Chapter 14 #3
Sorin stiffened. “There wasn’t anything I could do. My uncle is our Alpha, and he approved of my father’s plan.”
“So you just let them throw your sister in the dungeon?” Bastian sneered.
“Oh, fuck you, Bastian.” Sorin pushed off the wall but halted abruptly, his gaze bouncing between us.
“My father might have made the decree, but I have no doubt it was my cousin Ivan’s idea.
He might be Altair’s son, but that doesn’t guarantee him the Alpha position when the time comes.
Everyone knows I’m stronger and more dominant than him.
Rynn being put in that cell was a punishment for her and a test for me to see if I would step out of line. ”
“You could have told us.” I crossed my arms. “Your hands may have been tied, but ours weren’t.”
“Rynn wanted to stay,” he said stubbornly. “If I’d found some way to tell you, you would have forced her to leave, and she wanted to be with our mother in those final months, even if her time was limited.”
The three of us stared at the cell.
How many nights had Rynn lay in that bed all alone? Feeling like the walls were going to crush her? Cut off from the forest. No view of the sky.
I looked across the doorway and caught Bastian’s eyes, a silent agreement passing between us. We couldn’t do anything about it now, but Rynn’s family would pay for this one day. It would be her decision what happened to Sorin.
“Rynn didn’t return to this cell just to reminisce.” I turned my attention to Sorin. “Why did she stop here?”
“A way out.” Sorin sighed and moved farther down the hall until it dead-ended and then ran his fingers over the wall like he was searching for something. He clearly found it, because a few seconds later, the wall simply vanished, revealing a tunnel.
“What are you up to, Princess?” I muttered.
“Let’s go find out.” Bastian stepped into the tunnel, and the two of us started walking.
“What should I tell my father and uncle?” Sorin called after us, frustration lacing his words. “You’re supposed to be meeting with them all day.”
“Tell them something more important came up,” Bastian tossed over his shoulder.
I smiled as Rynn’s scent swirled around me. We’d track her down in no time and figure out what she was plotting, and I had my own ideas for how to punish her later.
“Nothing,” Bastian said as he leapt down from the trees. “Well, a few broken branches that could be from her, but there is no scent at all.”
“I couldn’t detect anything either.” I swiped my pants off the ground and tugged them on.
We both glared at the box. Rynn’s scent still clung to it.
If I had to guess, I’d say she had retrieved it from the strangler vines, because her scent was there too, along with a patch of earth that had clearly been dug up recently.
I also strongly suspect that whatever had been in the box was the reason Rynn’s scent trail had vanished.
Even in my wolf form, I hadn’t been able to detect any clue as to where she’d gone.
Bastian’s brows furrowed together as he looked west. “Lake Malov is pretty far, but it’d be doable for her to get there and back in a day.”
“But she can use the mirror at home. Why go through all this effort?” I rubbed at a spot on my chest that felt tight.
Sometimes after shifting back to human form, my skin would be itchy for a few minutes, but this felt different.
Probably because of how pissed I was at Rynn for going out into the wilds on her own like this.
“Because”—Bastian grimaced—“I frequently drop in to check on her while she’s there and sometimes Cade stays there the whole time. If she wanted to ensure privacy, she’d have to find another way to get there.”
“Drudonia is another option.” My gaze drifted slightly south. “It's almost the same distance.”
“We can’t check both unless we split up.” Frustration laced Bastian’s words. “Your instincts are rarely wrong. What does your gut tell you?”
It’s telling me that I never should have let her walk away from me in that cave.
I let out an irritated breath and closed my eyes. Slowly, sounds from the forest trickled in. This time of year, the insects were quiet, but the birds chirped at each other and smaller critters scurried through the underbrush. Even in the harshness of winter, the forest was alive.
The lake or Drudonia. If we separated, we could check both, but what if I went to the wrong place and it was Bastian who found her?
No. I didn’t want them spending any more time alone together. Rynn was mine.
I concentrated on the two places. When I thought about the lake, the tightness in my chest loosened a fraction, and my eyes flew open as the realization hit me. Not just about where she likely was, but what this fucking feeling was. Did she feel it too? Was that why Rynn was running from me?
Because in that moment, I knew two things with absolute certainty: Rynn had gone to Lake Malov, and a mate bond was forming between us.
“The lake,” I rasped. “She went to the lake.”
Bastian didn’t say anything, and when I glanced at him, I found his gaze on my hand still rubbing at my chest. I dropped it immediately, which only made him narrow his eyes further.
“Something you want to tell me, Ryk?”
“No,” I lied. Until Rynn had come into our lives, I’d never once lied to Bastian and the others.
Now it felt like I lied to them constantly, and I hated it.
They probably wouldn’t have cared about the two of us fucking, other than warning me to be careful about what I said to her.
But a mate bond? They would never let me accept it.
Velesian mating bonds required all parties involved to accept them, and once they did, the bond was unbreakable.
Bastian and Cade would never let me tie my soul to hers, not with how things currently stood, which meant I couldn’t let them know about this until they truly accepted Rynn into the pack.
Also, I needed to get Rynn to stop hating me.
That felt like an even more impossible task, but the first step in all of this was finding her.
“Well, the lake it is then.” Bastian rolled his shoulders. “You shift. I’ll guard your back.
I nodded and tugged my pants off again, tossing them to him. He looped them through the drawstring of his pants as I shifted, and then we raced through the forest. Mile after mile flew by. We encountered a few Narchis patrols, but they just nodded at us as we passed.
A few old scents came to me, mostly howlers and devil cats, but nothing recent, which was strange. They were far more common in this area than farther north, where the more vicious predators roamed.
Rynn’s scent suddenly slammed into me, and I skidded to a stop, my paws digging into the hard earth. It was a couple of hours old, but there was no mistaking it: Rynn’s blood stained the ground.
Bastian slid to a graceful stop next to me, long daggers in each of his hands.
“Strigoi,” he spat.
I let out a growl, having smelled them as well. It was difficult to detect Strigoi. They moved like shadows, and it was like the forests swallowed their very presence.
If it hadn’t been for Rynn’s blood, I probably wouldn’t have noticed their faint scent at all in my haste to get to the lake.
“There’s more,” Bastian hissed.
We followed the blood drops through the trees, and when we reached a particularly large patch, I felt something I hadn’t since I’d watched my family get slaughtered by wraiths.
Fear.
“She just had to make it to the lake,” Bastian said tightly.
I stared at the dark stain. There were some traces of Strigoi blood too. Rynn had gotten some hits in. Although, I detected at least four Strigoi. Even if she’d found a weapon somewhere, those weren’t great odds.
I swear to fuck, Rynn, when I find you, I might actually strangle you for going out on your own like this.
“Come on.” Bastian rose from where he’d been studying the blood splatter. “The lake isn’t far.”
Five minutes later, we reached the shoreline. I shifted back, and Bastian passed me my pants. “She made it.” He frowned at the glyph embedded in the rocky shoreline. “Roth was here too.”
“Can you activate the glyph?” I looked at the dark waters of Lake Malov. There was something seriously fucked up about this place. For such a large body of water, it was too calm. It was like staring into a piece of glass.
Like all Velesians, I hated it here. All of Lunaria was dangerous, but nowhere else did my instincts scream at me that this was a bad place. The living were not welcome, and the fucking Fae had thought it was a great place to build a treasure trove.
The sooner we got inside, the sooner we could use the mirror to get the fuck out of here. The temple might be in the badlands, but it wasn’t nearly as creepy there.
“Someone, I’m guessing Roth, took the fucking gem.” Bastian swore. “We don’t have any way to activate the stairwell.”
“So what do we do?” I growled. “Can we force our way in?”
“Do you want to go into that fucking water?” Bastian snorted. “I sure as fuck don’t. Plus, I doubt we could open it anyway. But Roth and whoever else is there will heal Rynn and she’ll have to come back this way.”
“Unless she’s running again,” I pointed out.
“I don’t think she is.” Bastian looked up at the late morning sun. “There’s still plenty of time for her to make it back. Let’s give it an hour.”
Part of me wanted to press him on why he was so sure she wasn’t running, but that would only lead to him asking about why I’d been rubbing my chest earlier and my obsession with Rynn. Which he likely would anyway if we were stuck here for long.
The two of us walked back to the tree line and settled in.
Come on, Princess. We’re overdue for a chat.