Chapter 11
ROWAN
We move like there’s a fire under our asses away from The Keep. Mostly because it feels like there is.
Caleb has lost consciousness, and Elias has a tremor in his arm that makes my chest constrict.
Stephanie is now carrying Caleb on her own, his weight dragging more with every step, while Archie sticks close to Elias’s side like a fuzzy little medic, clearly prepared to bite anyone who suggests he sit down.
All the while, Liz appears to be taking out all of her unresolved trauma on any vampire foolish enough to wander within a five-foot radius.
“I hate this place,” she snarls, ducking low and coming up fast. “I hate Malrik. I hate that you were forced into this world like you were. I hate these stupid leeches.”
She launches herself into the air, arcing cleanly over my head before I can even open my mouth. I turn just in time to see another vampire’s head bounce across the cracked stone like a dropped bowling ball.
Stephanie lifts a brow, impressively calm given the circumstances. “They’re your kind. How can you hate them?”
Liz wipes a dagger on her jeans with spiteful precision. “They are not my kind.” She spits on the rotting body. “These are newly turned, bloodthirsty, easily manipulated scumbags with the survival instincts of soggy bread.”
“Do you think…” I start to ask if maybe Malrik turned them somehow, to make his undead army now that the wolves have grown smarter, but I don’t get the chance.
What feels like much too long later, we emerge from the woods beyond The Keep and finally arrive back at the SUV, only to find a surprise I knew nothing about.
“Your hide will be wrapped around my toilet by the time I’m done with you!”
Iris. Cade must have done something without telling me.
“I will hang your claws around my neck and eat your kidneys for breakfast. Do you hear me, mongrel?”
The vehicle lurches, the suspension groaning.
“This wrinkly old face is going to be the last thing you ever see!”
Jonah and Mara lean against the hood like they’re watching live theater, while Dean’s wolf paces along the trees, clearly on edge.
“I thought we would be missing out on the action when Cade told us to get the old lady out,” Mara says casually, then grins. “But honestly? Worth it.”
Then her smile vanishes as she looks past me. “Caleb.”
“He needs anti-venom now.” Stephanie lowers him to the ground. “He’s not even going to make it to Glacier Crest.”
Iris cackles from inside the SUV, the sound wild and delighted, and I briefly wonder if Malrik did permanent psychological damage or if this has always been lurking beneath the floral cardigans.
“Did anyone think to bring any?” I ask, scanning their faces.
I’m met with silence and frowns. Then a very real, very terrifying realization.
Elias unexpectedly goes deadweight on me and slips from my hold, dropping to one knee, his breathing ragged, his hands shaking harder now.
No.
This can’t be happening.
“I can run through the forest and ask Glacier for help, but—” Liz starts, already tense.
She doesn’t finish.
“Buttered bunions!” Iris bellows. “Will someone listen to me before you all dramatically expire?”
I move to the car door, a glare on my face as I yank it open. “People are literally—”
“Get. My. Bag.” She rattles her hips for emphasis. “The fanny pack.”
I blink, my brain lagging. “Your… Why?”
She rolls her eyes so hard I’m shocked they don’t detach. “The anti-venom, Rowan. Silver vial. Did you all honestly think I wouldn’t plan for this?” A pause. Then smugly, “You would all be dead without me. Every single one of you.”
Crazy grandma might actually be the most prepared person here.
I break her restraints to tilt her forward, but don’t waste time removing the ropes before grabbing the pack and sprinting back to Caleb.
There’s too much random shit inside to make sense of in the moment, so I dump the contents straight into the dirt. Duct tape. A glitter jar. An unholy amount of salt packets. An entire bundle of oversized knitting needles.
I don’t question any of it, even while I wonder how it all fits.
I shove things aside until my fingers finally close around the silver vial.
Stephanie snatches it from my hand before I can ask what to do with it next.
The top is ripped off, and she tips the bottle over the burns along Caleb’s ribs and neck. The drops fall painfully slow, each one making my heart stutter, and when they hit his charred skin, they sizzle.
Black smoke curls into the air, and Caleb groans.
Jonah takes the vial next, moving quickly to Elias. I don’t follow. I just stand there, frozen between hope and dread, watching the wounds knit together as if the venom is being chased out, molecule by molecule.
Archie pads up beside me, still in his larger form. He bumps my leg gently. “You did well in there.”
“I—”
Failed, I want to say as I dig my fingers into his fur.
But I don’t.
My mother might still be trapped, but I didn’t sacrifice anyone else to save her. If I know anything right now, it’s that she never would have wanted that.
Iris comes charging forward like a woman with somewhere to be and absolutely no patience left in her soul. Without a word, she cocks her arm back and clocks Jonah clean in the back of the head.
The sound echoes.
Everyone freezes.
“If you ever—and I mean ever—manhandle me like that again,” Iris snarls, “I will make you wish for death. And then I’ll deny you the courtesy.”
Her eyes are dark, narrowed to lethal slits, and even though the shifter towers over her, she is ten times bigger than him in this moment.
Jonah lowers his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
Satisfied, she pivots on her heel and points at me. “Now. Where is your dog?”
Her question twists in my chest because they should be back. Cade should have been able to toss Marius over his shoulder if he had to, and then run like hell out of that place.
Why aren’t they here?
Shift, Wolf demands. We’ll get them.
I take a step away from the group and start to do just that, but then I see them. My dad’s wolf staggering, and next to him…
“Mom.”
The word slips from my mouth like breath fogging cold air.
I’m running before I can stop myself.
When they’re closer, my dad shifts back to human form, reaching for Mom. My attention is immediately drawn to his arms. They’re covered in brutal burns—skin split, muscle exposed in places, the scent of scorched flesh churning my stomach.
“What happened?” I demand.
“I couldn’t leave her,” Dad says hoarsely. “Not again.”
The agony in his voice tells me all I need to know, and even though I didn’t make the same choice, I’m incredibly grateful for him.
At least until I see her limp form, still in Cade’s arms.
She’s sheet white, unmoving. All angles and bone beneath too-thin skin, like Malrik kept her organs working with magic and couldn’t be bothered with anything as mundane as feeding her.
“Is she…”
Cade frowns. “Alive? For now. But we need to go.”
This time, no one hesitates.
My mother might not be able to die by supernatural means, but that doesn’t mean blood loss and malnourishment won’t still take her out.
And as we move once again, as fear claws its way up my spine, one thought drowns out everything else.
Please don’t let us be too late.
Considering how we left Solara—and the fact that we didn’t get anything back from Brynn—we race toward NightShade Manor.
It’s closer than Solara and, according to Iris, has everything we’ll need to save my mother.
If that’s even possible at this point.
Cade drives like a madman, but thankfully, it’s late, and the roads are mostly empty. We make it back to the manor in record time, and the moment we pass through the gates, my stomach twists painfully.
I’ve thought the same phrase over and over again as I’ve watched my dad hold my mom for the last few hours. He hasn’t taken his eyes off her face or her chest, tracking each shallow rise and fall like his life depends on it.
Please don’t let us be too late.
The manor’s front doors swing open before anyone touches them, lights snapping on one by one as if the house itself senses the urgency.
“Inside. Now,” Iris barks, already shrugging out of her jacket. “And watch where you step. I don’t need vampire rot on my rugs.”
No one argues.
Dad—now more healed thanks to Iris’s fanny pack—carries my mother through the doors with a gentleness that doesn’t match the violence of the world we just left behind.
Her head lolls slightly against his shoulder, skin pale, breath even more shallow than before.
Every step feels too slow. Every second stretches thin enough to snap.
“Bedroom or lab?” Liz asks.
“Lab,” Iris says immediately. “The bedroom’s for recovery. Right now, we need survival.”
I didn’t know we had a lab, but I don’t question it as Cade and I follow Iris, Liz, and Marius. The other wolves remain upstairs, which I appreciate, but I miss Archie the second I realize he’s no longer wrapped around my neck.
We head down into the basement, into a part of the manor I’ve never ventured before. Past what I assume are Iris’s living quarters and into a room that looks more like a surgical suite than a magical workspace.
Steel tables. Stainless counters. Glass cabinets packed with items I don’t have time to identify.
Iris is already moving, yanking open drawers, muttering to herself as she goes. Vials clink, something hisses, and the air fills with sharp, bitter scents that make my eyes water.
“I swear to every god that has ever ignored me,” Iris grumbles, “if that bastard killed my daughter—oh. Oh, I will end him.”
I step closer and place a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
She looks at me then, eyes glassy and raw. “Do you really believe that?”
“I have to.”
She gives one sharp nod and immediately pushes me back. “Stay away from these things.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Don’t even breathe near them.”
Right. Normal as ever.
Mom is laid out on the center table, but my dad doesn’t fully let her go. He keeps hold of one of her hands even as Iris begins cutting away fabric.
And that’s when we see the worst of it.
The scars.
Her stomach is covered in them—healed, but deliberate markings that I know with absolute certainty she never had before.
My fingers curl into fists. My jaw locks so hard that pain radiates through my skull, but it’s not enough.
I need blood to spill.
I need Malrik to die.
Cade is there in the next second, but he’s not alone. Archie also returns and scampers up my side, wrapping around my neck, warm and present.
They both offer comfort in their own ways, but nobody says anything. I don’t think any of us can speak as Iris continues to do whatever she’s doing.
She mutters things about no new injuries, the missing body parts, and then an overall lack of energy, which has me finally shaking out of my stupor.
“I can remove whatever darkness Malrik left behind.” I’m already stepping forward with my hand out, but she smacks it away.
“Don’t.” She gives the body another once over. “I think…”
She doesn’t answer right away, and I nearly strangle her before she finally finishes.
“Malrik didn’t hurt her like the others,” Iris says. “He took pieces, but he left her pure. I don’t know why, but there’s nothing magically wrong with her.”
Cade holds me around my waist. “What does that mean? She’s Hollowborn still, right? She can’t die by supernatural means, but if there’s no magic here…”
He doesn’t finish and he doesn’t need to.
“Let me keep working.” Iris starts telling Liz to grab this and that, but it’s my father who surprises me most.
“She’s healing.”
I almost don’t hear him, so I step closer. “What do you mean?”
He looks up at me with the brightest gaze. “She’s mine, Rowan. I know it shouldn’t be possible. I’ve never felt the mate bond before, but she’s mine, and I’m healing her. Whatever is between us, even if it’s just the amount of love I hold for this woman, she’s going to be okay.”
I want to believe him. Gods, I really do. It’s just hard to do so.
My connection with Cade tells me it’s possible for my parents to be fated mates, but how would they not have known this whole time?
Liz returns with supplies as Iris begins rubbing a thick balm into Mom’s scarred skin.
“He might be right,” Iris murmurs as she works. Then she looks at my dad. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “Let’s just focus on Jocelyn.”
And we do.
Hours blur together. Cade and Archie anchor me while I do my best to support Iris, Liz, and my dad however they need. Layer after layer of green balm. A dusting of something Iris refuses to name. Fluids steadily pumped back into my mother’s veins.
Slowly, painfully slowly, color begins to return to her skin.
We wait for what feels like days, watching over her, tensing every time her body involuntarily twitches.
Then, finally, mercifully, her eyes flutter open.
She jerks, her hand breaking free from Dad’s with the movements as her eyes widen and chest heaves. “Rowan!”
My name on her lips shatters me. Tears spill freely as I rush forward, taking her hands to keep her still. “I’m right here, Mom. We’re all here. You’re safe.”
“There’s a man… He…” Her words slur as exhaustion drags her back under.
“It’s okay,” I whisper fiercely, settling her back down onto the table. “He won’t hurt you again. Rest. Everything’s going to be okay.”
It has to be.