Chapter Forty-Two
Calista
Night tiptoed closer with every step north, icy and relentless.
It wasn’t the gentle dusk of Hollowcrest, where the sea turned soft and the sky bruised slowly into stars.
Up here, in Frostcrag’s shadow, darkness arrived with teeth bared.
The light thinned, the wind sharpened, and the cold sank into my bones.
I clung onto Everest’s back, the heat emanating from his powerful form the only thing that kept me from freezing.
Every step was brutal, not only because of my ankle but because of the buzz swarming my body at the proximity to my guard.
Selraya, in our current predicament, the last thing I should have been thinking about was how good he felt beneath me.
What was this madness? I tipped my head to the sky, to the faint outline of the approaching moon. Perhaps, Selraya’s full face was affecting me somehow too. Though it never had before…
Everest carried me for as long as he could. Much longer than he should have.
When my ankle started shaking so badly my whole leg trembled, I made him set me down so I could walk the last stretch.
“Wait here.” He guided me to a snow-covered boulder.
“Where are you going?”
He ticked his head at a frost-coated tree jutting from the hillside. I watched in awe, as he scaled the thing in seconds, and snapped off a large branch. He was back by my side in seconds, offering me the make-shift crutch.
“Useful trick.” I threw him a smile.
We continued on, with Everest guiding me by the elbow, pushing us forward at a brutal pace that left my lungs raw.
My objective kept beating inside my skull like a drum: reach Frostcrag, win the crown, earn my edicts, keep Ma, Suri and Hollowcrest safe.
And in the middle of it all was Savage.
And then there was Everest, trudging beside me like a faithful shadow. Goddess, my heart ached for him.
I had a terrible feeling everything would change tonight. The moon was coming, and the Hunt would change under Selraya’s full face. If I was still out here when every Wolvryn beast woke hungry, I’d be the only one left in skin and bone.
The clock was running out.
We crested a ridge and the world opened briefly. The coast dropped away to our right, black water throwing itself at rocks. Inland, the land rose into white hills and dark pines, and beyond that, somewhere in the distance, the faintest outline of higher cliffs.
Frostcrag Fortress. And the safety of the Lupherium.
It was close enough to taste, but not quite close enough to reach.
Everest stopped so abruptly I nearly stumbled into him. His shoulders rose and fell, breath coming fast. There was a rough edge to it that hadn’t been there earlier. His hands rolled into fists at his sides, and the wolf helm dangled from his hip.
I followed his gaze to the sky. Clouds rolled thick and low, moving too fast, as if the wind was shoving them out of the way. As if something behind them was forcing its path through.
“We’re not going to make it,” I whispered.
Everest didn’t answer. His jaw worked once, the muscle jumping. Then he turned and stalked to another boulder half buried in drifted snow, motioning me behind it with a sharp tilt of his head.
“Drink and catch your breath.” He reached for the pack slung over his shoulder. “Then we keep moving.”
I fumbled for the skin at my belt and took a swallow. The water was cold enough to sting. It did nothing to calm the tightness in my chest though.
Everest drank next, tipping his head back. When he lowered the skin, his nostrils flared. His gaze snapped to the wind.
Then, he went still. The stillness of a predator listening.
“What is it?” Fear crawled up my spine.
“They’re close.”
“The hunters?”
His eyes flicked to me, dark and hot. “Worse. Daughters.”
My fingers instinctively grazed the rope at my hip.
“Rhosyn and Myra from their scent.” His attention angled behind us, into the trees, into the snow.
My throat tightened. “Back together again?”
He nodded. “Apparently.”
“How close?”
Everest’s lips peeled back slightly. For one heartbeat, I thought it was a snarl, then I realized his teeth looked sharper than they should.
Not fully fanged. Not yet. But not entirely Fae either.
His Wolvryn pressed near the surface like that snowstorm pressed at the door of our hut. A chill danced up my spine.
“Too close,” he finally replied.
The cold bit deeper. “We can’t stop.” I leaned on my crutch.
“We have to,” he gritted out.
Somehow, I knew the edge in his voice wasn’t anger at me. It was anger at the world. At the timing. At the fact that my body was breakable and slowing us down when the realm didn’t care.
He dragged a hand through his hair, then forced himself to look north again. “We need to reach the Lupherium.”
“Right, the temple.” Neris’s words the day we departed Frostcrag echoed through my mind. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. Selraya’s temple carried weight among the Wolvryn. It was a sacred place where the Hunt couldn’t touch.
“It’s not too far ahead.” He kept his gaze pinned toward Frostcrag.
“Can we reach it in time?”
Everest’s gaze didn’t soften, but something in his eyes shifted like someone making peace with the fact he couldn’t bend reality. “Not before nightfall, but we’ll try anyway.”
My stomach tightened. “Then what do we do?”
He leaned in slightly, and the air between us warmed with his proximity. “Not we, little wolf. You. You get to the Lupherium, and you stay there for as long as you can.”
“Why can’t you come with me?”
He shook his head, jaw clenched tight. “I can’t…”
“I’ve already met your Wolvryn, remember? He wasn’t so bad.”
“I was wounded and weak, and Selraya’s full face hadn’t reached its peak. I’m not certain I’ll be able to control—” He bit down on the final words.
I wanted to object. I needed to. Goddess, I needed him. Drawing in a steadying breath, I trapped my protests behind my teeth. “I have two hours, right?”
“Two hours,” he echoed, voice rough. “That’s what the old law grants. Safety within the goddess’s threshold. No hunting, no moonbraid, no blades. A pause in the Hunt.”
“Got it.”
Everest’s mouth twisted. “It’s not long, but it’ll have to be enough.”
“And you’re certain the others will respect it?”
His laugh was short and humorless. “Respect isn’t why they’ll obey. Fear is.”
Fear of Selraya. Fear of what happens to those who profane her threshold.
He exhaled, nostrils flaring again, and that sharp hunger behind his gaze made my pulse trip. “The pull is coming hard now. It will make them reckless.”
“Reckless how?”
Everest’s eyes flicked away, then back to me, his body leaning closer. His voice dropped. “Desire. Need. Hunger. The beast will want what it wants and the farther north we go, the louder it gets.”
Another shiver slid down my spine that had nothing to do with the cold.
The tension between us was already tight, stretched thin, a rope pulled to its breaking point by everything we’d refused to say.
This morning. The kiss... all of it. The way he carried me as if all his careful rules were ash now.
I hazarded a peek at his mouth. At the slight strain in his jaw. At the way his breathing sounded like control being forced, not held. Goddess, when had he gotten so close?
My pulse thudded. “I thought you said you could keep your beast at bay,” I whispered. Anything to drown out the sudden tension in the air.
Everest’s gaze locked onto mine. “I can.”
The words were firm, but his body disagreed. His shoulders were rigid. His fingers flexed at his sides like claws wanted out. A faint tremor passed through him, subtle but there, like the moment before a lightning strike.
“You’re lying,” I said softly.
His mouth tightened, and for a heartbeat, something raw flashed there. Fear.
For me.
“I’m not losing you out here.” His voice had gone low and brutal.
The words landed in my chest like a blow. The tether in me tightened instantly, that old Hollowcrest belief that if I became a burden, I became expendable. If I couldn’t walk, I would be left. If I couldn’t earn my own survival, I didn’t deserve it.
And yet he had carried me anyway.
I swallowed hard. “No, you’re not. I’ll do whatever it takes to survive.”
Everest’s body shifted closer, as if he couldn’t help it. The heat of him cut through the cold, and my body remembered everything with a traitorous spark. His gaze dipped to my throat. Then back to my eyes.
Then his mouth curved, not in humor, but in something darker. Something starved.
I had the absurd thought that he might kiss me again. That he might throw away his honor, his duty and his damned rules. That he might decide just once wasn’t enough.
Everest inhaled sharply. And his fangs slid out.
Not fully, not like Trystan’s beast-muzzle, but it was unmistakable. Two sharp points extended past his lower lip, bright against the chapped redness of cold.
My heart stuttered.
He froze, as if he’d felt it happen and hated it.
I barely had time to react before he moved.
He caught my wrist, pulling me close enough that our breaths tangled and our bodies were flush. His hot, muscled form felt like hitting a wall. His nostrils flared again, and his pupils widened, swallowing the blue.
“Everest…”
His mouth dropped to my collarbone, and his breath sent goose bumps racing down my arms.
“Everest, what are you—” My body locked.
Then his fangs pressed into the soft flesh beneath. A sharp, hot pinch.
I squealed, breath snapping out of me and knees going weak with shock. I pressed my palms to his chest, but he was an immovable force.
He held it for one second. Two. Then he jerked back like he’d been burned. His hands dropped, and he stumbled a half step away, chest heaving, eyes wide. “Fuck,” he rasped.
I stood there, frozen, fingertips pressed to the spot above my heart where his teeth had been. I fully expected my fingers to come away wet and sticky, but there was no blood. My pulse was pounding so hard it felt like it might crack my ribs.
Shock, yes. But underneath it… Heat. It was a dark, pleased curl in my belly that made me want to scream at myself.
Everest’s face was a mask of mortification. “Oh, frost take me, Calista. I didn’t mean to.”
“You did,” I managed, voice thin.
His jaw clenched. “I lost control for a breath, but I didn’t draw blood. It doesn’t count—”
“You didn’t hurt me,” I cut in, hearing the panic rising in his tone.
His gaze snapped to my chest, then away as if he couldn’t bear to look at what he’d done. “No, but I could have.”
“But you didn’t.” Something in me needed him to hear that, to know it.
Everest’s nostrils flared again. “Gods, your scent…” He took a step back, forcing distance between us like space was the only thing keeping the beast from rising again. “It makes me completely feral.”
My scent? Heat dipped low between my legs and suddenly, I understood. Oh, Selraya, save me. He could smell my desire.
How mortifying.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice rougher than before.
“No, don’t apologize.” I should have been furious or at least afraid that he’d bitten me. Even the flare of embarrassment didn’t linger long. Instead, my fingers brushed my chest, at the indentations of his teeth. A slow, traitorous satisfaction spread through me like warmth under skin.
Everest’s gaze flicked to that gesture, and his throat worked.
“What was that?” I finally whispered.
His eyes darkened. “Don’t.”
“Everest… What was that?”
For a heartbeat he looked like he might refuse. Then he dragged in a breath, running his palm over the back of his nape. “It’s…a Wolvryn thing.”
“That’s not an answer.”
His mouth tightened. His gaze pinned mine, and there was something in it that was almost a warning. “It’s not meant to be violent.”
My pulse kicked.
He exhaled through his nose, as if each word cost him. “It’s a…claiming touch. A tease. Foreplay.”
The word hit me like lightning. My face went hot, and my breath caught.
Everest’s eyes flicked down past my navel and quickly backed up, confirming my earlier assumption. He could scent what that admission did to me.
“Selraya,” I breathed, half scandalized, half…not.
He looked like he wanted to disappear into the snow, and I wanted to jump in right beside him. “I shouldn’t have. Not with you. Not when you—”
“Belong to your king,” I finished for him, and bitterness rose fast even though I’d been the one who’d said it.
Everest’s jaw flexed. “Yes.”
The silence between us turned charged. I couldn’t stop thinking about that bite. About the restraint behind it. About how his body had clearly wanted me and yet it had obeyed him anyway.
A part of me, the stupid, reckless part, wanted to step forward and give him permission he didn’t think he had the right to take. I hated that the only thing stopping us was the word of another male.
Just once. My mind whispered his words back at me like an echo from this morning.
Just once before Frostcrag.
Just once before choices, crowns and consequences.
And then the other part of me rose up hard and cold. Ma’s face, confused at the hearth. Suri’s small hands gripping mine. Hollowcrest’s shores with tar-stained nets and smoke on the horizon.
And Savage.
Savage, who held the protection my court needed.
Savage, who would punish Everest if he discovered he’d crossed the line.
Would I trade Everest’s life for one night of weakness?
Goddess, I almost had. The idea made me sick. How could I have been so selfish?
He stared at me like he could see every thought I didn’t dare speak. He took another step back. “We should move.” His voice was tight. “Now.”
My heart was still thundering, but just like that the pressure between us shifted hard from temptation to survival.
I nodded, even though my body didn’t want to.
Everest turned, scanning the snow, the trees, and the wind. Then he stopped, and slowly, his head tipped up.
I followed his gaze.
The clouds were thinning faster now, tearing open like fabric ripped by an unseen hand. The wind changed, colder and cleaner, and the world seemed to hold its breath.
My skin prickled. Everest went utterly still, bracing for impact. And then the clouds parted completely.
Selraya’s full face rose huge and white over the sea, bright enough to turn the snow into a field of knives. The light poured down like fate made visible, and for one heartbeat, everything froze.
Then Everest’s body jerked, and a feral sound tore from his throat. His eyes flashed brilliant silver, so bright it looked like the moon had taken permanent residence behind those luminescent orbs.
He whirled toward me, grabbing my shoulders hard enough to jolt pain through my ankle. His voice came out raw and commanding, the Black Wolf, the beast and the shadow all at once.
“Run!”