Chapter 20 Aurora
If someone asked me to describe how it felt to travel through Radu’s portal back to the Republic, I’d choose two words: cold and wrong. It was nothing like the brief journeys we’d taken before, when he’d snap us across a battlefield in seconds.
Oh, no.
I found this out later, when solid ground materialized beneath our feet, but he’d used his magic to teleport us moments into the future.
All the while, we’d trudged through thick darkness, elbowing our way between the thin walls of different worlds.
Radu pit-stopped in remote locations across the outer wards to keep the chill from freezing me to the bone, except it hardly helped.
Time didn’t feel linear anymore. We’d been trapped inside a dark tunnel where invisible forces pulled us apart from all sides. A startled shock of electricity dumped adrenaline down my spine every time we snapped back together, like someone had stretched us like elastic and then let go.
I didn’t know what was worse—feeling sick and ready to puke all the time, or tingling everywhere from the harsh cold.
On the sixth stop, the portal spat us out behind a rocky outcrop somewhere east of the main gate to the Seventh Ward, though still too far away to see the walls.
My legs wobbled as I tried to find my balance, but Radu’s grip shot out to steady me. His fingers remained wrapped around my wrist longer than necessary, warm thumb tracing over my icy pulse, before he remembered himself and dropped his hand.
A smile tugged at my lips, but it vanished the moment I caught the scent. The night air was humid here, carrying pine and something that shouldn’t be. Something that made my blood freeze.
Charcoal and sage. The stench of Darklings.
“Nightwatch guards,” I whispered, pressing against the rock and pulling Radu down beside me. “Trackers.”
His palm found his blade. “Patrol?”
“No.” Dread pooled in my stomach. “They almost never leave their posts.”
A lanky man with a short mohawk, bushy eyebrows, and a frown that said people did what he commanded if they wanted to keep their appendages probed the soil.
Probably the leader. His dark armor gleamed in the moonlight as he turned his head, scanning the terrain with laser-focused eyes.
Blackened greaves protected his legs while his gauntlets gripped a retractable baton, its tip sparking with spiderweb patterns of blue energy.
The red cape he wore billowed around him, and wisps of shadow curled upward from his boots where his Darklings tested the air.
“They’re hunting,” I whispered.
Every fine hair rose on my body. If they risked crossing into the outer wards—this far from their stations—they were searching for someone important enough to justify abandoning their posts.
My pulse hammered against my throat. So much for the Commander’s story about my death.
The question wasn’t whether they’d come for me.
It was who had sent them. Mother would have dispatched a discreet envoy, someone who could bring me home quietly without political fallout.
These were hunters in full battle gear, their armor forged from Carpathian iron.
Lev.
The bastard wouldn’t settle for discretion. He’d want a public spectacle to cement his claim as my protector, probably spinning some tale about me being kidnapped by Russkaya’s spies. The perfect excuse to lock me away until our wedding.
“They’re looking for me,” I breathed.
Radu’s entire body went rigid. I felt the tension roll off him, his shoulder pressed against mine turning to stone. “How do you know?”
“Nightwatch don’t patrol beyond the walls. Ever. Someone sent them. Someone important.”
They spread out in a classic search formation—one at point, two flanking wide to cut off escape routes.
Dark smoke puffed behind them as they popped in and out of shadow, moving with lightning speed that left trails of Darkling mist. The leader raised his gauntleted fist, and the others materialized from wisps of darkness, freezing as they listened for disturbance.
“I’d bet my crown it’s Lev. He’s probably convinced the Council I’m being held against my will.”
“Then we kill them. Now.”
He started to rise, but I shot my arm out and grasped his elbow, my fingers digging into the corded muscle there. Heat drifted off him like sand off a dune, his varcolac emerging in response to the threat. Golden patterns pulsed beneath darkening skin like molten gold threading through marble.
It should have frightened me—him losing control like that—but it didn’t.
The rational part of my mind catalogued the danger: muscles coiled for violence, predatory stillness that promised swift death, amber irises that had shifted from liquid honey to glowing suns.
Other than having a glimpse of his varcolac form in my room, I hadn’t seen Radu’s full transformation.
But I’d sensed his wolf countless times.
Watching me when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Assessing me with impenetrable focus during our arguments.
Predator recognizing predator.
He wasn’t the boogeyman of my childhood stories.
The monster mothers whispered about to keep their children in line.
Maybe it was my own immortal nature recognizing a kindred darkness, or maybe it was something deeper, a pull that defied every lesson I’d been taught about his kind.
But for reasons beyond my understanding, beyond nature itself, I trusted not only the man but his wolf as well.
The beast that could tear me apart was the same one that had caught me when I stumbled, that had saved my life and faced my starved monster head-on.
“Wait,” I hissed, tightening my grip on his arm. “You can’t just kill them.”
The contact seemed to ground him. I felt the moment his varcolac retreated. The glowing glyphs fading beneath his skin. His breathing slowed, shoulders dropping as he fought to rein himself in.
When he looked at me again, his eyes had returned to normal. “Why not? They wouldn’t hesitate to turn you in.”
“Yes, but…” I scrambled for a reason, trying to ignore how his protective instincts made my stomach flutter. “They’re innocent.”
He looked at me as if I’d grown three heads.
“If I could talk to them, tell them the truth—”
“Absolutely not. You’re not going anywhere near them.” His free hand moved to cover mine where it gripped his arm, his touch surprisingly gentle despite the steel in his tone.
“But they’re trained to look after the Republic’s best interests.”
“You said it yourself—they’re Lev’s dogs now.” His fingers swept across my hand in an absent gesture. “The moment you show yourself, they’ll drag you back to him. I won’t allow it.”
“Since when do you get to decide where I can and can’t go?” I challenged with more bite than I’d planned. Though whether from irritation at his presumption or frustration at how his touch made my pulse race, I couldn’t say.
He caged me between his body and the rock, getting in my face while he enunciated each word.
“Since the moment you became mine to protect.” His jaw was granite.
“I don’t care if they’re honorable or loyal or whatever noble bullshit you’re telling yourself.
You reveal yourself to them, and I’ll kill every last one to keep them from reporting back. ”
The possessive conviction should have made me angrier, not sent heat spiraling through my veins. The way he said ‘mine’—like it was an immutable fact, like the sun rising or the tide turning. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from leaning into him as his scent spiked.
He pulled me toward the writhing portal, but I dug in my heels as another fear bloomed in my chest. My fingers tightened around his, and he immediately stilled.
“If they find our trail back—” I started, and he must have heard the tremor in my words because he halted at the portal’s mouth and cupped my cheek.
“They won’t,” he said, and I caved and turned my face into the warmth of his palm. “The guild is safe. Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
The word ‘please’ hung unspoken between us, but I heard it anyway in the way his searching gaze held mine. I looked toward the Nightwatch getting farther away, their red capes snapping in the wind, then back to those mesmerizing eyes that stripped away every defense I had.
“Portal us out,” I said.
Thunder cracked around us, and the world shifted again.
One more stop after that, and then auburn walls caged us inside a massive room.
The momentum sent me stumbling forward, but Radu’s grip was like a vice around my bicep.
It saved me from face-planting on the expensive rug, but didn’t stop the world from spinning.
I closed my eyes, taking deep mouthfuls of patchouli and cigar-scented air to fight the nausea.
Ice melted off my skin, dripping in rivulets beneath my dress collar, making me shiver.
Radu’s hand moved to rub warmth back into my arms.
“Easy,” he murmured, steadying me until the worst of the dizziness passed. A different kind of shiver flitted over my skin like a caress at the sound of his voice. “The cold’s always worse on the last jump.”
Moving my face muscles to test if my nose hadn’t fallen off from frostbite, I almost missed the soft click that filled the silence.
The back of my lids turned bright red.
Snapping my eyes open, I zeroed in on two filament bulbs shaped like inverted teardrops, flickering in the lamps mounted on each side of the four-poster bed. My adrenaline was flowing with the excitement.
“Electricity,” I whispered, spinning on my heels to take in the riches surrounding us. Relief almost collapsed my knees. “Radu, we made it! We’re in the Republic.”
I couldn’t contain my smile as I turned to face him, but he’d already moved to the window and wasn’t paying attention to me. I swallowed my disappointment and took in the room instead.