Chapter 31 Riley
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Riley
I fought.
Two men grabbed my arms, wrenching them behind my back, and I struggled against their grip with everything I had.
Kicked, twisted, threw my weight around.
But I wasn’t strong enough, not even close.
These were wolves, trained soldiers, and I was a newly awakened wolf who’d been sick for weeks and was currently pregnant.
I thought about shifting. My wolf was there, ready, snarling to be let out. But it would take too long. By the time I completed the transformation, they’d have me pinned. Or worse.
Metal clicked around my wrists.
The pain was immediate. My skin burned from the inside out, agony radiating up my arms and through my entire body. I whimpered, unable to stop myself, my knees buckling as the pain overwhelmed every other thought.
“Wolfsbane,” a voice said. Calm. Amused.
The gray-haired man stepped into my line of sight. He was smiling, a satisfied expression that made my stomach turn.
“Long time no see, little Mirabelle.” He tilted his head, studying my face. “Remember me?”
I stared at him through the haze of pain. I knew it was Soren from the council meeting, from the way he’d looked at me with recognition in his eyes. But I searched my memory for details from before, a flicker of recognition from my childhood, from the night my parents died.
Nothing.
“No,” I said. “I have no idea who you are.”
His smile faltered. Just for a moment.
“Shame.” He stepped closer, and I could see his eyes now.
Pale, almost colorless, empty of anything resembling humanity.
“I do remember you. I remember chasing your pathetic parents through the woods. I remember watching the portal open. I remember you jumping through that damn thing, disappearing before I could finish what I started.”
My blood ran cold.
This was the man who killed my parents.
“I thought you were dead,” he continued. “Gone for sure. Swallowed up by the human realm, never to return. So imagine my surprise when you walked into that council room on the prince’s arm.” His jaw tightened. “Why the hell did you have to return?”
“I don’t remember anything,” I said. My voice was steadier than I felt. “I was seven. I don’t remember you, or the chase, or any of it.”
Soren tsked. “Too bad.” He turned away, gesturing to his men. “You’re still dying, though.”
Wait. What?
Before I could ask what he meant, a bag was shoved over my head. Darkness engulfed me. I heard Thessa struggling nearby, cursing viciously, and then silence as another bag presumably covered her head too.
We were lifted. Thrown over horses, the animals shifting beneath us. The movement jostled my cuffed wrists, sending fresh waves of wolfsbane agony through my body.
Great. Kidnapped and getting a free horseback ride. My week kept getting better.
We rode.
Hours passed. I lost track of time in the darkness, focused entirely on not falling off the horse, on not screaming from the pain, on not giving Soren the satisfaction of seeing me break. The motion was relentless. My body ached. My wrists burned.
Three hours, maybe more. No way to know for sure.
Finally, we stopped.
I was hauled off the horse, my legs buckling when they hit the ground. Rough hands grabbed me, dragged me forward. I stumbled, caught myself, was pushed again.
The air changed. Damp and cold, unmistakably underground.
Hallways. I was being pushed through hallways, the sound of my footsteps echoing off stone walls. Behind me, I could hear Thessa, the shuffle of her feet, an occasional grunt of pain.
Then came a metallic scent. Iron. Blood, maybe, old and dried. A creak echoed through the silence, and then a door swung open somewhere ahead.
I was shoved forward, and I couldn’t catch myself with my hands bound. I hit the ground, pain exploding through my shoulder where I landed. Next to me, Thessa grunted as she fell too.
The door slammed shut. Locks clicked into place.
Silence. Then I ripped the bag off my head.
It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The room was barely lit, a single torch burning in the corridor beyond.
But I could see enough to know we were in a cell.
Stone walls, stone floor, iron bars. A small window near the ceiling, too high and too small to escape through.
Straw scattered on the ground, filthy and damp.
Stone walls, iron bars, filthy straw. Zero stars. Would not recommend.
Thessa was beside me, struggling to pull off her own bag with her bound hands. I shuffled over, helped her, and we both sat there for a moment, breathing hard, taking stock of our situation.
It was bad. Very, very bad.
“Well, well.” Soren’s voice came from beyond the bars. He was standing in the corridor, arms crossed, that cold smile still on his face. “Comfortable?”
“Go to hell,” Thessa spat.
“Eventually, I’m sure.” He didn’t seem bothered by the insult. “But not before I enjoy this.”
He moved closer to the bars, his pale eyes fixed on me.
“Enjoy your last moments, little Mirabelle. I should have killed you long ago. Twenty-one years ago, to be precise, when I slaughtered your traitorous parents.” His smile widened.
“Hell, I should have let Vix poison you to death. That would have been poetic, wouldn’t it?
The last Mirabelle, killed by slow-acting venom, never even knowing why she was dying. ”
I’d suspected Vix was behind my illness ever since I found the documents in the vault, but hearing Soren confirm it made bile rise in my throat.
“Only the wish to kill you myself made me stop her,” Soren continued. “I wanted to look into your eyes when you died. Wanted you to know exactly who ended your pathetic bloodline.”
“You’re insane,” I whispered.
“I’m practical.” He shrugged. “The Mirabelles were always a problem. Too loyal to the crown. Too nosy for their own good. Your father discovered our plans, and he had to die. Your mother tried to protect you, and she had to die too. And now you, the last loose end, you’ll die as well. Just not quickly.”
“Why?” Thessa demanded. “What’s the point of all this?”
Soren’s gaze shifted to her. “Princess. I almost forgot you were there.” His expression changed, became calculating. “You’re valuable, you know. A hostage. A bargaining chip. Your family will do anything to get you back.”
“My family will tear you apart.”
“They can try.” Soren turned away. “Rest well, ladies. Tomorrow will be eventful.”
He walked away, his footsteps echoing down the corridor until they faded to nothing.
We were alone.
My mind was reeling. Soren had stopped Vix from killing me because he wanted to do it himself. The ego on these people was unreal.
“Thessa.” My voice came out raw. “The medicine you gave me at the cabin. Was that an antidote for the poison?”
Thessa hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Yes. The healer found traces of a toxin in your system after you collapsed.”
My stomach lurched. “How did you get it? The antidote?”
“We received it after the rejection.”
After the rejection.
“What do you mean, after?”
Thessa’s expression was pained. “It was a bargain, Riley. The rejection for the antidote. Soren, Vix, all of them, they demanded Caelan reject you publicly. In exchange, they sent the cure.”
The air left my lungs. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except stare at her while the truth crashed through me.
“He was trying to protect you,” Thessa said quietly. “I told you he had a reason.”
The rejection. The cold eyes. The words that had shattered me completely. All of it, all of it, had been to save my life.
And I had run from him. Believed the worst of him. Let Vix’s poison, both literal and metaphorical, convince me that everything between us was a lie.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered. “I thought...”
“I know what you thought, and he was still an asshole for not telling you.” Thessa’s voice was gentle. “But a well-intended asshole. Though there’s no time for this now. We need to get out of here.”
She was right. There was no time for processing, for emotions, for anything except survival.
We examined the cell. The bars were solid, unmovable. The walls were unyielding stone. The window was impossibly high. The cuffs on our wrists still burned with wolfsbane, preventing us from shifting, from using our full strength.
There was no way out.
“Okay,” Thessa said, her voice tight. “Okay. Think. There has to be a way.”
I closed my eyes and focused on the bond. It was still there, that thread connecting me to Caelan. I’d closed it off after the rejection, unable to bear feeling his emotions on top of my own pain. But maybe I could use it.
I reached for it. Opened it. Poured every ounce of panic, fear, and desperation through the connection.
Caelan. Caelan, please.
I had no idea if it would work, no clue how bonds actually functioned or what they could and couldn’t transmit. But I tried anyway. Focused on words, on specific thoughts, repeating them like a prayer.
Soren imprisoned Thessa and me. Help.
Soren imprisoned Thessa and me. Help.
Soren imprisoned Thessa and me. Help.
I kept trying, kept pushing, kept hoping, even though I might be screaming into a void.
“Riley?” Thessa’s voice was worried. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to reach Caelan. Through the bond.”
“Can you do that?”
“I don’t know.” I opened my eyes. “But I have to try.”
Hours passed. Maybe more. The darkness made it impossible to track time.
I kept sending through the bond until my head ached and my thoughts blurred together. Whether Caelan was receiving any of it, whether I was wasting my energy on the impossible, I couldn’t tell.
But I wouldn’t give up.
“We need another plan,” Thessa said eventually. “One that doesn’t rely on rescue.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
Thessa went quiet, thinking. Then her eyes lit up.
“I’m more valuable than you.”
“Wow. Thanks.”
“No, listen.” Thessa shifted closer, lowering her voice even though there was no one around to hear. “Soren said it himself. I’m a bargaining chip. A hostage. He won’t let anything happen to me, not yet. But you? You’re just a loose end he wants to tie up.”
“So your plan is you get hurt and I get what, exactly? A front-row seat to your acting skills?”
“If I were injured, badly injured, they’d have to check on me. Open the cell. Make sure their precious hostage isn’t dying.” Thessa’s eyes were bright with desperate hope. “And when they do...”
“We attack,” I finished.
“We attack.”
It was risky. Stupid, probably. But it was all we had.
We worked out the details in whispers. Thessa would pretend to be unconscious, hit her head maybe, or collapsed from stress. I would scream for the guard, demand help, make enough noise that someone came to investigate. And when the cell door opened...
We waited for our moment.
A guard came eventually, a bored-looking man who brought water and stale bread. He slid them through a slot in the bars, barely glancing at the prisoners.
“Wait,” I said as he turned to leave. “She’s not moving.”
The guard paused. Looked at Thessa, who was slumped against the wall, eyes closed, body limp.
“She hit her head when we fell. She hasn’t moved in hours. Please, she’s the princess. If she dies...”
The guard hesitated. I could see the calculation in his eyes, the fear of what Soren would do if the valuable hostage was damaged.
“Please,” I said again. “Just check on her. I can’t do anything with these cuffs.”
Another hesitation. Then the guard reached for his keys. The cell door opened. He stepped inside, crouching beside Thessa, reaching to check her pulse.
Thessa’s eyes snapped open.
Her bound hands swung up, connecting with the guard’s temple. He grunted, staggered. I threw myself at him, using my body weight to knock him off balance. He went down, hitting his head on the stone floor.
He didn’t get up.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. “It worked.”
“Keys,” Thessa hissed. “Get the keys.”
I fumbled at the guard’s belt, found the ring of keys, unlocked Thessa’s cuffs first and then my own. The relief when the wolfsbane left my skin was immediate. The burning stopped. My strength started to return.
“Can you shift?” Thessa asked.
I reached for my wolf. It was there, eager, ready.
“Yes. But not yet. We need to get outside first.”
“Agreed. Let’s go.”
We slipped out of the cell, moving as quietly as we could. The corridor was empty, dark and damp, stretching in both directions. We picked a direction and ran.
We made it maybe fifty feet before the sounds started.
At first, I thought it was thunder. A distant rumbling, vibrating through the stone walls. But then I heard the screams, the clash of metal, the howls. There was a battle raging somewhere above us.
“What the hell?” Thessa whispered.
My heart leaped.
“Caelan,” I said. “He got my message.”
The sounds grew louder. Closer. And then a section of the ceiling exploded inward.
Stone and dust rained down. I threw myself against the wall, shielding my eyes. When I looked up, a massive golden wolf was standing in the rubble, eyes blazing amber, fur matted with blood that probably wasn’t his own.
Caelan.
He shifted mid-leap, landing in human form, and then I was in his arms.
“I heard you,” he said against my hair, his voice rough and broken. “Goddess, I heard you. I came as fast as I could.”
“You came,” I whispered. “You actually came.”
“You called. I will always come for you, Riley.” He pulled back, cupped my face, looked at me with an intensity that stole my breath. “No matter what. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I couldn’t speak. There was too much happening, too many emotions crashing through me. The truth about the rejection. The fact that he’d saved my life. The fact that he was here, now, holding me while a battle raged around us.
“We need to move,” Thessa said urgently. “Soren...”
“Is being handled,” Caelan growled. “My father and Patt have him surrounded. But there are still enemies in the compound. We need to get you both out.”
“Which way is the exit?” I asked.
Caelan’s jaw tightened. “Through the battle.”
Of course it was. Nothing in my life could ever be simple.
He shifted back into wolf form. I followed, my white fur bright against the darkness. Thessa shifted too, gray and sleek.
Together, we ran toward the sounds of war, toward the clash of metal and the howls of wolves, toward the chaos we had to pass through to reach freedom.