Chapter Eleven
Legend
The rot’s denser here.
It hangs in the air like it’s got nowhere else to go, bleeding into the bark, curling through the spaces between ancient stone. Sulfur stings my nose, but there’s something underneath it. Something heavier. Death, maybe. Or whatever the fuck lingers after.
The river cutting along the shifter quadrant looks all kinds of wrong—less silver, more like the color of a bruise that hasn’t quite healed. Clouded and murky.
Sick.
Knight’s crouched by the tree line, fingers trailing over something half-swallowed by moss. “This one didn’t even make it far enough to run,” he says, voice flat, detached.
I step over a body twisted at an unnatural angle, my eyes catching on the mark burned into the ground next to it. Some crude emblem smeared in ash and blood—a moon split clean through by jagged lines. I’ve never seen a sigil like this. Not on this side of the realm, anyway.
The message painted across the house wall behind us is almost poetic in how fucked-up it is.
Am I being too subtle?
Blood drips from each letter, mixing with something tar-like that makes the whole thing look like it’s crying black tears. Still wet enough to catch the dim light.
Yeah, real fucking subtle.
A family lived here. Shifter-blooded. Stygian born. Now they’re scattered across their own doorway, throats opened wide, eyes vacant and glassy.
Then I feel it.
The bond slams into me like a punch to the ribs, flooding me with her terror in waves that make my jaw clench. She’s here. Close. Too damn close to all this carnage.
I spin, scanning the tree line, and there—
Haide.
On her knees at the edge of the clearing, hands pressed into the moss, blood streaked across her throat, her arms, soaking through her clothes. Her eyes are feral—more animal than girl—chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.
“Fuck,” I mutter, already moving.
My chest detonates. The bond screams mine so violently it feels like my ribs are splitting apart. Like something feral is clawing its way out of my skin to get to her, to bite, protect.
My vision tunnels, heat flooding my veins, instincts crashing over reason in a brutal, blind demand to destroy first and think later.
She’s hurt. She’s bleeding. You fucking failed her.
“What happened? Who did this?” Panic closes around my throat, but as I reach out to her, the scent hits me and it’s wrong.
Not her blood.
I blink, and just like that, the haze clears. “I thought…”
For a moment, her features seem to soften before she forces a frown.
Creed appears beside me a second later, his expression going hard at her presence.
Knight straightens from where he’s crouched. “What the hell—”
“I don’t—” Her voice cracks, raw and wrecked. She stares at her hands, at the blood coating them, trembling. “I was in my room reading over what Professor Astra said today about—” Her lips clamp shut, and her eyes slide to me. “Never mind. It’s not important. I was reading and then I was here.”
“Wow. She knows how to read.” Sinner smirks.
I make a mental note to figure out what professor Astra is teaching her, because it must be good if she’s being tight-lipped—my girl loves to speak her mind.
I move closer, and the bond hums between us, confirming what I already know in my bones. She’s telling the truth. I can feel it, absolute.
But Creed’s not convinced. His jaw tightens as he stalks toward her, hands raised like he’s dealing with something wild. “You’re portalling.”
“I sure as fuck would be…if I knew how!” She snarls, shoving to her feet.
Blood drips from her fingers, and the sight of it makes something primal twist in my chest. “I can’t even make a fucking feather float!
It’s like I said, I was doing what you asked—stupid school shit—and then I woke up in a goddamn murder scene! ”
“You’re a lying little—”
“Enough, brother,” I cut in. “She said she doesn’t know how she got here and she’s telling the truth.”
Creed glares my way but remains silent. I know my brother. He’s biting his tongue, and he’s never been very good at that.
Knight circles the body closest to us, a frown building over his brows.
“What is it?”
“What it isn’t is random.” Knight frowns. “This feels targeted.”
“Feels personal,” Silver, Knight’s best friend and our newly appointed Grand Healer, adds. His duty above all is to keep us alive when we fail to do so ourselves, which makes him our happy little shadow. “Could be revenge. A lover’s vendetta, maybe.”
“Against an entire bloodline?” Knight raises a brow.
Silver shrugs. “You’ve seen what grief can do.”
Vicente shakes his head. “No. This wasn’t rage. This was deliberate. Calculated.”
Vicente is Silver’s father and was our father’s most trusted and number one warrior. His dedication earned him the coveted spot as the King’s Guardian. Now, he serves as ours.
I glance back at the bodies and the way they’re positioned—almost staged. “Then whoever did this wanted the scene found. But what the hell does that mean?” I jerk my chin toward the scribble on the wall.
“Too subtle?” Silver scoffs. “And I thought we were fucked-up.”
“Family dispute?” Knight suggests, jaw tight as he stares at the message, trying to work it out.
“Doesn’t make sense, they’re all here.”
“Not all of them,” Vicente mutters, momentarily lost in his own thoughts before his eyes lock on mine. “I remember this pack. They had a third mate, but the third mate only shared a bond with one of them and it eventually drove him mad with jealousy.”
Damn, that blows, but why’s he looking at me? “Where is he now?”
“He was banished,” Vicente says quietly. “A decade ago…to Exile Island.”
The words hang there like a noose.
Creed turns back to Haide, expression dark though he says nothing, likely searching her mind for the truth.
“I didn’t do this,” she says, but there’s less fire behind it now. Just exhaustion and something that looks too close to fear. The bond feeds it to me, her terror bleeding into my own rage until I can’t tell where hers stops and mine starts.
Creed’s anger only grows. “Portalling without knowing how? That’s not normal, even for the gifted. If you can even call yourself one.”
“Tell me, oh mighty King Creed, what part of this is normal?” Haide snaps defiantly. “And you forget, I never wanted to come here in the first fucking place!”
“Sure you fucking did. You want power just as much as the next, but I doubt you’re even worthy enough.”
“So which is? I have power, or I don’t?”
His eyes flash in warning. “Behave.”
“You,” I warn, my lip curled.
His features stiffen, but you’d have to be watching to see it, and I am fucking watching.
Yeah, he doesn’t want Legend to pick up on his subtle reminder of our deal but he wants to make sure I don’t forget it. As if I fucking could.
I’ve been thinking about that little conversation we had that day, and something isn’t quite adding up.
I open my mouth to ask him something.
“Enough.” Knight’s voice slices through the tension before I can speak. “We need to look at this closer, and outsiders are not welcome while we do.”
I snarl. “She’s not a fucking—”
“Yes, I am! Stop trying to come to my damn rescue. I don’t need nor want it!” she snaps, burning me with her glare. “You can all fuck off now.”
Then she moves, stalking toward the tree line with that lethal grace that makes every instinct in me scream to follow, to drag her back, to chain her somewhere safe where nothing can touch her.
But I don’t.
I watch her disappear into the shadows, the bond stretching tight between us, and force myself to stay still.
For now.
“She’s gonna end up dead if she keeps this shit up,” Creed mutters.
“No,” I say, voice cold and certain. “She won’t.”
“People will start to talk.”
“Let them.”
I’ll burn this whole fucking realm down before I let anything happen to her.
I should stop her as she walks away, but I don’t. Because she can throw a fucking tantrum loud enough for the Gods to hear, but that ain’t gonna change shit.
“You think she’s gonna behave?” Knight asks, brow curved. We both know she isn’t, but it’s what makes her Haide. My little fucking monster.
“Focus,” Creed demands, turning his attention back to the task at hand. The dead fucking shifters at our feet.
“We need to stay vigilant, explore every angle as Dad would. And do not, under any circumstance, allow yourselves to be -distracted. Our own mother betrayed us not long ago. Let that be your reminder.” His words settle over us, but the only response he gets from me is a single shoulder shrug.
Sinner’s the first to move, circling around to my left like a wolf testing weakness. “So, we’re just gonna ignore that the most likely suspect is also the one person Legend won’t let us interrogate?”
“She’s not a suspect,” I growl. I can’t wait for Sinner to land ass first on his mate.
“Everyone’s a suspect,” Creed corrects, stepping closer. “That’s how investigations work. Or did you forget that part when you became obsessed?”
Knight puts a hand on Creed’s chest. “Creed. Settle.”
Creed shoves it away. “Don’t defend him. He’s not thinking straight.”
“I’m thinking clearer than all of you.” Creed’s always been a pain in my fucking ass, but lately, even he’s pushing it. “The bond—”
“The bond is the problem!” Creed’s shout echoes across the clearing. “It’s clouding your judgment, making you see innocence where there’s only convenient coincidence.”
Silver stands, holding a vial of ash from the symbol. “It’s not just convenient.” He throws the vial to me. I catch it instinctively. The contents hum against my palm, familiar and wrong. “That’s from her hut. Her ashes, Legend. Someone burned her old life and painted it here.”
My fist closes around the vial. Glass cracks.
“Could be a message,” Knight says quietly. “Someone saying ‘I know where you came from.’ A lot of people aren’t happy about her being here.”
“Could be a trophy,” Sinner counters. “Someone bringing their work home.”
Creed’s eyes never leave mine. “Could be a confession.”
I move. I don’t remember deciding to, but suddenly I’m in Creed’s space, chest to chest, magic sparking between us. “Say it again.”
“She’s either the killer, the target, or the trigger.” He doesn’t back down. “And I won’t let your dick destroy this kingdom.”
Knight and Silver grab my arms, pulling me back. I let them, but only because I’m calculating how many bones I can break before they subdue me.
Vicente’s quiet voice slices through the rage, veering us back on track. “What if, whoever this is, is using her as a way to get to Rathe from Exile. Like a portal.”
The word portal freezes everyone.
“Go on,” Knight says.
“If this person is somehow linked to her—through the bond, through Exile magic or whatever the hell you want to call it, he could be using her as an anchor. She appears at the scene because he’s pulling her here. Or the magic is.”
“That’s diabolical,” Sinner scoffs.
“So is appearing at a murder scene you didn’t commit,” Vicente shoots back. “The question isn’t whether she’s guilty. It’s whether she’s the weapon or the target.”
The bond in my chest twists. Haide’s fear floods through, clean and sharp, cutting through my anger. Fear? Haide isn’t scared of shit. But I understand it. She’s like a wild animal that’s been placed in a home with rules. Her fear may not look like others’, but it’s there.
“Fuck,” I breathe, the fight draining out of me. “Fuck.”
Creed sees the change. “What now?”
“She’s scared.” I look at my brothers, really look at them. “Not of us.” Because I want to make that very fucking clear. “Of this. Of being among a world she’s not sure of.”
“Then,” Knight hesitates, “we keep an eye on her.”
Sinner rolls his eyes. “Poetic.”
“Practical,” Creed corrects. “If she’s being used, we need to find the hand moving her. If she’s using us, we need to know before the body count rises.”
They drift away, back to the bodies. I stay, staring at the symbol.
My palm still burns from the vial. Her ash. Her past. Her ghost. Her home.
…
Thirty minutes later, there’s still nothing else we can find.
We call in a trainee mage to clean the scene.
Knight’s fingers fly over his phone as he mutters orders to Silver and Vicente about everyone meeting in the war room at eight to announce the curfew.
Creed took off a while ago for some school bullshit—I think he secretly likes playing the sophisticated man in charge.
I’m fucking sick of whoever this bastard is already. My muscles ache with fatigue, as if demanding her touch.
Fucking moody bastard. I get the bond and my mate, but damn. I’ll at least string her out for as long as I can take it. So, when I get to her, she’s going to be desperate for me. Exactly the way I want her.
A tiny little tendril of her emotions bleeds into mine, but my mind is too slow to catch onto what it is.
I turn to leave.
“Legend,” Knight warns. “You good?”
But I’m already throwing up a portal, the air splitting in a burst of black light. I step through without another word.