Chapter 10
CADE
Leaving Rowan to take care of our pack alone isn’t my first choice, but I couldn’t watch her suffer any longer.
I could already feel her anguish from feeling as though she’d failed her mother. It came through as if the grief was my own by way of the bond. One look at her while she watched Marius run off to do what she couldn’t…
I knew what needed to be done.
My only shock is that she listened to me.
Yet, the fact that she trusted me to take care of her father has my wolf on a high as I run after Marius.
The corridor ahead narrows like a throat.
The stones press closer, the ceiling lowering as though The Keep is trying to herd us where it wants us.
My boots slam against the floor in harsh echoes, the sound chased by distant hisses above us—vampires gathering again, drawn by blood, magic, and the chaos Malrik planted like a seed.
But I don’t stop.
I can’t.
Not until I get into the chamber where I find Marius, his shoulders heaving with his back to me.
I scan the room. It’s wrong in every way a place can be.
Runes carved into the floor. The air is thick with a spell so powerful it tastes metallic, like biting down on a coin. There are no torches, no flames, yet the space is lit faintly from within the stone itself, as if The Keep is glowing with restraint.
And in the center—Jocelyn Prescott.
She floats just above the slab, suspended by the web of magic that holds her in place like a trophy and a warning all at once. She’s pale and still.
An image that I hate for my mate to have seen without me at her side.
Marius makes a sound that isn’t right.
It’s broken—half snarl, half grief—ripped straight out of his chest as he slumps forward like the spell has hooked him by the ribs and yanked.
That’s when I understand what he’s doing.
“Marius,” I bark, already reaching for him, but it’s too late.
Light flares—white-hot and violent—and Marius’s arms jerk like he’s been struck by lightning. The smell of burning flesh slams into my lungs. He grunts through clenched teeth, muscles locking, his back spasming.
Yet he doesn’t let go. He can’t.
“Marius!” I yell again, moving faster before I grab his shoulder, trying to wrench him back.
He whirls on me with eyes gone wild, his wolf surging up hard enough to make his voice vibrate.
“Don’t,” he snarls.
One word.
A command.
Not from an alpha.
From a man who has already decided he’ll die before he walks away again.
The fury in him is so raw I feel it like a punch.
His hands are still pressed to the shield, fingers curled, skin blistering where the magic meets him, red-hot and splitting.
He grunts again—low, pained, and animalistic—then shoves forward harder.
The shield trembles.
Maybe he can actually do this.
“Malrik built this for Rowan,” I mutter, more to myself than him. A trap tuned to her power. A lock designed to hold against her siphon.
But Marius isn’t siphoning.
He’s using brute force.
He’s using the one thing the spell isn’t designed to withstand:
Love for a mate.
Even if that’s not what Jocelyn technically is to him.
His breath comes out in ragged bursts as he leans in, shoulders shaking, jaw clenched so tight I’m surprised his teeth don’t crack.
“Jocelyn, baby,” he whispers, and it’s not a name anymore.
It’s a prayer and a rage-filled plea and an apology all twisted together.
It’s I’m right here. Please, don’t let me be too late.
The shield flares brighter, and Marius howls.
And still, he doesn’t let go.
I should stop him before it’s too late, but as I watch the sorrow deepen into the lines on his face, I understand him with a clarity I can’t ignore.
If it were Rowan on that slab—if that were my mate suspended in a cage built by a monster—no one could stop me either.
I won’t do that to Marius.
I clasp both of his shoulders, and I pull on him as he cradles Jocelyn. Not to stop him but to help. Heat snakes up my arms, threatening to burn me as it is Marius, but I don’t let up, and neither does he.
I grit my teeth and yank as hard as I can.
The shield flares, and I pull harder.
Marius lets out a savage sound and leans in.
The shield cracks this time, and the runes in the floor flicker, some of them glowing brighter as they try to compensate, like the spell is recalculating in real time.
It wasn’t built for two wolves putting their entire bodies into it and refusing to die quietly.
My arms scream. A raw agony crawls up past my wrists, licking into my forearms, deeper every second, like the spell is trying to teach me a lesson.
I don’t care. I can’t.
Marius howls again, but this time…
The web of magic gives.
A seam opens through the lattice above Jocelyn, a sound like fabric ripping in the dark.
Marius doesn’t waste time. With one final surge of determination, we both pull back as one to yank Jocelyn free.
My legs quake as the connection breaks, and before I can catch him, Marius crumbles to the ground, Jocelyn in his lap.
He grunts, breath punching out of him in a harsh sob as he holds her limp form tightly. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you, and I’m never letting you go.”
I drop to a knee beside them, my hand reaching for Jocelyn’s. Her skin is cold, but she’s still breathing.
Barely.
My entire body surges with vicious relief.
“We have to go,” I rasp.
Marius doesn’t answer. His eyes are locked on her face like he’s afraid the moment he blinks, she’ll disappear.
Only when I reach to take her from him does he react.
He snarls and snaps his extended canines at me. “Mine.”
I hold my hands up. “I know. I only want to help.” Nodding back at the room we were just in, I add, “More vampires are going to come for us, and you can’t fight with those burns on your arms. Let me take her so we can all get out of here.”
His glossy gaze moves back to Jocelyn briefly, then back up to me. “I can’t lose her again.”
“I know.”
“If you promise to…” He chokes on the words. “You can’t let anything stop you from getting her out of here.”
I allow my wolf to the surface, showing my alpha power. “I promise.”
He seems to read my intent and it’s thankfully enough.
His arms drop, and I grab Jocelyn under her shoulders and legs, lifting carefully. She’s lighter than she should be. Like Malrik drained her down to essentials, taking everything else for himself.
Marius tries to rise and fails, his arms shaking, skin blistered and burned up past his elbows.
“Are you going to be able to at least walk?” I ask, voice hard because I can’t afford to be gentle right now.
He shakes his head once, breath heaving. “No.”
My gut knots.
I can’t carry them both and defend us.
The hisses are louder now—echoing from the corridor like a warning bell.
My wolf paces, snarling. Move. Now.
“But I can shift,” Marius adds with a grunt, eyes flicking up to mine.
He doesn’t wait for my acknowledgment. Bones crack, shifting fast despite his injuries. Fur ripples over burned skin. He growls through it—pain and fury braided together—and within seconds a massive dark wolf stands where the man was, eyes wild but focused.
At least the magic from the transformation should help him heal faster.
He nudges Jocelyn once with his muzzle.
A gentle touch that doesn’t match the violence of everything around us.
Then he looks at me with a nod, and I tighten my grip on her.
“Go,” I order.
His wolf dips his head and takes the lead.
He might be moving slower than normal, but at least we’re running now.
The corridor blurs. Shadows stretch wrong. The air gets colder, sharper.
A vampire drops from above, landing ahead.
Marius hits it like a truck.
Teeth, blood, and an audible snap.
The body goes down.
We don’t slow.
Another hiss, closer—two this time—one on the wall, one on the ceiling—
I pivot, shifting Jocelyn’s weight to my left arm, and drive my right hand into the nearest vampire’s chest with a brutal shove, using pure brute force and alpha strength.
It slams back into the wall hard enough to crack stone.
Marius tears into the other before it can leap.
We keep moving.
Even when the hisses multiply behind us, reverberating through the night like a promise.
I keep Jocelyn close, arms burning, heart hammering, my wolf roaring with triumph and rage in equal measure.
The shadows reach. The air drops. The stone beneath our feet hums like it’s warning us we’re not done.
Maybe we aren’t.
But tonight?
Tonight, as we race outside of the castle, we won.