Chapter 14
Wolfe
“Where Power Awakens”
Darkness wasn’t empty.
It pressed in around me, layered with echoes I couldn’t place and memories that didn’t feel like mine. I drifted through it without form or weight, untethered, unsure whether I was dreaming or already dead.
Time meant nothing here.
Neither did my body.
I was aware without being awake. Present without being whole. Caught in a space between worlds where thought dissolved before it could take shape.
Then something shifted.
The darkness thinned.
The shadows stirred like they recognized me. Like they were making room.
Voices brushed against me, distant and warped.
The space beside me moved. The air changed. And suddenly, the darkness wasn’t empty anymore.
The world gradually, reluctantly sharpened around me.
My eyes opened slowly, and Bastian’s face came into view.
“Bas…tian.” My voice was hoarse. Like I hadn’t spoken in several moons.
Bastian smiled. “Welcome back, old friend.”
I dragged in a breath. The air burned my lungs, and I instantly knew I was not in Vaelthorne.
But I also knew I wasn’t in Morg?ven, either, where the air was designed to drain the life from you.
That said, this place was just a little better than Morg?ven.
When I tried to move, the world tilted violently. My chest split open from the inside, every breath scraping against something broken. The weight of the sword felt like it was still inside my chest, and my body protested like it no longer belonged to me.
“Easy, there.” Bastian laid a hand on my shoulder, steadying me. “Don’t even think about getting up. You’re lucky to be alive.”
He was right.
I should have been dead.
I knew that with bone-deep certainty.
In fact, I had felt myself die. And yet…
I was here. Breathing.
“I…”
Alaric and Garrick stepped up beside Bastian, relief on their faces.
“You’re all here,” I muttered.
“Of course, we are.” Alaric gave me the smile of a brother who would always have my back.
I looked around the room, then memory slammed into me without warning.
Memory of her.
Elariya.
The moment her name settled in my mind, I looked back at Bastian. “Elariya… was she here?”
As I waited for his answer, the protective part of me wanted him to tell me no. The other part of me… The part that couldn’t stand to be without her wanted to hear that she hadn’t been a hallucination.
When Bastian nodded, I experienced a strange clash of relief, longing, and dread.
Back in Morg?ven… It was her. She was really there.
And for those brief moments when I slipped away from the darkness, I’d kissed her.
“Where is she?”
“Asleep. She and Arielle have been tending to you. They hardly left your side. Had to convince them that they needed to rest.” He gave me a weak smile.
“Are they okay?”
Bastian nodded. “They’re fine.”
I was relieved they were okay, but a dark thought still hit me. “Elariya. The curse?”
Bastian nodded again, but this time, he didn’t look so hopeful, and sadness filled his eyes. “Her memory has reset, Wolfe.”
Numbness spread through me, then resignation followed, hollowing me out from the inside. I knew this was coming. But it didn’t make it hurt less. “She doesn’t remember me.”
“She doesn’t remember any of us,” Alaric offered, his tone steady, the way it always was when it was clear I was on the edge of something sharp.
“But she’s here.” Bastian’s voice softened. “She came with us to rescue you.”
And I’d kissed her.
And she didn’t panic or pull away.
She’d felt the same to me, yet she wasn’t. And knowing her—the kind, gentle soul she was—she probably tended to my wounds because the healer in her couldn’t do anything else.
“How long was I in Morg?ven?”
“A week.”
I winced. Fuck. A week. Seven fucking days.
Only the Gods knew what hell had happened to Elariya during that time.
Against the pain, I eased myself up onto my elbows. There was a wide bandage around my chest, and the warm glow of mage magic held me together. I sensed my wound hadn’t fully healed, a bad sign that I’d drained more of my Fae essence in Morg?ven than I could spare.
“Wolfe, you really should rest.” Garrick crossed his arms
“I’ve rested long enough. I want to know everything that’s happened.” And I wanted to know what became of that motherfucker Thayden.
“Wolfe—” Bastian attempted, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.
“I need to talk now.” On another strained breath, I pushed myself to sit up against the stack of pillows behind me. “How did you get to me? Why did you take Elariya?”
“The dragons told us what happened and how they couldn’t help you,” Bastian began.
“We searched for you everywhere to no avail. There was no trace of you anywhere. I remembered the magical shackle you gave Elariya, so I thought we’d try her.
A last resort. We created a spell that would turn the shackle into a compass.
It worked, but I believe the soul-mark you gave her amplified the spell.
She could sense you long before. And she heard you calling to her. ”
I glanced away. The soul-mark. I’d made her my Velastra. My bonded.
I knew it would do nothing to help her remember me, but I’d hoped it would be an emblem of my love. I never imagined it would turn out to assist in my return.
“And where did you get her from?” The question had been eating away at me.
“From the mortal land, from her home in Stormfell. Thayden took her there.”
“Thayden.” His name fell from my lips like venom.
“Do you remember what happened with him?” Alaric asked.
I focused on him. “Yes. I remember quite well, brother.”
Garrick stepped forward. “Then you remember what he did.”
I dragged in a breath. “Yes,” I said. “I remember. But I’m still stuck on the how of it. How did that fucking bastard manage to blindside me, attack my dragons, shove a fucking sword through my heart, and send me to Morg?ven, then take my girl?”
“Scabbards,” Bastian answered in one breath. Then he explained what Elariya had told them and what her grandmother had discovered.
Disbelief slid through me, cold and razor-edged. Something in the explanation didn’t sit right. Something underneath it felt… off.
Scabbard magic was vicious in the right hands. It could slip under wards and turn strength against itself. But it wasn’t enough. Not for this. Not to bind my dragons and take me down like I was some careless fledgling.
Even if their magic could be manipulated, even if someone had outsmarted me, it shouldn’t have been enough to do the damage it did.
“Does all that make sense to you?” I intensified my stare, looking from one to the next.
My Bloodsworn shook their heads.
“None of it makes sense,” Bastian agreed. “Understandably, Thayden was looking for her, but he shouldn’t have been able to come at you with that type of power.”
“He shouldn’t have been able to find us, full stop.
For a start, I sent him on a wild goose chase.
And one doesn’t simply find the Southern Isles.
It was protected by dragon magic, built to keep it hidden.
” It wasn’t warded like Vyrenth Hollow, but it was protected enough.
“He came at me like someone told him exactly what to do.”
“I was thinking the very same thing.” Alaric gave me a pensive stare.
“He wouldn’t have been able to spy on you to learn all those things on his own accord.
You would have sensed a human. My guess is he gathered these Scabbards, but he was already armed with the power and knowledge of how to defeat you. ”
“Armed by whom?” I gritted my teeth.
“You’re thinking the greater threat assisted him?” Garrick offered. “If would certainly make it easier to get you out of the way. Then they could get to Elariya.”
“If it’s them, why wouldn’t they have tried to take her like last time?” Bastian wondered.
“It could still be them,” I rasped, thinking past the aching fog clogging my mind. “The Seer said the dark forces would try to take Elariya again. Maybe they did, just from a different source. Anything to get her away from me.”
“That means their roots have stretched to the mortal lands.” Garrick stared back at me with narrowed eyes. “Who there could be helping them?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I’m going to fucking find out. But first, Thayden is dead.”
An uneasy look washed over Bastian’s face. “That may not be wise for several reasons.”
“You’re not serious. You expect me to let him get away with what he did?” I threw him an incredulous glare and tried to compress my rage.
“Of course not. You know that’s not what I meant. Right now, he’s a possible link. We can watch him.”
“Bastian, fuck that,” I sneered, hurting my chest when I straightened.
“Yeah, I’m with Wolfe. Fuck that.” Garrick cracked his knuckles. “We can’t allow him to live after what he did.”
“Exactly,” I smirked. “I’m already keeping my uncle alive because I want to watch him. There gets to be a point where you just look weak if watching is always the solution.”
“It doesn’t matter how you look if the solution is right.”
“The motherfucker tried to kill me. Me, an heir of Galaythia.”
“Because he knew you stole Elariya from the mortal world,” Bastian pointed out, shutting me down.
“And now… a human who’s an obvious threat knows the one thing we tried to keep secret from your uncle—that you took her.
If Dreynthor found out, it wouldn’t take any effort to guess that had something to do with the ring. ”
I seethed, bringing my hand to my face. Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that.
“At the moment, we don’t know if our uncle is part of the grand scheme,” Alaric pointed out, his expression grim. “Dreynthor is the kind of opportunist asshole to take advantage of whatever suits him. Losing the advantage, we have of secrecy now would be a shame.”
“But it still feels like all the more reason to kill him,” I seethed.
“And there’s also that other thing,” Garrick said, biting the edge of his lip.
“What other thing?” I ground my back teeth.