.

  I’m going to die here.

  And I just want to tell them—

  “Come to me.”

  The voice echoes around me again, and I’m tempted to try to crawl towards her, towards the hope of freedom and help, but I can’t. My body won’t move to the will of my mind, not when I’m this injured. I’m lucky I haven’t got a fever, not yet, but there is every chance. My wolf might heal me, but she needs time and rest.

  I black out thinking of my mates, and my nightmares haunt me until I wake up on the puddled ground once again, wishing I was waking up anywhere else. My hands are still clasped together at my side, and I look down at the wound, relieved to see it’s beginning to heal. I find I have a little more strength than before. I’m healing. That’s good.

  I will not die in this place yet.

  “Come to me.” The voice shouts at me this time, almost like she is desperate. Like I’m running out of time. But I take my time crawling to my knees, flinching in pain as I manage to rise to my feet, my legs shaky and unstable, and everything’s spinning around me.

  “Where?” I shout out.

  “Come to me. Come to the edges of this world.”

  The voice echoes around me again and again, getting louder each time she repeats it.

  A part of me doubts if I should follow her voice, but I don’t have a choice. I follow the voice into the endless darkness, only the sound of my heavy breathing and footsteps in the puddles to be heard.

  I suddenly come to a stop when I sense something ahead. With a shaky hand, I reach out and feel a wall that can’t be seen. I push against it, but it’s strong and yet it feels warm.

  “Let your flames free, goddess.”

  The voice is coming from the wall, and my heart lurches. I reach for my powers, but my body is too weak, and nothing more than a flame appears in my hand before dying away.

  “I’m too weak. Too injured.”

  “Then wait and sleep,” the voice replies, and my body suddenly feels tired. I fall backwards, my eyes closing, and this time I don’t have any nightmares at all. No dreams. Nothing but fires and a female within them, watching me.

  Time becomes as endless as the flames, and every time I wake, I feel my power rising like water getting ready to break a dam. Cracks of water spilling into my grasp, and I hold on to them, clinging to them like hope.

  Finally, I wake one more time, and I feel different. I glance at my wound, which is nothing but a nasty scar now, glittering silver in the dim light. I’ve healed. My body doesn’t feel like it’s injured anymore as I rise to my feet.

  “Let the anger out. Scream so loud every world knows you’re coming, goddess.”

  Anger...fury. All of it builds, and I let it out in one deep scream. I let the flames out of my soul, and they burst in every direction, swirling into a tornado that spreads around me, and I smile, looking at the rich orange and red fire. It’s as angry as I am.

  The tornado builds with my emotions. The more I pour out of myself, the more the flames spread until they are existing on their own, and I lower my hands. My flame wings spread out of my back, and I blink as I turn to see they are now white flames, blistering hot.

  When did they change colour?

  The flames around me begin to change too, the red burning away until it’s angry white flames, and it’s beautiful.

  I run my hand through the flames, but they don’t hurt me. They can’t. These are my flames. That’s when I see the female walking towards me, inside the wall that is now nothing but white flames and so clear. The female has long hair that comes out from under the cloak, the hood of which covers her eyes but still reveals her soft pink lips. I see her smiling as she strolls towards me and stops when we are inches away.

  Almost like she is in the mirror and I’m not. Utterly unreachable, and I’m not sure she’s real. For all I know, I could have died back there, and now I’m seeing things, wishing my way out of this trapped hell.

  “Do you know who I am?” she asks, and while this close, her voice hurts my ears like I’m not meant to be hearing her at all. I’ve heard this voice before, when I travelled through the flames and saw the female within them. I wasn’t sure she was even real then, and I wonder why it hurts so much less now to hear her voice.

  “No,” I whisper back.

  “Mnemosyne the go
ddess, and I’ve waited a long time for you, Serendipity Fall.”

  I blink, watching as she lowers her hood, and my eyes widen, recognising her from statues in the city. She is far more beautiful in person. No wonder Arawn fell in love with her.

  She lowers her head in a bow, and I bow my head back instinctively. “You’re dead.”

  Her laugh echoes. “Females as powerful as we cannot simply be killed and disappear from this world. We have our own secrets, and this is my last secret. My last chance to save this world, and it’s you. The world has waited for you alongside me.”

  “I’m nothing but a failure. I let Arawn out, cursed this world, and now I’m trapped. I’m useless. Sorry to let you down,” I bite out.