Chapter 22
MERYN
Venna and Noemi have the grace not to scream. Within moments, I can tell they’ve both done a quick calculation—I’m not shocked or scared, and neither is Stark—and have schooled their faces back into neutral expressions.
I’m overwhelmed by all of it. My fear for my sister, the vicious spilling of blood, the terrible truth finally revealed to my friends. My body and mind are both wrung out.
And I’m aching from the rejection. Soldiers, who should’ve been my soldiers, whom I felt a duty to take care of—rejecting me full stop. How many like them are out there? How many more have deserted?
How many people refuse to recognize my rule because I’m a woman? And how can I ever win their loyalty if they’re withholding it over the most central, unchangeable part of me?
“We should do something about the bodies,” I say in a daze, as if my sister was not feasting on one directly in front of us all. “It’s not right to just… leave them here.”
Anassa chimes in, “We wolves can dig a shallow grave and bury them. That should suffice.”
I agree with this, although a part of me smarts. Despite how despicably these men behaved, they were people with families or friends—just as my father was. That they won’t come home—that no one will ever know what happened to them—will hurt someone, somewhere.
All four of the wolves start to dig and bury. Meanwhile, Saela finishes up her… snack… and seems like she’s in a disoriented stupor from the meal.
This is the first time she’s tasted human blood since the day she turned. I wonder if it’s doing something different to her.
She pulls off the body and crawls back toward me. She looks like a nightmare—her hands and chin and clothes soaked in scarlet gore, her gaze unfocused, hair matted and slick with blood. Venna’s face twists in a way too complicated to read.
I hurry toward my sister and help her stand, mostly carrying her back to the edge of the clearing. Then I sit her down against a tree, where she promptly falls asleep.
After I’m sure she’s safe, I take a couple of quick strides over to Noemi and Venna.
“Would’ve been useful information to know we had a Siphon traveling with us before we departed the castle,” Noemi drawls, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. Her beautiful face is slightly pinched in irritation, and she stares off into the distance where Stark oversees the wolves’ work.
Venna’s gaze cuts me to the quick. Her eyes are hard, flinty. “How long?”
Nausea roils in my stomach. “Ven—”
“How long, Meryn?”
“Since you freed her,” I say, resigned. “Killian turned her, at some point between when we found her in the dungeons and when you and Stark got there. She doesn’t remember it happening. He altered her memory.”
Venna’s face falls. “That poor girl.”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her, my throat tight around the words. “I didn’t want to hide this from you but… I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Meryn,” she says. “I’m so fucking mad at you right now. Siphons are our enemies. They’re dangerous. And you’ve had one living under our noses this entire time. You let me spend time alone with her, tutoring her, without telling me the danger I was in.”
I grab her arm, but Venna shakes me off.
“Ven, I trust you, I swear,” I plead. “But the fewer people who knew, the better. She’s my sister. My only living family. You know that I would do anything for her.”
She turns her head, watching Saela as she sleeps against the tree. Hopefully seeing the same thing I do: a small, innocent, hurting child.
Someone to protect, not fear.
“We’ve been feeding her animal blood,” I continue.
“She’s been under close watch at all times—yes, even when you’ve been teaching her sign language.
Didn’t you wonder why Helene and Grigore were always keeping guard?
Aside from the fangs, she hasn’t been a threat to anyone.
And I’m trying to figure out how to reverse it. I’m going to save her.”
Venna’s lips flatten into a tight line, her dark eyes growing glassy. “I get it,” she says eventually. “There’s nothing more important than a sister.”
The words twist my insides into a tight, painful knot. I reach out again, but she holds up a hand, stilling me.
“I need some time to think about this, Your Highness,” she says, her voice aloof.
My heart sinks. “Please, Ven.”
The wind blows her short strands of glossy black hair around her face, still turned away. “I understand from one sister to another, but friend to friend, I just… need space, Meryn.”
Noemi finally chimes in. “Why don’t Venna and I go ahead to Linsfall? We’ll spend the night with the nobles there as planned and tell them that you and Stark had to keep moving.”
My gaze darts between the two of them. Venna still won’t look at me.
“That probably makes sense,” I say slowly. “Goodness knows we can’t exactly take Saela into town right now. Stark and I will set up camp somewhere nearby, and you can meet back up with us in the morning.”
Assuming they don’t both decide to turn right back around to Sturmfrost. I can’t say that I’d blame them for it, either.
Ephyse and Skaia pad over, their muzzles bloody and their paws coated in dirt from their horrific task.
Stark follows, pulling Noemi to the side and talking in a low tone.
Their bodies are pressed so close together, and I glance away, feeling like I’m intruding on something. When they part, Venna and Noemi mount.
Noemi nods to me, then the two of them turn tail and head toward the encroaching darkness.
Stark approaches me with Cratos and Anassa. “Looks like we’ll be camping tonight,” I tell him.
He grunts. “I have some packs for that. Dumped them off Cratos in the woods when we realized what was happening to you two. Let’s go grab them and find a clearing that doesn’t reek of death.”
Stark helps me lift Saela’s listless form onto Anassa’s back, and then we both mount our wolves. Within an hour, we’ve found a suitable campsite slightly closer to Linsfall and have set up a campfire to keep us warm in the cool night air.
I pull the shadows down around us, an amplified form of the Kryptos rifting power. It masks our location entirely. The ease and strength of the pack powers will never cease to mystify me, but then, I know Anassa is helping me channel them.
Of the two of us, at least one is wise and skilled in the ways of the Bonded.
My direwolf has lain down on the opposite side of the fire.
Saela is curled up in Anassa’s side, continuing to sleep.
I pull a scratchy woolen blanket out of one of Stark’s packs and lay it over her.
I’m not sure how long she’ll be out, but between Anassa’s warmth, the fire, and the blanket, she should be comfortable through the night.
Finally, I stop busying myself and plop down on a big fallen log we have set in front of the fire. Then I put my head in my hands, grounding myself in the warmth of my own palms.
If I think too hard about the look that Venna first gave me when she realized what was happening… I just might fall apart.
Stark throws another log onto the fire, and I look up in surprise at the sound. He looks every bit his reputation right now: His shirt and jacket are caked in blood and gore. There’s a ruby slash of it across his cheek, and I know it’s not his own.
I’ve seen Stark fight before, was awed by his battle strength at the front. But today…
Venna and Noemi helped, but Stark killed at least twenty of those men himself. Without thinking twice about it. Never flinching, never faltering. His expert impelling was chilling to watch, even for me.
It’s astounding that any Bonded could have that much power without making some sort of corrupt bargain.
He senses me watching and turns to meet my gaze, then looks down at himself. “Probably should change out of this, huh? That’s one set of clothes ruined. This much blood doesn’t come out when it’s set.”
Spoken from experience.
A person with an ounce of self-preservation would be quaking with fear right now.
Instead, I swallow hard, a heat that has nothing to do with the campfire building in my core. “Yeah, I guess you should.”
First comes off the jacket, which he tosses into the flames. Then he reaches over his head and grabs the back of his shirt, yanking it off in one swift move.
And then Stark Therion is shirtless in front of the fire, and my needy brain wants to howl at the sight.
I thought I knew what I liked in a man’s body.
But then, I’ve never seen a man like this before.
His torso is as broad as the rest of him, narrowing slightly at the waist. There’s a slight dusting of hair on his chest, and underneath it… muscles. So many muscles. Does the human body even have this many muscles?
Apparently so, and Stark has perfected every single one. Noemi is a lucky woman.
His pecs are bulky and firm, leading down to what can only be described as abs for days. He looks like he has a forty-pack, pronounced enough that it could probably cut glass.
Beneath them is a V line, so perfectly defined that my stupid fucking mouth literally starts to water. I’m desperate to touch it, to find out where it leads.
It’s lewd.
The sight of his shirtless torso is lewd; there’s no other way to explain it.
And then, of course, there are the kill tattoos—runic in style, applied by different hands. They litter his body in a dark, dangerous dance that only serves to emphasize how utterly deadly he is. Almost every inch of him is inked.
I’m so busy ogling him that I almost miss it… until I don’t. The tattoos can’t quite hide them.
Scars.
Everywhere.
All over his front. He’s covered in deep, crisscrossing lines. They catch the firelight like spiderwebs.
And I know, with a sick churning in my gut—I know.
These are from before he was bonded.
The wolves heal wounds too quickly. Even deep cuts leave only a light scar. But he bonded when he was only eighteen…
I draw in a sharp breath, and he looks down at me quickly, meeting my eyes.