17. Wolf
Chapter 17
Wolf
“ Y ou shouldn’t be so angry with him,” Huntyr started. I waited until I heard Jessiah’s footsteps enter the suite, until I heard the door click shut behind him.
“I am not angry with him.” I turned away from her and stared out amongst the ruins of the kingdom. “I am furious.”
“Because he was teaching me to fly?” She sounded like the words were so damn ridiculous.
“Yes.”
She sucked in a breath, waited a few seconds, then followed me. Her warm hand came down around my forearm. “He was just trying to help me, Wolf.”
I clenched my jaw and forced down the wave of emotion that threatened to drown me. I was very fucking aware of the fact that Jessiah was only trying to help Huntyr. That’s what he did. He helped. He supported people. He cared about others and looked after them. That’s all he was doing for Huntyr, too.
But when I looked up and saw her in his arms, saw her laughing and clinging to him like they had no cares in the world, I nearly lost control.
It was bad enough that I spent my morning hunting down the others and handing Abigail off to them, but I also had to drink from a deer in the forest to keep my cravings at bay. The last thing I needed was the vision of Huntyr with another male.
“It should be me.” My voice betrayed me, wavering slightly. “I should be the one helping you, not him.”
A soft breeze blew the scent of her in my direction. I inhaled deeply— fucking cherries . My chest tightened, my entire body reacting to the smell of her.
She stepped even closer, not helping in the slightest. “You’ve already helped me enough,” she said. “Too much, in fact.” Her eyes flickered away as she said the words. She kneaded her hands in front of her, pulling lightly on each knuckle.
“I told you my blood is yours,” I reminded her. “I meant that.”
“That doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Well, it should. You never have to feed from anyone else, Huntyr. Not ever.” It was my turn to look away, to take a deep breath and swallow the anger and jealousy that came with picturing her drinking from someone else.
“But you do?”
My eyes snapped to hers. “What are you talking about?”
“Where were you just now?” She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. “Jessiah said you went out to feed after you made sure Abigail was safe.”
“I’m a vampyre, Huntress. I have to feed.”
She blinked a few times, tension filling the air. “And you didn’t think to ask me? You didn’t think I might return the favor?”
I couldn’t meet her deep, oval eyes, not when her voice sounded like that. Not when I could nearly picture the tears welling there, could picture the rare vulnerability she almost never showed me anymore.
“I didn’t want to put you in that position,” I said honestly. “Not after everything I’ve done.”
Another beat of silence. I didn’t look at Huntyr, but I could feel her. Fuck, I could feel her, like every single ounce of her body had a map in my soul, like I would know each of her movements before she made them.
Like she belonged to me.
“You could have asked.”
My breath hitched in my chest, and I turned away so she wouldn’t see. Fuck. I wanted her to forgive me so badly, I wanted all this shit to be put behind us. I wanted her forgiveness, but I never expected it. I wasn’t blind to how much I hurt her.
Sharing her blood with me was the most vulnerable thing she had ever done, and I betrayed her. I was never going to touch her veins without her permission. I would starve first; it would be a much easier death than living with that shame.
But I had to admit, her jealousy over thinking I fed from another person was turning me on.
“Jessiah shouldn’t have told you.” I changed the subject as I paced the perimeter of the tower. “I wanted to get back before you noticed, but I got a little distracted at the sight of you two flaunting our presence in the blood kingdom.”
I sharpened my words to cover up the pain that welled in my chest.
“He’s your brother, Wolf,” she sighed. Her voice softened in a way I hadn’t heard since Moira. “I didn’t think you would mind.”
I walked to the ledge of the roof and sat down, letting my feet dangle over the solid edge. Every one of my senses locked in on the fact that Huntyr did the same. Her body moved closer to me until her arm brushed against mine.
“He is my brother,” I said, “which is why it fucking sucks so much.”
She looked out on the horizon too, kicking her feet slightly back and forth in the air. “He seems to think you’re the favored one in the family. I can’t say I would’ve guessed that.”
I coughed a laugh. “Yeah, I wouldn’t guess that either. My father hates me. Anyone with two fucking eyes can see that.” Too much venom spilled into my words, but I couldn’t stop it. Jessiah was wrong. What kind of a father sacrifices their own son to become a vampyre? What type of a father cuts off his own son’s wings after he was already fallen?”
My chest welled with a new emotion, an emotion I had been shoving down for some time, ever since I was a child.
“It’s not fair,” she said.
My attention snapped in her direction. “What isn’t?”
She shrugged. “None of this is fair.”
We sat like that for a few minutes, not talking, barely touching, taking in the surroundings of her future kingdom.
“This is all going to be yours,” I said.
She stayed silent for so long, I wasn’t sure she heard me, but then she said, “I don’t deserve it. I don’t belong here.”
Another silence.
She didn’t think she belonged here, but what she didn’t know was that she was the one who belonged here the most. These were her people. Her kingdom. Her ruins.
All of this—the crumbling, tragic glory of it all—it was all for her.
“Come with me,” I said, pushing myself to stand. “I want to show you something.”
I fought the urge to slide my hand in hers, fought the urge to wrap my arm around her waist, to keep her body as close to mine as possible while we maneuvered through the streets of Scarlata Empire.
Everything about this place kept me alert. The trusted ones I handed Abigail off to surely were not the only survivors living here.
Huntyr and I were both vampyres, but to them, we were outsiders. They had no reason to trust us, and us them.
Besides, the vampyres who lived in hiding weren’t what we needed to fear. It was the hungry ones, the masses of uncontrollable killers that would bombard us from anywhere.
We walked for a few minutes, making our way to the back of the kingdom. “Stay close,” I whispered back to her. She nodded, her hand hovering near her hip where Venom lay.
When we made it to the catacombs, I stopped. The iron gate had been ripped off, leaving it open to any passerbyers. Steps led underground, covered by dead leaves and sticks and dirt. If you didn’t know what was there, you would walk right past it.
But I knew. I had spent many hours in this place, learning. Studying. Feeling.
Huntyr deserved to see it too. It was part of who she was. It always had been.
“Here,” I said, kicking some debris to the side. “Take my hand.”
She did, and I carefully guided her down the steps into the small underground tomb.
“What is this place?” she asked. Normally, I would need lantern light to see down here, but at this hour, the sun filtered in just right, creating a small trail of vision for both of us, enough that we could see the small, semi-circle perimeter of the room and the massive throne that sat within.
“I’ve wondered that myself,” I admitted, “but I’d guess this is where the queen hid during the war.”
Huntyr didn’t seem affected by my words, just craned her neck upward to look at the crumbling stone, taking in the walls, taking in the debris. “You mean my mother?” she asked. “This is where my mother would have hid.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and leaned against the wall near the entrance. My eyes locked onto her every movement, traced her body, memorizing it. “This is her throne, after all. But her bones aren’t here, which makes me think she would be up there fighting with her people until the very end.”
Huntyr approached the iron-clad throne. It was black as night, somehow still untouched by dust, even as the entire underground area drowned in it. She reached up and traced a finger against the long armrest, following the line up to the sharp, gate-like headrest of it.
It was the throne of the blood queen, hidden here all these years.
“Does your father know this is here?” she asked.
“No.”
Her eyes slid up to meet mine. Shock, questions, doubt. “Why wouldn’t you tell him? I’m sure he’d love to have the blood throne in his possession.”
I shrugged, holding her gaze. It was the same question I asked myself for years. “It didn’t feel right. The throne isn’t his.”
Her chest rose and fell, her face grew serious. “Tell me more about her,” she said. “What was my mother like?”
Hells, her eyes were so hopeful, so innocent. It took her weeks to even accept the fact that she was a vampyre. She had been through so much, yet she still had so much to learn about herself. “I never knew your mother.”
“But you’ve heard stories of the blood queen.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, I have.”
She stepped closer. “Tell me.”
I looked away as I let my mind wander. I heard stories of Huntyr’s mother from when I was a child, from when the war ended and her death was declared. Many of the stories came from my father, but I heard other stories too. Whispers around the town. Legends, even.
“The blood queen was the fiercest warrior of these lands. She was brutal, a trained killer. Nobody stood against her, not even the king of fae.”
When I finally looked at Huntyr, she stood with wide eyes and brows drawn together, waiting.
I continued. “But she was the protector of the people. She was a force to her enemies, but she was the mother to all who lived here. She took care of the weak, defended them. I heard stories of her working with the hungry ones, trying to find a cure, trying to prevent her people from losing control.”
“A cure for the hungry ones?”
I shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, she was trying to find a way. She couldn’t stand it when someone who grew up in her kingdom became one of them. It devastated her every time. They were her people, afterall. I’d imagine that would be gut-wrenching to watch.”
Huntyr took a half-step forward. “Did she ever find a way to cure them?”
“Not that I know of, no. But she was one of the few willing to try.” Hells, anyone else who claimed there could possibly be a cure for those creatures would have been laughed at. My father would have made sure of that.
Her gaze flickered to the floor. I pushed myself off the wall and closed the distance between us, using my finger to lift her chin. “The blood queen was brutal and treacherous, Huntress, but she cared about her people. She would do anything to protect them, anything to unite them.”
“The fae killed her,” she said, eyes watering. “Your brother told me that the fae killed all the vampyres who lived here, not just the hungry ones. It was a massacre.”
I cleared my dry throat. “He’s right.”
“And I—” She ripped her chin away from me and turned, running her hands down her face. “I spent my entire life doing the same damn thing.”
“Hey.” I chased after her and spun her around, both hands on her shoulders. “You were protecting your town from the hungry ones. That’s different, Huntress. That’s not the same thing as slaughtering good people because you are afraid.”
“Isn’t it, though? I killed everyone he told me to, Wolf. Everyone. There were even times when I—” She stopped herself as tears welled in her eyes.
“I see you, Huntress. You don’t have to feel shame around me. You don’t have to feel guilty for things you’ve done in the past.” I took a breath to calm my heart that now beat rapidly, shaking my bones. “You don’t have to prove to me or anyone that you are good. I feel you.” I slid my right hand down to her chest and felt the harsh thud. “I feel this.”
I waited for her to swat my hand away, but it never came. My thumb touched her skin just above the neckline of her shirt, and I swear, my entire body reacted to it, electrified from that single brush of skin against skin.
Huntyr’s own breath hitched. “I don’t want to be like them.” A tear fell down her face. “I don’t want to be like Asmodeus, either.”
“You’re nothing like them. Do you understand me?” My hand moved from her chest to her neck, my thumb brushing her sharp jaw. “You are the blood queen, my violent Huntress. You are the one who will rebuild this kingdom. Not him. Not my father.”
She waited a second longer, staring deep into my eyes, before breaking our connection with a sudden burst of laughter. She didn’t pull away, though, not as she said, “This has been your plan all along, hasn’t it?”
“What pla?—”
“You want me to become the blood queen and stand against the angels. You want me to stand against your father.”
I prepared to defend myself, prepared to convince Huntyr I was doing the right thing, that I was doing this to protect her, but I didn’t have to.
Because Huntyr closed the distance between us and jumped into my arms, slamming her mouth against mine before I could take my next breath.