38 #2
Evie nods. “She said she didn’t want rumors to spread.
I brought Eric because he caught me sneaking out.
” My stomach roils. Her spine straightens, and she tenses.
“This was a trap,” she whispers. Her gaze flicks back to the distance, to the spot where her brother, her future mate, and her potential future general ran off.
Dread curdles in my own veins as she says, “They’re in danger. ”
My wristbone snaps, spurned by terror, before I can even ask, “What do we do?”
Evie grabs my hand and pulls me into the shadows across the street. Sand kicks up behind us, wet and rough against our skin. “We go after them,” she says. “We save them.”
“What about… about order ?” I manage, my back bowing as the shift into werewolf begins the slow mutilation of my body. Though I try to remain in control, I can’t stop it—not with this fear coursing through me. My other wrist snaps, and I clench my teeth to keep from crying out.
“Fuck that,” she growls, her red eyes darkening menacingly. “This is an order from your future queen. We go after the boys, and we bring them home. No matter what.”
Another howl rends the air—closer. Strangely close now. My stomach twists, and sweat breaks out across my forehead in searingly hot rivulets.
“Shift,” Evie commands. “Stay by my side. Follow my lead. We’ll get through this together.”
Together.
The word is a light amidst the bleak dark surrounding us. We have to save Sin and Calix. Eric too. I can’t let anyone else die. My resolve hardens, and the transformation comes quicker now.
Lowering onto all fours, I submit to the pain. I think of the queen, of Celeste’s death, and allow the rage boiling within to swallow me whole.
My spine breaks next, my ribs, my legs, my ankles.
It’s faster now. Faster than ever before.
My body reduces to dust in short, agonizing fissures, and my bones rupture one by one before reforming into something else.
Something strong . And then—where Evie and I stood before as enemies, we now stand as wolves. Almost… almost as a pack.
She lowers a russet-brown snout to the ground, her nostrils flaring and exhaling smoke in the direction of the shoreline. I nod once, and we take off in search of a murderer.
We hit the sand with enough force that it erupts around our heavy paws.
High tide rises to meet us, spraying us with sea-foam and icy waves.
I register the chilling temperature, but it doesn’t dissuade me from riding up, up the shoreline.
After the predator. Another howl. Louder.
Closer. Evie charges after it, so I do too.
I stay tight to her left—her weakest side. I protect it. As we converge on the source of the sound, we press farther together, almost becoming one. Evie slows her pace to a prowl. I creep alongside her, listening.
A ragged breath exhalates from behind the wooden shack of a dilapidated lifeguard stand, followed by a short, terse growl.
There. I aim a paw at the noise, and Evie’s head snaps toward the same direction.
Our eyes lock. She begins to wind her way around the left of the shack, and I stick close behind her.
I am to protect her. She is the Alpha right now. The leader.
Before we can burst out and capture the rogue werewolf, she halts. Tenses. And then hurtles forward in an explosion of expert movement. I leap out after her to find—to find nothing .
Just sand. Air.
What the hell?
A low growl builds in my throat, but Evie keeps her movements silent. I must stay silent too. I glance at the large brown wolf, and she shakes her head. She doesn’t understand either. I hold my breath and listen again.
My ears pick up breathing still.
I run through a fast list of explanations and possibilities.
Could someone’s gift be invisibility? Could they just be quick enough to move without us seeing them?
Or is it something worse… something deadlier?
I don’t see Sin. I don’t see Calix or Eric.
I don’t scent them either. The salt of the ocean drenches everything besides the rot of old wood.
Strange. I hear breathing, but I still don’t smell another presence.
Evie digs through the sand.
I stalk over to her, and she nudges a hard rectangle from the earth. Not a rectangle. She stomps on it, and the screen bursts to life. A cell phone. An unknown number flashes before us, and on the other end, someone whispers a garbled, “Good girl.” The call abruptly ends.
Fuck.
Not good. Not good at all.
Whirling around, I stumble to a halt. Déjà vu nearly cleaves me in half.
It’s as if I’m back on that street with Celeste, watching in horror as not two but four wolves slink toward Evie and me.
But how? We couldn’t scent them. We didn’t know .
My pulse pounds. I suck in a short breath.
Though they surround us, they don’t make a move.
I look to Evie for direction, but her red eyes pale with fear as she takes in the size of their pack—bigger, broader than us.
One Delta. One Beta. One Alpha. And a gargantuan gray wolf with sparkling ebony eyes.
No.
No.
No.
My stomach drops, and my claws cut viciously into the sand, rooting me to this horrid moment.
Whatever magic they must have used to mask their presence vanishes in a gust of wind, and I can smell them now.
The gray beast in particular. Their scent is familiar, like roses and musk.
Like the Wolf Queen of North America. I bare my fangs on instinct.
Traitor , I want to hiss. Murderer. Queen Sybil has us surrounded by her army, and we’re fucking trapped.
We’re trapped, and that was the plan all along.
Not for me. Not for Sin or Calix or Eric.
But for Evie. My pulse riots. I riot. Red hazes my vision, and that rage that has cocooned me for so long bursts into a moth and unleashes from my chest in a violent snarl.
Evie doesn’t have the same reaction. The Princess of Asia… bows. She submits to the Wolf Queen with a soft whimper.
But Queen Sybil doesn’t want our obedience anymore. She wants our death. A brown-eyed wolf with white fur lunges then, swiping a paw at Evie’s left leg while Evie is bent. It knocks Evie onto her side and bleeds her onto the sand.
All hell breaks loose.
The Alpha and Beta lunge for Evie with their fangs, and I heave my body into theirs with another snarl. Get up , I think to Evie. Get up get up get up.
Of course, she can’t hear me, so I howl.
I howl until my lungs give out. The werewolves of the Wolf Queen’s treasonous pack leap atop Evie—attack her with ruthless force—and I rip into them with similar abandon.
I swipe claws at the Beta, bite through the tail of the white Delta.
Blood pours from my paws, from my teeth; all the while the queen watches us with a sadistic grin curling her wolfish mouth.
Evie sees it then—the hollow void of the queen’s black eyes. No soul left. Not after biting so many humans. Or perhaps just enough soul to continue ruling the court with a malicious fist.
Finally, Evie snaps. Like a flame winding down a stick of dynamite, she detonates.
Shooting up, she tackles the Alpha and stops it from taking a bite of my haunches with a vicious bite of her own. She tears into their throat and spits a chunk of their flesh on the sand, quickly hurling herself behind me, protecting my flank.
We’ve mixed up the hierarchy.
I’m in the lead now. I manage to dig a claw into the white wolf—the Delta—impaling it between their ribs and throwing their body into the ocean, while Evie slashes at the remaining Beta.
Killing werewolves —I try to recall the lesson from Instructor Shepherd— tear off their head, claw out their heart, or stake them with silver or wolfsbane.
I don’t have silver or wolfsbane, but I have claws—I have a power inside me no one seems to understand.
However, I’m not sure I can do it. I’m not sure I can kill.
It feels so permanent, too permanent. Even against a villain like Queen Sybil and her marionette army.
Evie must think the same, because she hurls the golden Beta into the ocean.
We listen for the splash before she lunges at the queen next.
The white wolf rises from the ocean before I can reach her, before I can join her, and throws their body atop mine.
They wrestle me into the sand with a sickening crunch .
I kick at them, ribs aching, bones blistering from the attack, but Evie shrieks. And I can’t let her die. I can’t .
My heart beats violently in my ears. I struggle with every fiber of my being. Beat. I claw at the wolf, slashing into their chest. Beat. But the wolf snarls and clamps down on my left ear. Beat.
I roar.
The white wolf hesitates before their next attack, and I roll away from it with lightning-fast speed.
My wounds stitch together, my blood stanching before it can even drip onto the sand, and I retreat a few steps, readying to pounce again— wait .
I tilt my head. The white wolf’s breaths come out heavy, hard, and their eyes .
Brown. Delta brown. Belated realization strikes me.
I’m above this wolf.
I’m above them in the hierarchy, and I can command them with ease.
I turn to share this with Evie—to encourage her to howl, to snarl, to charm the Delta and Beta into backing off while we take on the Alpha and the queen—because we can win this.
We can defeat two wolves, and we can run .
Back to the castle, to the boys, and we can tell everyone what we’ve seen. They’ll believe her. She’s a princess.
But… Evie is… She is…
My heart stops beating.
Evie’s head rests between the Wolf Queen’s fangs.
Queen Sybil whips her head toward me. A cruel growl rises from her bloodied mouth: a taunt. A threat. She closes her fangs. Just a bit, enough that Evie’s body flails, and Evie howls.
The horrific sound of Evie dying crackles between my ears and pierces my soul. I stumble a step. The white wolf knocks me over. I don’t care. I don’t care that I hit the sand hard enough to break a rib. I don’t care that the white wolf snarls beside me. I don’t fucking care about any of this.
Evie is dead.
Evie is fucking dead.
No. This can’t happen. Not again.
Queen Sybil chomps down harder. Evie stops fighting. Blood spills between us like a river.
Not again. Not again.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this.
Behind me, the other two wolves I’ve refused to kill rise from the high tide, fully healed. I’m trapped. And Evie is… She is…
They’ll kill me too, then. I shut my eyes and wait for the end.
It doesn’t come. The Wolf Queen snarls, and the three wolves in her command retreat into the shadows of mangroves. Queen Sybil watches me for a moment, her eyes flashing with cruel malice—and then she smiles. Even with Evie locked between her fangs, she smiles.
I barely rise onto my paws before the queen launches herself after the rest of her rebellious pack. She speeds into the night with Evie’s limp, wolfish body caught on her teeth.
Evie is dead. The beach reeks of blood. And I—I think of the queen, her sinister grin, the sound of Evie’s final wail, the memory of Celeste’s scream—I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of being weak. I am tired of liars.
I don’t chase after the queen.
I’ve learned my lesson. Sitting and cowering will get me nowhere in this brutal fucking world. I abandon the puddle of Evie’s blood and race straight toward the castle. I’m going to end this. Now.