Chapter 36 Bronwen
Bronwen
I woke to the feeling of lead in my veins.
Heavy. Cold. Paralyzing. Every limb felt like it had been filled with stone.
My head throbbed, each heartbeat a deep, aching pulse behind my eyes.
My mouth was dry—so dry it felt cracked—and my tongue tasted like iron.
A sickly pressure coiled around my chest, making every breath feel like I was inhaling smoke.
I tried to move—tried to open my eyes—but even that was a battle. My lashes stuck together. My body didn’t feel like my own.
The world was dark. Blindingly so.
Panic surged in my chest as I jerked against unseen restraints.
My hands were tied tightly behind my back, the coarse rope digging into my skin with every small movement.
Something rough and musty covered my face, trapping the scent of damp cloth and earth.
The same type of rope that held my hands together was wrapped around my mouth.
I shifted my weight and tried to use my shoulder to push myself up. My legs trembled, sluggish and uncooperative, and I collapsed onto my side. I inched forward, dragging myself along the ground, but the ropes dug deeper, biting into raw skin. Somewhere in the distance, a twig snapped.
“We have a surprise for you.”
The voice came muffled, warped through the fabric, but close. Too close. My heart pounded in my ears. My breath came fast and shallow, dampening the gag as I tried to calm the rising tide of fear.
Footsteps crunched across leaves and twigs, growing louder.
Closer. Then rough hands clamped down on my arms hard enough to bruise, yanking me forward without care.
I was hauled across uneven ground, my body jolting with each jagged root and jutting stone I struck.
My knees scraped raw against dirt and rock, the chill of the forest floor seeping through my clothes like ice.
One of them let out a low, cruel laugh, the sound dripping with amusement at my helpless struggle, before jerking me harder just to hear me gasp.
“No.” It was a whisper—broken, horrified. It wasn’t mine.
Chains rattled somewhere close, the sound jagged in the still air.
A rough shove sent me forward, the impact jolting up my spine.
Fingers like iron clamped down on my shoulders, forcing me to stay there, grinding me into the cold earth.
I could hear their laughter above me—low, cruel, and full of amusement at how easily they could keep me there, broken and kneeling.
Before I could lift my head, the bag was ripped from over it. Fog hugged the forest floor in curling tendrils. The smell of ash and damp soil filled my nose, thick enough to choke on. I pushed myself up off the ground as best I could, head pounding.
A scream tore through the stillness, sharp and raw, ripping through the night like something wounded beyond saving. It echoed through the woods, shuddering in my bones, a sound that didn’t belong to me.
“No!”
My eyes darted toward the sound—
August.
The sight of him stole the breath from my lungs.
He was bound in chains, his body restrained by thick iron cuffs that bit into his skin and wrapped tight around his wrists and throat.
The vampires holding him stood tense, muscles straining as they gripped the chains, their eyes fixed warily on him like they knew how dangerous he was even restrained.
Moonlight filtered through the branches above, striping his pale, furious face in silver.
His bare chest heaved, and his lips were peeled back over his fangs, a low, feral growl vibrating from somewhere deep in his chest.
There were several vampires in the clearing—more than I’d realized at first. Some I recognized from the parties at the castle, faces that had once been masked by polite smiles and jeweled goblets.
Others were strangers, their features sharp and unreadable, watching with the stillness of predators who didn’t need to blink.
“Let her go! I am your king, and I command it!” His voice cracked with something deeper than fury—anguish sharpened into a threat.
His whole body coiled with brutal intent, veins bulging as he lunged forward, yanking against the iron so violently the chains shrieked in protest. The metal bit deep into his wrists, tearing skin, blood slicking the cuffs, but still he strained forward like he could rip through steel by will alone.
He roared again, the sound raw, guttural, and edged with desperation, barely human. “Do you hear me? Let her GO!”
One of the vampires staggered from the force of his pull, boots skidding in the dirt. The others dug in harder, shoulders braced, planting their feet like anchors to keep from being dragged toward him.
August twisted like a storm given shape—snarling, eyes wild, the whites glaring around his irises. Every muscle was wound tight, vibrating with the need to destroy. He didn’t care who saw. He didn’t care what shattered in the process.
This wasn’t just desperation.
This was a man coming apart at the seams, fury spilling out of him like it could burn the forest to the ground.
They held him.
Barely.
“Let her go! That is an order!”
He looked feral—dangerous and unhinged, a creature poised to tear the world apart the second those chains failed.
My heart was pounding so violently it hurt. I tried to scream for him, but the gag turned it into a muffled, broken sound.
One of the vampires stepped toward him, calm in the face of his fury. “We are to protect the bloodline.”
August’s brow furrowed. “What? She isn’t a part of the bloodline. She—”
He froze.
His gaze turned to me. Not just to my face—but lower. His eyes dropped to my stomach. His face went still.
“No,” he whispered. “What have I done?”
He heard something I couldn’t. Knew something I didn’t.
“Winnie,” he whispered, “Winnie…” He frantically looked between my face and my stomach.
And then I realized what he heard.
Another heartbeat.
It beat beneath my skin like a secret I’d never meant to carry, loud enough for him to hear, loud enough to break him.
August staggered as if the truth had slammed into him with more force than any chain could deliver.
His lips parted, but no sound emerged—only the faint hitch of a breath that seemed to hollow him out from the inside.
His eyes stayed locked on my stomach, wide, stricken, as if the world had narrowed to that one truth.
Hot tears blurred my vision, spilling down my cheeks. I thrashed against the gag, desperate to speak—to tell him, to deny it, to confirm it—but the ropes bit into my wrists and the words died in my throat.
“Your sacrifice for the rest of us is greatly appreciated,” one of them said.
They spoke to August as they uncovered the dagger, but he didn’t so much as glance away from me.
“Forgive me, Winnie,” he whispered, the words frayed and trembling.
I tried to crawl toward him, dragging my knees through the dirt until they burned, but my bound hands kept me from going far.
Each inch forward was agony—my shoulders screaming, wrists raw from the rope, breath tearing from my lungs.
I had to stop this. I had to get to him before they did it.
My pulse roared in my ears, drowning out everything else.
“Close your eyes.”
I froze mid-crawl, my chest heaving. August had stopped fighting. Why wasn’t he fighting them? He promised he wouldn’t stop!
The full moon reached its peak, casting pale light over everything, silvering the chains and the blade glinting in the dark.
“It’s time,” one of the vampires said.
“Please,” August said again, softer this time, almost pleading. “Close your eyes, baby.”
The desperation in his voice scraped at something deep inside me, warring with every instinct I had to keep my eyes open, to fight, to not give up.
I didn’t want to. I wanted to see him, to hold on until the last second.
But the way he said it—like it was the only thing he needed from me—broke me.
My lashes lowered, and I squeezed them shut.
It didn’t stop me from hearing the dagger pierce his flesh. It didn’t stop the way my heart felt like it was being torn out of my chest. A groan slipped from his throat and then… nothing. No cry. Just silence and the weight of my world ending. My mark burned—throbbed—and then went quiet.
I opened my eyes.
August was bent forward as the vampires unhooked and unwound the chains, letting them fall from his body like they no longer dared hold him. He turned slightly, and the moonlight caught on the jeweled dagger buried deep in his chest, making it gleam like something proud of what it had done.
I held my breath, refusing to believe what I was seeing. Maybe it didn’t work. Maybe he fought it off somehow.
He reached for the hilt, fingers curling around it with slow, deliberate certainty, as though savoring the feel. Then, with one unhurried pull, he drew the blade free, the sound of metal sliding against flesh whispering through the clearing.
He straightened to his full height, and when he turned to face me—
“Oh!” His laugh was sharp, delighted, inhuman. “What a wonderful welcome back gift!”
He closed the distance between us, each step slow and savoring.
My pulse spiked. No. No, no, no. I tried to kick myself backward, heels digging into the dirt, but the ropes and the ground fought me at every inch.
My mind was a frantic snarl of thoughts—run, fight, scream—but my body refused to obey.
He was still coming, shadow stretching over me.
He crouched in front of me, studying me like a prize. “We are going to have a marvelous time.”
Then he stood again and flexed his fingers, watching the way the joints moved with an almost reverent fascination.
He turned his hands over slowly, palms up, then down, inspecting each one like a man trying on a new suit and marveling at the perfect, stolen fit.
His gaze roamed down to his arms, his legs, his chest—assessing, claiming.
Then he stretched, like someone waking from a long sleep inside another’s bones and finding them exactly to his liking.
“This body,” he purred. “So strong. So perfectly broken in.”
He dragged his hand over his chest where the wound had been, fingers tracing the edges of the fresh, scarred symbol burned into the skin—twisted and sharp, etched in the same cruel language carved into the blade’s hilt.
When August looked up again, the light in his eyes was wrong.
Too bright. Too eager. And whoever was behind them wasn’t August.
It wasn’t just the way he spoke.
It was the way he smiled—with joy, not cruelty. The pure, victorious joy of having taken what he wanted.
August was gone.
And Carrow was here.