Chapter 30
Darian
“You seem to be well informed, Darian.”
“It’s King Darian,” I tell her coolly. “And I know a lot more than that. I also happen to know your kind framed the dark witches out of greed.”
Serena laughs lightly. “Is this what you’ve been doing all these years? Trying to dig into the past?” Her laughter fades. “It doesn’t matter. The truth is that the white witches are now far more powerful than you could ever imagine. There was indeed a time when our kind was very weak, relying only on our ability to provide excellent healing magic to give us some level of importance. Times have changed, young king. It is our time now. And unlike the Wolf Kingdom, we don’t plan to rule from the shadows.”
“Rule?” I sneer at her. “The white witches sure have grown ambitious. You are healers, nothing more. Do you really think a handful of you can overthrow the Wolf Kingdom?”
Serena’s eyes glitter with anger. “The white witches have stayed a minority for long enough. We possess far more intelligence than you animals. We deserve to rule.”
“Animals?” I give her a cold look. “At least animals protect their own. You tortured the dark witches, drained them of their powers. You didn’t even spare the children! We are not the animals here. But I’m certainly looking at one.”
Her eyes narrow. “Ambition is not a crime. And you have been a thorn in our side for far too long. I have never met a king so stubborn in his refusal to cooperate with us. It is because of your refusal to bend that things have come to this point.”
“No,” I scoff. “It is because you cannot stop drooling over the first-born daughter of King Edward. You want her powers, and you want those of her child. I refuse to give up either. That is what has brought us to this point.”
Serena looks surprised. “You know about your mate’s bloodline? I have to say I’m impressed. I underestimated you.”
“And you continue to do so,” I respond grimly. “Your kind may have managed to learn to use different kinds of magic, Serena, but the wolf shifters are greater in number. We can hunt you down to the ends of the Earth.”
“Hunt us down?” Serena laughs. “Without us white witches, your kind will not survive. Your actions over the past seven years have already caused enough conflict within the kingdom. You think your people will believe you or obey you when you tell them to hunt down the white witches? They would never. All I have to do is make an announcement that the king is under the influence of dark magic, and they will turn on you like rabid dogs.” She lifts her hand and snaps her fingers, her lips stretching into a wide grin. “I can topple your kingdom like that. You are nothing before me.”
“The white witches are still subservient to the Wolf Kingdom.”
“Subservient?” Serena has an amused gleam in her eyes. “You have always been our pawns. All we ever needed was one weak link, and it existed within the royal family. After we found it, we had your kind by the throat. The white witches have controlled the royal family for centuries now. You have always been our pawns, young king. We have manipulated everything, right down to the mates you choose.”
My eye twitches. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Serena laughs again. “I guess there’s no harm in telling you this now. Like all other beings in this universe, your kind has evolved. Your fated mate bonds don’t exist simply to tie two souls together. They form perfect combinations. The offspring produced from these bonds are stronger and more intelligent. There never used to be a ceremony for fated mates. There was no mating gathering. We incorporated that because we needed a way to control how the wolf king evolved, and the royal family was aware of this. For centuries, we have been manipulating the fated mate bonds. We witches have the ability to sense a fated bond between two shifters. With all of you together in one room, we are able to assess the couples. You see, there are often times when two individuals are bound to one another and become incredibly strong. The kind of strength we cannot afford for them to have. We cut those ties before they can form. The red threads that you see are merely a result of our magic. We decide with whom you mate. We have made your kind completely dependent on us.”
My stomach twists at this new bit of information. Such deception! Did my father know about this? If the royal family was aware and still let it happen—
Something suddenly strikes me. “Do you intend to tell me that Alice and I were declared fated mates because of you?”
Serena’s eyes flick toward Willow, and I see a hint of anger in them. “She was weak, and we have always chosen weak females for the royal family. Of course, I wasn’t aware at that point that we had been deceived.”
I don’t believe her.
I felt a connection to Alice long before the white witches came into the picture. Serena may think she’s able to influence fated mate pairs, but maybe her control isn’t as perfect as she believes. I have heard of some fated couples being unhappy, but it’s hard to believe that Serena’s influence ran so deep. Even if I am wrong, and she has been manipulating fated pairs, I don’t think she had anything to do with Alice and me.
“You sure are talkative today.” I glance toward Alice, who is standing in an unnaturally stiff position. She has not spoken a word or even moved. From the way she’s standing, it looks like she’s paralyzed.
“It’s seldom that I can bask in the success of my people so openly.” Serena’s smile is soft, but her eyes hold a smug satisfaction in them. “You have been a worthy foe, young king, but you lack my years of experience. Now it is our turn to rule and control this world. The white witches will be the ones whose names will invoke fear and awe in the hearts of—”
I don’t have time for this. I take a step back and allow my wolf to take control. As the change washes over me, I glare at her. “Keep my family out of your delusions of grandeur.”
In my wolf form, I jump forward, ready to shed blood.
As soon as I leap, my soldiers come pouring out of the woods. However, my attack is thwarted by an invisible shield when Serena lifts her hand. Her eyes darken with anger as she sees my men attacking the other witches.
“You are going to regret this,” she hisses as she waves her hand in a circular motion, creating what looks like a portal of light. To my surprise, more witches start emerging from it.
So that’s how she got Mira here so fast.
The new witches begin to assail my soldiers, and I growl when I see their vicious attacks. My soldiers start to fall, one by one, wounds appearing on their bodies. They can’t even get close to the witches.
Howling, I leap at Serena.
With her free hand held out toward me, she chants something loudly, and I suddenly feel a burning sensation in my chest. The smell of my own blood doesn’t deter me, though.
I keep pushing forward, but Alice is now moving. From the corner of my eye, I can see her struggling.
They’ve done something to her.
“Give it up, Darian!” Willow screams. “It’s over! She’s not so important that you should sacrifice everything for her. I’m still here. I’m still willing to take you back!”
Thankfully, Willow’s grating voice distracts Serena enough for me to land a scratch on her shoulder. The coven leader stumbles backward, howling in pain and anger. I hear a snarl of rage from Alice and realize that Serena had been controlling her.
Alice tries to move out of the circle that I’ve just noticed is drawn around her. Before she can do so, Serena aims her fingers at her, forcing my mate back into her original position.
“Do it now!” she yells at the witches who are surrounding Alice again, and they begin chanting quickly. I hear my mate cry out, and I dart toward the closest witch. But I can’t get to her. There’s some sort of invisible shield surrounding them all.
My wolf keeps hurling itself at it in a desperate attempt to get to its mate. More and more white witches are arriving, and I know that we are grossly outnumbered. I fear Serena is calling every single white witch in her coven. My men will be slaughtered.
I should have brought more soldiers with me, but I hadn’t anticipated—
A high-pitched scream draws my attention to the lakeside. Mira is crumpled on the ground in the fetal position, howling as the witches surrounding her create an even tighter circle, chanting loudly, their hands stretched out over her body.
I roar and sprint toward my daughter. As I reach the witches, something shoves me so hard that I go flying into the trees. I can hear my bones snap, but I don’t stop. Getting to my feet, I launch another attack. I’m thrown back once more, but my daughter’s screams pull me up again.
“You just don’t learn!” Serena raises her voice, lifting her hand in the air. As she does, my wolf body goes flying upward, and then it slams down into the ground. More bones break, yet I refuse to give up. I don’t care what happens to me. I have to get to Mira.
I start crawling toward her, and Serena uses her magic to fling me into the air yet again and then propel me back to the ground with even greater force than before. This time, my body doesn’t move when I tell it to.
Mira is still screaming. I can taste the blood in my mouth, smell it thick in the air.
I failed.
I failed to protect them. Again.
The ground begins to vibrate as I lie limp in the dirt.
A shrill shriek rings out, one unlike any I have ever heard before. A sharp wind picks up. Weakly, I lift my head and see Alice glowing. Her body is surrounded by white light. Willow is scrambling away from her. Serena has diverted all her focus to my mate and is chanting something. Even from here, I can tell that the coven leader looks afraid.
“Kill her!” she screams, and all the white witches turn toward Alice, their hands outstretched. The air is filled with their voices, but there doesn’t seem to be any impact on my mate. Her eyes are closed. Willow is running away from her. I force myself to my feet, an almost impossible task.
While Alice has everyone distracted, I should get to Mira. I have to—
An explosion of power throws me off my feet, and my back lands against the closest tree. I lose my wolf form; I’m too weak to maintain it any longer. The witches shield Serena, who is also on the ground, and as I watch helplessly, my mate steps out of the circle, her eyes blazing. Her short red hair is lifting with the breeze that is centered around her.
She’s pissed. I can tell. She lifts her hand and waves it in the air. All the witches in front of Serena fly backward, exposing the coven leader.
“How dare you touch my child?!” Alice’s voice is a low growl. “How dare you hurt her?!”
Serena struggles to stand. “You awakened your latent powers.” She looks both fascinated and horrified. “Don’t think it makes you stronger than us. With all of us combined—”
“I don’t have to be stronger than all of you,” Alice snarls. “I just have to be stronger than you.”
She gestures with her hand, and Serena cries out, clutching her chest. “You dare—”
“Yes, I dare.” Alice rushes at her, her claws extended and her eyes glowing a bright white.
Before she can land the first blow on Serena, Willow’s voice echoes through the clearing. “You’re not going to win! You fucking freak!”
All eyes turn toward her, and to my horror, she has Mira by the wrist.
“Let her go!” Serena shouts. “Stop her!”
As the witches scramble to try to stop Willow, the shifter simply swings Mira toward the lake. I watch my daughter fall into the water, and a howl leaves my lips. Most of the bones in my body are shattered, and my healing has not had time to work, but that doesn’t stop me from dragging myself in the direction of the lake.
Alice runs toward the water, screaming Mira’s name.
Willow steps in front of her, laughing hysterically. “Your spawn is gone. You thought you were better than me, giving Darian an heir? Well, now there’s no heir left. You are nothing. You have lost. You—”
Alice thrusts her hand into Willow’s chest, pulls out her heart, and crushes it.
Willow’s smirk is frozen on her face as she stares at Alice, her gaze growing duller by the second. Her body crumbles to the ground, and Alice jumps over her corpse.
She’s about to dive into the lake when Serena shouts, “Drain her! We need her power! Finish the ritual before she goes in the water!”
All the white witches focus on Alice, and my mate is once again paralyzed, every white witch here using their magic to root her in place. She struggles in vain. Her gaze meets mine as I’m hobbling toward the water, and she screams, “Darian! Darian, she can’t swim!”
The wounded soldiers seem to have realized what’s happening, and their wolves start limping toward me. All of a sudden, ripples begin to form in the water, and a soft glow of light appears in the center of the lake. It doesn’t stop me from wading in.
The ripples on the surface grow more powerful, and I’m pushed back. A figure starts to emerge from the water. It’s a woman. As she walks toward us, I see she is carrying a small child in her arms. I go still, remembering when Alice described the witches she had seen at the bottom of the lake. The woman carrying our daughter matches the description of the one Alice claimed had grabbed her wrist.
She’s not alone.
More women come out of the water behind her. The white witches who are restraining Alice now look frightened, as does Serena.
“What is this? Who are you?” she demands.
“You don’t remember us, Serena?” the one holding Mira replies. “But you were the one who led the charges against us. You cornered me and my sisters here, and you drained us of our powers.”
I look back and forth between them, confused. This woman is acting as if the coven leader should know them, but these dark witches should be centuries old. Serena can’t be more than a hundred at the most. At least, that’s what I was told by my father, the king.
Serena is shaking now. “You’re dead. You’re supposed to be dead! I—”
“You tortured us. You held us down, using your wolf companions. You drained us of our magic and then threw our bodies into the lake.” The woman carrying Mira walks over to Alice. She breaks whatever magic has been cast on her with one swift movement of her hand, then delivers our daughter into my mate’s arms. “You’ve grown up,” she says to Alice. “You’ve done well, child. We knew you would come to us. Now, let us take care of the rest.”
My soldiers look to me for guidance as the women from the lake face off against the white witches. Unable to hold my weight any longer due to my battered body, I growl, “Take Alice and Mira. Get them out of here.” I collapse into the water and hear Alice’s voice shout my name. My men start to lift me up, but I shake my head. “No. Take them away. I need to stay here.”
Then, I feel my mate’s arm around me. “Darian.”
“Go with the soldiers,” I order weakly. “You’ll be safe in the palace. I have to see this to the end.”
She takes hold of my chin and forces me to look at her, her voice fierce. “So do I! I’m not going anywhere.”
When the soldiers try to support me again, she waves them off. “I’ve got him.”
“I can’t stand up, Alice,” I breathe through the pain. “My bones—”
“I know,” she whispers, pulling me from the water and lowering me to the ground in a sitting position. Mira is there, and I examine our daughter as Alice pulls her into an embrace.
“She’s not hurt, is she?”
“Your Majesty!” A young girl wearing a white cloak rushes toward us. The soldiers immediately step forward, ready to kill her, but she cries, “Don’t hurt me. I just want to help!”
“She’s just a kid,” Alice says, but she is on high alert. “Let her through.”
The girl hurries forward and crouches by my side. “I can heal you. I—Not all of us support what the coven leader is doing, Sire. Some of us just want to heal.”
She can’t be more than ten years old. Her face pale, she holds out her hand, and I feel the familiar healing energy wash over me.
A battle is taking place next to us. The white witches are facing off against the dark witches.
“Were they alive all this time?” I ask, bewildered.
Alice holds Mira even tighter. “I don’t know. Not every white witch is taking part in the fight, though.”
The young healer’s head is bowed, and she says in a trembling voice, “Not everyone agrees with Serena’s methods. We—White witches are meant to be healers. Some of us don’t want to be here, but we were summoned. We don’t want to take part in this.”
The girl is straining herself. The healing ability of this white witch is incredibly strong. I can feel my bones mending, and it only takes a couple of minutes for my strength to return.
Alice has a death grip on my hand. “Do you think they’re going to win?”
The dark witches are barely more than two dozen in number, facing off against the hundred plus white witches, but they’re holding their own.
“They have battle magic,” I say, nodding. “Whatever the white witches gained was through unnatural means. They’ll win. The dark witches will win.”
I’ve heard plenty of stories of how dark witches once fought in the battlefields. Seeing it in person fascinates me. Their magic is dazzling, their steps coordinated, and their movements fierce. The white witches may have the magic, but they don’t have the skill and experience to back it up.
However, I’m not going to take any chances. I thank the young healer, get to my feet, and look at my men. “Let’s give the dark witches a helping hand.”
Alice tries to stop me. “You can’t—You’re not planning to go face them again, are you? Look at what they did to you before!”
“This is our only chance to stop them, Alice,” I tell her firmly. “I will not put you in any more danger.”
She squares her shoulders. “Fine. Then I’m coming with you.” She points at two of the soldiers. “You two, watch over Mira. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
“Alice—” I start to argue.
“I can feel the magic in me, Darian,” my mate tells me. “It’s explosive and violent, and I can use it. I don’t know how, but I can. You’re not going back out there without me backing you up.”
“We can’t leave Mira.”
“We’ll be close by. And your soldiers will be guarding her.”
I can tell Alice doesn’t want to hear any more of my opinions. I shift into my wolf form, knowing this is not the time to try to convince my mate of anything.
The rest of my soldiers follow us into the action. Our aim is to kill. We don’t touch the white witches who are young and not taking part in the battle. They look like scared little kids, and I have a feeling that, much like the young healer who helped me, these children don’t want to be here. But the rest of the white witches are fair game.
As the other wolves and I rip flesh from bone, Serena lets out an enraged howl. She has seen Alice, who stayed in her human form to fight with the dark witches, and she launches an attack on her. Alice is able to defend herself, thwarting the coven leader’s attacks. My mate has had no training in how to use magic, but she is using her instincts to control it.
The increased attacks from all sides have the white witches faltering. Serena refuses to go down quietly, though. When she turns around, aiming an attack at me, Alice jumps forward, shifting into her wolf form. Her teeth sink into the coven leader’s neck, and she rips her head off.
Without their leader, the white witches begin to scatter. But it’s too late.
Using their battle magic, the dark witches create black chains. They capture every white witch fleeing from them and bind them with the chains. I make sure all the white witches have been secured before turning to look for Alice. She is by Mira’s side now, in her human form again.
As I join them, the air fills with howls and screams, the white witches finally beginning to realize that they overplayed their hand. The dark witches soon approach Alice, Mira, and me.
“Thank you.” Their leader is the one who speaks, the same witch who carried Mira out of the water. “It may have been fate that allowed us to right the wrongs that have been done to our kind, but you played a role in it, and we thank you.”
Alice looks at the dark witch curiously. “All this time, you were alive?”
She smiles lightly. “No. We died a long time ago, but the injustice and the pain we suffered anchored our souls to this lake. Our spirits slept here until you appeared before us. Your powers were sealed, but we recognized your blood. It held traces of our magic. When I touched you, it woke up within you.”
Alice lets out a shuddering breath. “So, you’re ghosts.”
“Spirits, my child.” The witch looks amused. “And we will soon return to reunite with our sisters in the sky.” She turns her head to look at me. “We were told that when a king would take the throne, a king not of the royal bloodline, our time to take vengeance would arrive. With you, the royal bloodline has changed hands. And this is how it should be. There’s too much darkness and too many secrets hidden within the old royal family. Their hands are tainted with blood they can never wash off. You are not of that family. You are a new king with a new bloodline. Lead your people into a better future.”
I nod, and she smiles.
“As a parting gift,” she continues, “we will bless you with this prophecy. Your life will be happy, your children will thrive, and your kingdom will prosper. The true heir to the throne is your queen, but you are now the king, and it is your blood that will revitalize the royal family.”
The air around the dark witches begins to shimmer, and suddenly, they all look back over their shoulders. We follow their gazes and see Nara appear from among the trees. The usually composed archive keeper looks distraught.
“Sisters!” she exclaims. The dark witch who has been speaking to us holds out her hand, and Nara runs forward to seize it. “You’re not leaving?!”
“I am happy to see you well, sister,” the dark witch tells Nara gently. “Your time is coming. We will see you soon. Till then, take care of yourself.”
The dark witches’ bodies slowly fade into tiny balls of light that float up and away, leaving Nara behind, her cheeks streaked with tears. She closes her eyes, her face lifted to the sky.
I recognize her grief, so I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her.
She sighs before looking at me, her eyes red and tired. “You prevented the war. I was wrong; you didn’t need to step aside for the true heir. She had to step aside for you.”
Alice leans against me. “Is it all over now?”
I wrap my arms around her and meet Nara’s gaze, letting out a sigh of relief. “Yes. I think it is. You and Mira are safe.”