Chapter 2 #3
“What should he know?” Vyr stepped towards us, silver gaze darting between me and Chase. “What happened to Saphira? Why did she go with the seelie?”
I stepped away from the wolves, gaze scanning the dead as those questions pounded in my ears.
“She goes to fulfil her purpose, and to recklessly attempt to save that undeserving wolf’s sister.” My voice was as cold and dark as night as I scoured the dead, seeking my prey.
Seeking the one who might hold the answers I needed.
The truth I desperately craved.
“What happened?” Vyr demanded.
I had no answers to give her. Not yet. Not right now. Darkness roiled in my veins where my blood should have been but was now little more than smoke, shadow that bled from between the pieces of my black leather armour as I stalked the battlefield.
The darker side of me pulled me deeper into the shadows, my thoughts blurring together as I forced my feet to keep moving, my eyes to keep scanning, seeking the one who might hold the answers.
I would get Saphira back.
No matter the cost.
It did not matter that the seelie had announced she was one of them.
But I needed to know.
Was she?
I spotted what I was hunting for just ahead of me, closer to the mansion, half buried under the sandstone rubble, his legs crushed beneath it.
His cold blue eyes gazed sightlessly at the heavens as the stars dared to emerge and the moon retook its place above me as I came to stand beside his head and canted mine, gazing down at him.
Insidious prick.
I would get my answers.
“What are you doing?” Vyr moved towards me.
I did not answer her.
I reached down and gripped the dead wolf by his blond hair, fisting it hard enough that he would have screamed deliciously had his heart still been beating, and hauled him from beneath the stones of the collapsed building, sneering when the rubble shifted and his foot became trapped under a large piece of sandstone.
I tugged harder on his head, ripping his foot free, grinning as the sharp stone skinned flesh to reveal bone.
A mere fraction of the damage the male deserved for his crimes against my little wolf.
A mere fraction of the punishment I would mete out for them.
I dragged him behind me as I stalked into the darkness.
“Brother!” Vyr snapped, riding my heels. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” I snarled over my shoulder, “and if I find an armada there as the Summer steward threatened, all aboard those vessels will die by my claws.”
“An armada?” Her step faltered, her shock palpable, and then she darkened and the feel of her slipping deep into her connection with the shadows made my own purr in welcome.
Her tone was hard and unyielding, vicious as a protective mother with her kits as she growled, “He threatened the Shadow Court?”
“He threatened more than that,” I growled back at her and darkness poured off my shoulders in great onyx wings as shadows twined lovingly around my boots and fingers, writhing up my arms to make me feel stronger, to erase the lingering weakness infesting my crumbling body.
I would not break yet. I could not break yet.
My court needed me. Saphira needed me. “He told me you had been tortured… that you have given up my location when he had turned his blade on Riordan… and that if I did not surrender Saphira to him, my court would pay the price.”
That darkness in her grew stronger, gifting me strength as her shadows twined with mine and the air vibrated with her rage.
“Then if he was foolish enough to send his ships to our shores, we shall send them back in pieces.”
I had never heard her so dark.
So vicious.
And I had to wonder.
Was it because the seelie had threatened the Shadow Court?
Was it because the seelie had taken Saphira?
Or was it because the seelie had lied about her cracking under torture because the vampire had been harmed?
I risked a glance back at her and her crimson eyes fought to hold mine as darkness branched from them, as inky as the night that stained my own pale skin.
Perhaps it was all three.
Her gaze betrayed her as Riordan caught up with us, worrying his dark blond hair with a bloodstained hand. It slid to him and lingered for a heartbeat before she caught what she had done and her gaze darted back to me before the vampire noticed.
I did not have the time nor patience to deal with whatever was happening between them right now.
Two of the three things I had listed demanded my focus more. Protecting my court. Taking Saphira back.
I stepped into the shadows with my prize.
But as I exited them, my boots striking the pale flagstones of the garden of Falkyr Castle, the deepest into my court I could teleport from another realm and a feat that threatened to steal all my returning strength, a soft snarl curled from my lips at the sight that greeted me.
The seelie bastard had not lied about everything.
Beyond the borders of my court, sailing upon calm waters and heading northwards, retreating back towards the seelie lands, were a dozen galleons flying the colours of the Summer Court.