Chapter 8
Iain and I ran through the woods. This time, I rode with Silas, watching Iain match our pace. His paws pounded against the earth, the ground shaking with each footfall.
A wolf howled in the distance, and we slowed to a walking pace. I slipped off Silas’s back, running my fingers through his thick fur, and began walking between him and Iain.
This was peace.
I was born to be here, to live among wolves.
The smell of snow hung in the air, the moss floor cold under my bare feet. I stared up at the trees, limbs bare and lifeless. Soon, they would freeze until the spring, slipping into their winter slumber. And then Life would begin anew.
A low growl startled me. I tensed. Silas circled me now, and for a moment, I thought I had become his prey. But he gazed out into the woods. I glanced at Iain, who sniffed the air, ears pinned back and eyes squinting.
Danger.
Something approached.
The air shifted, warmer than it should have been as a dense fog shrouded the forest. Iain growled low when something emerged from the mist.
A wolf, darker than night, approached. His eyes blazed like the sun. He walked towards us, shoulders shifting his muscles with each step.
“You have the heart of a wolf, young one,” the dark wolf spoke in my head. “The mind of a huntress. The spirit of the wild.”
“Eden,” Iain whispered gently. “You are safe here in Arcadia.”
The strange wolf laughed, the sound of it rumbling in my chest even from a distance. Power thrummed in his veins, emanating from him in the fog.
“Eden,” he mused. “My name is Nyx. I have a feeling we’ll become good friends.”
Silas and Iain both moved to stand in front of me in protective stances.
“Or perhaps not.” Nyx growled. “I wouldn’t mind being the one to kill the King of Arcadia.”
“No, please.” I shot my eyes to Iain. “You can’t die like this.”
Nyx licked his teeth. “I’ve already killed him once. I’ll gladly do it again. Didn’t they warn you about the big, bad wolf?”
With a lunge, Nyx’s teeth dug into Iain’s shoulder. If I screamed, I couldn’t hear it. My heartbeat rushed into my ears as everything moved in slow motion.
Nyx pulled at Iain’s flesh, ripping a yelp from Iain.
“Eden, run!” he grunted. “Silas!”
I watched Nyx rip Iain’s left foot clean off. The king phased between his human form and his wolf form when he tumbled to the ground. He gasped for air like he was drowning.
“Father!” Silas shouted, frozen in terror.
“Leave now, Silas,” Iain hissed while Nyx loomed over him. “You’re ready.”
Nyx shifted like the smoke, a towering dark figure of a man. He ripped a branch from one of the dormant trees with too much ease for normal human strength. He lifted it high above Iain’s body.
“No!” I shouted. I turned away while Nyx finished off the King of Arcadia. Silas tugged me onto his back and charged away from the gruesome scene, his flight response kicking in.
Tears stung my face while the brutal wind whipped past us.
Iain had been murdered.
Behind us, Nyx gained ground like he was flying, heavy paws attacking the earth. I clutched Silas’s fur tight, praying that we would make it back to the safety of Arcadia.
I turned around once more. The terrible, dark wolf disappeared.
As I righted myself, Silas fell from beneath me, shifting direction. For a moment, I soared until I rolled and tumbled on the ground, the wind knocked out of me.
This was all some horrible nightmare. It had to be.
A paw crushed my chest in an instant, pinning my back to the ground and threatening to snap my collarbone. Claws dug into the thin layer of skin over my bones. Nyx, covered in Iain’s blood, breathed in my face. The smell of iron turned my stomach.
“You should know better than to run from wolves, Eden.”
“Please, I don’t understand,” I cried. Tears streamed down my cheeks, sliding past my ears. Every part of me grew sticky with sweat. A drop of Iain’s blood dripped on my cheek from Nyx’s snarling lips, and the sound of rattling keys sent chills up my spine.
“You will. In time.” Nyx bared his bloody teeth.
I screamed, but nothing came.
“Eden?” Silas shook my shoulders, awakening the aches in my body from the dream. “Eden, wake up. Can you hear me?”
I blinked. The chilly, shrouded forest no longer surrounded me, but my prison cell. No longer crushed by the weight of a wolf, but safe and sound in my bed.
Darkness had seeped over the forest as dusk fell. Shadows danced across Silas’s face. He leaned over me, knees on either side of my stomach, one hand slipped under my neck the other on my arm.
I raised a hand to my cheeks and felt real tears. “Nyx,” I whispered.
“Oh, Lycaon,” a voice said.
A moment passed before I realized that Nash stood in the doorway.
“Silas.” Caroline stepped into view, hand on the king’s shoulder.
“Eden, what happened?” he asked, voice breaking.
I didn’t know kings could be scared.
I didn’t know wolves could be scared.
I swallowed, my throat raw from screaming. Real screaming.
How much of that was actually a nightmare?
“I dreamt that you and I were running with Iain in the woods. He said I’d be safe in Arcadia, but then–” My eyesight glazed over while I tried to remember what I had seen.
Blood.
Blazing red eyes.
Iain’s face when he died.
“A wolf calling himself Nyx killed Iain. He killed your father. I watched it happen. Iain’s leg–” My voice broke off with the vision repeating itself behind my eyelids.
The room fell silent, Silas’s hand still supporting my head. His muscles tensed. I felt his eyes on me, but I kept my gaze away.
“She’s a human. It could be just a dream, right?” Nash asked. “He…” Nash didn’t finish his sentence.
“He’d lost a lot of blood, Nash,” Caroline whispered. “His left foot was gone. And he never said what he’d encountered that day.”
“Was no one with him?” Nash sounded incredulous.
Neither of his siblings answered him.
With a thumb, Silas brushed a drop of blood off my cheek, examining it.
Iain’s blood in my dream.
“You brought Nyx into Arcadia,” Silas muttered to me in defeat.
Nash flinched.
“But I didn’t. It was a dream, right?” Silas sat up straight as I pushed myself up on my arm. “Dreams aren’t real.”
Caroline shook her head. “Dreams are weighty but fickle. Once, Nyx had the Sight. That magic may still be in his blood, giving him power. It’s possible but rare to manifest in dreams. So if you dreamt of him…” She shrugged like that answered all of my questions.
But Iain’s blood on Silas’s thumb told the rest of the story.
Whatever it was, at least part of it had been real. Nyx had been real. And what scared me the most now was the expression of pure anger in Silas’s gaze. I searched for any sign of hope. But the wild overpowered his green eyes.
I didn’t know if that wild anger was for Nyx or for me.