Briar
I’D HAD A FEELING, A TERRIBLE INTUITION, THAT SOMETHING was wrong with Maez, but this .
. . My body was weak with exhaustion as I sobbed, too broken to care if the guards outside my door could hear me.
With every gasping breath, the will to live pulled away from me like spoiled meat from the bone.
There would be no saving me now. Maez wasn’t coming.
My mate was gone.
I had never thought it would be possible—to lose a mate.
I thought when she died, I’d die, too, neither of us ever having to live without the other.
What sick, twisted fate had been dealt to me?
To be given the briefest love and hope and happiness and then have it be yanked away just as fast. It felt like my heart was being shredded to ribbons.
I wanted to cut my chest open just to see its tattered remains.
Trays of untouched food sat sickly sweet on the table beside my bed, but I felt no hunger. I no longer felt anything at all except deep, unrelenting sorrow, like I was missing a limb.
No, like a part of my soul had been torn away.
I hadn’t realized the sky had grown dark or the moon rose high in the sky until the door to my bedroom opened and Evres strolled in.
If he’d knocked, I hadn’t heard it, but I was certain he hadn’t bothered.
He paused at the foot of my bed, his lip curling in disgust at my sorry state.
I was too broken to even be afraid. I knew what was going to happen.
“Get up,” he commanded and I had just enough shreds of self-preservation to do as he said.
Although a voice inside me asked what was the point now?
What was I stalling for? There would be no escaping, no rescue attempt right around the corner.
Nero was right. Calla and Grae were the only Wolves left in the Golden Court now, and after Taigos’s betrayal, Olmdere was entirely alone in this battle.
Olmdere needed Calla more than ever. My twin would want to storm off into the night to rescue me as they had in the past, but that was before they were a queen.
And Calla and I were trained from birth to put duty above all else, even those we loved.
Was there even any Wolf left in the Golden Court to send to my rescue now?
Grae? As much as he loved me like a sibling, he would never leave Calla on their own—for which I was grateful even to my own detriment.
The list in my mind dwindled with every passing heartbeat. Hope faded. With Maez gone . . . that meant there would be no rescue at all.
As I walked around the bed and stood before Evres, my soul shriveled into nothingness. Should I even try to flee? Should I ram a blade into his throat before dragging it across my own? Or should I just fling myself from the window and end this life before he could take everything from me?
The latter felt so appealing. Because everything had already been taken from me . . .
Evres’s fingers trailed featherlight up my jaw, smearing a tear down my wet cheeks.
“If you think these tears will stop me,” he murmured, his wine-laden breath hot on my lips. “They won’t.”
I watched him through thick, wet lashes. The words were bitter on my tongue as I said, “Yes, Your Highness.”
“You won’t miss her,” he told me as if he could command me to just forget the love of my life. “Once you’ve been properly fucked by a real Wolf, you won’t remember her at all.”
He moved so quickly I didn’t have time to react, grabbing me and shoving me on the bed.
His bruising, frantic hands grabbed me by the knees and yanked me to the edge of the bed.
I was numb, not even able to quite process what he was doing—what he was about to do, even though he’d said as much aloud.
That’s how thoroughly I was already finished with this semblance of life.
That’s when a deep rumbling laugh echoed from the corner of the room. We both froze, turning toward the shadows that seemed to cling to the corner, so impenetrable even our keen vision couldn’t pierce through its veil.
The figure took a purposeful step forward and the shadows dissipated like clouds on a windy day. She stood there like wrath incarnate. An apparition that couldn’t possibly exist.
Maez.
Her eyes were filled with a violent green light, reflected from the skitters of emerald lightning zapping from her hands and flashing through the air.
Her short-cropped hair was slicked straight back, new scars upon her lip and brow.
She wore all black—fighting leathers and a flowing obsidian cloak that seemed to eat up the last of the candlelight.
She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Am I interrupting something?” Maez asked, her voice deeper than I’d ever known it to be.
I hesitated. I wanted to run to her, to call out to her. But while it was her—I was certain of that—it was someone else entirely, too.
“You,” Evres seethed, taking a step toward her and reaching for the dagger strapped to his hip.
“Me,” Maez said, and held up a hand. Evres froze, his face contorted as if he battled some invisible grip to get to her.
“Maez,” I whispered, my voice cracking. Fresh tears welled in my eyes. To see her here—so whole, so real.
But then her shadowed eyes turned toward me and there was nothing behind her stare—no love, no relief—no Maez. Only cold indifference. It shattered me like a frozen lake fracturing under a careless footstep.
Maez returned her attention to Evres. Her hand hovering in the air squeezed and Evres’s hands jerked, wanting to go to his throat, as if that would stop his face from turning scarlet, as if he could untie the invisible noose around his neck.
“You think you can toy with what is mine, puppy?” Maez’s voice was laced with lethal vengeance as she squeezed tighter.
I stood, rushing to her side and putting a hand on her arm. She stepped out of my touch. Unsheathing the dagger belted to her thigh, she flipped the blade over and proffered the glinting black hilt to me.
There was a taunting desire in her words as she asked, “Do you want to kill him?”
I did, and yet warning bells clanged through me at the twisted allure of her words.
I felt the intoxicating pull of her offer, but it was tainted by my fear.
What would taking the dagger of a sorceress mean for me?
For us? Was she tempting me into her darkness?
A knot formed in my throat, and all I knew was that this wasn’t who I was supposed to be.
My hand stalled halfway to the dagger, my wary gaze shooting looks between the obsidian weapon and Evres’s bloodshot eyes. I’d sworn that he would die by my hand and here was my chance. But instead of reaching for Maez’s outstretched blade, I dropped my hand back to my side.
Shame burned through me along with my gutless anger. “Why don’t you kill him?” I asked, unable to meet Maez’s cold eyes. I hated the meekness in my voice, the timid little lamb felt grating to my own ears.
“He’s your kill.” Maez offered the hilt out one more time, and when I didn’t reach for it, she shrugged. “Fine, then.” She turned her attention to Evres. “Consider your life a fair trade,” she said as he choked. “If you come to reclaim her, though, know that it will be forfeit.”
With a snarl, she released her grip on Evres and he crumpled to the floor.
When her dark eyes turned to me once more, I rocked back on my heels.
Because as much as I’d hoped it had been a trick of the light or my own shock, it was both my mate and a stranger glaring back at me, a cursed look in her eyes.
But of all people, Maez and I knew a thing or two about breaking curses.
Before I could think better of it, I grabbed her by both cheeks and pulled her into a kiss.
She tasted different, tangier, like fresh blood.
Yet she also didn’t miss a beat. A heady, rough laugh escaped her mouth as she smiled against my lips.
Her arms wrapped around me, pulling me in possessively to her as her tongue plundered my mouth.
But I felt no golden rays of magic, no reversing of fates, only her carnal need for me.
Hunger, not love.
I pushed on her chest and stepped out of her greedy hold. Reluctantly, she let me.
Her grin was taunting and wicked. “So sentimental. A magic kiss, hmm?” she asked with a shake of her head.
Her eyes swept over me, lingering on each curve of my body before stalling on my mouth.
“Oh, sweet Briar, this isn’t some curse you can break with your honeyed lips .
. . though I wouldn’t mind if you continued to try. ”
She moved toward me and I took a step back, hating that traitorous step.
I shouldn’t be retreating from my mate. But when it came to Maez, I never could be a good actress.
My chest rose and fell in anxious breaths, panic lancing through me.
This predator before me was far more dangerous than the one crumpled on the floor behind me.
All at once I knew: this wasn’t a rescue. It was just a different kind of death sentence.
“You’ll get used to it,” Maez said, flourishing a static-covered hand down herself. “Come on, let’s get out of this Gods forsaken place. The princeling smells like piss.”
She reached out toward me and I just stared at her hand. In the pit of my stomach, I had a feeling she wasn’t taking me back to Calla, that I was simply trading one prison for another. Maez’s eyes slid to Evres kneeling on the floor, still trying to catch his breath.
“Unless you’d like me to leave you here and you two can pick back up where you left off?
” My eyes widened, fear gripping me tighter at the thought, and Maez chuckled.
“I didn’t think so.” She stepped in, not waiting for my permission, and gathered me tight to her side as tingling zaps covered my skin. “Hold on tight, Princess.”
I didn’t have time to even register what she’d said before the world bottomed out.