63. She Kills
Wilder kept his back to the carriage door. They had surrounded the carriage under his order, which was to protect Lyra at all costs. She was the key to restoring balance, and he felt that if he had more time with her, then he could get her to control that power that flowed through her.
Otto stood on his right, a large ax held out in front of him.
“There are twelve,” he murmured. “They’ll surround us and go for her.”
Ridge stiffened on the other side of Wilder.
“Clan?”
“Igneous.”
Wilder’s chest tightened. It had been years since he had faced his captor’s clan. But there was a debt to settle, and he would gladly exact his revenge.
“Casualties?” Ridge asked, his eyes bouncing from Wilder to Otto. Ridge knew there was only so much he could ask without Wilder stopping him.
“One. Not ours,” Otto replied.
Ridge nodded, lifting his broadsword higher.
Wilder focused on listening. He could hear Lyra’s heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s wing, and the panting of her breath slipping through her lips from inside the carriage behind him. He could hear the twelve wulvers approaching each from a different direction.
Their breathing was steady, except for one. A low, gravelly breathing that signified him as an elder.
Tilting his head to the sky, he inhaled, channeling the wind to swirl around them, stirring up their scents and bringing them to him.
It was the Igneous Clan, and Igneous himself had come to this fight.
They breached the clearing and stood around the perimeter. Smudges of darkness in the shadows of the trees.
The wulver who had captured him stepped one foot closer than the rest. Wilder’s fury stirred, and he bit down on his tongue to keep from yelling at the beast. He gripped his blade tighter but lowered it a fraction.
It was a show of disrespect to the elder wulver, and it was intentional.
“You have something that belongs to the sea,” Igneous spoke.
He was fifty yards away but still spoke as if Wilder had been standing right beside him.
Maelys’ breath caught in the back of her throat, and Wilder could feel her shifting on her feet. She knew that voice and the beast it belonged to.
“I think Lyra would disagree about belonging to anyone,” Wilder replied.
Igneous stepped into a beam of moonlight. His black fur gleamed, and a splattering of silver hairs shone on his elongated snout. But it was the protracted claws on long fingers that had Wilder squaring up. The scars from those claws still marred the skin on his back.
“You will give her to me, and we will leave here without spilling blood,” Igneous responded.
“That’s not going to happen,” Ridge whispered.
But Igneous and his wulvers heard the words, anyway.
“You seek to spill blood, child?” The reddened wulver on Igneous’ right answered.
“If you think you’re coming any closer—absolutely.” Ridge widened his stance, backing up his threat.
Killing Igneous would spark a war with all the wulvers, not just this clan. But he was under strict orders to protect Lyra at all costs. His father could handle a war with those beasts. And it would satisfy Wilder’s need for revenge.
But first, he needed answers.
“Who did you make a deal with? Besides, your dead informant over there.” Wilder jutted his chin towards the cooling body of Cyrus.
Igneous didn’t even spare the male a glance.
“You’re stalling.”
He wouldn’t tell Wilder, not even with a blade through his chest.
Dust and Oak slid into defensive stances at the tone of Igneous’ voice. Strange Otto had said there had been only one casualty, and it wasn’t on their side. And if anyone was going to kill a wulver and spark a war—it would have to be Wilder.
This is why he hated knowing his future. Now the decision didn’t feel like his own, but another thread in the great tapestry of fate.
Igneous took another step, and Wilder relaxed his grip on the sword.
He already knew he would kill the wulver, and now he could savor the ending.
“You’re willing to die for a mermaid, Igneous?”
There were snarls from the wulvers surrounding them.
“It is you who will die, Prince,” the red wulver dared to speak again.
Wilder looked between the empty tract of land that separated the wulver from him. “Someday, sure. But not today. And between us right now is nothing and nobody.”
The threat rang like a struck bell, and the wulver had the intelligence to back up a step.
Igneous slid his black eyes towards Otto. Word of his powers had no doubt spread to all the creatures of the realm. But even if Otto had spoken the truth to Wilder, that didn’t mean the wulvers would believe it as such. It all could be a ruse.
“Enough of this,” Igneous snarled. “Give us the mermaid so we can return her to the waves.”
Wilder cocked his head.
“Does the water miss her?” Wilder chuckled.
Igneous opened his mouth for a quick retort before snapping it shut.
“You will not goad the answers out of me, boy.”
The glittering malice in Igneous’ eyes reminded Wilder of all those years of torture. He could do it, could kill the beast that was the root of so much anguish and torment in his mind.
Igneous stepped closer. “How about I make her scream as I did you, Prince?”
An exhale slipped through Wilder’s parted lips. Another step from Igneous and Wilder would charge the beast and slit him from neck to navel.
“How about you let the lady speak for herself?” Igneous’ words halted Wilder’s swelling fury.
The creak of the carriage door had his chest seizing up. Without turning around, he knew she was there.
The scent of her wrapped around him in a gentle embrace, but where he expected the tang of fear, he found the sharpness of fury.
“Lyra—get back inside. Now.”
“They’ve come for me. I will speak to them,” she retorted as haughtily as she had spoken to him that first day.
“It’s as it should be,” Otto whispered, settling Wilder’s nerves.
“Speak,” she ordered the clan leader of the largest wulver clan.
She asserted as much dominance in her voice as one would use to a wayward pup.
If he hadn’t been so unnerved by her presence, he would have cracked a smile at her tone.
“You are to return to the sea and I am to escort you,” Igneous replied.
His patience was slipping, and Wilder could tell by the way Igneous cracked his jaw.
Lyra’s shoulders stiffened. They were offering her a way home—would she take it?
She had made a bargain with his father, but that wouldn’t keep her here—would it?
“And who requests my return? The same male who bargained for my kidnapping?” Her voice did not waver, and the scent of her fury swelled.
Igneous shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know any information outside of my bargain.”
“The name,” she spat.
The wulvers on either side of Igneous bristled at her tone.
Lyra gripped the handle of the dagger and stepped beside Wilder. She hadn’t completed enough training to think she could fight her way out of this. Protecting her would be a liability, and now, with her standing this close to him, she was a distraction.
“I will not stand here and be questioned by a girl or by a coward who had to be rescued by his father. You will come—”
Igneous didn’t get to finish his demand.
The pommel of Lyra’s dagger quivered from between his eyes. He hadn’t seen her move, hadn’t felt her arm raise before she had launched the dagger between them.
The clearing froze.
No one dared to move or breathe; even the wind ceased. It was as if time had stopped altogether.
Igneous dropped to his knees and then fell to his stomach. The blade on the dagger was pure silver and had belonged to Maelys.
Wilder prepared for retaliation, for the rest of the clan to charge them now that their leader was killed. But the wulver on the right, the beta, looked at the corpse of the alpha and stepped back.
Lyra’s chest heaved, and she stepped in front of Wilder, raising her hands in challenge.
She looked like a goddess summoning her power.
The wind swirled through the clearing, bringing Wilder the scent of death. The remaining wulvers peeled off and out of the clearing, disappearing into the thick of the forest.
This would not be the end.
When the clearing was empty except for the seven of them, Wilder whirled on her.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
“He was going to take me.”
“And I was here to prevent that from happening!” He beat a fist to his chest.
Otto snickered beside him, and he whipped his head towards him.
“It’s as it should be.” Otto patted his shoulder and walked past him. “They won’t be back tonight. Rest easy.”
Wilder jutted his chin down and then turned back to Lyra. “Why?” His voice went hoarse.
“Because he deserved it. He caused nothing but pain and suffering.”
Wilder’s brow rose as he stared down. “Even if it was mine?”
Lyra looked at her hands, dropping her chin. “Especially yours.”