Chapter 23
ROWAN
Cade leads me through NightShade’s east wing, the old floorboards groaning beneath our steps like the house itself is bracing for what’s coming. The halls are cooler here, but there’s more alive in this part of the manor that I haven’t sensed since my early days here.
I swear the portraits on the wall move as we pass, and there’s a glimmer in the air, like even the house is eager for what’s to come.
I am too.
As excited as I got at the thought of helping Taren, I’ve yet to use this skill on a living being without killing them. Unless I count Malrik, but even then, I was searching, not taking.
My stomach does a nervous little flip, but not because I’m afraid. Not exactly.
It’s more the weight of possibility and the what-ifs that I’m trying really hard not to think about.
You know what you’re doing, Wolf assures me. You know your power now. Listen to it, instead of being afraid of it, and everything will work out.
She’s right, and I needed that reminder. One that has me standing a little taller as we continue to walk.
Thank you.
Cade’s hand brushes mine, his thumb grazing my knuckles like he can hear every thought rattling around in my head.
“If at any point this feels wrong, or too much, or unsafe, you stop.” His voice is low, rough with worry despite how steady he tries to sound.
“I mean it, Rowan. I won’t let you get hurt for Taren. ”
I nod. “I know. But I can do this.”
More so, I want to. I need to prove that the choices I made at The Keep were mine and I haven’t been playing into Malrik’s hand all along. I need to take this from him and not hurt anyone in the process.
That alone is enough to steel my spine.
A lantern burns ahead near a locked door, the faint flicker casting long shadows up the wall. Cade stops in front of it and turns to face me fully.
“Elias said she was sleeping earlier,” he says. “She’s been doing more of that lately, and when she’s awake, we can’t say ‘Malrik’ or ‘The Keep’ without causing her immense pain. That’s how we know the influence is there. The names seem to be a trigger to keep her quiet, but alive for some reason.”
A sharp pang of empathy stirs inside me. I might not know Taren, but I know what it feels like to have Malrik’s power brushing against my mind, trying to shape it.
Trying to claim it.
If I can take that from her, even a fraction, then this is worth it.
Cade places his hand on the door, and it glows faintly. I consider asking if that was some sort of magical lock and where it came from, but the moment he moves forward, I’m hit with a wave of darkness that makes me stumble.
Thick, suffocating, and wrong.
“Rowan.” Cade is at my side in an instant. His arm bands around my waist like iron. “What is it?”
“He’s killing her,” I manage, breath trembling. “Right now. I don’t know how I know, but Malrik is inside her, pushing too much power through her system. She’s not fading, she’s overloading. Wolves aren’t made for this kind of energy.”
It feels like drowning in someone else’s fear.
I shove out of Cade’s hold—because if I hesitate, she dies—but he pulls me right back.
“Wait a damn minute.” His voice is gravel, fraying at the edges of alpha-command. “What makes you think it’s safe for you to siphon her then?”
“Because I’m all she has.”
The truth burns in my chest, clear, bright, and immovable. It doesn’t matter that I’m shaking. It doesn’t matter that this is new and terrifying, and I’m making up half of this as I go.
She’s hurting. I can help.
And that’s enough.
Cade may want to sit here and talk things out, but we’re in uncharted territory, and Taren isn’t the only one being hurt.
A mother nearly lost her child. People are sick. Who else is going to die because Malrik is hellbent on finding something or someone?
I don’t know, but I’m going to do my best to make sure as few innocents as possible are harmed.
Cade doesn’t release me, so I place my hand on his heart, feeling the rapid beat there. “I have to help her. Let me do this for the rest of the packs.”
His jaw flexes, a muscle ticking as his wolf pushes to the surface. He hates this—hates the risk, hates the uncertainty—but he trusts me more. That’s the only reason I can fathom to make his fingers finally loosen around my wrist.
“Please,” he breathes, voice stripped bare. “Be careful.”
“I will,” I promise. Then, because I need him to feel it as much as hear it, I push onto my toes and kiss him, quick but certain. “You and me? We’re not done. Not by a long shot.”
I turn before he can drag me back in, because we both know he would.
The room is heavy with pressure, the kind that vibrates through bone. How no one sensed this earlier is beyond me, but it ends now.
“When you siphon that energy out of her, what do you do with it?” Cade asks, giving me a slight pause.
That I don’t know, but I guess we’re about to find out. Though I don’t tell him that.
“I, uh.” Shit, what do I say?
He’s already reaching for me again when Wolf pipes up.
Maybe you can expel it into something else?
Genius.
“I need an object nobody cares about,” I tell him as he places a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll put the energy there, and then we can figure out what to do with it later.”
He glares at me like he’s fully aware that I just pulled that theory straight out of my ass, but he doesn’t try to stop me again, a miracle I’m sure.
Which means I probably have less than a minute before he tosses me over his shoulder and hauls me out of this room for good.
This time, I move quicker, knowing that at any moment, my very protective mate might change his mind about all of this. My palm covers Taren’s heart, which is going nearly a thousand beats per minute and should have already given out on her if she were human.
Thankfully, wolves are built a little stronger.
All right, Taren, I think. This might hurt, but I promise, I’m only trying to help.
The moment I pull on the first dark tether of magic, the world tilts.
Not physically, but in the way reality bends when two opposing forces collide.
Taren jerks beneath my hand, her breath catching on a choked sound that’s half snarl, half plea. Her eyes flutter, the whites flashing as the corruption inside her surges in protest.
Cade swears behind me. “Rowan.”
“I’ve got her,” I grit out, though I have no idea if that’s true. “Just give me a minute.”
Because stopping now might actually kill her. Or both of us.
Malrik’s energy slams into me like a tidal wave—cold, sharp, and acidic. It carries an intention so intense, I swear I can hear the words.
Control. Dominate. Destroy.
A sick echo of his will.
It hits my chest like a fist, and for a moment I’m certain my ribcage caves inward. Darkness crawls across my skin, up my arms, and into my veins like ink spreading through clear water.
I choke on a breath as the energy forces itself into me, but then my power finally reacts.
My siphon ability roars awake with a soundless crack, opening inside me like a second spine—something ancient and vast, something that recognizes the foreign signature and bares its teeth.
The two forces clash.
A violent collision.
My back bows violently, and I think I hear Cade yell my name, but he doesn’t touch me. At least, I don’t feel him. I barely feel anything, in fact. My body is a distant memory, a shell suspended in a storm that’s trying to hollow me out.
Focus, I command myself. Direct the magic. Move it.
I grab hold of the power inside me—my own energy and identity—and shove Malrik’s corruption away from my core, but that doesn’t work.
My breath turns ragged as panic claws up my throat. The control I’ve fought tooth and nail to build is failing me. I’m not rejecting the power.
I’m pulling it closer.
The realization hits like ice water.
He’s winning.
A cold sickness spreads through me at the thought, tightening like a clamp around my heart. I jerk, shaking viciously, every inch of me bracing as if I can physically hold back what’s happening.
I won’t be you, I think, as fiercely as I can. I won’t become what you are. I choose who I am.
But the inky sludge of his energy keeps crawling inward, inch by inch, hungry for my center.
Quit fighting, Wolf snaps so loud in my head that I flinch. Trust yourself.
Well, that was unnecessarily rude, and her outburst distracts me just enough that Malrik’s power strikes at my magic.
I brace for the impact, for the consequences I’m certain are to come, but then…
A blinding flare surges from deep within my chest—the unmistakable brilliance of my own power—and it lunges at the last second for Malrik’s darkness like a predator sinking its teeth into prey. I can feel it chewing through the corruption, stripping it down, burning it.
You’re recycling it, Wolf corrects. I was wrong before. You don’t need to expel anything. Your body was built for this. You take and reuse. Now, you need to give it back to her.
And suddenly I see it, like it was always there.
My purpose.
I don’t know how I missed this before, maybe because Malrik didn’t want me to, or maybe even he doesn’t know who I truly am, but Wolf is right.
Except Taren’s still dying. Her heart is slowing now that Malrik’s garbage isn’t in there, running rampant, and I can’t stop until I fix her.
Shit, I need to…
Let go, Wolf orders, gentler this time.
And she’s right.
My job was never to fight. It was never to fear what’s inside me. It was never to cling so tightly to control that I strangled the very essence of who I am.
Screw that prophecy because my power was never meant to destroy.
It’s made to heal.
I know that now, like I know the sky is blue, and that’s what I do. I open my hands—metaphorically and physically—and let the newly purified energy flow through and out of me, then right into Taren.
Opening my eyes again, I watch as it pours from my palms like liquid dawn.
More importantly, I trust—finally and fully—that this is who I was always meant to be.