Chapter Sixteen
Dean
Iwalked at the back of the group with Damon at my side and my attention split between my brother and the figures moving ahead of us.
Ezra and five of his men had insisted on accompanying us to the edge of the Wildling Forest. It was supposed to be a gesture of goodwill.
A way to help carry supplies and provide additional security for the journey.
But every time one of them moved too quickly or veered too close to Alyssa, my wolf raised its hackles and growled.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t trust them.
“You’re going to give yourself a headache if you keep glaring at them like that.”
Damon’s voice was dry, amused, and so achingly familiar that it made my chest hurt. He sounded like himself. Like the brother I remembered from before all of this started. Before the possession and the chains and the nightmare wearing his face.
“I’m not glaring.”
“You’re absolutely glaring. You’ve been glaring since we left the palace. That vein in your forehead is doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The throbbing thing it does when you’re annoyed. It used to do it all the time when we were kids. Usually when Ryder was being particularly Ryder about something.”
I forced myself to stop glaring and looked at my brother instead.
He was walking easily enough, though his hands were shackled in front of him, the chain between the irons clinking softly with each step.
Alyssa had wanted to leave him untied for the journey, but Damon had insisted.
Just in case, he’d said. And I hadn’t been able to argue, because I knew what just in case meant.
Just in case the nightmare surfaced.
Just in case he lost control.
Just in case the brother I loved tried to hurt the woman I loved even more.
“What’s going on with you?” Damon asked. “I can tell something’s unsettled you, and I know it’s not just me. You’ve been twitchy since Ezra and his men joined us.”
I was quiet for a moment, watching the group ahead. Ezra was walking near the front, close to Tank and Alyssa, gesturing toward something in the distance. One of his men laughed at something Ryder said. Another was deep in conversation with Maddox about something I couldn’t hear.
They looked normal. Friendly, even. But appearances meant nothing.
“Do you know how we first came across Ezra?” I asked.
Damon shook his head. “I was a bit preoccupied at the time, being ridden by a nightmare and locked up in one of Arik’s dungeons if I remember correctly.”
“He was an Endless. One of Arik’s soldiers, controlled just like the rest of them. Alyssa freed him. Ezra was the first person she did it to.”
“And you don’t trust him because of that?”
“I don’t trust him because of anything.” I watched Ezra’s back, noting the way he moved, the way he positioned himself relative to the others.
“I don’t think he’s still working for Arik.
I’m not that paranoid. But there’s something about him that doesn’t sit right with me.
He’s too eager. Too devoted. People don’t go from enslaved soldier to die-hard loyalist that quickly without there being something else going on.
He had a chance to run and he didn’t take it, that’s not normal right? ”
Damon was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, I could hear the smile in his voice even without looking at him.
“What?” I demanded.
“Nothing. It’s just...” He laughed, a soft sound that was almost lost in the crunch of leaves beneath our feet.
“This is the same Dean I remember from when we were kids. The one who never trusted anyone outside of our group. Who spent three weeks convinced the new neighbour in our block was a spy because he smiled too much.”
“He did smile too much. It was suspicious.”
“He was friendly, Dean. Some people are just friendly.”
“Those people can’t be trusted.”
Damon laughed again, and this time it was louder, more genuine. For a moment, it was like the nightmare didn’t exist at all. Like we were just two brothers walking through the woods, bickering the way we always had.
Then I remembered the chains on his wrists, and the laughter soured in my chest.
“You’re probably right,” I admitted. “About me, not about that neighbour. I never trusted easily either. It’s why we worked so well as a unit. You were suspicious of everyone, I was suspicious of everyone, and between us, we kept the others safe.”
“Someone had to.”
“Someone still does.” He glanced at me sideways. “Though I notice you’ve expanded your circle a bit. Tank. Alyssa. That’s more trust than I’ve ever seen from you.”
I didn’t have a response to that. He was right. Somewhere along the way, I’d started trusting people outside of my brothers. Started believing in something bigger than just keeping our small group alive. Alyssa had done that. She’d broken something open inside me that I’d kept locked for years.
“Speaking of things that can’t be trusted,” I said, deliberately changing the subject. “What’s going on with the worm in your head?”
Damon rolled his eyes. “Subtle as ever, brother.”
“I don’t do subtle. You know that.”
“I do know that. It’s one of your more charming qualities.
” He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was more serious.
“It’s quiet. Suspiciously quiet. Ever since Alyssa touched my mind back on the ship, the nightmare has been.
.. subdued. It’s still there. I can feel it lurking in the corners of my head, watching, waiting.
But it’s not pushing the way it used to.
Not fighting for control every second of every day. ”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I don’t know. It could mean that it’s weakening. That whatever Alyssa did damaged it somehow.” He paused. “Or it could mean that it’s planning something. Biding its time. Waiting for the perfect moment to strike.”
The wolf in my chest growled at that. The idea of the nightmare lurking inside my brother, waiting to use him as a weapon, made me want to tear something apart with my bare hands.
“We should have given you the bite already,” I said, and the words came out rougher than I intended. “We should have done it days ago.”
“We’ve talked about this.”
“I know. I just...” I ran a hand through my hair, frustrated.
“I hate seeing you like this. I hate knowing that thing is inside you and I can’t do anything about it.
I’m supposed to be the one who fixes things.
Who protects the pack. And I can’t protect you from something that’s living inside your own head. ”
Damon was quiet for a long moment. The trees were getting closer now, a darkness lingered just beyond them that felt unnatural and yet there wasn’t a single part of me that wanted to turn back.
“She can fix it,” he said finally. “Alyssa. I believe that. I felt what she did to me on the ship, felt the nightmare recoil from her power. If anyone can tear this thing out of me, it’s her.”
“And if she can’t?”
“Then we try the bite.” He met my eyes, and there was a calm certainty there that I envied. “But I want to give her the chance first. She’s earned that.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to insist that we do it now, tonight, before anything else could go wrong. The wolf was howling in agreement, pushing at my control, demanding that I step up and make the hard decision because that was what alphas did.
But I looked at my brother’s face, at the peace in his eyes, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take away his choice just because I was scared.
“Fine,” I said. “But if anything changes, if that thing starts fighting for control again...”
“You’ll be the first to know.” Damon smiled, and it was almost his real smile. Almost. “Well, second. After it happens. But definitely in the top three.”
“You’re an ass.”
“I learned from the best.”
We walked in silence after that, but it was a comfortable silence. The kind we used to share on long missions, when words weren’t necessary and just being near each other was enough.
As we approached the edge of the forest, Damon slowed.
The Wildling Forest rose before us like a wall of darkness.
The trees here were older than anything I’d ever seen, their trunks so thick that five men couldn’t have circled them with linked arms. The canopy above was so dense that it seemed to swallow the light entirely, leaving only shadows and the suggestion of something moving between the branches.
“Do you really think this can work?” Damon asked, his eyes fixed on the darkness between the trees. “Walking into that, finding some mythical court that most people don’t even believe exists, convincing a goddess to help us defeat her own son?”
I followed his gaze to where Alyssa was walking at the front of the group, Tank at her side, her golden hair catching the last of the fading sunlight. She was organizing the group to make camp for the night, pointing out locations, giving quiet orders that everyone rushed to follow.
“If you knew her,” I said, “you’d know never to even ask that question.”
Damon was quiet for a moment, watching her. Watching the way she moved, the way people responded to her, the way the very air around her seemed to shimmer with barely contained power.
“Tell me about her,” he said. “Not the queen. Not the magical chosen one. The person.”
I considered the question as Fizzle flew overhead, circling once before landing on a low branch near where Alyssa stood. The owl griffin was speaking to her, his voice too low to hear, but whatever he said made her nod and turn to address the group.