Chapter 7 #2
His laugh echoes down my spine. “But you do. Once, when you were lying on a dirty floor, covered in blood from cuts on your stomach, you prayed to me. You begged me to help you.” The memory flashes into my mind of me doing just that.
My mother was dead, my brother was gone, and there was no one but the stars outside the broken window.
I remember it. I begged for the dark god, whom my parents taught me about, to save me.
I gasp. “How do you think you hid so well among humans and avoided the wolves so well? It was I who protected you, over and over. Whose power do you think you’ve been using to stay so human and hidden, right in front of the goddesses?
I saw an opportunity when you came into the Crone pack lands all those many years ago.
Even as a child, your power was spoken of—whispered as legendary.
But that mark they gave you would never have contained anything.
I contained you. I bound you and I made sure that you were noticed at the right time so you could become Champion.
Every step in your life, I have been there.
Now you have powers, immortality, a link to each of the packs—which I need.
You are my perfect weapon, Meredith Duskmore, and you will do as I ask. ”
I feel myself falling through the clouds, screaming, before I wake up with Zyran’s hands on my face, his eyes searching mine as I come to and sit up. “What happened?” he asks.
Blackfire, Orion, and Reed are also on the floor. They sit up as well, eyes bouncing between each other before locking onto me. Reed rubs his face. “Well, we are all fucked.”
“You don’t have to help me,” I mutter. “I—”
“Of course we do,” Blackfire growls. “As much as you hate us right now, you cannot do this without our help. You should have come to us first, before that fucked-up meeting in there. You don’t need the alphas’ help to test powers against the Wrath. We all would have done it—”
“I did think of asking you,” I shout at him, sitting up against the wall.
“But what point is it? You’re not alphas.
If your powers work, we are going to need an army at the very least to stop the Wrath, and you can’t command them.
” I stare at Blackfire. “I was so close to killing your uncle, but why the fuck haven’t you?
The mark on your neck is gone, as is mine…
so why? You told me you hated him and wanted him dead. ”
Blackfire’s eyes tighten. “I do. I still want nothing more than to end him…but he knew there was every chance I’d come back from the Folkland alive…
so he made a failsafe. If he dies, so does his child.
He bound their lives, and the bastard knew there wasn’t a chance I’d risk her. She is innocent in this.”
“Many are,” I murmur and then frown. “What child?”
He shakes his head. “We can talk about it later; we have other problems, like these keys.”
I quickly explain everything to Zyran and Illyia as we all stand up. Illyia crosses her arms. “They could be anywhere or impossible to find.”
“You should come to my court first for three weeks. There is one. I’ve seen it.” We all look at Orion. “It is protected by my mother, the alpha female, but it is a start.”
Reed shrugs. “There is nothing I’ve seen before like the Maiden goddess crown she had in the Folkland.”
Finally, I look at Blackfire. My fucking husband.
Nope, never calling him that again. I’m living firmly in denial village.
“My father once spoke of something like it. He called it the heart of the Crone Pack, and he was going to show it to me when I was older. He died when I was five, and he never had a chance.” He looks at me.
“We could find it if you stay with me. We could talk about what this marriage means, the conditions under which it was done, and how—”
“What conditions?” I interrupt him.
He begins to tell me—about walks in the woods, about food, about marking me. My mouth opens and shuts a few times. “I don’t regret it,” he says firmly.
I feel the shadows leaving my hands before they pick him up and slam him straight into the wall. Whoops. His head hits the wall hard. I wince, moving back into Zyran’s arms.
“Well done,” Zyran laughs low. Blackfire’s chest moves up and down, and a secret part of me is relieved he is okay.
“I didn’t mean to do that. My powers—I haven’t had enough training yet. I don’t—” I try to explain to Reed and Orion, who are gobsmacked.
“Blackfire definitely deserved that.” Reed laughs.
“No, he didn’t!” a small voice cries out from a wall that is actually a door, and it swings open.
I turn to see a girl with a mop of red hair run into the room—tiny and thin.
She throws herself over Blackfire and glares at me.
“Stop, you’re being mean to him!” She bursts into tears.
Only her tears turn into drops of fire that drip onto the floor.
“Who is that? Please don’t tell me he has a child.” I panic as I shake my head and step away like I can run from this situation. “What would that make me? Stepmother? Fuck no.”
“It’s his cousin, the one the alpha bound his life to. Blackfire looks after her because no one else bothers,” Reed explains.
I glance at the small, red-haired girl clinging to Blackfire. She is the reason I can’t get my revenge, and suddenly the feeling of causing her any harm is sickening. Hopefully, she is more like Blackfire than her parents.
“I’ll wake him up.” Reed sighs. “This is a mess.”
I watch as Orion doesn’t move to help, his eyes fixed on me like I’m prey.
Reed helps Blackfire, setting him up against the wall as he slowly comes to and begins laughing about how amazing I am now.
Psychopath. Zyran is talking to me as the room seems to spin softly, a darkness only I can see and feel.
Then, quietly, a dark voice enters my mind.
“You alone will look for one more key without their knowledge. In the palace of your home in Void City, there is something I cannot touch, but you can. Find the dark crown—one made of stars—and only then will you be free. Tell them and I will swallow their souls into darkness, where not even you will be able to find them.”