Chapter 70 Valens
Valens
No matter how hard we fought, it wasn’t enough.
We were all in wolf form, charging ahead like the tip of a spear, but the enemies just kept on coming, and while we were good enough fighters as a unit to survive, the ones at the front who’d followed us were dropping like flies.
The harpies I’d seen in the pixie camp had joined Narcissa’s side, and they harassed us from overhead, gouging at our backs and flanks with their daggerlike claws and hideous beaks.
The scorpions had also joined her, their eyes glowing red with her influence as they charged us, stingers whipping lethally every time we tried to grab one of them.
One nearly gutted Reed, but he changed forms, half shifted somehow into a horror-movie wolfman as he battled back the stinger with humanoid hands.
Lightning cracked overhead as Fiona began to pepper the field with stinging rain and howling wind to beat back the harpies, but still, we couldn’t get to Bran.
A feminine cry from my left drew my attention, and I spun to help whoever it was. But when I found her, it was too late.
Dakota, one of the maidens. Blonde hair plastered to her head with the rain, a hole in her chest the size of a scorpion stinger. Her eyes were vacant, glossy, as her blood mixed with the mud she lay in. I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t stop fighting to take her with me.
She was gone. I was too late.
Elodie would be crushed, but I was selfishly glad she’d chosen to hang back. I didn’t want her to see this, to live through this hellscape.
People had fallen everywhere I looked, and we were starting to lose ground. Whatever power Narcissa had, it was potent. These people fought with no concern for their own lives, no reservations, and each fighter’s strength seemed to be amplified, as if they fought for three men, not one.
Dirge howled in pain, and I saw that his back leg had been broken, paw dangling limp and useless.
Shit.
We needed to retreat. Dirge might have been immortal, but that didn’t mean the rest of us were.
Dakota certainly wasn’t, Goddess rest her soul.
As awful as it was to admit, we were losing this fight. Badly.
Retreat!
The order came mentally, and I recognized Kane’s thundering voice in my head. Retreat! To the castle! came a repeated order a moment later.
Fuck. This was it. We had lost.
We turned and ran, all the while Fiona covered us with lightning strikes, harrying our pursuers with a sixty-foot tornado just to give us a chance to get away.
Bile burned my throat and my wolf flattened his ears in defeat as we ran, bringing up the rear and trying to help stragglers.
In the end, most of us made it to the castle. Some carried the dead and wounded, and when Kane shifted back to human form to shut and bar the doors behind us all, it felt like the end.
Reed grabbed Fiona, so exhausted she could barely stand, and carried her out of the main hall. The skies cleared moments later, and the triumphant howls of our enemies sounded just outside the gates.
The gates that wouldn’t hold them forever.
I searched the crowd for Elodie, finding her a few minutes later in the chaos.
She hugged me hard, the depths of her eyes brimming with worry as she gazed into mine. “What now? We didn’t have a siege plan, did we?”
I shook my head, words failing me. I didn’t know what came next, and I couldn’t lie to her. So, I said nothing, I just hugged her back. Whatever we did, we had to hold the castle. Our families who couldn’t defend themselves were in the bunker below. Letting them get hurt? Not an option.
After we’d hugged ourselves out, I looked around, relieved to find Savannah in the corner, holding a crying friend. She was alive and well, and that was all I could ask for at this point. Then I remembered: I hadn’t told Elodie about Dakota.
“Hey, Firecracker? I have some bad news.”
She was staring wordlessly across the crowd in the other direction. I followed the direction of her gaze, then realized she’d spotted Galyna, red-eyed and alone. Shit.
“Is it Dakota?”
I cleared my throat, feeling less than useless. I never wanted to hurt her, but delivering bad news was a guaranteed blow. Better she hear it from me, though. “Yes. She didn’t make it.”
A low, distressed sound in her throat was the only response, then she darted across the room to hug Galyna.
It was as good a time as any to make a plan. We couldn’t hide in the castle forever, that was for sure.
I found Kane, Dirge, Gael, and Lucien gathered in the knights’ hall, every one of them wearing foreboding expressions.
Lucien slapped me wearily on the shoulder. “Glad to see you made it back. It was a close one.”
“Not everyone made it back.”
“I know,” he said. The air was heavy with the collective sorrow of the pack. But we didn’t need sorrow, that wasn’t going to get us out of this.
“What now?” I asked, not interested in rehashing what a resolute failure our attack plan had been. That was done. Now we had to try again, and do better this time.
“On the positive side, Narcissa’s magic didn’t actually steal any of our wolf allies. We were worried she’d be able to sway people away from us to her own cause,” Gael said. “I vote we get more artillery out of the armory. See if her people are warded, or we can take more of them out with RPGs.”
It wasn’t a bad plan. It might be the only plan.
Dirge crossed his arms over his chest. “The goblins already had catapults. It didn’t slow them down.
The ones who got hit, yes, of course. But the rest of them just keep coming, like cockroaches.
Plus, we all agreed to keep the guns and long-range weapons on the castle walls as a last line of defense. ”
The castle shook around us, and the sound of glass shattering and women screaming made me spin around to find Elodie. Thank the Goddess, she was fine. A harpie was in the castle, though, having busted through a window.
“Fuck. We don’t have time to stand around talking. We need to split up and get everyone who’s able back out there—”
Another window shattered, glass raining down on our heads like confetti.
We all ducked, but not before we saw a burning brand arc in through the destroyed window.
The fire was magical, spreading with intent in every direction.
Screams rose as people ran to dodge it. Gael and Lucien bolted away, heading down to the armory to get bigger weapons.
I couldn’t join them, cut off by the path of the rapidly spreading fire.
A witch stood in the fire’s path, magic crackling over her deep brown skin as she lifted one hand, then clutched her fist as she said an incantation.
The fire went out in one great whoosh, the witch shaking her head.
“You’re running out of time, Alpha,” she snapped at Kane. “Where is my niece and her fae friend?”
Elodie returned to my side, whispering, “That’s Karissma, Brielle’s… aunt.”
“A very powerful witch as an aunt to a wolf omega. That’s an odd combination.”
Elodie chuckled. “Of all the things weird about this pack, how can you even tell anymore?”
“Fair point.”
Dirge found Shay a moment later. She looked nervous under the witch’s scrutiny, and Brielle wasn’t far behind, with Galyna at her shoulder. Shay glanced Elodie’s way, and the two of them exchanged a worried glance, almost like coconspirators. What were they up to?
“What do you need?” Shay asked.
“What of your mission? Was it successful?” The witch glanced between the three women, and my suspicions were confirmed.
Damn it. I knew Elodie had agreed to let me go to the front without her too easily. I had been so relieved, I didn’t ask questions. “What did you get up to?” She just clenched my fingers tightly, staying silent. She gave me that don’t ask that right now or else look.
“Successful,” Brielle answered, lifting her chin and turning to Kane. “I asked Shay to flash us behind the battle lines. We found Bran and removed the taint from his blood caused by Narcissa’s influence.”
Kane’s face turned about three shades of purple, and I got the feeling they were engaged in a mental argument. When he spoke aloud again, he simply asked, “And what was the outcome?”
Brielle shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, it was a success. We all came back alive.”
Elodie chimed in then, seeming at ease now that the secret was out. “At least we tried. And maybe—maybe it will still work. After all, Bri removed the taint from his blood. Maybe he’ll still see reason?”
Another window shattered over our heads, a second burning brand flying through the window. Karissma extinguished this one before it reached the ground, and Lucien returned with a grenade launcher on his shoulder. Gael was right behind, a heavy-caliber sniper rifle over each shoulder.
Elodie crossed the circle and said something to him that I couldn’t hear over the mayhem, and he passed her one of the rifles.
“We need to get back out there. Let’s form up everyone who’s still fit to fight. We should be able to surprise them, come up from behind if we go out the secret tunnels beneath the castle,” Kane said.
“Wait, there’s… there’s one more thing.” Shay stammered, unusual for the usually confident woman. “It might be nothing, but my dad gave me this.” She pulled on a gold cord around her neck until a coin at the end appeared. “He told me a long time ago that I’d need it. But I can only use it once.”
Kari crossed over to stand in front of Shay. “May I see it?”
Hesitantly, Shay removed the necklace, placing the coin in the witch’s hand.
“Interesting. It’s very old, Etruscan, if I’m not mistaken.” She passed it back to Shay and returned to her former position.
“What does it do?” Brielle asked as the ground began to shake under our feet.
“I don’t know, only that help will come. But it seems like we could use some backup!”
“Do it,” I called over the din of panicked wolves. “We’re running out of time.”
One of the great stone columns that supported the room was starting to crack, and I was grateful Bence was in the bunker below, where even if the whole castle collapsed, he would still be safe. But if the rest of us got wiped out, who’d be left to take care of him? We had to move, and now.
Shay nodded, shared one glance with Dirge, then brought the coin to her lips, kissing it. “In time of greatest need, I call for greatest might.”
A heartbeat passed, and nothing happened.
“Look out!” I shouted, pointing upward. The cracked column began to fall. We’re out of time.
The witch spun, lifting both hands and chanting as she slowed the descent of the giant column. “Get out of here, all of you. Quickly, before the whole damn place comes down around our ears.”
I grabbed Elodie’s hand, and we ran for the nearest door with our pack. If this was our last hurrah, I wanted to face it by her side.