Chapter 6 #2
“But then, I suppose you did murder your parents. I am not sure a more rotten soul has ever existed.” I went to the fenryr, giving Lucas my back, showing the soul it was no threat to me, and petted the beast as he lifted drowsy eyes to me, rubbing his long snout.
Lucas snarled at my back.
The fenryr snarled right back at him.
I turned back to the dead wolf. “What did the seelie tell you about Saphira?”
“Nothing.”
“I do not believe that for a second.” I resumed my position in front of him and shadows crept outwards from beneath my boots, every sliver of darkness that hid between cracks, books, and under furniture writhing as I stared up at the wolf.
“Speak the truth, and this will be so much less painful for you. What did the seelie tell you about Saphira?”
Lucas twitched as the chanting grew louder, a rumble in my ears that charged the air.
But still he did not answer.
“I heard you speak of her being worth a kingdom. I heard you speak of living in a castle. You knew she had seelie blood in her veins and I want answers!” Shadows shot from every crevice to snare Lucas in their web, and the stone floor trembled beneath me.
The fenryr whined and slunk away, afraid of me at last as I shook the tower with my rage.
“I command you to answer me, Lucas of the Hunt Pack.”
Lucas struggled, his expression twisting as he fought the compulsion to obey me, and the liches lifted their heads to look at him as inky black pooled in the corners of his eyes and mouth.
“Answer me!” I roared.
The tower quaked around me, the ancient stones vibrating as I pulled the shadows close to me, cloaking myself with them as I wrapped hard tendrils of night around Lucas’s body and yanked him down to me, until we were face to face.
The azure flames in the fireplace guttered out, plunging the room into darkness that writhed and twisted around us, and the ribbons of violet and black that chased around Lucas struggled to push it back.
“What did the seelie tell you about Saphira?”
Black liquid slowly dripped from Lucas’s eyes and mouth, coating his lips as he broke.
“Only that she was heir and had the blood of a king in her veins.”
Nothing I did not already know.
“Did you know before they came to you that she had fae blood?” I growled, tightening my shadows around his limbs, grinning as the pallid flesh gave beneath them, bulging between them, and Lucas grimaced, spilling more black blood down his chin.
“No.”
I canted my head, studying him, weighing my next question carefully. “Did you know she was not fully wolf?”
I had not missed that look on Chase’s face after I had returned to them. I felt sure the new alpha of Saphira’s pack knew something about her, and once I was less likely to harm him if I did not like his answer, I would be questioning him too.
Lucas hesitated before he said, “No.”
“But you suspected something.” I narrowed my eyes on him, studying him more closely.
His lips flattened.
Denying me.
Shadows sank deeper into his flesh, coming close to slicing him open, and I dragged him closer to me, allowing more to rise up around me like blades.
All poised to strike him down.
“I do suggest you answer me.”
I smiled at him, my tone as cold as the chasm that yawned inside me where my heart had been before Saphira had left me, taking it with her.
I slid a look at Tan’ith, a silent command the lich obeyed with a dark look at me, and the ribbons of violet that bound Lucas shone brighter as the chanting grew louder.
Oily blood streamed from Lucas’s eyes.
He broke again.
“There was a rumour about her father.”
I gave him a look that commanded him to continue.
“They tried for a long time to have a kid. Everyone knew about it. Then they started going to fae towns. A different one each time.” Lucas’s black eyes shone with the blood coating them, blood that flowed down his cheeks like tears as he blinked. “And then they were pregnant.”
“Her mother implied that Saphira’s father had not been her sire.
” I doubted her mother had willingly slept with another male, not when she was mated and had appeared to love her fated one.
Magic could not be used to impregnate someone, at least no magic that I knew of could do such a thing.
But Saphira’s parents had visited fae towns.
Witches called such places home, peddling their wares.
A witch had placed a protective spell on the Harper Pack lands.
Was it possible a witch had aided them?
“Sperm donors.” Lucas’s head slumped forwards, his voice drowsy, and I grabbed his hair and yanked it up, forcing him to face me.
“What?” I snarled.
“Maybe he was shooting blanks. Probably thought they were getting wolf shifter baby batter and got something else instead.”
I unravelled his disgusting choice of words. Her father had been infertile, and they had gone to find someone who could help them conceive, and had believed they were getting wolf shifter sperm.
Only they had been given fae instead.
“Interesting,” I purred as I frowned thoughtfully at the male and shoved him away from me, releasing him from my shadows.
His head lolled forwards again, chin striking his chest as he hung limp in the air.
I mulled over everything he had told me and then glanced at the ring that felt so heavy on my finger, that still taunted me with a sapphire stone.
Closing my eyes, I reached through the bond to her instead, sensing her on the other side of all that darkness that felt thick and viscous as I tried to wade through it to close the distance between us and feel her more clearly.
I came up against a rubbery barrier that refused to give, no matter how fiercely I pushed against it, or how viciously I clawed at it.
So I settled on just feeling her there, using her presence in my mind to calm myself.
To reassure myself.
I was not sure how much longer we would share this connection and I savoured it, clinging to it as I reached for her, urging her to do the same to me as she had last night.
I had felt her presence when I had been staring at that fire my private sitting room, drowning my pain and fear in mead.
I had felt her reaching for me, as if she needed me as badly as I needed her.
I could not imagine how she was handling the knowledge that she might be part fae.
She was a wolf.
Just a wolf.
She had told me that many times, sometimes with pride, sometimes with a sort of solemnity that had left me feeling she believed being a wolf made her not good enough to be with me.
She had even told that bastard seelie that she was a wolf.
Her sense of pride, her sense of self, was deeply wrapped up in her wolf side.
I hated thinking about how she might be taking all of this.
I pressed my palm to my chest, reaching deeper into that muted bond, and funnelled all my love for her into it, all the pride I felt whenever I saw her, all the awe that filled me whenever she looked at me, and all the pleasure just her presence at my side gave to me, hoping that she would feel it and that it would give her courage to face the coming days.
And then I let my hand fall to my side and opened my crimson eyes, pinning them on Lucas.
“Hold him.” I readied my shadows, reaching for him to restrain him because it was time he suffered for what he had done to Saphira.
I would keep that promise I had made to her.
“My king,” Tan’ith said before I could strike at the male, snaring my attention and earning himself a low growl of warning as he continued, “If the soul dies, there is a danger that it cannot be resurrected. I have found a way to perhaps hold his soul for longer in the books you kindly gifted me, but I must be given time to test the spells and he must be given time to heal.”
The darkness in me snarled at that, gnashing fangs as I lifted my gaze to Lucas, hungry to toy with my prey and hear him scream.
Black blood dribbled from his nose too now and pooled in the shells of his ears.
I had never seen a soul bleed before.
“If the soul cannot be resurrected, if it is damaged beyond repair, you will lose your prey.”
Shadows shot towards Tan’ith as he dared to say those words to me, and I gritted my teeth as I pulled them back to me before they could touch him, the effort of taming them leaving me breathless. I would not let it happen. I would not harm Tan’ith, and I would not lose my prey.
A promise had been made, and a promise would be kept.
I backed off, each step harder than the last, forcing my unwilling body to move as I glared at Lucas where he hung in the air, vulnerable and open to attack.
Shadows flickered over my claws, and I ached to rip into him, the thought of it making me take an unconscious step towards him before I caught myself.
Tan’ith watched me, closely, warily.
My fingers flexed and my hand shot out when I reached the doorframe, and I gripped it, pulling myself away from the wolf and my necromancers, each step a labour that stole more of my strength.
My sanity.
Shadows poured from my back in great wings as I stepped out into the storm that ravaged my court.
A storm that grew fiercer the moment my feet touched the soil of my kingdom and my shadows spread outwards in stilted vines, burrowing into the earth and the rock, darkening the grass to pitch as I stalked towards the cliff.
Thunderous waves shot into the air before me, a wall of water that my shadows lashed at, cleaving it apart before it could descend upon me, transforming it into a fine mist the gale carried away.
Tendrils of night struck at another wave, at the earth, at the rock, and the court trembled in response.
I stared into the gloom ahead of me, the necromancer’s tower a dark presence at my back, the wind blasting against me as I allowed my darker emotions to slip their leashes, sinking deep into thoughts of Lucas and what I would do to him once he was healed.
I was far from done with the male.