Chapter 31
DOMINIK
Irub my eyes, forced awake by the insufferable panting of my wolf. Reaching for the lighter in my discarded trousers, I spark up a cigarette, hoping to ease the beast’s pleading and the ache rising in my shaft beneath the sheets.
Next to me, my nightcap stirs. A dark-haired Tilaak woman in her early twenties, studying nursing at Hichano University. At least that’s what I could make off the ID badge tucked in the outer pocket of her purse. I usually don’t bother with learning the other trivial details.
I cup her chin, almost allowing her to pull me back under the covers. But my wolf snaps, clamping down on my heart. Crying out for someone else.
She nuzzles against my palm. “Last night was—”
“A one-time deal,” I answer, pulling away. Her brows wrinkle, face paling at the cold reality check.
Out of my periphery, I catch the reading on the digital clock. Shit.
Of course, I’m late.
As I barge through the doors of the Great Lodge, hundreds of eyes break away from Axe, who stands behind the front podium.
I quickly make my way to my empty seat, right next to his mate.
Truthfully, I don’t know if I can eat. The room is jittery as Axe continues his speech, going on about Nell’s plans for decorating pack grounds and more boring details about delegating more warriors for patrol, keeping them on standby for the entire weekend.
If it weren’t for the stunning woman at my right, my eyes would’ve glazed over by now.
My collar chafes as I admire the black velvet dress, the glossy hair that has been swept away from her contoured face, and the well-endowed chest that rises and falls.
A thick silver choker hugs her neck, its web-like chains adorned with dainty teardrop crystals draped over her collarbones.
I shouldn’t be here. I can’t breathe. Can’t think straight. Not when my eager wolf keeps scratching and roaring, begging to cross a bridge I’ve barred him from.
Jabir, seated next to Axe’s empty chair, wrinkles his nose. Everyone at this table picks up on my scent that reeks of my prior engagement. Everyone, save for Vessa, who smells like a godsdamned aphrodisiac.
Focus, I hiss at the subliminal beast.
After a few minutes, I pretend to excuse myself for another drink, making my way along the side wall.
My muscles relax as I cast an invisible net out into the room.
Most in attendance are exuding the same sense of anticipation.
Some are excited that tonight, they are about to witness history being made.
When Axe pauses a moment to collect himself, breaths hitch. Bodies slide to the edge of seats.
“Over the last several weeks, the presence of a human has unsettled this community. Tonight, you all will finally have a chance to meet her. Vessa is, in fact, my mate, and intends to join us indefinitely."
His voice plummets, its tone starkly intimidating. “That being said, if anyone chooses to speak ill of her or wishes to contest her right to be here, I am fully prepared to handle your objections as I did with Colton Sherwood."
Jabir has his arm draped over Nell’s. His face remains unreadable, though I can smell trepidation oozing from his clammy palms.
If there is anything I’ve learned during my time as the shadow of Bleeding Sun’s leader, it is that pack units are stronger when fewer secrets lay between families. Even so, Axe is about to take an extraordinary risk revealing his mate’s.
When the news of the Sponsa Noctis breaks, the tide shifts, becoming a whirlwind of shock and fuming anger.
Across the room, forks and knives clatter against plates.
Dozens of women clamp their hands over their mouths.
A few of the elder men stand up to excuse themselves.
I’m close to completing my lap around the ballroom when voices begin shouting over each other.
Echoes of fury lashing out from every which way, demanding answers. So many, my ears are ringing.
Axe’s face reddens as he takes the brunt of the chaos, vowing to protect Bleeding Sun from any vampire assaults at all costs. That Vessa is here to stay and that she will train to fight alongside us. Looking to my sister, he swears on his life that history shall not repeat itself.
Someone cries out for a public interrogation of the oracle, and Vessa’s heart flutters with anxiety. It’s so loud that it drowns out the sound of my wolf’s inner tantrum. The frequency of my augment latches onto her entirely. Something’s off.
Axe roars, attempting to settle the bickering amongst the crowded tables. He’s losing control of the room, and he knows it.
Demi rises from her seat to join Axe at the podium. Instinctively, my hand wraps around Vessa’s arm. Her pulse leaps beneath my fingers. I give her a gentle tug. “Come with me.”
Vessa looks over her shoulder, seeking approval from Axe. But his attention is fixed on coaxing the angry crowd.
“C’mon. We don’t have much time.”
Her eyes flick back to me, and she nods.
The two of us round the corner, making for the back entrance of the Great Lodge. I stop her, pulling her towards me just as she presses against the door. Sweet Goddess above, her skin is softer than I imagined.
It takes me a second to register that we are alone.
That this the perfect chance to say what I’ve been meaning to for days now.
Weeks. The wolf inside of me groans, urging me to close the distance between us.
To nuzzle against her neck, taste her skin.
To lose myself completely in her scent. I’ve never been this close before.
Concern crosses her face. “What is it?”
Shaking my head, I grumble. “You don’t smell the fear rolling off all those people out there, Vessa. The anger. If you’re sworn in, there will be retaliation. Let me help you out of this. I’ll find you somewhere to stay in a bigger city, somewhere where you can blend in—"
Vessa puts her hands up. “I’m tired of blending in, alright? I can handle this.”
My wolf snarls. She isn’t listening to me. He’s a killer. Shit, they all are.
“Don’t go through with this. Please. You don’t owe them anything. You don’t owe my brother anything. You’re just the pin in a grenade he’s been waiting to pull for a long, long time. With you, he’ll finally get the war he’s always wanted.”
Her eyes harden. “I’m not afraid. But if you don’t want me here, then just come out and say it."
I grip her shoulders then. “I don’t want you to waste your precious freedom on him.”
“If you actually knew me, if you knew anything about the blood on my hands, then you would stop looking at me like I’m some useless damsel that needs to be saved.”
Agitation stirs inside the wolf again. I grit my teeth as he thrashes, threatening to overtake me.
Vessa continues. “For the record, I’ve never cared about finding a mate.
I didn’t think it was even possible for me to have one.
Yet, when I look at him, it feels as if we’re part of something greater than ourselves.
Every painful lash this life has dealt me was worth it because all along, they were strengthening me, guiding me to this pack.
To Axe. I don’t want to go back to a life of shadows, nor do I wish to imagine a future where I’m not by his side. ”
She’s breathless as she comes to the realization. She’s as good as gone.
The air between us takes on a bitter potency.
“Do you love him?”
Vessa’s mouth parts. “Let go of me, Dom.”
Dread thrums in my heart, my temperature rising. “Don’t think for a second that everyone in that room isn’t considering the easiest solution: killing you. Let me help you, Vessa.”
“No.”
Someone steps into the hallway, whipping her head in our direction. Gemma Belgrave. Shay’s brat sister. A peculiar sense of excitement piques the air.
As quick as my wolf sensed the shift in her demeanor, our eavesdropper darts away.
My hands slide off Vessa, sidestepping her. “Then forgive me if I refuse to stand aside and watch as this world bleeds you dry.”
Vessa
With so much on everyone’s plates handling the fallout from the heated banquet and preparing for my induction, Axe appoints me to pursue Maurleen’s disappearance.
It’s irrepressible—the weight of what, in just six days, I am to be responsible for in this new leadership role.
How much I will have to learn. And quickly, at that.
For now, I try to focus on what is most imperative.
I crack open a fresh notebook, comb through the archives of my memories, and pour out every passage I can remember.
To my frustration, my recollections of the visions are cloudy, mostly just fleeting depictions of the nightmarish ways other oracles had perished, Wyatt on harrowing missions to pursue rogues, and moments of me in the spotlight, living out my greatest dream.
Nothing that might indicate what she’s planning now.
But I was never privy to all of Maurleen’s visions to begin with. Besides, it’s impossible to decipher when the other glimpses into the future will occur.
Drumming my fingers along her farewell letter, I stare down the snowflake inked on the bottom of the page. My finger traces along each point. That’s when it jumps at me. The message it conveys. It isn’t the intricate design I should be dwelling on. It’s the cold. Ice.
Before her death, Lyndi told me that the Underworld’s portal shifts once every thousand years, to mark another millennia of the Blood Master’s suffering.
It is said to resurface in a place that mirrors its true landscape below.
If the Circle’s portal is lost underwater, Maurleen must know where the next portal to Somnium will emerge. If it hasn’t already.