Chapter 56 – Carina
Fifty-Six
CARINA
The moment Archer replaced the cuffs with fake ones, I felt it.
Cooling waves rolling through me, crashing against my insides as my elemental magick returned. Twice in the past week I’ve gone without it for nearly a day, and both instances made me incomplete.
With the chilling water also comes my silky black magick, snaking my neck and wrists, visible only for me.
More, it demands, which I ignore. Feeding Darkness is what Sloane wants, not me.
Even if the little voice inside my head begs otherwise.
No matter what Sloane claims, there is no balance to magick. There can’t be, or else my current Darkness would be content with not drowning out the Light.
After Archer tells me about their plan to snatch Wynter and what it’ll mean for the future, he retreats back to his wall and adopts the same guise from earlier just as Sloane and Adalyn re-enter. Both glance at Archer, who shrugs.
Adalyn takes up her place by the door, and Sloane continues towards the cells, the bars sucking her inside to stand beside me once more. “Have you chosen?”
“Fuck you.” Over her shoulder, I subtly meet Archer’s gaze.
“If that’s how it is.” In a cloud of black and green smoke, she conjures a knife and hands it over. “Pick one.”
The blade is a gleaming silver as bright as it is deadly, about the length of my hand, and my finger drags lightly over the sharp tip. My hand molds to the dark green hilt that’s littered with cutout shapes, my fingers resting within the cavities.
Xander visibly tenses. Holly and Conan share a glance. Ryder glares at Sloane.
My stomach jolts with faint pangs and uncertainty as I turn the knife around in my hand. With enough speed, I could stab it into her chest and end all of this.
Do it, Darkness murmurs. Kill her, save your wolf and yourself. Become stronger.
Killing her means I’d become Dark.
Killing her means it’ll matter less. I, like Harlow, will learn to live with it.
“You choose or I choose for you.” She stops in front of Holly, tilting the shifter’s face side to side, who growls and snaps her jaws—mortal teeth only.
“I’ll kill you. I’ll rip out your throat and feed it to your fucking children.”
“Shifters. Always so dramatic.” Sloane releases Holly’s cheek with a tap and faces me. “That one. Unless you pick another one more suitable.”
“No,” Conan chokes out, ripping into his vines. His eyes flash silver as he glowers at Sloane, then Ryder. Finally, his broken heart finds me with a shake of his head. “Carina, please, not her. Pick me.”
None of them will die, I swear to Hecate.
Turning the knife around in my hand, I repeat, “Find me someone else. A mortal, if you must. The wolves have done nothing wrong.”
“Except encroached on my territory and gave attitude. Carina, understand that a lot of people will die in this war—shifters included. We can’t save everyone, only the majority.
Who you choose today will be the first of many—but the most noble of them.
They’ll be a sacrifice to help you reach your potential. ”
She’s gaslighting me, right down to the soft croon in her tone.
Although it’s Ryder who my heart is drawn to, Archer’s who I look at, silently pleading for him to help—to give me a sign.
If I attack outright, he’ll be forced to take his mother’s side, as will Adalyn.
Three against one, while the shifters are strung up and unable to turn, are not good odds.
If I free the pack, then perhaps—but it’d be magick versus magick.
But my cuffs are fake. I can free the shifters…
“Him.”
The room falls silent as I point the knife in Conan’s direction.
Sloane grins and waves her hand, releasing the vines until his feet touch the ground while the ones around his wrists remain—a useful start nonetheless.
He meets my gaze over her shoulder and blinks in acknowledgement.
As I exchange the knife from one hand to the next, I throw up my free hand, sending a blast to release the vines holding him. Conan immediately leaps into action and morphs from man to wolf, his clothes tearing—a precursor to the shouts.
Adalyn’s yell is drowned out by the snarling wolf who lunges for Sloane. Sloane curses, realizing I have access to my powers, and immediately blocks Conan’s attack with a barrier that tosses him back a couple feet. Adalyn rushes to help her mother, and Archer doesn’t budge.
During Conan’s distraction, I throw the same spell at the others and free them from the wall.
Three sets of legs shift into twelve paws and they bolt toward the witches.
In the same breath, I conjure all my hatred into a spell that sends water crashing at Sloane and Adalyn, throwing them both away from the shifters.
“Go!” I shout to them.
Sloane stops the attack midair, throwing up a shield of vines that my water soaks instead.
Damn it.
Use me. The voice offers a decadent temptation.
I should. Darkness versus Darkness. It’s what she’d prefer, isn’t it?
Sloane shoots out a hand and sends a streak of black across the entire room, an arc that sends all of us falling to our asses. Four wolves, two witches, and me, while she remains standing, her presence heavy as it approaches me.
“You’ve upset me, Carina. After proving what’s at stake, you’re choosing to be selfish.
Staying Light isn’t in your future any longer.
No matter what happens here, you already have Darkness, and it’ll seek more.
You assume I’ve only killed one person to get where I am?
No, it constantly longs for more. There’s a reason why Harlow Sinclair became a vampire.
Why she made the choices she did. Darkness pushed her into tasting her vampire’s blood to initiate the transition. ”
I lean up on my elbows, scanning the room and our possibilities. The knife remains in my grip, my fingers turning it over.
“You will be my soldier,” she continues, spitting through her anger. “You will do what is right for the covens, and you will thank me. We are fighting a fucking war, while you struggle to understand this is the right side of history. This is how we save everyone.”
“At the price of my soul.”
Her laugh is throaty and harsh, her hair flinging back as her head tips. “Next time you see Freya, ask her about her own start on this planet. You’ll understand why fighting this is useless.”
Behind her, Ryder slowly gets to his feet, stalked by both his pack and Archer and Adalyn, but no one moves. Eyes the color of death, which promises that to Sloane’s soul, flicker as his head lowers. With a twitch of an ear, he tells me what he’s about to do, seconds before acting.
My gaze averts back to her face before she realizes he’s launching himself at her. Even without the warning, she somehow knows. The instant his paws leave the ground, her hand flicks into the air, sending all the shifters—Ryder included—back to the wall, pinning them by their paws to the ground.
“Enough.” Black magick whips from Sloane, whacking the ground with the same force of her words.
It forms winds that counter Mom’s when she’s pissed, and it throws my hair into my face, dirt crumbling from the walls and creating a small vortex in the cell.
“Choose or I’m choosing for you—and I’ll pick them all. You have five seconds.”
Five seconds to pick someone to die.
I glance at Ryder, shaking my head.
Five seconds to come up with a plan.
I glance at Archer, begging for help.
Ryder whimpers, gaining my attention. His snout lowers to his chest.
Him? I can’t. I can’t—will not—kill him. Not Ryder, who I’ve—who’s—who is—no, not Ryder.
Xander has to return home to Leah and Claire.
I won’t do that to her. He’s Ryder’s best friend, beta to the pack, and I won’t take that from them too.
Holly and Conan are two prominent members.
Both strong. Both loved. Both came here with their Alpha to help me.
I refuse to pay them back by murdering them.
“One second.”
I climb to my feet, hand tightening around the knife as I move between the wall of shifters and Sloane, giving her my back. Adalyn wanders closer for what she’s clearly deeming a show, and Archer straightens from his slouch.
Kill, the Darkness in me whispers, and this time, I obey.
Gripping the blade, I jerk my arm up and aim for Sloane’s stomach. It’ll result in an injury that may put her down, but nothing fatal that she’s gotten her way regarding my soul. After she’s mollified, I could only pray to Hecate that Archer takes care of his sister.
With the force of magick, both Light and Dark inside me, it aims for her stomach.
She sees me coming like everything else happening today, and a black tendril snaps for my wrist. Being much better at controlling black magick than I am, it’s a fight I’ll lose, so I twist, staying just out of reach as I aim again, this time using water to push the knife across the room.
Her magick snaps to action again, wrapping itself around the blade until she’s in control of it.
“No!” I scream, rushing at both her and the weapon she now wields, realizing too late how much I’ve fucked up.
She redirects the blade I threw towards the wolves. While the little child inside me wants to cover her eyes and hide from the inevitable death—one that’s my fault—I can’t. It isn’t fair for them to lose their life while I hide from reality.
The blade imbeds itself into Conan’s heart.
His wolf form melts away for a human who slumps to the ground, the roots releasing him. His short breaths of a life remaining are lost beneath the grief-filled howls of three wolves.
“No!” I lunge across the room to Conan’s side, hot tears starting down my face as the instant grief rips my soul apart.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no! This isn’t happening…
No!” My fingers wrap the hilt, and I yank it out of his heart, needing the wound clear before healing spells could potentially work.
No healing spell can heal a wound to the heart.
“Conan, no! Stay with me.”