Chapter 24
RAANA
Raana felt Adrien before she saw him.
The sensation came in a whoosh, a hit of something like the wind that spawned gooseflesh on her skin and wrenched the breath from her lungs.
She’d spun from where she’d been working on a mask at a vendor’s stall, eyes furiously scanning the crowd for the source of what may as well have been a siren’s song, for the pull she felt towards it.
It would’ve been wiser to stay put, not to leave Nerissa’s soldier—the same one who had carried her through the Wilds that day—that she’d come on this mission with alone, but she couldn’t stop herself from following the call.
Her iron-confined shadows whispered wildly in her ear as she sifted through the masses, her face hidden beneath her hood.
The crowd had crested and crashed like waves along a rocky coast, and when the sea parted… there he was.
She didn’t know what to do with herself as she took him in as if he somehow could’ve changed since she last saw him. Raven-black hair, golden-green eyes, and a powerfully built body that moved through the horde with effortless regality.
He was okay. Still alive. Still breathing.
The wash of relief, sorrow, and rage threatened to drown her where she stood. He wasn’t supposed to be here for the coronation. At least, that’s what he’d told her back in Callisto, but something must’ve changed. Maybe he finally stood up to his father… or had been banished.
No. That would be too easy. She imagined if it came down to it, Cassius—wretched asshole that he was—would simply see Adrien as expendable.
With that thought, blinding hot ire poured into her veins like molten ore, and she watched as Adrien paused. She stiffened as the prince turned his head… in the wrong direction.
Thank the Mother.
She realized now that he wasn’t alone. Sebastian, Isla’s brother and Adrien’s friend, came up behind the prince, scanning the crowd, too.
Raana took advantage of Adrien’s distraction and fell back, ducking her head deeper into her hood, not noticing the tears that had welled in her eyes until she felt the wetness drip down the slope of her nose, the million apologies she owed him dead on her tongue.
For once, she craved the comfort of her shadows, wishing they would wrap her up and sweep her away from here.
She never thought she’d see him again, and more painful than anything was that for one fluttering heartbeat, seeing him left room for hope to bloom. It gave her a second to remember, to feel what being with him was like—every touch, every laugh, every quiet moment of understanding.
The only person who had never abandoned her.
When Raana reached the vendor, Nerissa’s soldier had barely moved an inch, earning a stare from the man working the booth, so she did her best to keep her voice cheerful. “We need to go.”
“Too much to drink?” the vendor asked her, his salt-and-pepper mustache twitching as he grinned and subtly gestured towards her companion.
Raana forced a smile and an endearing look towards her counterpart. “Maybe a little.”
She looped an arm through the soldier’s, the muscles of his arm tensing beneath her touch.
Always tense. Always alert. Always under this spell.
Shame chomped at her insides as she waited for a knife to the ribs that blessedly never came. The two of them would need to play this part when necessary. At least, somehow, he seemed to understand that.
“Lighten up, friend. It’s the Equinox! The winds are changing, our alpha won his challenge, and we have a new queen. His fated, Goddess-chosen.” The vendor lifted a hand towards Raana. “And you have a beautiful woman on your arm.”
The soldier’s face didn’t waver, and Raana again plastered on a smile, flashing a demure look and willing away the heat to her cheeks at the flattery.
“Don’t mind him.” She reached for the masks she’d been decorating, frowning at the jewels that had gone off-kilter on the brow bone because she’d used too little glue.
“You should let them dry,” the vendor said, a roll of thunder punctuating the words.
Raana ignored him, lifting her head with raised brows as she took in the sky. The light of the stars wheeled and shifted. Constellations illuminating, dimming… forming?
She squinted, pain lashing across her forehead as her hidden shadows’ whispers caressed her ears, and she could’ve sworn the velvet blanket above pulsed.
“Another night of rain.” The vendor’s lament wasn’t enough to tear her gaze from the sky. “I can’t remember the last time we saw so many storms. Can you?”
Undeniable, skin-bursting pressure built from her toes, up her legs, back, neck, and head, until the tips of her fingers tingled.
“Goddess, your nose is bleeding.”
Raana snapped her head down, blinking at the man as she tried to clear the gleaming map of stars from her eyes. Her free hand lifted to her nose, where warmth had begun to pool. She pulled back to observe the crimson. Odd. She hadn’t been using magic.
The vendor’s once jovial attitude began to peel away, his hardening gaze shifting between Raana and her companion.
His nose twitched like he’d scented something, his eyes sliding to the iron bracelet clamped around her wrist like a manacle.
The jewelry that held her enchantment and glamor together certainly wouldn’t last forever.
Time to go.
With nothing but a Happy Equinox, Raana grabbed the masks, handed one to the soldier, and dragged him into the crowd. At a safe distance, she cut her hand on the side of her blade, quickly recasting the spell to mask her scent, just in case.
Back on task.
They’d come this far, and now she needed Kai and Isla’s blood before they locked it away.
She couldn’t fail. People would be hurt if she failed, and she wouldn’t allow any more blood or death where she could prevent it.
The stained-glass window of the Pack Hall—so jarring to see after she’d been behind Phobos’s shattered counterpart—served as their compass as Raana moved towards the hall, powering forward until she felt the occasional jerk from her companion to change directions for safer, better-hidden travel, evading the many guards that Kai and Isla had out for the night.
Raana couldn’t see much of his face beyond the dark red surface of his mask, his eyes so deeply set that she could barely make out their vacant amber.
Her gaze drifted to the faint scars on his neck, just exposed beneath his tunic as he moved.
Two nubbed points of pearlescent skin gleamed under the streetlamps. Could they have been…
She felt the phantom caress of Adrien’s teeth along her neck, the thrill of it, how her body sang at it. A wolf’s bite, where they’d been bitten—it meant something.
Whoever this man was… he had a mate somewhere out there.
Mother above.
Raana’s stomach hollowed out, disgust crawling up her throat. This was a man with an entire life, and she was stringing him along like a puppet.
Monster, monster, monster.
How did this make her any better than Nerissa?
Once they’d reached a shrouded pine forest, Raana’s steps slowed, and the man whipped his head to her in demand to pick up the pace.
Before she could doubt herself, she asked, “Do you have a name?”
She couldn’t see any movement on his face below the mask. Though he did swallow, and she watched the mark shift with the action.
She repeated, slower, “Do you have a name?”
“I…”
She waited for his answer, but then he ripped free from her hold so violently he nearly tore off her arm. He reached for his head, breathing hard through gritted teeth, as if riffling through his memories was too painful.
Raana gasped. Was this some failsafe for the enchantment?
“No. No, no, no. I’m sorry.” Raana reached out to comfort him, but he reared back again, tears slipping down his chin from the small space at the bottom of his mask.
Something weighed heavily in the folds of her cloak. Another failsafe. A needle filled with poison strong enough to weaken his wolf and make him more complacent. It was to be her last resort since she’d need to carry him through her shadows once he was unconscious because of it. Or—
“If he becomes too much to handle, you may dispose of him. There are others.” Nerissa’s detachment as she handed her the blade and poison made her feel sick.
Raana struggled to swallow her disgust.
There had to be an alternative. Raana had no gift of persuasion, but she had magic. Even a thin veil to smooth those painful cracks in his consciousness might be enough to soothe him.
Taking her conduit in hand, feeling the stone burn beneath her touch, Raana began the chant in the First Language, stepping closer as she cooed the words.
The soldier’s erratic movements eased, and he allowed her to place a hand on his arm as she finished speaking.
Raana was certain she was about to vomit.
Not from the exertion, but she may as well have been holding a blade to his heart as she eliminated his sense of self.
“Are you okay?” she asked, feeling breathless and broken, mindlessly wiping blood from her nose and catching the tears that had fallen down her cheeks.
The man didn’t answer, only straightened and turned to face the hill.
Then he kept moving.
Using her shadows, she’d moved them into a darkened room she’d observed from outside the Pack Hall.
A gamble, considering she hadn’t been sure who or what would be inside.
Thankfully, it had been empty. Just an ornately decorated drawing room.
It was nice to see an interior that wasn’t cursed or crumbling to pieces.
Raana stretched out a hand to her companion, her heart shattering as she observed him. He may as well have been a ghost.
Once they got through this, she would help him. She would get him out. Away from Nerissa and away from her.
“Don’t move,” she commanded softly. “It’s better if only one of us is in the halls, and I can blend into the shadows. I’ll meet you back here. If you hear anyone, hide.”