Chapter 28 The Code for a New Life
The Code for a New Life
The woman arrived not long after Calder summoned her, her dark hair wind-swept from her broom ride and threaded with silver-white strands.
She moved with the quiet authority of an alpha, warm and protective in a way Victor never had been.
The kind of witch who didn’t need to remind you she was an alpha, because it was obvious from the moment you saw her.
Her gaze swept the room, taking in every detail until she landed on me. She assessed me quickly without comment and then started to move again.
“Car?” she asked, grabbing as many scent-blocking and altering charms from his shelves as she could find and stuffing them in her purse. Her crow familiar sailed through the shop, dropping runics to cover the cost on the counter.
He pointed behind him. “White Goblin in the back. Keys are in the ignition.”
She snapped her fingers at me, and I stood at attention, nearly dropping my empty mug. “Yes, alpha.”
The words came out of me automatically, programmed by years of conditioning from Victor. Only now, there wasn’t a hint of sarcasm in my tone.
She tsked, but the small admonishment was tempered by a teasing smile. “I’m not that kind of alpha, omega.”
Her eyes dipped to my bare feet, which she then focused on Calder. He nodded wordlessly, going into the back and taking out a duffel bag. He handed it to me, and I found sweatpants, a sweater, and some slides inside.
I almost burst into tears putting them on, the feeling of so much soft, warm fabric on my skin comforting and overwhelming at the same time.
And shoes… shoes! It was like walking on clouds, my arches cradled by foam.
“Got everything?” she asked.
I shook my head, still unsure whether this was real or if I was dreaming as I rocked back and forth on my feet, getting used to the feeling. I already knew I’d likely blister quickly, but I didn’t care. “My cat…”
With a loud whistle, Ember came out from where he’d been hiding under a cabinet, clearly just as ready to submit to the alpha witch as I was. She took a ribbon out of her bag and tied it around his neck.
“Vael zi thren,” she said in Old Lundarian. Ember’s eyes and the ribbon flashed green from the command to trust and follow, his tail twitching as he waited for us to leave.
“Come.”
We did as instructed, only stopping for a moment to give Calder a hug.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Be well, Sage,” he whispered back.
As we walked out the door, the woman handed me one of the scent-blocking charms, which I crushed, the act so nostalgic I almost started crying again.
A ring was then slipped on my finger.
“Glamour,” she explained.
I caught my new reflection in the car window.
My curly hair had gone stick straight, the color turning nearly black. My eyes were light blue, and my canines a little longer and sharper, marking me as a werewolf. My skin turned a few shades darker, giving me the first healthy glow I’d had since moving to Noctis.
The car, an inconspicuous Goblin, groaned to life, and we pulled out from the alleyway onto a side street.
My old neighborhood slid past us in a blur of lights and shuttered storefronts, the familiar shapes warped by fear and adrenaline.
Every block felt like a mile, and I sat rigid in the passenger seat, hands knotted in the hem of my borrowed sweater, listening for sirens that weren’t there.
For the low, inevitable thrum of Victor’s power closing in on us.
“I’m Morgana,” she said, one hand on the wheel, the other resting loosely on the door, as if this were nothing more than a late errand run. Her crow familiar sat on the headrest behind her, black eyes sharp, head swiveling with each passing intersection. “And he’s Vesper.”
I struggled to get the words out. “N-nice—”
“Breathe,” she said without looking at me. “It’s okay. I’m not expecting conversation. Just wanted to let you know who you were riding with.”
I tried to calm myself down. The air tasted different in the car. Metal, plastic, and old upholstery, layered with herbs and spellwork. Not a hint of blood or Victor.
But my heart still hammered against my ribs, each beat screaming that this was too easy.
That at any moment, a hand would wrap around my throat, and I’d wake up back in the penthouse with Victor’s voice in my ear, telling me I’d dreamed it all and he was going to punish me for even considering leaving him.
We passed a patrol cruiser idling at a corner. I flinched so hard that Ember grunted softly at my feet, yet Morgana didn’t slow, and the cop didn’t move.
The skyline loomed ahead of us. Windows glowed like watchful eyes, waiting to report me as soon as they caught me in their stare, while buildings cut into the surrounding darkness like a gaping maw, ready to swallow me whole again.
You won’t escape him for long, a cruel little voice whispered in my head. He will always find you.
The Goblin rolled onto the arterial road leading out of Noctis, and the traffic thinned. The landscape flattened from skyscrapers into low warehouses and dark stretches of concrete. Morgana flicked on the radio to fill the silence.
You’ve tuned in to The Fang twelve-sixty FM, Noctis’s home for jazz after dark. Coming up, we’ve got Desmond Alucard’s “Rhapsody in Red,” followed by…
The city limit sign came into view, illuminated by a single flickering streetlamp.
NOCTIS — CITY-STATE BOUNDARY
I tensed, waiting for something. Alarms, maybe, or an attack. For Victor to spring up from behind us and sink his teeth into my throat.
But nothing happened. The city shrank behind us, and ahead of us was just more road, stretching ahead into darkness.
I sucked in a shuddering breath, then another, my vision blurring as the tension finally drained from my limbs. I hadn’t realized how tightly I’d been holding myself together until there was no reason to anymore.
Ember climbed into my lap, kneading my stomach with careful paws and purring loudly. I pressed my face into his fur and laughed, a small, broken sound that turned into a sob.
“You’re out, little witch,” Morgana said. “Power ends at the thresholds. Once you cross one, even the gods have to let you go.”
The road carried us forward, and I cried again.
* * *
Morgana didn’t speak for a few hours, until finally the sun rose and the rest of Lundaria began to wake.
“You’re a werewolf now, and your name is Briar Lykoudis. I’m taking you to your ‘sister’s’ place,” she finally said. “Her name is Selene. She’ll give you free room and board, plus a job at her bar. You can stay as long as you need to.”
Since I’d worked in catering before, tending bar didn’t sound too difficult.
“Are we going to Fenmoor?” I asked. I’d been a few times as a kid, but I couldn’t lie and say the destination didn’t make me nervous.
As amazing as Accalia was, her cousin, Kain, had been a monster.
They also had the best noses out of all the Magiks, so they’d realize I wasn’t one of them pretty quickly, even with charms and spells.
“Nope,” she replied. “Neutral lands. Little backwater location. But she’s had a lot of little sisters and brothers over the years. The patrons know the drill, and they’ll look out for you.”
I breathed a little easier. Okay, neutral lands. Even though I really just wanted to go home, I knew Cindralis was out of the question because that would be the first place Victor would look, even without the question of jurisdiction.
“And no one will be able to track me there?”
Vesper cawed softly, rubbing his beak along the side of Morgana’s head. She reached up to give him a few little scratches.
“There are no absolutes, but it’s safe. And if it ever becomes not safe, I have contingency plans.”
I spread my fingers through Ember’s fur.
“Do you want to know what happened to me?” I asked, leaning my head against the window to watch the world come to life.
Spring was coming. The trees all showed signs of new leaves beginning to bud, the chartreuse and viridian pearls clinging to bare branches across an awakening landscape.
“You can tell me if you’d like,” Morgana said softly. “For some, talking about it helps. For others, they aren’t ready or just want to forget.”
Forgetting sounded nice, but something compelled me to speak anyway. Maybe I just wanted a witness. Someone who would know everything that had happened in case he found me and I disappeared again. For good, this time.
“Five years,” I said. “Five years ago, he took me.”
Five years locked up as Victor’s mate. Too delicate to breathe fresh air and show my face in public. Too precious to announce to the world as his.
Too dangerous to be known.
* * *
“… and that’s what finally gave me the push to leave.”
Morgana’s eyes were still on the road, her jaw set tight and her knuckles white from where she gripped the steering wheel.
She was quiet for a while, absorbing my story, until she finally spoke. “Hecara curse him. That’s… that’s the most depraved, evil thing—”
“He thinks I’m his mate,” I said, interrupting her, getting angry with myself for feeling the need to defend Victor about this.
Every action he’d taken was one he had always been capable of choosing, and yet a part of me still wondered if this messed-up bond he felt had screwed with his head in some way.
“I honestly don’t think he would have locked Liora up.
” I touched my chest, feeling her beat from within me, wondering if somehow she’d understood what I’d done.
“So there must have always been a little voice in the back of his head telling him something wasn’t right about me, and that was what had driven him to such extreme behavior.
The feelings corrupted him, poisoned him. Drove him mad.”
She sighed heavily. “I mean, I can see it. Maybe. But you don’t have to excuse him to me. Regardless of how he felt or his reasons, you didn’t deserve what happened to you.” She paused, waiting to pass the truck next to us before continuing.
“Do you feel anything yet? Through his claim?”