Chapter 29 #2
I watched him for a moment, then turned to unpack our supplies.
Across the clearing, Harren did the same.
He risked a shy, guilty glance in my direction and quickly darted back to his pack.
He pulled out a small vial, but it wasn’t the sky blue of a typical suppressant.
Instead, it contained a murky, unsettling red liquid—viscous and sickly.
Harren uncorked the vial, threw his head back, and gulped the contents down in one desperate swallow.
The change happened instantly. The chaotic stench of his pheromones vanished, snuffed out like a candle wick.
Where a maelstrom of sour anguish and curdled pride had raged, now nothing remained—a void.
A suppressant calms the pheromones and eases them. This potion had suffocated them. The fire of truths revealed a glimpse of the darkness he harbored, a secret he would die to protect. This was a step taken by a man hiding more than just a wound.
Stillness settled over the camp like a fragile truce. Evan slept against me, his body a warm, trusting weight in my arms. We had washed in a nearby stream, the chilly water a shock that had at last cleared the last of the day’s friction.
Evan’s mood had improved once Harren’s chaotic pheromones vanished, but his anger at me remained. I had failed my mate. I promised to chase away the monsters, to protect him from everything, even from myself. This fight with Harren was my doing, and Evan paid the price.
I planted a kiss on Evan’s hair and eased his limbs from mine. He stirred at the loss of contact, blinking awake.
“Where are you going?” he asked sleepily.
“To speak with the wolf.”
Evan sighed. “Be careful.” Then he turned away, clutching the blankets steeped in my scent tight around his shoulders.
I stepped out of the tent into the chilly night, the cold a welcome sting against my bare chest. Harren lay bundled near the dying fire, trembling in his sleep despite the warmth radiating from the flames.
I moved past the crackling fire and into the trees.
The wolf-blooded alpha’s scent was close, pine and damp earth more pungent now.
The moment I crossed the first row of trees, he stood there, leaning against an oak, naked.
Mist slicked his pale skin, making his lean, powerful frame gleam in the gloom.
Black ink webbed across his body—vicious wolves snarled from his ribs, while an angular script ran down his arms. They were not the war paint of a northern tribe, nor the runes of any mage craft I recognized.
The wolf-alpha’s lips curled into a smirk. “Enjoying the view?” he said, his voice bearing the thick accent of the North Lands.
I kept my face flat. “Save it. I have no interest in another alpha’s knot.”
He clicked his tongue. “Oh, are we jealous? It must be frustrating to be so uncomfortable in your own skin. A dragon-blooded alpha who can’t even shift.”
I came to a stop a few feet from him, a sour taste of dismay lingering in my mouth. “I don’t fault Harren for his bitterness… Not when this is the kind of alpha he’s fated to.”
This one was a son of Lunaris, blessed by the moon goddess, and the darkness clung to him like a second skin.
He pushed himself from the tree, unfazed. “At least I bring no shame upon my house. Unlike you, failed Dragon Lord of the Dax house.” A growl tore from his chest, and his canines lengthened.
I snorted, then growled back at him. I let a fraction of my pheromones bleed out, carrying the underlying heat of a waiting inferno, and leaned against a nearby tree, shoving my hands into the pockets of my trousers.
“The Empire also killed your father, Vramikar Prince. I suspect you are a failed champion of the moon.”
He scoffed. “Everyone has that story wrong. The Empire destroyed the Vramikars. But I was the one who killed my father. I have no devotion to being a champion for the twin goddess. I live by my own will, my own desires. I have no alliances.”
I hummed in consideration. “Doesn’t look that way. You’ve been cloaking my mate. And your omega.”
“Choice, my dear dragon, was a luxury I did not have. He travels with a fugitive. The moment anyone sees you together, he becomes a target.” Through clenched teeth, he said, “He doesn’t want me near.”
I let out a hard, booming laugh that cut through the night.
“You think that’s a problem? My mate is furious because your omega can’t control his pheromones.
” I pushed off the tree. “Harren takes a dark potion to live as an alpha. Every mage knows the consequences. He probably traded the one thing an omega holds most precious. I wonder if you realize what that means for your bloodline.”
The other alpha’s answer was a sharp, feral growl. “Let it end. My bloodline dies with me. Whatever brought me to this forsaken place did not bother asking for my permission, and I intend to leave the same way.”
An unsettling sense of déjà vu crept over me, but I couldn’t place it. Strange.
I turned my back on him, walking toward the firelight of the camp.
As I moved, my gaze caught his shadow. It stuck to the ground, unnaturally dark and inky in a way that looked wrong, dead.
I scowled, freed one hand from my pocket, and snapped a finger.
A trail of fire consumed the shadows the wolf had been using to follow me.
He leapt from the tree to avoid the flames.
I let the fire die as quickly as it had come. “Harren is safe with me,” I threw back without breaking stride. “I may be a shame to my family, but I protect my own.”
Silence stretched between us. Then his tone changed, dropping to a lower register.
“Your confidence is a fragile thing. The Empire knows the weakness of your kind. My father gifted Starlirium to Emperor Cassian. Fragile as a crystal, yet a single drop can kill a legion when diluted. And when forged, it is strong enough to cut a Dragon Lord’s head.
It is how they slew the Dragon Lord before you.
It is how they used you to kill the Saintess.
My omega is not safe with you. That is why I gave him my blade.
It poisons the blood; your healing will not work against it.
A necessary precaution, in case he needed to defend himself from the Unholy Alpha. ”
The words pierced straight through my chest. In the space of a heartbeat, I clamped my hand around his throat, slamming him against the oak hard enough to crack the tree. I lifted him from the ground, my claws digging into his skin as dragon fire ignited in my palm, searing his flesh.
I extended my canines, and the crimson glow of my rage reflected in the deep purple of his predatory eyes. “Careful what you say,” I snarled. “Starlirium is nothing but a rumor.”
The legend says the rare metal was the remnants of fallen stars that Lunaris drew to Earth during the Darkrift War. It was meant to destroy her own Shadowspan’s creatures of the night that crawled out of Earth’s core. But those were myths. Ancient fables the Empire used to frighten children.
“Tell me why you were near my village. Was it you? Did you destroy the wards?”
The storm groaned as lightning flashed, illuminating the madness blazing in his glowing purple orbs. The first cold drops of the downpour began to hit the leaves around us, quickly turning into a sheet of rain. The drops sizzled and vanished the instant they struck my heated skin.
He laughed as he rasped out. “Me? Break those pathetic sun-blessed trinkets? Please. I came in pursuit of a scent—a trace of a lost piece of Starlirium. Imagine my delight when I found the eastern wards already shattered. Walked right in without a singe.”
His grin widened, feral. “Found my little prize patrolling the border like a good little guard. Before I could even make a proper introduction, a witch attacked him. Had to step in, didn’t I? Did what needed to be done.”
I tightened my grip. Annoyance flickered across his face, replacing the amusement. “Shame the bitch got away before I could finish her. Sneaky, sneaky.” He raked his eyes down my body and back up, a dismissive sneer on his lips.
“Where did she go?” I demanded as I crushed his neck hard.
“East? I was busy saving my precious guard.” The blond bastard smiled, even as he burned. “Are you afraid now?” he asked, his tone suddenly playful again, mocking. “Boo. The Babai will get you.”
I dropped him, and he landed with a soft thud on the damp earth, followed only by the rustle of dead leaves. Slowly, I retracted my canines, scraping them against my lower lip. I unclenched my hands, willing the claws to shrink back into fingertips that still smoldered.
The wild thrumming in my veins slowed to a tremor. The air was thick with the scent of ozone from the lightning and the acrid smell of charred skin.
He straightened to his full height, rubbing the blistering mark on his neck. He laughed again, softer this time. “You may call me Nicolai. And you are most welcome for the new information.”
The blistering red mark on his neck gave a faint sizzle, the flesh already knitting itself closed. We were not so different, then.
“I’ll find a way to kill you,” I growled. “Not tonight. It wouldn’t be fair to Harren.”
I turned my back on him and walked toward the clearing.
Rain now battered the camp, sizzling as it struck the dying embers of our fire.
Harren sat on a log, making no move to find shelter; his clothes were already dark and plastered to his frame.
His face was vacant and dead. I passed him without a word and slipped back into the tent, where the drumming of the rain on the canvas was a muffled roar.
Evan lay awake, propped on one elbow. “Did something happen?”
“No,” I lied.
He studied me for a long moment, then lifted the blankets as an invitation.
My expression stayed masked, but the witch’s presence near Mossfen, the shattered wards, and Nicolai’s words about my father’s death spun in my mind like vultures.
The fear I’d carried for five years after fleeing the Empire shifted from concern for myself to something far greater—the frightening thought that I might die like my father, leaving Evan all alone.
Even more terrifying was the fear that they would find my mate and kill him as they did my mother and siblings.
I crawled into the blankets and tucked Evan close to me. He didn’t ask again. He held me as the storm raged outside.