Altair
Maybe the witch would die.
I wouldn’t mind if he did. Tristan had done me no particular wrong, but he’d done me no good either.
For so long, he’d been so deep in Ermengarde’s pocket that I had to assume she’d awakened him herself. Perhaps I was wrong, but clearly, Tristan held her in very high esteem.
If Ermengarde and I had ever agreed on anything, it was that Ivan was worth being afraid of. But these wolves were determined that they could fight him off. Aleks tossed off Ermengarde’s terror like it was nothing.
Next to Ivan, every single one of these wolves, even Henry, was a child. They might think they were invincible, because in almost every instance, they were, but Ivan wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have a clear idea how to win. He wouldn’t step foot in their territory if he didn’t mean to empty it.
I took a moment, the heels of my palms pressed against my closed eyelids, to figure out how to make them understand.
Maybe Viktor was right, and my leaving wouldn’t change anything for them, but at the very least, Ivan wouldn’t be so set on carnage if he didn’t think there was any point in fighting them.
He’d still attack, sure, but when he faced resistance, I doubted he’d risk his own life just to make a point.
Or maybe he’d scorch the earth for any potential allies I might have. Maybe he’d kill them no matter what I did.
With a huff, I dropped my hands.
Katya had crouched beside Tristan and felt his pulse. She frowned but shrugged, and none of the werewolves were particularly keen on seeing him safe and comfortable, or taking their eyes off of him.
Maybe it would’ve been kind of us to give up the couch, but I couldn’t be bothered and Leo didn’t make any move to change things. Once Katya had Tristan on his side, clearly still breathing, we went back to the business at hand.
“Ivan won’t come alone,” I said. “Hopefully, he hasn’t brought other progeny.
His children can’t deny him anything, so we make a loyal fighting force that he doesn’t have to worry about betraying him.
If he does bring more of our kind, that’d be worse.
Vampires can be silent when they hunt, and they’ll take advantage of any opportunity they have.
Witches . . . aren’t so careful. Since he’s already working with them, it’s a reasonable expectation that he’ll bring some along, and he’s .
. . he keeps his progeny on a short leash, so he may have left them behind.
It’ll be easier to sense the witches, and he’ll have no loyalty to them at all.
In either case, he’s going to want people between you and him in case things go sideways.
He’ll escape rather than fight a battle he thinks he’ll lose, but he doesn’t forgive, and he doesn’t forget.
He’ll be back, so if the tides turn against him, it would .
. . behoove you and me both if he didn’t escape. ”
Evie climbed off my lap, and I thought for a second that she was going to check on Tristan, but she sauntered right by him into Katya’s rooms. A few heads turned after her, but one by one, every gaze in the room settled on me again.
My stomach was turning, snakes wiggling through me as I combed my mind for anything that might help them.
“I think you lot can hear better than us. Your sense of smell is better too. But no one sees better in the dark than a vampire. He’ll come when it’s darkest for the personal advantage, but if he’s working with the witches, it’ll put them on the back foot.”
“Would you be able to keep up with him in the dark?” Aleks asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe, but you don’t want me to. If I get close enough to him to hear an order, I become an immediate liability to you. The best thing I can do is . . . ”
“We won’t let you anywhere near him,” Leo promised, gripping my hand tight.
Near me . . .
Close, like when he’d whisper horrible things into my ear then lean down with his fangs and tear at my throat. When he’d tie me down and carve pieces away. He’d leave me open, too hungry to heal, starving but unable to help myself.
I shivered, shutting my eyes tight. A deep breath did nothing to calm my nerves.
And then Evie came back in one of Katya’s dresses. She padded barefoot through the living room, stepping over Tristan while she looked at me with worry.
“And if we manage to kill Ivan, what happens to you?” she asked.
Aleks scowled. “What do you mean, Evie? He’s free then, right?”
She shrugged and crossed her arms in a way that bunched up the extra material of the dress, squeezing tight around her body. “It’s a thing in some of the myths that killing a vampire sire destroys his whole bloodline. Is that true?”
I sucked in another deep breath as I felt Leo’s arm tighten around me. In the end, it didn’t really matter. If it meant Ivan was no longer walking the earth, that was a sacrifice I’d be happy to make, but I couldn’t very well say that.
And truthfully, I didn’t know.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t really know—Ivan wouldn’t have been incentivized to tell us the truth if we could survive his death. He wanted us under thumb and willing to protect him, but if his end meant ours, I think he would’ve crowed about it more.”
Quite frankly, if he’d thought about it, he’d have been wise to tell us that we could only survive as long as he did, but that’d only been an implication, never said outright.
Leo’s hand flexed on my shoulder. “You’re not tied to him like that. No magic works that way. Henry’s not going to have any more authority over Tristan than any other wolf just because he bit him.”
I shook my head. He didn’t understand.
Henry had bitten Tristan.
Ivan had drained every drop of my blood and replaced it with his own.
“He owns every piece of me,” I rasped.
Leo flinched. His adoring, innocent eyes wide with horror at the thought. Already, he was shaking his head.
But I couldn’t explain it. I couldn’t make him understand.
I couldn’t damn well get a breath that I didn’t even need, except that it felt like I was dying without it. With a ragged gasp, I stood.
“I need some air,” I whispered.
I marched out of the house, not stopping until I found the riverbank. At that point, a sound was throbbing in my ears like the heartbeat I didn’t have, and the ringing was making me dizzy.
My feet sank into the earth, and I didn’t know if it was my own panic, or simply the wet, muddy riverbank giving way for the weight of me.
In either case, I snarled, tearing my feet out of the muck. My shoes—Leo’s shoes—were ruined, stinking with mud.
I ripped them off my feet and tossed them onto the far riverbank. “Fuck!”
At the sound of my shout, night birds took off into the air.
If I was any good at all, I’d go with them.