Chapter Fifty-Nine
M y eyes meet Blake’s.
Something erupts inside me. The wild and dangerous thought I’ve been trying to cull spreads through my body and sets my soul aflame. My breaths come out fast and shallow. He came. He came. He came. I feel the whisper of his attention brush over me, even when he moves his gaze back to Alexander.
Alexander releases his grip on my chin. My head is a ballast. I can’t support it. It rolls onto my neck. My back is shredded. My shirt blood-drenched. It sticks to the welts that mar my skin, and every breath I take is excruciating.
A slow grin spreads across Alexander’s face. “I wondered if you would try and take her from me. Too bad you’re alone.”
Blake’s lips curve into a cold smile. “What makes you think I’m alone?”
“Hello, Alex.” A low, smooth voice comes from the entrance corridor to my left. Jack leans against the stand and waves, a guard dead at his feet. His dark skin is wet from the rain, and it glints in the torchlight. He holds a bloody sword in one hand. “How have you been?”
“Long time no see.” A gruff voice, thick with the Northlands accent. Arran blocks the exit to my right, big arms folded across his chest, his one good eye focused on Alexander. Two guards are sprawled before him, hoods askew and necks twisted at unnatural angles.
A murmur fills the tiered seating. The cloaked people rise to their feet all around me.
“How nice. A family reunion.” Alexander turns on the spot, spreading his arms. “If we had Fenrir and Fara here, we’d have the whole pack back together.”
Jack shrugs. “They were otherwise engaged.”
“Get Fara’s name out of your filthy mouth,” growls Arran.
Alexander laughs. “Still pining for that bitch, I see. Too bad she rejected you.”
Whatever Arran growls in response fades into the background as Blake bends down and plucks something from the pocket of the guard at his feet. It glints in the torchlight as he tosses it to James a few feet away from him—it’s a key.
“No one you don’t trust leaves here alive,” says Blake quietly. “Wolf or man.”
They’re enemies, they despise one another, and I think James is going to say something unsavory to Blake. He nods. “Except for you, presumably,” he says under his breath.
Blake smiles coolly. “Except for me.”
James raises his shackled wrists and sticks the key into the lock of his collar as Alexander turns back to Blake. “You want her, Brother? Come and get—”
There’s a flicker of steel, a swish of blades, and something slices the darkness.
One of Blake’s daggers plunges into Alexander’s torso, the other in his inner thigh. He staggers back. He grips one of the knives and pulls it out, then slumps to his knees. Blood pumps quickly out of his wound and mixes with mine on the floor. He clamps the gash with one hand, while moving his other to the second dagger’s hilt and sliding it out with a feral groan.
He laughs. “You’re a fool, Brother. You can’t kill me.” His voice is hoarse as he glares at the stands. “Kill them all. Except the Princess. She is... mine.”
Chaos erupts in the amphitheater. The cloaked humans flood down the stands. James has passed the key around, and the Wolves are already freeing themselves and tossing their shackles aside. James is on his feet, roaring, as he strangles a blond man with his chain. He charges toward Claire.
Jack blocks the blade of one of the acolytes as it slices down toward one of the prisoners, before he pulls Ryan to his feet and sticks another sword in his hand.
The ground trembles, and I’m not sure if it’s because of the thunder of feet, or the beast that lurks beneath us.
Blake moves through the tide of blood and destruction toward me. He barely blinks as he unsheathes his sword and decapitates a man who gets in his way. He stabs a man who is helping Alexander in the face, and then smashes the Borderlands lord’s head with the base of the hilt. Alexander crumples into his own blood. Blake steps over him.
“Blake!” Arran tosses another set of keys toward his alpha. The guard who shackled me to the post is dead at his feet. Blake snatches them from the air and his scent of dark pine and poison engulfs me.
“Keep an eye on Alex. He can’t die or we’re fucked,” says Blake.
“Aye.” Arran powers toward the unconscious lord, slicing down a human in his path.
Blake presses himself against me, warm and solid, as he reaches for one of the shackles. There’s a click, and my hand falls loose. My legs buckle, and he hooks an arm around my lower hips, careful not to touch my back as he frees my other hand. Gently, he lowers us to our knees. My blood and Alexander’s seeps into our breeches.
He searches my face. He brings his hands to my cheeks and brushes away the tears and blood with the pad of his thumb.
My throat tightens. “You came.”
“Did you truly think I would not?”
The ground trembles, and Blake’s jaw sharpens when a low hiss comes from beneath us.
“There’s...” My throat burns, and every breath opens the wounds in my back. “Night’s prisoner....”
“Yes. If it gets free, we’re all dead. I’m going to get you out of here, but it’s going to hurt.”
I blink back the tears. “I know.”
“Good girl.” He brings his arm around my waist and rises into a crouch. “Okay, hands on my shoulders. That’s it.” I whimper as the movement provokes a deep, burning ache in my back. “Shh, I know.”
A film of water fills my eyes. “Can you feel it?”
“You’re suppressing your emotions, caging your pain. I feel only a little.”
He lifts me to my feet, and when he puts my arm around his shoulders, a low, feral sound scrapes against my throat.
“I know,” he soothes. “It will only last for a short while. I have a sleep tonic in my pocket. I’ll give it to you as soon as we’re clear of the Grey Keep. Come on.”
We start to move. I grip the collar of his shirt tightly, and every time my side bumps into his, I whimper. Every step is torture. My knees are weak, and if his hand was not firm around my hip, I would fall. Men and Wolves blur around us, black cloaks and kilts and chains. Arran is by my brother, pulling him to his feet. Jack and Ryan fight back to back. Claire twists the head of a man who straddles James, and he falls dead at her feet.
There is blood... blood everywhere. Nausea rises inside me.
“Why?” My voice is dry and hoarse, barely audible over the roars and the swishes of steel. I’m not even sure what I’m asking. Why did Alexander torture me? Why am I here? Why did Blake come?
“You know why.” His mouth is close to my ear, and I’m not sure what he means. “Shh. It’s okay. We’re almost there.”
The corridor I was brought through looms ahead. I let myself dare to hope, to water that small flower that raises its head in the darkness. We’re going to escape. We’re going to be free.
I grit my teeth. I grip Blake tighter and straighten my spine. He quickens his step.
The muscles in his shoulders tense beneath my fingers. The torches around the circle flicker, then die, and the amphitheater plunges into darkness. We turn our heads toward the trapdoor. Alexander has crawled to it, his black shirt slick with blood. He pulls a key out of the lock, and meets Blake’s eyes, as Arran—blood spilling from his nose—charges toward him.
“You fool, Alex,” Blake hisses.
Alexander grins and flings open the door. Dots dance before my eyes, and I squeeze them shut. I can’t afford to lose consciousness. Not here. Not now.
I dig my fingers into Blake’s shoulders and make myself look.
An unnatural quiet fills the amphitheater. Chains groan, then scrape along the floor, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. A low hiss vibrates over the walls, and even the men in cloaks shrink from it. A sour scent, like decaying meat, floods my nostrils as a slithering sound fills the gloom.
“ Moonlight and darkness. Freedom and chains. Power and destruction. ” An unnatural rasp seems to come from everywhere at once, and it reminds me of the voice that came from Kai when he first awoke. “ Does he know, do you think? ”
Blake hurls me back, and I withhold my scream as a tide of shadow spills out of the trapdoor and rears up, contained only by the ceiling. It winds around the circle, blocking the exits. The darkness moves like mist around a serpentine face and body. It blinks down at us with eyes of onyx.
“ You’ve been so naughty. ”
Something rattles in the cage inside me and floods my body with ice. Sweat beads on my skin, and my vision begins to fade.
“ Oh, I am so hungry. So very hungry. ”
The darkness crashes down into the amphitheater like a stormy obsidian wave. Shouts fill the air as men and Wolves scatter, and two males are plucked up as if they’re weightless. A horrible crunch is followed by a squelch as they disappear, screaming, into the maw of the beast. Black blood spatters the ground.
My pulse is racing so quickly, I think I’m going to pass out. The fever is coming for me, and I can’t keep it at bay. I fight it with everything I have, even though darkness would be a relief. I can’t give up. I can’t expect someone else to save me.
There’s a flicker of darkness to my side, and Blake pulls me out of the way of the thing’s tail. We land hard on the ground, Blake’s arms curling around me, and I bite down hard to stop myself from screaming as the welts in my back are exposed to the air. It strikes again, scooping up cloaked men and Wolves, dead and alive, and swallowing them whole.
“Pick up your weapons!” James roars. “Next time it strikes, go for its eyes and mouth! Kill any southerners that get in your way.”
I try to push myself up, and Blake helps me to my knees. He kneels before me and clasps my face in his hands. “Aurora, listen to me. You need to stop suppressing your power. You’re the only one who can save us. If you don’t, we will all die.”
I shake my head. “I’m not a wolf.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Alexander staggers forward, eyes set on me as the shadows writhe around him. Ryan is on the floor, bleeding. Philip is standing by James, the two of them barking frantic orders and getting the Wolves into formation, only for another three men to be plucked into the maw of the beast. Claire plunges a sword into a hooded male that lurches for her before turning to face the shadows—her eyes bright and feral, even though the blade trembles in her hand. Ian lies dead on the floor.
“Not your wolf, Aurora.” Blood and gore splatter the ground beside us. Warm droplets drip down my cheek and onto his hand. “Your power. There’s a reason why you didn’t shift on the night of the full moon. A reason why Ghealach shone for you on the night of the battle with Sebastian. A reason why the àithne doesn’t work on you, why Callum has struggled with his wolf—gods, why I have—since you have been around.” He grips me tighter, sliding his hands into my hair. “I think you’ve started to suspect it too. You feel it. It’s not your wolf that you keep suppressing when the fever comes for you. It’s a different power. The Wolves thought it was literal. A heart turned to rock, fossilized by time. What if it was not?”
What he’s saying, it can’t be true. I shake my head. “Even if you’re right, it’s deep within me, and I’ve been holding onto it for so long that I cannot let it go.”
“Darling, people like you and me, we do not let go.” He bumps his forehead against mine, and the wolf blazes in his eyes. “We unleash.”
He breaks away from me and draws his sword. He meets Alexander’s blade. There’s a ring of steel as he throws the Borderlands lord back before advancing upon him. A growl reverberates in his chest.
The serpentine beast rears up above us all, and I stagger back onto my palms as it turns its obsidian eyes on me. I no longer feel pain, nor my blood, nor heat. I’m numb. It’s like looking into an endless abyss. Its scent ambushes me, ancient and primordial, and my clothes stick to my skin. It laughs, a raspy sound that vibrates through me and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“ He will be so angry with me, when he finds out what I have done to you, ” it hisses. “ It will be our little secret. ”
The darkness crashes down upon me, and something in my body rises up to meet it. A scream builds in my chest. My skin is clammy and everything is far away. The fever, it’s coming for me, as deadly as the serpentine creature that hurtles ever near, its mouth opening, its fangs dripping with blood. Every instinct in my body braces itself.
Blake is right. I have started to suspect something. I have read through his books filled with experiments on Wolves, and not one of them could stop the shift, nor fight the effects of silver and wolfsbane. I have wondered why I’ve found myself in Night’s prison and what it is he wants from me. I cast my thoughts back to the family tree I found in Blake’s bedchambers, and who the two scrubbed names at the top may belong to. Lochlan thought my mother brought the Heart of the Moon to the Northlands. Blake and Callum thought Sebastian had it.
I have thought of my mother, of the reason she might have withheld the truth from me. She loved me more than anything. I was her heart, she told me, her love.
When the fever hurtles through my body, I don’t fight it. I don’t suppress it.
I close my eyes.
I release a breath.
For once, I let go.