Chapter 22 #3
“Yours,” I reply.
“Do you, however, wish to be more than that?” Lanlin is staring at me with a strange intensity that makes me shift, uncomfortable.
“We are alone now. I can speak openly. I have sensed a power within you that I didn’t understand.
But I could tell that someone had suppressed your true power, as someone had Dove’s, to turn you into a non-shifter Omega. ”
Has Lanlin worked out my true identity?
Did he fly Daire and me out into the desert to kill us?
Shit, shit, shit.
I stand very still and pull on every technique that Wraith taught me to hide my emotions and blank my expression.
How the hell do I play this?
The one thing that Lanlin is most frightened of…paranoid about…can’t forgive…is people lying to him.
And betraying him.
What would he do if he knew that I was truly the secret Queen of Fang Kingdom?
His mother tried to murder me. I have her blade strapped now at my waist.
Would he help me avenge myself on King Ulf and take back my kingdom? Or would his fury at my betrayal be enough for him to hand me over to King Ulf or worse?
Lanlin squeezes my hand.
I force myself to keep my breathing steady.
“It was why I was an outcast, forced to work as a servant within Fang Kingdom,” I say, using Wraith’s technique of mixing in the truth, while bonding over shared trauma. “I would have been killed on the night of the Mate Hunt for it too, if I hadn’t run.”
Lanlin’s eyes darken. “Barbaric that an Alpha should treat an Omega like that. I wish that I could visit every moment of your suffering threefold onto those who hurt you. But what I can do is try to free your shifter side.”
I forget every rule that Wraith taught me and gape at him. “Fuck off.”
Lanlin’s nose wrinkles. “As you wish.”
He tries to pull away, but I hold onto him. “I meant, seriously?”
Hope blooms through me, a hope that I haven’t allowed myself to feel for a long time.
It isn’t possible, right?
“If you unleash her shifter side,” Daire says, passionately, meeting Lanlin’s gaze, “I will make any deal you wish.”
My breath catches that Daire would offer that for me.
“I already have what I wish.” Lanlin’s gaze drops to the healing bite marks on Daire’s neck.
Daire licks his dry lips. “Then let’s unleash our wild Omega.”
“Hold up.” Joy is welling in me; my eyes are wet with tears. “This is really happening, right? I’m not dreaming.”
Lanlin drops my hand, cupping my cheek instead.
“Shall we call it a wedding gift, dearheart? It is only four nights until our marriage and your heat on the Blood Moon. I shall cherish our bonding. Before then, I have been thinking hard about what gift would be worthy of you. You have helped me to see that no one’s savage nature should be tamed. I wish to offer that to you as well.”
My heart is beating too fast.
I can’t breathe.
While I have been on a mission to cage Lanlin, he has been thinking of ways to free me.
My gaze darts to Daire, as a tear chases down my cheek. “I can’t—”
“She means that she can’t thank you enough,” Daire interrupts, resting a warning hand on my lower back. “What do you need?”
Lanlin wipes away the tear with his thumb, studying me in concern.
“Your consent, my dear. I wish to try to use my Power to control the animal side within you that has been suppressed. It is part of my magic. Now that we are as firmly linked as we are, even as bat and rider, I believe that it should work.”
I hesitate.
This is what I have dreamed about.
How different would my life have been if I wasn’t a non-shifter?
Yet I need a moment to prepare myself for this change.
I turn my head and kiss Lanlin’s palm. “You have my consent. Thanks for trying, even if it doesn’t work.
If it does, then you’ll have given me something that’s priceless: A part of my soul back.
” My lips quirk. “You know, you’d both better get ready to run once I transform.
A wolf that long trapped is going to want to hunt. ”
Daire grins. “Primal play. My favorite. Although it is dark, and I can’t see where I’m going. I love being chased, but you two have the advantage. I will fall, aye?”
“Then you will be chased,” Lanlin’s voice is low and sultry, “and caught.”
“And after that?”
“You’ll have to find out.”
Lanlin tugs me away from Daire, placing his hands on either side of my forehead. “Now, time to come out and hunt, while we hunt you back. Join us as the equal predator that you always should have been, my fierce Omega. Queen. Beast.”
As Lanlin hisses the last word, I can sense the command layered underneath each word.
Every word of his speech is laced with a building mesmerism, which sinks into my subconscious.
My breathing speeds up. My hands compulsively open and close at my sides.
I’m panting.
I can sense something stirring inside.
My inner wolf.
Hunt…
Lanlin’s voice is inside my mind now. His red eyes are all I can see in the dark, as I collapse into his arms.
Lanlin’s dominant pheromones are like a living thing around me, burrowing beneath my skin. I’m choking on them.
My forehead throbs.
A fever rushes through me. I’m burning up.
“You’re killing her.” Daire’s tight voice sounds close by. “How much longer? I can sense that she’s in danger, you bastard…”
Lanlin holds me closer, ignoring Daire. He is shaking, as sweat drips down his forehead from the effort of using his animalism to break through the magic, which has been woven through my bones, blood, and skin.
He is pale and looks close to passing out but he clenches his jaw and pushes on.
Hunt me through the desert, my wolf.
Howl under the cold moonlight, my wolf.
Now…
I shudder and…
My inner wolf bursts out.
Lanlin and Daire are both knocked backwards by an explosion of shadows too long held inside.
I transform with a howl of joy into a huge scarlet Shadow Wolf.
I look like woven fur, shadow, and blood.
Savage euphoria surges through me.
I throw back my head and howl again, this time at the moon.
Then I sniff, scenting the most delicious pheromones: sunlight, frost, and incense.
My Alphas.
Mine to hunt. Mine to claim. Mine to bite.
My pack.
I circle Daire and Lanlin, who lie sprawled on the ground.
Daire’s eyes widen. “Oh, you’re bloody beautiful. Look at your gorgeous fur and fangs. Also, we’re fucked, aren’t we?”
I crouch with a delighted snarl, readying to leap.
Lanlin grabs Daire’s hand and drags him up, baring his fangs at me with primal delight. “Run…”