2. Wolf
Chapter 2
Wolf
I t took all the self-restraint I had left to drag myself away from that dungeon. I couldn't lay eyes on Huntyr again without doing something very, very idiotic.
Like breaking her out of there and burning this whole damn place to the ground.
So, instead of putting both our lives in danger again, I made my way to speak with my father.
I climbed the stairs to his chambers and quietly pushed the door open. I was late to the court meeting, but I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t give a shit about anything, actually, other than saving Huntyr’s life. It took me days to get out of bed after my wings were sliced off, and even longer than that to gain the energy to walk. She was down there all alone with nobody to look out for her. Strengthening myself enough to see her had been my only focus.
Even if she fucking hated me.
“Did you enjoy your visit with our prisoner?” My father’s voice cascaded through the room the moment the door shut behind me.
I huffed a breath. “She won’t be willing to give us the information we need if you keep treating her like that.”
My father sat at the head of the massive table in the center of the room. My older brother, Jessiah, sat to the right of him, across the table from Luseyar, who still couldn’t look me in the eye since the day he severed my wings.
Cowardly bastard.
“You’re right. You could simply tell us what she knows.”
I sauntered to the table and pulled out the seat beside my brother. Pain shot through my back as I sat down, my still-healing wounds pressing against the wood. Fighting my own healing magic was more difficult than it sounded. I didn’t need my father knowing about my gift, I didn’t need to give him another reason to use me as his own personal weapon. Instead, my body healed at a torturous pace, leaving me in agony for the last week. “I already told you—I don’t know any more than the rest of you. It won’t matter what I say. She no longer trusts me.”
“Even after you lost your wings?” My father eyed me with a hand stroking his chin. He didn’t seem the least bit guilty, but Luseyar shivered. He had no problem cutting my wings off after Huntyr refused to give him what he wanted.
But how could she? Huntyr was right. She had no idea what ran through her veins. She didn’t even know she was a vampyre until recently, when we dropped that new information and left her to deal with the aftermath.
Yet she was down in that cell, being tortured by her own thoughts every single night.
My brother was the one who spoke next. “Did you really believe that was necessary?” he asked our father. “You already turned his wings black, and now you cut them off completely?” His own wings were so white, they almost glistened under the sunlight filtering in through the window.
My wings used to glisten the same way, used to reflect any light on their white feathers. But that was before my father made the sacrifice to Era, Goddess of Vaehatis. That was before she gripped my soul in her wicked hands and turned me into this, this half-undead being of impure power.
But I missed the way my black, wicked wings trailed my every movement. Even as a fallen angel, I still had the company of them. A piece of me was sliced away with them, a piece of my soul now hollowed.
“Do not question my motives, Jessiah,” our father answered. “Wolf made a great sacrifice for our plan here in The Golden City. With his wings gone, he has a better chance at regaining her trust.”
“Why does it matter, anyway?” I asked. “We have her here; why does she need to trust me at all?”
“You’re not seeing the big picture, son.” His temper flared, the glowing magic surrounding his archangel form simmering in anger. “She is the heir to Scarlata Empire. She holds more power than any fae or vampyre alive. With her on our side, we can conquer all kingdoms. We would hold all power.”
“And if she’s not on our side?” I asked. “What then? You force her to use her power—power we don’t even know she has?”
My father eyed me, and Jessiah shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Oh, she has power. I can feel it in the air. I know you can, too—we all sense it.”
My stomach dropped. I knew Huntyr had power—I felt it, tasted it—but he cut my damn wings off to get that information from us.
And still, he knew nothing.
“She’ll be a fully matured vampyre soon,” Jessiah interrupted. “Perhaps her power will develop more then.”
My father’s energy seemed to settle. Jessiah was always good at that, good at ensuring Asmodeus didn’t explode and kill us all. He was our father, yes, but I seldom forgot the power the archangels held.
I was nothing compared to him. I stood no chance, which was why I needed to be smart about this. If he knew the power Huntyr held, if he knew we bonded, that I could practically feel it pumping through her veins…
No. He couldn’t find out, not when he was planning on using it to conquer.
“That’s enough for now,” Asmodeus dismissed, pushing himself up from the head of the table. “The hungry ones are attacking the south wall again. Keep your eyes on the girl, both of you. If her power holds true, she could be the one to end this damn madness once and for all.”
“Yes, Father,” Jessiah dismissed, bowing his head. Hells. I didn’t have enough patience to give our father a proper dismissal. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from pissing him off even further as he stormed out, Luseyar following behind him like a lost animal.
The massive doors slammed shut again, leaving me and Jessiah sitting in his wake.
“Are you a fucking idiot?” Jessiah hissed. “He’s going to learn the truth, and soon. You don’t have time to keep lying about this.”
I pushed myself up from the table too, groaning at the dull pain radiating down my back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Two seconds later, Jessiah shoved me into the stone wall, pressing a hand against my throat. Fuck, my back. I struggled against him, but the pain threatened to drag me to my knees. “What the fuck is this?” I seethed. “Get your hands off me!”
“She has the power, Wolf. It would take a damned fool not to see that you’re in love with her. Anyone can see it.” He let go of my throat, but the turmoil in his eyes remained. “He’ll use her against you. You know he will.”
I gaped at my brother. “Don’t pretend like you know what you’re talking about. You weren’t the one who went to Moira to find her. You weren’t the one cursed into becoming a damn vampyre so we could make Father’s wicked dreams come true.”
“You act like that’s my fault,” he replied. “Father chose you, and there was nothing I could do about it.” He turned his back to me and slowly paced the large room. “If I could have helped you, trust me, I would have.”
“And where is your help now?” I asked. “Because I don’t see you with severed wings and a woman you care about in the dungeons.”
Jessiah turned to face me, and I saw my own eyes in his, simmering with power. It was our one physical sign of being born from one of the most powerful archangels in existence. “You want my help?” he asked. “Fine. Let’s go.”
He started toward the door.
“Go where?” I called out.
“We’re going to talk to your prisoner.”
I walked a few feet behind Jessiah. He was barely an inch taller than me, with those glorious wings and broad shoulders. Would Huntyr recognize that he was related to me? Would she hate him just as much?
The smell of her hit me as we turned down the hall to her cell. I bit my tongue to keep from reacting in front of Jessiah, to keep from showing any sign of my emotions. It would expose how much I really cared, as if everyone didn’t already fucking know.
“You must be Huntyr,” Jessiah announced as he stopped in front of her cell. I sidled up to him, only to see her hunched in the very back corner.
“Fuck off,” she groaned. Her voice didn’t have the fire it usually had, though. She sounded tired. Broken.
My chest tightened.
Jessiah laughed. “I heard you were a pain in the ass. I can respect that, honestly, but if you want to stay alive, you need to start talking.”
Huntyr lifted her head from where it rested on her bent knees, strands of her black curls plastered across her sweaty forehead. It killed me to see her like this. This was so, so wrong.
“How convincing, asshole, but I’m good. Thanks.”
Jessiah glanced at me once before stepping forward, closer to those bars. “Asmodeus will kill you for your power. You’re a smart girl; you survived Moira. You have to know that’s coming.”
“I only survived Moira because he practically dragged me through with him. But that was all part of your plan, wasn’t it?” She scoffed, dropping her head back to her knees and wrapping her arms around them. “Well, you should have left me to die out there, because I won’t help you.”
I clenched my jaw. “Huntyr, please, listen to us.”
I tried to push through our bond, tried to nudge her walls with the subtle urgency I was feeling. Listen to us. Let us help you.
For a single second, I thought she might let me in, but I was quickly corrected with her sharp walls forcing me back out. I physically flinched at the feeling.
Jessiah turned his attention to me, and for a second, I thought he would realize what just happened. The fact that we bonded was something only Huntyr and I knew, and I would do whatever it took to keep it that way.
“I told you to leave me alone,” she muttered. “After everything, can you please allow me that much?”
“This is my brother, Jessiah,” I said before she could keep pushing. “He wants to help us.”
She lifted her head again and her eyes landed on my brother. Jealousy tugged at my chest as I watched her gaze rise and fall across his body, taking in his wings. “Your brother gets an angelic name and you’re stuck with Wolf? Seems fitting.”
I clenched my jaw to keep my reaction at bay. That was just the beginning of how deep my father’s hatred for me ran. If Huntyr stayed here long enough, she would see how fitting those names were.
Huntyr rolled her eyes before adding, “If he’s anything like you, I’m not interested. Are you here to betray me too?”
Jessiah smiled as my fists clenched. “No, I’m not. My brother seems to care about you, however little of that you believe. You’d be right to listen to him. He wants to help you, Huntyr.”
Her eyes landed on me for the first time since our conversation began. “Wolf betrayed me. He let me think he was good, made me turn my back on everything I knew. That was all before he delivered me into the hands of your father in this grand, fucked-up scheme that everyone calls The Golden City. Now you want me to believe you’ll help me?”
“My father would have come for you, Huntyr,” I pushed. Hells, how did she still not see it? “I did what was necessary to keep you alive .”
“You did a lot more than that, didn’t you? Should I offer you my vein once more, or are you waiting to chain me up and take it by force?”
I stepped back. “I would never harm you. I?—”
“I don’t believe you!” Her emotions cracked, and for a second, the walls blocking our bond fell as a rush of anguish, grief, and misery flooded me. But there was something else there too, like a dark moon, a dull tide. It wasn’t quite pain—it was worse. It was empty .
And that broke my heart more than fucking anything.
She realized her mistake quickly, regaining her composure in the back of the cell. “I don’t want to help you. I am a prisoner here already. There’s nothing you can say to change that.”
“Well,” my father’s voice sounded from the back of the dungeons. Jessiah and I both spun around to find him standing with his back shrouded in shadows. “It seems we should change our approach, then, shouldn’t we?”
Jessiah cursed under his breath and backed away.
“We are only trying to help,” I said to him.
Asmodeus stepped forward. “Huntyr here has been in this cell for long enough, wouldn’t you agree, boys?”
Jessiah and I stood still, frozen.
“Take her out. Let her see what we’re really doing here. She may hate us now for what we’ve done, but no one can deny the power of The Golden City. Isn’t that right, Wolf?”
My breath hitched.
“You’re letting me out?” Huntyr asked from the back. I fought the urge to step between her and my father’s view.
He smiled as he looked down at her. “You may not be willing to help me now, Huntyraina, but you will. If getting out of this dungeon is what will change your mind, then so be it.”
He turned on his heel, and I let out a breath.
“I’ll never give you my power,” Huntyr mumbled.
Asmodeus stopped on his heel. “What did you say?”
Shit. I forced myself not to step between them.
“Whatever power I have, whatever is running through my veins, you’ll never have it.”
He laughed quietly, his shoulders shaking as he stood with his back to us. “Yet you had no problem sharing with my son.”
Huntyr’s chest heaved. I said nothing. There was no way he knew.
“You bonded with him, did you not? Which means Wolf here has access to your power.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, dumbfounded.
Asmodeus glanced over his shoulder at me, dropping his voice to a dangerously low level as he said, “Do not forget who I am and where I come from, son. I am no mortal being in this realm. I am an archangel; I know all . Now, take her from this dungeon before I change my mind.”
And then, he was gone, leaving Huntyr, Jessiah, and I alone with our echoing breaths.
I didn’t have to use the bond to know what Huntyr was thinking. The sound of her heart radiated around me, filling the room. Fear. We bonded, yes, but I hadn’t used her power since that day during the Transcendent. I hadn’t even considered tapping into that bond; it was so foreign and violating and wrong, and I had already taken too much from her.
I wouldn’t take that. I would never.
But she didn’t know that. She didn’t trust me, didn’t believe a thing I said.
“Come on,” Jessiah finally said, breaking the silence. “Let’s go before he comes back.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you two,” she argued.
“Now is not the time to be stubborn, Huntyr. Let's go.” Jessiah fumbled, pulling the keys from his pocket before unlocking her cell. The bars creaked open loudly before clanging against the rest of the metal cage.
Huntyr slowly pushed herself to her feet, using the bars beside her as support. Her legs shook, quivering beneath the weight of her. Fuck, she looked so thin, so pale. I should have never let this happen, should have never left her down here.
Jessiah entered the cage first, cautiously. “You need to bathe and get some clean clothes. Wolf can take you to?—”
“No,” she argued. “I won’t go anywhere with him.”
Jessiah cocked his head to the side. “You’ll die out there alone. Do you know how many hungry ones are crawling the streets as we speak?”
“I’m not going with Wolf,” she pushed. “I’ll go with you instead.”
“Absolutely not,” I interrupted before Jessiah could say anything further. “Not an option. You’ll come with me willingly, or I’ll throw you over my damn shoulder and carry you out.”
Even with her legs shaking, even with her body so weak that she could barely stand, she glared at me, jaw set. I knew her well enough to know she wasn’t going with me easily. She was serious about leaving with my brother, but there was no way I was letting that happen.
“Let’s go, Huntress.” I waved my arm out in front of me, toward the hall that led to our rooms.
A few painful seconds passed before she finally stepped toward me, and Jessiah sighed in relief. He would have kept her safe, but that wasn’t what I worried about. She needed to shower. She needed clothes. She needed to eat and decompress and breathe. I wouldn’t allow that to happen around anyone else but me.
“I still hate you both,” she muttered as she passed me.
Jessiah looked at me and raised an eyebrow as I smirked. “I would expect nothing less.”