53. Chapter Fifty-Three
~Evalina~
Relief settled like a warm blanket over me as I clutched the locked box, my trembling hands barely steadying its weight, but no one else seemed to share my sense of triumph.
“Is that going to be enough to keep it safe?” Vaughan asked warily, his eyes roaming the box in my hands. “What if someone breaks it open?”
“She just melted the lock,” Felix replied, immediately backing me up. “And I don’t know what it’s made of, but it looks solid.”
The werewolf Alpha remained skeptical. “Shouldn’t we burn the heart? Locking it up doesn’t feel permanent enough.”
“No offense, Vaughan, but you don’t know much about magic. We could toss it into a volcano and it’d still beat. With the kind of dark stuff he was into, it’s probably indestructible. Evalina has the right idea and as an added precaution, we’ll take it back with us and put it where no one will ever find it. I’m sure Calista will have some ideas.”
“No one is taking my son’s heart anywhere,” the king insisted, his voice sharpening with indignation each time someone ignored him, but Vaughan still paid him no attention. Instead, his eyes scanned the room, as if only realizing when Felix mentioned the Luna that she wasn’t with us.
“Where is Callie?”
“Tarron let her and the others go,” Felix assured him. “I was able to link with her through whatever communication link he had set up. I told her to take the others back through the portal and not worry about us.”
I figured he said something like that to her, but the way the king’s soldiers exchanged glances at Felix’s words made my stomach twist. Obviously, they knew something we didn’t.
“What?” I demanded. “They were let go, weren’t they?”
One of the men near the king cleared his throat. “The prince’s men dealt with that. I’m not privy to their orders, but just before we entered the house, I heard the forest horns blowing. It struck me as odd since I didn’t know any reason for them to be used today, but this might explain it.”
Those words meant nothing to me, and Felix and Vaughan looked equally confused. “What horns?” Vaughan barked out.
Even the king looked uneasy but he answered Vaughan all the same. “The horns wake the dragons that live near the border. I didn’t order them blown, but if someone did, it must have been Tarron.”
My stomach clenched, the air around me suddenly feeling too thin. “No.”
Vaughan’s eyes snapped to me, panic lurking just beneath the surface. “What does that mean?”
Swallowing down my fear, I did my best to explain. “Dragons live near the portal in the plain. If Tarron gave the order, he must have done it when Calista and the others were heading to the portal. There’s nowhere to hide on the plain and the dragons wouldn’t be happy about the noise.”
I left it there but I didn’t need to say anything else. Vaughan understood the implications perfectly and his eyes fell to Tarron’s cooling body on the floor, murderous anger in his expression. If the prince weren’t already dead, he would have been when Vaughan got through with him. “You’re telling me that this son of a bitch unleashed dragons on my pack? On my mate ?”
When no one answered him, he strode right up to the king. Vaughan stood almost two feet taller than the Etta royal, and he used every inch of that to his advantage.
“Take me to them. Right. Now. ”
The glass of the cabinets in the room shook with the deep thunder of his growl.
“Will the dragons kill them?” Felix whispered to me as the king sputtered to find an answer to Vaughan’s demand.
“Not right away, but they might take them to eat later.”
Those were the stories parents told their children to make sure they did what they were told. If we didn’t, the dragons would take us back to their nests and keep us there until they got hungry. The idea that Calista and the others might actually live that nightmare because of me sank like a lead weight in my stomach.
The king seemed to have agreed to take Vaughan to the plain, under threat of bodily harm from the furious werewolf, and everyone began to vacate the room. Since no one mentioned the box with Tarron’s heart, I kept it close to my chest.
“I still don’t have any clothes, so I’m gonna shift back now,” Felix announced as Vaughan pushed the king out of the room. “I’m right behind you, Alpha.”
He returned to his wolf form as the king’s guard and the other werewolves followed close behind their leaders, with Felix and me bringing up the rear.
Amid the chaos, a familiar face caught my eye near the servant’s entrance. I couldn’t ignore her.
“I’ll be there in just a second,” I whispered to Felix before darting to the servant’s entrance where Keerla stood, her eyes wide.
“You’re alive!” were her first words as I reached her, and she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tight despite the box still clutched in my hands. “I heard so many things, I couldn’t be sure what was true.”
“I’m not sure I understand it all myself,” I admitted. “But Tarron is gone. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
Rather than looking shocked, Keerla almost appeared… disappointed. “I guess the poisoned dinner I was preparing for him won’t be needed then.”
“Keerla!” I gasped, torn between admiration and horror. Should I be flattered that she would risk so much for me or terrified by how close she’d come to danger? “You would have been caught.”
She shrugged, putting on a brave face. “Probably, but you would have been free. I wouldn’t have let him win, Lina.”
With all the magic Tarron had worked on himself, I couldn’t be certain poison would have worked, but I wouldn’t tell her that. She’d been willing to fight for me and that meant everything. I might not have a big pack like Felix did, but in Keerla, I had the best friend I could ask for.
“Come with me,” I blurted out. “To the terrestrial realm. My mother’s there and she’s doing so much better. We’re going to stay and I know they’d be happy to have you too. We can start over, both of us.”
Her smile held just as much affection in it as mine did, but I saw the refusal in her eyes even before she said the words. “It sounds like a wonderful adventure, but my life is here. My family, my friends, Pavla…”
She trailed off on the male servant’s name, and my brows shot up. “Did something happen with you and Pavla?”
Biting her lip did nothing to stop her grin. “We’ve been plotting together since you left, and he’s actually kind of wonderful. He’s asked me to be his amica.”
Remembering the way his eyes always tracked her movement, respectful and protective, the joy I felt for my friend mingled with the sadness of leaving her behind, a bittersweet taste lingering on my tongue. “I’m so happy for you. Where is he now?”
“Oh!” Her lips formed a circle as she gasped. “In all the excitement, I almost forgot. He went to track the other wolves, the ones who were in the pens, and make sure they were safe.”
My heart jumped at the reminder of Calista, Leo and the others. I needed to catch up with Felix before it was too late. Nudging Keerla’s shoulder, I steered her towards the front door of the residence, the one we’d never been allowed to use before. “Come on. Let’s go and see how all of this ends.”