Prologue #2
See? I knew the words would drop him on his ass.
“What?” he hissed. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“A soul stealer,” I whispered, barely hearing him. “That’s what Luame called them. Born with an awful curse, they’re wrong in every way. But they’re just as powerful.
“Badr, our sun, moon, and elemental powers come from the tiny piece of Luame living in our souls. Take our souls, and you take our power.”
“And then we die!”
“Yeah,” I replied, voice dead. “We fucking die. They know that, Badr. The council knows exactly what’ll happen to every child given up to Project Destiny, but they don’t care.”
“Project Destiny.” He circled the hole, moving closer to me. “What is that? The message left by the lunch lady said that. Destiny is known. Destiny is dead. ”
“That message was for the council,” I bit out. “I want them to know their secret is out, and someone is working to stop them!”
“Stop them from doing what?”
“From taking the omega babies born from every new powered clan and selling their powers to the old generation. Invisibility? One million dollars? Transmutation and the power to turn a rock into a diamond? Five million,” I cried, lips twisting. “But oh no, is that not enough for you? Want the power of the six and a dab of immortality to go with it? That’ll be twenty million dollars.
“That’s how much our children will be worth, Badr. Twenty million! And that’s only after each one of the council gets our children and their abilities for free. That’s their fucking destiny ! To be rich and powerful until the end of time.”
“But they can’t do that. They can’t just—just— Sell and murder babies! All of Wolf Nation would revolt!”
“This is what I’m trying to tell you!” I burst out. “It does happen! It will happen if someone doesn’t stop it. Do you want to know what was going to happen that night after the ceremony? After we all mated before the eyes of the clans?
“The council was going to ‘surprise’ us with a bonding gift. A new home for all seven of us to live together. But that home—”
“—was going to be a prison,” he finished, face draining of color.
I nodded. “They want to breed me, Badr. Like a fucking animal. They’re going to strap me down, load me with fertility drugs, shoot me up with your, Paxton’s, Edric’s, Orion’s, and Nyx’s sperm over and over again, year after year, until they’ve gotten as many children out of me as they can.
“And then that fucking soul stealer will tear the souls out of our babies, and give them to anyone who pays.”
Badr was shaking his head, eyes huge and wild. “People would fight. We would fight! We wouldn’t let them do that to you, or our kids—”
“You’d be dead,” I dropped. “Once they’ve milked you of sperm, they won’t need you anymore. Every single one of you would’ve been killed so you can’t do exactly that. Fight to save me. And as for all of Wolf Nation rising up to save omega children? Ha!” I barked, making him laugh. “No one gives a shit about omegas, alpha . Do you know the kind of horrible things that are done to them now and no one does a thing about it?
“Do you know how many omega girls Mason raped before he ever got his hands on Nia? Do you know how many of them reported it? And do you know what punishment he faced?”
Badr gave me a long, nauseated look. “None.”
“But,” I continued, sighing, “let me be fair. Not every alpha or beta is a soulless psychopath who’d sit idly by while innocent babies were sacrificed. Especially when their own babies are on the line. As you know, an alpha can give birth to an omega, and an omega can give birth to an alpha. This is a fight that affects everyone.
“Eventually, word of Project Destiny would get out and many would join the omegas in their fight to stop it. Marches, protests, lawsuits, even violence,” I admitted. “But that’s why the shadow is so scarily smart.”
“What do you mean?”
I didn’t have to look back on history. This was the only civil conversation Badr and I ever had. And it was happening from my own grave.
“I don’t have exact dates or anything, but sometime in the near future, vampire kings are going to be murdered one by one—by a werewolf.”
His brows crumpled. “Vampire kings murdered by one of us? That’s insane. It’s one thing to mix it up with the dead leech peasants, but going after their kings means war.”
I looked him dead in the eye. “Exactly.”
Badr frowned at me... then understanding dawned. “By the gods,” he whispered. “The shadow person. They do it. They kill the kings and frame us. Causing a war.”
“An inter-dominion war,” I pressed. “One that the mundanes get dragged into in a big way. They’re not like they were before. With all their cameras and satellites and surveillance. There’s no fucking way they miss a bunch of legendary creatures attacking and slaughtering each other on their streets.
“And when they find out we’re real, and dangerous, they panic and start hunting us down and killing us, so then we start killing them!” I cried, throat burning. “Of course, when mundane blood starts spilling, the fae enter the war, and we have never been a match for the fae.
“It’s a slaughter, Badr. It’s the end of the shifter wolves and the vampires unless...”
Badr nodded slow, lips pale. “Unless they don’t fight us as we are now. We’re not a match for the fae now . But a bunch of immortal super wolves who are invisible, travel through fire, are powered by the sun, suck the living water out of their enemies, and can turn fae armor into a prison of burning iron...” He shook his head. “That’s an army that can’t be stopped.”
“Exactly. Once the vampires declare war, the alpha council becomes the war council. Centuries ago, we enacted laws that give the war council unprecedented power. The power to do whatever it takes to protect the werewolf race. On that day, they put into law that every firstborn omega of the new generation must be sacrificed to the great cause of saving Wolf Nation.”
“Sacrifice the few to save the many.” He dropped back, gazing dully at the sky. “Of course that makes sense to my son-of-a-bitch father.”
“And all the while, they’ll be getting rich off that math,” I spat. “They’ll charge money to buy the souls and they’ll charge parents money to save their babies’ souls. When the dust clears and the war is won, the alpha councilmembers Sunella, Cygnus, Liliya, Denis, Elijah, Jabari, and Hakim will rule forever as rich, powerful, immortal kings and queens of every dominion.”
I pinned him with a look. “Are you hearing me? They’ll be rulers of the fucking earth, Badr. Do you see now why they weren’t about to let a young, moral, idealistic guy like Castor Tahan get in their way?”
He gazed back at me. “You told Castor about your vision and he tried to stop it. He told that bastard what he knew, and he turned against his own son.”
I didn’t need clarification to know that bastard was Cygnus. But I shook my head. “No,” I said, surprising him. “Castor was smarter than that. He always saw your father for the beast he was. There were never any rose-colored glasses on him.
“What Castor tried to do was find the shadow.”
“Of course.” Badr bobbed his head, blowing out a breath. “The person pulling the strings. The person trying to kick off a fucking war. Of course Castor knew not to waste time going after anyone but the mastermind.
“And they found out.”
I nodded, eyes leaking. “Whoever it is has to be close to the council, so he used his access as a councilman’s son to poke around. His first move was to make friends with a wind wolf. Their eavesdropping abilities are unmatched. Even Edric said wind wolves rely on sign language to ensure their private lives stay private.
“Castor made friends with Edric’s sister, which is no doubt how they hooked up. His sister agreed to slip him info on who was coming and going out of Sunella’s mansion. While she did, Castor worked on getting the money to buy her out of her contract,” I said. “I didn’t know that last part until Edric blackmailed me, but it all makes sense now. He told me he had a friend in Sunella’s camp. Edric’s sister must be that friend.”
“Is she a friend?” he asked, rising up. “You just said Castor got found out.”
“Not because of Idalia. Think about it. If Idalia admitted to spying for Castor, they would’ve gotten rid of her too. Just to be safe.”
“Then who was it!”
“That’s what Castor worked to piece together,” I shot back just as loud. My head was killing me. The pain seemed to radiate through my body, weakening my limbs. “Once he realized he’d been poisoned with wolfsbane.”
“Wolfsbane?! Who? How!”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That’s what all of this has been about,” I cried. “Castor sent letters to two people that he thought he could trust. Two people with the power to help. One was Rici Bruno, the former leader of Wolf Republica.”
“Rici?” he repeated. “I knew him. Three years ago, Cygnus sent Castor to Italy to network with the European packs. He and Rici became good friends, but Rici died over... a year and... a half ago,” Badr finished, dread coloring his tone. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
“Rici was murdered too.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. Castor warned Rici, telling him everything. That dark days were coming—that war was coming—and it was all being orchestrated by an enemy that he was trying to find. Rici was set to take over Wolf Republica, a pack with over thirty thousand wolves. He said that if Wolf Nation ever turned and started enacting these barbaric laws, Wolf Republica had to be ready to step in and stop us. Even if it meant taking out the alpha council.”
“The shadow found out about that letter,” Badr said. “That’s how they knew that Castor knew everything. But how?”
Hatred boiled in my gut. “Because of her ,” I hissed. “The second person to receive Castor’s letter. Headmistress Dagem.”
“Dagem? Makena Dagem?”
“Who else!” My tears were flowing hot and heavy. “Castor thought she was trustworthy. He believed she was an honorable woman. Why wouldn’t he? He watched her stand up to the council so many times. Watched her push back on their unfairness. He heard about the times she marched into Sunella’s office and argued her down.
“Did you know the council banned omegas from joining the academy? The metal wolf councilman, Jabari, argued that it didn’t make sense to pay so much to cover their education when omegas only had futures as janitors and housekeepers. They even passed the fucking law! It is actual law right now that omegas are not entitled to entrance into the academy, but Dagem told them to go fuck themselves. She said that as long as she was headmistress, every wolf of every kind was welcome in her school.
“Of course he believed she was the good person she was pretending to be!”
Badr stared at me in horror. “But when she got the letter, she turned it over.”
“Worse. That bitch read the letter and dollar signs flashed in her eyes. She blackmailed them for millions, promising to keep quiet as long as the money kept flowing,” I spat. “And for the low, low price of her rotted soul, she also promised to get rid of their little problem.”
“Castor.”
I nodded.
“She poisoned him?”
I barked a laugh. “This, Badr, is the part where you get all caught up. Because no, Dagem didn’t do the poisoning. How could she? She didn’t have access to wolfsbane. That stuff is crazy illegal. Any wolf found growing it is put to death.
“But lucky for her, she had a shady-as-shit contact working under her—Warren Hall.”
“Mr. Hall got her the wolfsbane?” he sputtered. “How?”
“Hall had a thing for mundane drugs. Most of it burns up in our system too fast to have an effect, but not heroin. He had a dealer in the mundane dominion, and it was the easiest thing in the world to ask the dealer to get him some wolfsbane. The guy likely just ordered the stuff online.”
“How do you know all this?” Badr demanded, eyes narrowing. “Did Hall tell you all of this when you were killing him?”
“He didn’t have to. I’ve known for over a year who was responsible. Castor knew. He’s the one who put it all together,” I said. “It was easy once he figured out Dagem was using her dirty money to pull the strings. All he had to do was follow the trail.
“Money from Dagem’s bank account to Hall’s to get the poison. Money from Dagem to Holly to put small daily doses of wolfsbane in Castor’s food. Money from Dagem to Nurse Vega to lie and misdiagnose Castor every time he came in the infirmary, complaining about feeling ill. By the time Castor gave up on Vega and asked for a second opinion, there was already too much wolfsbane in his system. There was no going back. No cure. All he had to look forward to was a slow, agonizing death... because of them.”
“Oh, gods,” he croaked, stomach heaving. “Dagem, Hall, Holly, and Vega. They were among the seven that had to go.”
My voice was a growl. “You’re damn right.”
“But then who were the other three?”
“Mason,” I admitted, “but not because he had anything to do with Castor. It was because that vile piece of shit actually came into the temple and bragged about his rapes. The last woman who reported him went to his mother too, and his mom cursed him out. Said if he ever did something like that again, she’d disown him.
“But fucking Mason dared to swagger into my temple, complaining about Mommy being such a nagging bitch who doesn’t understand that Luame wants him to take advantage of all that ripe and tasty omega fruit. That’s why she made him an alpha, and all of them fish.
“Once I found out Mason was enrolling in the academy this year too, his fate was sealed. No fucking way an unrepentant serial rapist runs around free in my school.”
Badr scoffed. “Fine with me. I’m not shedding any tears over that shit, but who were the other two? Who killed my brother?”
“You know the other one,” I said. “Nia.”
“Nia? But then why did you let her off! Why is she strutting around happy, free, and planning parties!”
“Because I got to know her and realized she was just a pawn in Rici’s death.”
He lurched back. “Rici? How was Nia involved?”
“After they found out Castor sent a letter to Rici too, the council tried multiple times to get him in the same room, but the man was no fool. He turned down all their random party, summit, and conference invitations. But then the international alpha leader conference came,” I said. “Every important alpha from everywhere was going, Rici couldn’t turn it down. He showed up with his bodyguards, and Dagem and Sunella showed up with Nia.
“Somehow they contrived a way to get Rici and his guards alone, and then they killed them all. With Nia and her freaky wolf tranquilizer powers in the room, they couldn’t shift. Dagem and Sunella ripped them apart, and as a result, killed the only other person they believed knew about Destiny.” I sniffed, throat thickening. “Nia was just a pawn, Badr. I saw in her eyes she was sick about what they made her do.
“But it was after Castor learned his friend was dead that he got suspicious about his mysterious stomach bug that wouldn’t go away. When he found out he’d been poisoned, he knew two things—Dagem betrayed him, and he got one of his closest friends murdered.
“After that, all he cared about was protecting me, our children, and you from the horrible, bloody future coming our way.”
“Okay, okay,” he breathed, pacing back and forth. “Let’s say all of this is true and I believe you. How does brutally killing him in public save any of us?”
“Because he was going to die, and I’d be all alone. All because of the final and seventh person on my list—the shadow. Castor never figured out who it was. He couldn’t finish the fight, and he hated that he was leaving me to fight them alone. I was the only one left who knew about Destiny and actually wanted to stop it, but because of who I was, I didn’t have any friends,” I cried, throwing up my hands.
“I’ve been isolated and under guard my entire life. I had no friends, no allies, and no family other than my father. Who was going to help me after he was gone? Answer—no one. That’s why Castor came up with a plan. I had to go to the people who had the most to lose, people who were enemies of Wolf Nation, people who wanted to tear the alpha council down and build a new empire on their ashes,” I told him. “You’re not going to want to believe this, but it was Castor who found Lucia and bought me a place in her safe haven.
“It was Castor who searched the council records on every wolf that’s had their ear cut and were thrown out of Wolf Nation. He gave me the leads I needed to track down the lost packs and get their help. It was Castor who transferred the remains of his trust fund into an offshore account that only I had access to.
“And it was Castor who said I had to kill him during the ceremony. They were going to kidnap us all that night . Waiting wasn’t an option. Plus, it was the only way to make the epsilons, omegas, and lost packs trust me. With one horrible act, I made myself an outcast, fugitive, and enemy of the alpha council. Castor said they wouldn’t doubt me when I told them I wanted every single member of the council dead, and he was right—they didn’t. They joined me immediately. I honestly didn’t have to do that much convincing.”
“But why like this?” Badr burst out. “Why all this undercover revolution shit? Why didn’t he just tell me? Why didn’t you both tell everyone! Blast the truth on Loop Garou for all of Wolf Nation to see.”
I was shaking my head before he finished. “Because knowing about it didn’t stop it, Badr. I just told you that in the vision everyone finds out. Everyone knows! And what happens? It becomes law.
“No.” I sliced the air. “The only way to make sure the war never happens is take away all the shadow’s puppets, and then crush the shadow.”
“And you don’t think Edric, Nyx, Paxton, Orion, and I would’ve helped you?” he flung. “If you’d been honest about all of this from the beginning, we would’ve been right by your side making everyone on your list pay, but no.” Accusation hung heavy in his words. “Instead, you made us your enemies. You made everyone except for your little allies your enemies!”
“You are my enemies!” I screamed. “Everyone who’d stand in my way is my enemy.”
“Why would we stand in your way!”
“Because I’m not following Castor’s plan anymore,” I hissed. “I’ve got my fucking own now. You see, around the fifth time I played the vision of my dying boyfriend begging me to kill him—it hit me. Wolf Nation is over. Now it’s nothing but a diseased, cancerous boil that should’ve been sliced off centuries ago. How else do you explain our society becoming so cancerous and rotten they actually make rape and murder legal?
“How dare they?” I pushed through clenched teeth. “How dare they think they can breed me like a fucking dog? How dare they plot and plan to take my babies away from me? How dare they sit upon a throne made of the corpses of everyone I love and call themselves heroes.
“No, Badr. No,” I whispered, slowly shaking my head. “Anyone that twisted and evil doesn’t deserve to lead my people. They don’t deserve to live. All Castor wanted was for Lucia to hide us, and for the lost packs to welcome fleeing omegas when the time came—”
“Us?”
“But I had a better idea.” I closed the distance. Even though Badr was up and out of my reach, he backed away from me and the look in my eyes. “If the council wants a throne of corpses, I’d fashion it out of their fucking bones and sit on it myself. If they want a war, they’ll get that too.”
“Volana, who is us?”
“I’ll raise an army that they’ll never see coming. An army of the lost, underestimated, and betrayed. We’ll slaughter the unlucky where they stand, and silence the ones on their knees.”
“Volana!”
“I will kill everyone—everyone!—who’s a threat to her. Everyone who dares to look at her and only see what they can take,” I shrieked. “Anyone who dares to make this world unsafe for her, they’re going to fucking die, Divan, because it’s only after they do that I can look his daughter in the eyes and tell her that her father died for a reason.”
“Whose daughter?!”
“Castor’s daughter!” I punched the dirt. “My daughter! The one I was carrying the night we all met on that rock. The baby that was born six months ago with all the powers that named my vision as horribly, terribly true. And the reason that I only have three more months before the other babies of the new generation start being born... and Project Destiny begins.”
“No,” Badr cried, clutching his head and pacing up and down. “No! Now I know you’re lying because that’s not possible. There’s no way we have a daughter. There’s no way!”
Even though the dislike between me and Badr was very mutual, I could admit it did funny things to my chest to hear him say “we” and claim my baby as his own. “Why do you think I had to stay away for so long? The strongest weapon I have against the council right now is that they believe they still need me to complete the bonds for their plans to go ahead.”
Badr was dazed. I left him way behind in the conversation. “Where?” he whispered. “Where’s the baby?”
“She’s safe with Lucia.”
That snapped him out of it. “Lucia? The fucking vampire! You left our daughter with a leech?”
“I left her in the safest place in the world for her right now. Lucia will protect Hope with her life.”
“But you— No. No!” he sliced, cutting himself off. “I’m not buying into this. It doesn’t make sense that you could have a baby out there with all of our powers when most of our bonds are incomplete. This is just more lies.”
“No, it’s not, Badr, because it makes sense when you consider how strange it is that it’s been a year but our bonds haven’t degraded a fraction,” I said. “It’s because I did something even more important than boinking my fates on a rock. I gave birth to one of their babies.” I shook my head. “We’ve done the ceremony the same way for thousands of years. No one knew there were other ways to consummate the bond.
“But the hows and whys don’t matter. All that matters is that she’s here, and the next generation is coming with all the powers the council is eager to get their hands on. I’ve got three months to bring down a nation that’s stood unchallenged since the dawn of time, so now’s the time you get me out of this hole, Divan, because I’ve got so many people to kill in so little time.” I held out my hand. “You want to be my ally? You want to continue the fight your brother died for? Prove it. Get me out of here, get me to a doctor, and then get out of my way.”
Badr flicked from me to my hand. “Everything you’ve said is terrifying, Volana. That my brother was murdered. That our father sanctioned it. That he planned to get rich and powerful from the spilled blood of his own kin. That there’s some mysterious shadow person at the heart of all of it,” he said. “It’s all horrific and it has to be stopped—”
“Yes, exactly. That’s why—”
“—or it would if any of it were true.”
“What?”
Badr picked up the shovel.
“Wait, no!” I cried, shooting back. “It is true. Every word I said was the truth!”
“You were very convincing, Volana,” he said, towering over me. “You had me hanging on every word, but there’s only one problem. If any of this happened, I wouldn’t have heard this for the first time tonight because my brother—my friend—would’ve told me.”
“Badr, listen—!”
He swung the shovel. The last thing I saw was metal before pain burst in my skull.
***
I WOKE UP MINUTES—HOURS—DAYS later under a mound of crushing darkness.
I screamed.