Chapter 5 Sable
Sable
Ilasted maybe two hours before the walls started closing in.
It wasn't the room itself—Harkan's quarters were spacious enough, all dark wood and thick furs and the lingering scent of pine that made the stupid, idiotic, gods-forsaken mate bond purr contentedly in my chest.
No, it was the waiting, the stillness, knowing that somewhere out there, Varro was receiving his messenger's report and planning his next move, while I lazed about like a fucking invalid.
I'd spent thirteen years as a tool. I refused to spend another minute as a burden.
"I'm getting up," I announced to no one in particular. Trouble lifted his head from where he'd been dozing at my feet, amber eyes skeptical. "Don't give me that look."
His expression didn't so much as budge.
"I'm fine," I insisted, throwing back the blanket. My ribs protested immediately—a sharp, stabbing reminder that "fine" was a relative term that absolutely did not apply to me—but I gritted my teeth and swung my legs over the side of the bed, anyway. "See? Fine."
Trouble's expression clearly said he'd seen corpses with more color in their cheeks.
I ignored him and stood.
The world tilted for a moment, then steadied. My magic hummed beneath my skin, stronger than it had been since I'd fled the Lock & Key. The bond, I realized with a grimace. Harkan's proximity was feeding me whether I wanted it to or not.
Useful, I admitted grudgingly. Doesn't mean I have to like it.
I crossed to the chair where someone had folded my cleaned clothes—my actual clothes, not Harkan's too-big shirt that still smelled like him even though I’d been wearing it for hours.
Getting dressed was an exercise in creative cursing, every movement pulling at my healing ribs, but I managed to only flip off my bra twice before I got myself together.
The familiar weight of my own fabric felt like armor.
My bag sat in the corner where Harkan had said it would be. I knelt beside it, checking the contents with the efficiency of long practice. Vials of saltwater—intact. Dried herbs—present. Candles—accounted for. The silver athame I'd bought with my first honest coin—still there.
And at the bottom, wrapped in cloth, the small wooden box I still couldn't bring myself to open.
Later, I told myself. Not now.
I stood, slinging the bag across my body, and looked at the door.
I should stay. I knew I should stay. Harkan had made it clear that the pack was divided, that not everyone wanted me here, that wandering around alone was asking for trouble.
But I'd never been very good at doing what I should.
"Come on," I said to Trouble. "Let's see what we're working with."
The fox hopped down from the bed and launched himself to his usual perch on my shoulder, his presence a comfort I'd never admit out loud, even when the initial landing made my ribs protest. Together, we stepped into the hallway.
The stronghold was quieter than I'd expected. Stone walls, wooden beams, torches flickering in iron sconces. It reminded me of the older parts of the Divide—the buildings that had been here before the city grew up around them, solid and ancient and full of secrets.
I kept my hand on my bag, my senses alert. My truth-gift was humming now, fully awake for the first time since my escape attempt. Every surface I passed whispered with echoes—fragments of conversations, traces of emotion, the residue of lives lived in these halls, but I kept my hands to myself.
I made it maybe twenty more feet before the copper-haired wolf stepped out of a doorway and blocked my path.
Petra.
Up close, she was beautiful in the way that predators were right before they ate your face—all sharp angles and cold eyes and a smile that promised nothing good. She looked me over slowly, deliberately, like she was assessing a piece of meat.
"Well, well." Her voice was honey poured over broken glass. "The Alpha's new pet is out of her cage."
Trouble growled from his perch on my shoulder, low and warning. His claws dug in through the fabric of my shirt—a reminder that he was ready to launch himself at her throat if needed.
"I'm not a pet," I said flatly. "And I'm not looking for trouble."
"Funny." Petra stepped closer, and I caught a whiff of her scent—wolf and something floral and an undercurrent of something sour. Jealousy, maybe. Or hate. "Because trouble is exactly what you've brought to our pack."
"I didn't ask to be here." As I recalled I wasn’t exactly brought here of my own volition.
"No? You just happened to end up in our Alpha's bed, wearing his mark, eating his food?" She laughed, a sharp and brittle sound. "Tell me: did Varro train you to spread your legs on command, or is that a natural talent?"
Bile rose in my throat. The very thought of Varro touching me like that made my stomach lurch with revulsion. My magic surged in response, hot and angry, but I forced it down.
"You don't know the first fucking thing about me," I said quietly. “So, let’s not pretend like you do.”
"I know enough." Petra was close now, close enough that I could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. "I know you're Varro's whore. I know you got Bram killed. And I know that when this war comes—and it will come—it'll be pack blood that pays for your mistakes."
Bram got Bram killed, I wanted to snarl.
He was a traitor. He grabbed me. He tried to hand me over to your Alpha's enemies.
But what was the point? These wolves had already decided I was the villain.
Telling them their packmate had been a snake wouldn't change their minds—it would just make them hate me more.
"Bram's death wasn't my fault. I was—"
"You were what? Innocent?" She laughed again. "There are no innocent witches, sweetheart. Just ones who haven't been caught yet."
Trouble was vibrating against my neck, his foxfire starting to spark. I could feel his fury bleeding through our bond, mixing with my own.
Don't, I warned him. She wants a reaction. Don't give her one.
But Petra wasn't finished.
"I don't know what game you're playing," she continued, stepping closer, jabbing her finger into my collarbone hard enough to bruise, "but I've been warming Harkan's bed for years.
You think one little mark is going to change that?
You think he actually wants some broken, used-up witch when he could have—"
The moment her skin touched mine, her truth flooded my senses.
Rejection. Humiliation. Offering herself to him again and again, only to be turned away. The memory of his face, cold and dismissive, as he told her “No.” The rage that had festered ever since.
"He rejected you."
The words were out before I could stop them, but I refused to back down, even letting a small smile tip my lips. At least he’s smart enough not to bed her.
Petra's face went still. "What did you say?"
My smile grew as her truth flooded from my lips. "You offered yourself to him. And he said no." I tilted my head, letting my gift read the echoes of emotion clinging to her skin. "More than once. Three times, at least. That must sting something awful, your Alpha rejecting you like that."
Most people hated being confronted by the truths they refused to accept, and Petra was no different from any other weak-minded, fragile-egoed bag of hot air.
I blamed the head trauma for my ill-timed quip, though it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Her hand moved fast—faster than I expected—and cracked across my face hard enough to split my already-healing lip.
Pain exploded through my cheek. I staggered, catching myself against the wall, and Trouble shrieked—a sound of pure fury that echoed off the stone.
He launched himself at Petra, teeth bared, foxfire blazing, his claws reaching for her face.
She batted him away before kicking him down the hall.
Not a nudge. Not a shove. A full, vicious kick with all her shifter strength that caught him in the ribs and sent him tumbling across the floor with a yelp of pain that squeezed my heart in a fist.
And something inside me snapped.
There was no thought or plan. I didn't do anything except reach for my magic and throw it at the woman who'd hurt the only family I had left. I might have been a truth-taster, but I was still a fucking witch. And she’d just done the one thing that would make me hit first and ask questions later.
The power that erupted from me was nothing like my usual careful workings.
It was raw and wild and furious, full of unchecked chaos that I didn’t care to control.
It slammed into Petra like a physical force, pinning her against the wall hard enough to crack the stone, her feet dangling above the ground as she scrabbled for air.
"Don't," I snarled, stalking toward her, "you ever touch him again."
Petra's eyes were wide—with shock, with fear, with something that looked almost like respect. But even pinned, even helpless, I could see her mind working. Calculating.
"Help!" she screeched with the last bit of air she had, her voice hoarse but carrying down the hall. "Someone help me!"
Footsteps thundered down the hallway. I heard shouting, the sound of doors slamming open, and then—
"What the fuck is going on here?"
Harkan.
I dropped the magic. Petra slid down the wall, gasping, and immediately transformed.
I didn't wait to see her performance. Trouble was crumpled against the far wall where he'd landed, his foxfire dim and flickering, and I was already moving toward him, my broken ribs screaming in protest.
"Hey," I breathed, scooping him up as gently as I could manage with shaking hands. "Hey, I've got you. I've got you."
He whimpered, pressing his small body against my chest, and something cracked inside me that had nothing to do with my ribs.
Behind me, Petra was already spinning her lies.
"Alpha," she whimpered, scrambling toward Harkan on her knees. "Alpha, I was just bringing her clothes like you asked, and she—she attacked me! I didn't do anything, I swear, she just—"
"Your lies taste like shit, Petra."