Chapter 34
Hudson
My fingers and toes were ice, numb and practically useless. Cold sweat covered my skin, and my heart was racing out of my chest, faster and faster with every drop of my blood that fell to the ground.
I was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, drugged and fading fast on the gurney while the men in the room chanted nearby on the floor.
“Ty…” I whispered his name like a prayer, calling out to wherever death had whisked him away. Whether to save me or take me with him, I didn’t care. I just needed him. I needed both of them, and I had no idea if I would ever see them again. “Em…”
A deep, feral growl ripped through the vast room, rattling my bones. “Not yet…” William’s voice came out distorted and wicked. Monstrous. “He needs to breathe his last. Only then can I transform fully.”
“We’re running out of time,” one of the wolves growled. I dropped my head to one side, my vision full of spots as he paced toward me with a dagger in his hand. “He’s taking too long.”
“No!” Mister Hargraves roared, heaving on all fours. His back arched, swelling and barely contained in his shirt. “He has to give in. To let go and die in order for the Garlands to disperse.”
The wolf clamped his fist around my throat, snarling in my face. “Get on with it, witch.”
A guttural clicking left William’s throat in threat, and the man released me to rejoin their circle.
“A fine job your pet is doing, Lenore.” Henry Garland’s spectral scowl reappeared above me. “But what would one expect from a bloodthirsty beast other than a fixation on pointless carnage.”
“At least I’m doing something, brother!” Lenore hissed, her red eyes staring between my sweat-soaked face and Henry. “Is this how you want your final moments spent?! Elucidating on the ways you disapprove of my magic? Of Hudson’s magic?”
“It never would have been his to wield if Helena hadn’t fallen to this pompous Hargraves fool! Perhaps if you’d lent your power to your true coven, we might’ve been able to protect her!”
“Wh-What?” I sputtered, fighting to focus on Henry’s shape above. “G-Grams… He killed…”
“What the fuck is he saying?” one of the wolves muttered mid-chant.
William growled in his chest, his eyes pulsing gold as he seethed. “He’s on the edge of death, ignore his asinine ramblings!”
Lenore’s eyes widened as she leaned closer to me. “Yes, Hudson. William Hargraves orchestrated all of this. He is the reason the wolves sought you out to begin with. He knew he had to reduce the Garlands to one remaining witch in order to enact this profane magic of his.”
My heart was beating faster and faster, whether from my failing body or the knowledge that Grams had been murdered, I had no idea.
“Why trouble the boy with this, Lenore?” Henry groaned, pacing beside me. “Let his final moments pass unburdened.”
“He deserves the truth before we all meet oblivion, Henry!”
“So he can forget again when he ceases to exist with the rest of us?!”
“Enough!” another voice snapped. My dying heart suddenly filled with light.
Impossible tears clouded my already terrible vision, but I knew.
I knew that voice I had missed so terribly for the last month.
A beaming, slender face and that perfectly maintained perm I’d know anywhere drew near. “Hi, honey.”
“G-Grams?” I choked out with a rattling breath. “Are you… real?”
“There’s no time,” she whispered, reaching down to caress my cheek with fingers that felt like a chill wind. “What Lenore says is true. William sicced the wolves on you, and when you managed to fight them off, he found a way to hex me, knowing it would drive you back here.”
“N-No…”
“It’s not your fault, Hudson.” Grams smiled sadly, shaking her head as her eyes filled with tears. “And we’re not done fighting yet, do you understand me?”
“I… c-c-can’t…”
“You can.” Grams nodded, leaning closer. “Your magic is bound to your emotions, remember? William killed Tyler in front of you to break you. To stop you from being able to fight back.”
My eyes flooded with tears, and I slammed them shut. I tried to reach out to her. I tried to seek the comfort she had always given me throughout the years, but my hand wouldn’t move.
Suddenly, I felt both of her hands on mine. “Tyler is still here, Hudson.”
My eyes snapped open. “What?”
“HUDSON!” I heard my name shouted from somewhere beyond the door. The voice was off, distorted and deep, but…
“Tyler…” Feeling pulsed back into my fingers and toes.
“Bar the door!” William bellowed, snapping his teeth at the others. “Kill anyone that approaches!”
“You have to get up, Hudson,” Grams said, her voice fading, drifting away.
“Uh… boss…” One of the men paused halfway to the door, staring at the floor.
My vision began to clear, and from the corner of my eye, I saw red creeping into the room, seeping beneath the massive oak door and trailing over the broken tile. With a pained grunt, I lifted my head, pushing myself upright on the bed.
“What the fuck…” another wolf muttered, stepping away from me, that same bewildered look on his face. “Is that…”
“Get up.”
Blood cascaded along the floor, surrounding me and forming patterns beneath the gurney.
One pattern, three sharp points intertwined and enclosed in a binding circle. The mark on the grimoire. The tattoo on my chest.
The Garland trigram.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you worthless piece of filth?
” Mister Hargraves stood, snarling as I whipped my head to him.
His face was pointed, fangs jutting out over his bottom lip.
His shirt was torn, fur rippling over the skin beneath.
“You are nothing but fodder for my ascension! A stain to be wiped from the earth.” He stalked toward me, his hand shifting into deadly claws. “Just who do you think you are?”
“Get—up!”
William leapt toward me, claws outstretched and teeth bared.
Seconds before he reached me, the oak doors crashed open.
A tidal wave of crimson swept into the room, tendrils of deepest red coursing through the air.
A furious roar left him as the blood collided with him midair, sending him flying into the far wall.
The other wolves cried out, knocked off their feet as red filled the room, spiraling through the air.
Red. Nothing but red.
The gurney beneath me was gone, swept away with the sea of gore. My body floated midair, feet drifting toward the ground as crimson ribbons swirled around me. Waiting.
The slashes in my arms knit themselves together. The heavy hopelessness that had consumed my entire being twisted, writhed, and turned to ash in my chest, replaced by a swell of power like I had never known.
“Hudson!”
I whipped my head back to the door, the power inside me pulsing with life and purpose as I laid my eyes on Emery, shifting back into a man with a dumbfounded look on his face—right beside a horrifically beautiful creature my magic instantly recognized.
My Tyler.
I broke into a wide smile, my heart overflowing, and I put a finger to my lips. Narrowing my eyes, I turned back to William, where he fought to stand on the far end of the room.
“Who am I, you ask, Mister Hargraves?” Blood danced through the air, surrounding me, pulsing with potential and begging to be commanded.
“I… am Hudson Aleister Garland…” I reached out with my right hand.
Blood ripped through the air at my call, crystalizing, a snath of calcified ichor forming in my grip, ending with a wicked, curved blade.
“Blood witch. Grandson of Helena, and Sovereign of the Garland line.”
William seethed, heaving furious breaths and frothing at the mouth as his shift went beyond his ability to control any longer.
I glanced back at Tyler, a nasty smirk on my lips. “Oh… and I’m the dirty little faggot that fucked your son.”
Tyler’s eyes bulged, then his lips curled with a devious grin.
“KILL HIM!” William bellowed, spit flying as his full shift finally overtook him. His body swelled, bones cracking and dark fur rippling over his skin, growing to twice the size of even Emery’s wolf as he bounded toward me.
The other wolves lunged, all of them pushing themselves into half shifts with teeth and claws bared.
I spun the scythe of crystallized blood, whipping it behind me and taking off one of their heads.
Leaping backward, I narrowly dodged a swipe from William, then lifted a hand and thrust it outward, sending him crashing into one of his men.
I was unleashed. Every single action I imagined set loose the moment it entered my mind.
Another wolf soared toward me through the air.
With a whip of my blade, the blood still pooled on the floor shot up, encasing them and hardening to stone.
I shoved my hand out, shattering both crystal and wolf like glass, scattering shards everywhere.
“Need some help?” Emery called over, watching in awe with parted lips as I lifted a clenched fist, halting a werewolf midair in his attempt to attack.
“Nope.” I ripped my fist downward, dragging the man to his knees so hard I could hear them crack on the tile before shooting a wink over my shoulder.
William and the other wolf I’d thrown across the room were back on their feet, circling, seeking an opening.
I twisted my fist, and the man in my clutches screamed out as I ripped every drop of blood from his body.
The smaller of the circling wolves raced toward me.
I whipped my hand outward, crystalizing the blood I’d just stolen into sharpened spears, lancing right through him and dropping both of William’s remaining lackeys to the floor. “Four down—”
The second I turned to William, a demonic snarl filled the room, far too close. Hot breath hit my skin. Monstrous golden eyes, black fur, and sharp teeth filled my vision.