Chapter 30
Savla
Isensed the others converging behind me. They’d been close, and they’d made it to us right before we entered, forcing us to pause long enough to get the others up to speed. I couldn’t scent any of the human females or younglings, and I was grateful for that.
This wasn’t a place for soft hearts or small hands. This was a place for war.
“Hanna’s been taken,” Dristan said aloud behind us to the rest of the clan and the coven as they gathered, voice booming. It wasn’t a question; it was a declaration.
I nodded once. “Corwin,” I hissed, the word venomous on my lips.
A low snarl rippled across the clan ranks. Tabitha’s eyes sharpened with murderous focus. “I told that female—her mother—that if she hurt that girl again, I would salt this earth with her lineage.”
Zara cracked her knuckles. “Permission to assist with the salting?”
“Granted,” Tabitha growled.
This should have been relieving, but it wasn’t. Because Ribbon suddenly sprang out of the back of the truck—huge and desperate—and slammed into my leg with all his weight. He croaked, frantic and trembling, trying to leap into my arms, onto Krusk—anything that meant coming.
“Ribbon,” I murmured, kneeling.
His throat puffed, and his eyes were wet. He shoved his head under my arm like he could physically drag me forward.
“I know,” I whispered, voice cracking. “I know, boy. She’s in danger.”
He croaked louder, rising onto all fours.
“No,” I said softly.
His entire massive body froze.
“You can’t come.”
He croaked again, panicked now, head swinging toward the assembled clan as if pleading for backup.
Enka winced. “This is gonna be ugly.”
Ribbon pushed his head under my arm harder, trying to wedge himself beneath me. I caught his cheeks in both hands.
“Listen to me,” I rasped. “If they hurt you… she’d break. She’d break, Ribbon. You stay here and get yourself ready to take care of her. That’s your job.”
His whole body slumped, and he whined—an actual low, trembling whine—and pressed his enormous forehead to mine.
I exhaled shakily. “I’ll bring her back.”
He croaked, a soft, defeated sound.
Krusk placed a hand on my back. “He’s right to want to come. You’re… vibrating.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
Enka snorted. “You’re not. You look like a bomb about to detonate.”
Darak strode forward, brow furrowed. “Savla. Your eyes are fully black.”
I didn’t have to be able to see to know. I could feel them—fully dilated and ready to murder anything that got in my way. My heart was pulsing in sync with the bond.
Tabitha approached, resting one hand lightly on my shoulder. “You have this under control. We’ll do the work with our magick to get the glamor off of her. And the rest is up to you.”
My throat tightened as I thought of the implications.
“Can you control your rage?” Krusk asked, understanding before I even had to say anything.
I swallowed. “If she’s hurt, no.”
Darak smirked grimly. “Then it’s a good thing we aren’t going in quietly.”
We moved as one. Orcs in front—silent shadows made of muscle and iron. Witches behind—glowing golden shields that they’d conjured crackling with magickal current.
Me?
I walked between both worlds.
My blood was burning like a second sun, my heart was beating too fast, and my breath was catching on every inhale. The bond was tugging, yanking, and demanding.
It was as if my skin didn’t fit right—like the world had tilted. As though my father’s voice was lurking at the edge of my memory.
This is how it starts. This is how you lose yourself.
I clenched my fists until my claws slid out, tips slicing the inside of my palms.
No. I wasn’t losing myself. I was finding her.
There’d once been plants in the house, too. I could tell because even inside here, there was the scent of rot. The plants were all in wild tangles. They hissed softly, some releasing smoke. The air stank of dead magick and neglect.
Tabitha hissed under her breath. “That bitch always was sloppy with consequences.”
Tasia stepped closer. “This place feels wrong,” she whispered.
Zara gagged. “I feel like I just walked through a sewer.”
Krusk muttered, “Pleasant.”
But I barely heard them. The bond was thrumming so loudly it strained inside of me. Fighting for attention.
Hanna was here and she was terrified. She was tied down by something magickal and cruel, but she was alive, and she knew we were coming.
Alive. That was the only word I needed to keep from falling apart completely.
My vision sharpened, my breath leveled into something lethal, and the bond inside of me sang with her direction. Enka moved to my side.
“Sav,” he said quietly. “You’re okay.”
“I’m not,” I whispered.
He nodded, understanding. “But you will be.”
Dristan raised his hand for silence. The clan formed a V-shaped wedge around him. Tabitha, Zara, Tasia, and the coven spread behind, palms raised, hands glowing while Krusk and Enka flanked me.
“Savla,” Dristan said quietly. “Point us.”
I lifted my hand toward the staircase like something ancient was guiding it.
“She’s in the east wing,” I whispered. “Upstairs. Alone. Scared. Glamored. Bound by something—something wrong.”
The words nearly broke me.
Krusk’s jaw flexed before he muttered, “Then that’s where we go.”
Dristan nodded once and Tabitha’s voice boomed like thunder, magic vibrating the air, “On my mark!”
My pulse roared in my ears, Krusk squeezed my shoulder, and Enka exhaled a pent-up breath beside me. Ribbon croaked from the back ranks—heartbroken but resolute. Dristan raised his fist.
“Now!” Tabitha screamed.
The coven unleashed a shockwave of magic that shattered the glamor in a screaming burst of light. And I charged.
Not as a son following his father’s footsteps or as a monster losing himself. As a mate—a male. Driven by something so fierce, so true, so unbearably powerful that it nearly brought me to my knees. I ran for her.
I ran like fate was sprinting with me. And I ran with every intention of tearing down the world if it meant she breathed another second.
When I reached the door that I knew she was behind? I didn’t knock or wait. I roared her name—”Hanna!”—and broke it open with my bare hands.