8. CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 8
Grayson
An icy, yellowed sun cast plum-colored shadows over the wintry ground. In front of me, the cabin was dull and silent. Inside, the hybrids were sated, numbed by their madness. Months of near starvation turned them into emaciated horrors. Three of them, corruptions created by Barend. His hybrids were less refined than Amal’s, but they were as monstrous.
A deadening pressure filled my mind. Hybrids—those wolves turned by a vampire—were unique. While in their human bodies, they possessed a vampire’s strength, along with his fangs and insatiable needs.
In wolf form, they were voracious killers. Power was intoxicating, and once the hybrid turned feral, he refused to shift back into the vampiric body. And because, as wolves, they had canines instead of fangs, they could no longer drink blood efficiently. Consequently, they ripped apart their prey, unable to consume sustenance in any other way. But it was never enough blood, so they killed, ravaged. And still slowly starved to death.
Killing them swiftly was a mercy.
But mercy was not what I would deliver this night.
When I shifted into the wolf, his snarl was mine, low in his throat and vibrating with the useless anger. This responsibility was ours. He’d accepted the alpha tattoo as I had, knowing full well it bound us for a lifetime. He’d listened to the warnings, as I had, that such revulsions would become our obligation. I would find the elder who trafficked teenagers to Barend. But first, I would clean up his mess.
The wolf stalked silently, his large paws barely disturbing the ice-crusted pine needles carpeting the ground. The stubble of shorn grass. I knew the family who lived in this cabin, remote in a northern valley within Sentinel Falls territory. A widowed father and his young son. I would whisper their names when I was done. Commend their souls to whatever gods still blessed the wolves. Our history spoke of a peaceful place when we died, a lush forest with a glorious blue sky and meadows during summer. Warm dens in the winter. Where friends and family would meet again.
I hoped that history was as true as the shit-show filled with kings and queens.
Wished it for those I knew and loved, tried to protect.
But for myself, after what I’d done and would do, I wasn’t sure if peace waited for me.
The boards outside the ruined open door creaked beneath the wolf’s weight. Light slanting through the windows reflected off the table edge, glittering on the festive Christmas tree decorated with paper chains and bits of silver. I’d lost track of the days, weeks. Hunting, killing, doing Set’s bidding, our joint revenge for Julien. For the others. Cybelle, Njal, Kazamir. Too many to list now, when the wolf needed to focus.
But it was jarring, seeing that poignant tree, the hope for celebration. Even for my wolf. He stood, unmoving as he scented the air, scanned the shadows. The large, flayed lump by the table was the father. A smaller body lay near a child’s cot.
The sated ferals had sprawled around the living area, on the floor, on a couch. The first one to move received the only mercy. My wolf attacked, his canines digging in, crushing the feral’s throat. He was a fraction of my wolf’s weight. His wasted body crumpled like dried leaves with his mind so far gone, he didn’t resist. I thought he welcomed death, an end to his torment.
But the other two ferals were not as lucky. They were aware enough to snarl, howl. Fight back like maddened cowards. When my wolf was done, nothing much was left.
I shifted long enough to walk nude through the cabin, searching for what I needed. Materials to make a torch. Clean blankets dragged from a cupboard.
I covered the bodies of the father and son. Paid tribute to them, their memories. The father had brought the son to Azul for the pack meeting after the Gathering attack. He said he wanted his son to understand pack history, loyalty, take pride in our lifestyle. Honor the alphas and the traditions.
Slowly, I said their names. Touched my fingers to my heart, then the pack bond. Walked outside, lit the torch and stood silently. As the cabin burned, I said the words : one to light the way, one to break the bonds, one to sanctify the dead.
Then I shifted into the wolf and let him take control.
The wolf found the stream and plunged his muzzle into the frigid water, washing away the bitterness of rotten blood and failure. We’d not reached the cabin in time to save that small family. The kills had still been fresh, less than an hour old. I shuddered.
The wolf snarled; he was on an edge we’d known before, one filled with restlessness and distress. Noa had soothed him. She’d been able to see the wolf even though I stood there in human form. Been able to separate us—unheard of—and more than once, I’d wondered if that wasn’t what Amal was attempting to do. To find some way to first separate the wolf from the man, then destroy the wolf.
It would be like losing a vital part of yourself. Being left bereft.
Wading into the water, the wolf did not stop until he was up to his belly, needing to wash the gore from his pelt, from his skin. Wash away the taint. We’d been hunting and killing creatures for weeks, but the hybrids were harder to find. Either we’d decimated the numbers, or Barend—and Amal—kept the living under lock and key.
At least it might make the winter more tolerable. Wolves clustered together for the warmth and companionship, coming into the settlements, or places like Azul and Sentinel Falls. From the reports I’d read, the repairs in Sentinel Falls were sufficient for more families to return. The older, renovated houses were more than comfortable. But while Azul’s repairs were ongoing, many refugees sheltering in Westvale had opted to remain in the Carmag. I understood the need for safety. Normalcy. For families to shop, go out to restaurants, listen to the music that always flowed through Anson’s seat of power. The artists, the Farmer’s Market, the laughter.
I could not give them that—but I could give them one less hybrid to worry about. Be the Alpha of Sentinel Falls. The Dread Lord. Atoning for the sins of the kings. Facing a blood queen’s rage. I’d stand at the front line. Use the power I’d inherited for this one purpose.
I would protect the pack. Live up to the honor of Alpha, accept every responsibility. Despite the whispered secrets and prophesies, the costs, I would not stop. Not even when I felt the way the wolf felt—hollow. Disconnected, as if it didn’t matter which body we inhabited. And each mercy we delivered laid another rock on the grave of remembrance. Of what we’d once been… before. When the world had been sane.
The wolf waded back to shore with a furious shake of his head. I’d been sheltering in a cave. It wasn’t far, and a comfort to the wolf. As I approached, a shadow fluttered—one of the tree nymphs, leaving an offering of food, nuts wrapped in leaves. A silvery fish pulled from the stream. As silently as she’d appeared, she faded into the foliage with a flutter of a pale blue dress. Her tree was close by, but I didn’t know where.
I shifted into human form, my muscles stiff, and honored her gift with a nod. Gathered the leafy package, careful not to defile it by smearing the feral blood still coating my hands. I would wash inside, shift back, and let the wolf curl up in a corner to sleep. But as I entered the dim cave, the unexpected light brought me to a tense halt.
“You’re back,” Fee said, smiling before he turned toward the stove that hadn’t existed when I left. Nor had the kitchen holding the stove, or the furniture. The wide bed buried in blankets, and a door cracked open, leading to a bathroom.
At my silence, Fee waved a casual hand. “I made some improvements. I hope you don’t mind.”
I walked to the wooden table and set down the nymph’s gift; one nut rolled from the leaves. “You’re staying long?”
“Only dropping in.”
The fragrance from the stove told me he was stirring chicken soup. His spoon clanged against the pot. Steam rose in a faint gray whirl. Homey things, what most took for granted. Thought of as a nuisance.
I’d almost forgotten what a normal existence felt like, all those little details I’d never noticed until Noa entered my life.
“Aren’t you too old to live like this?” Fee added at my silence.
I shook my head as I stalked past him, heading for the half-open door. “Is there hot water?”
“Unlimited supply.”
And magic-fueled until some glitch in Fee’s spells turned the steam into ice. I’d take the chance, and stepped into a gleaming white cubicle where the water already flowed in a cloud of mist, condensing on the mirror above a sink. I let the scalding heat beat against my skin. The water flowing down the drain turned pink—blood I’d tracked through, walking naked through the carnage before I’d burned the dead.
No different from the blood of every feral I’d had to kill. The hybrids. Once, they’d been innocent, with lives ahead of them—and I’d had to help with their destruction. End what they’d become. I wasn’t sure there was enough absolution for what I had to do. What I was becoming.
“You look haggard,” Fee said endless minutes later, when I walked out of the steam, tucking my shirt into the waistband of clean jeans.
“First, I’m too old. Now I’m haggard? Make up your mind.”
“You should spend more time in the sun.”
“It’s your weather,” I reminded him. “Not much sun this time of year.”
“The trees and plants need the winter to rest. I was thinking of your pocket. You should go, enjoy the perpetual summer.”
“You want it both ways.” Fee always did. His logic was fluid. “Hunting hybrids and relaxing in the sun.”
“The vampires should clean up their own messes and not put it on you. How’s it going, by the way?”
“I’ve cleared this quadrant.” At least to the best of my knowledge. I’d finished eliminating the last of the hybrids an hour ago and hadn’t picked up any new scent trails.
Fee grunted with what I assumed was satisfaction. “Try this soup. It’s a new recipe. I found it on one of those internet channels.”
I flopped into a chair, pulled the bowl closer. “Needs salt.”
“You haven’t tried it yet.”
“I’ve tasted your cooking,” I said. “Always needs salt.”
“Really, Grayson, that’s quite beneath you, insulting the cook.”
I watched him with an exhausted glare that held no hostility.
Fee ladled soup into his bowl. “I warned you there’d be dark days before the light.”
“You did.” With the spoon in my hand, I sampled the soup. “How is she?”
“She’s safe, but I can’t say that she’s happy. Being away from you hobbles her power, and yours.”
I reached for the salt shaker. “Being away from me keeps her hidden. She’s safe behind Anson’s wards.”
Anson said he’d added layers of security, and the compound where Noa was living was protected. I refused to fault his efforts, or his commitment to our agreement.
As long as I stayed away.
“Caerwen can help her,” I said, jolting back to Noa’s hobbled power. The nymph understood how to ease a faille’s tension. She’d been doing it for centuries.
“Caerwen and Effa need to return to Aine every few days,” Fee was saying. “Something about the Carmag, affecting the magic. They shrink.”
I smothered the surge of amusement. “You’re sure it’s not your magic, going a little wonky?”
The King of the Forest smiled, the sharp, deceptive smile he used right before he brought down some new destruction, a windstorm or torrential rain on the heads of the nonbelievers. “My magic is impeccable. Regardless of the dispersions that Aine and her sister like to cast.”
“So that incident with the river nymph and the leeches wasn’t you?”
The incident where Noa nearly died , I could have added.
Fee snorted. “If I was rude, I’d point out that the river where Noa encountered the leeches has headwaters in the Carmag and only ran into your territory several miles from the incident.” He nudged aside the tree nymph’s gift. The leaves uncurled, exposing the silver scales of the fish, and the nuts that wobbled and rolled like a children’s game. “Did you ever find a cure?”
“For the worm poison?” What Noa had called it, caused by the leeches, latching on. “No cure. I had to heal her through it, repair what the poison destroyed until it faded.”
Fee’s hair lifted on a wave of static electricity. “She gained unusual abilities afterward. I’d think you’d be curious.”
“I’m in the middle of hunting hybrids.”
“You’re quite capable of multi-tasking.”
Steel lived in the casual comment from the King of the Forest, a demigod who routinely turned trespassers into trees. He pretended to be batty as an escape from Aine. He’d stood on that battlefield in a full suit of ancient armor, swinging a sword as if he weren’t untold centuries old, despite the bowed legs and the unsteady gait when caught off guard. I’d never known him to ask random questions.
He was watching my expression, as if he followed my thought process, and I asked, “What else should I do?”
“What you should have done the minute Anson Salas told you he’d protect that girl. But only if you stayed away. Go and get her.”
“She’s safer in Westvale.”
“That’s the biggest bit of cow I’ve ever heard.”
I raised an eyebrow. “It’s usually the bull, not the cow, and you can say the word shit around me. I won’t faint.”
“It’s your wolf I worry about. He’s a prude who faints at shadows.” Which was another bit of cow nonsense from the man Noa called a garden ornament on more than one occasion.
I snorted, ignoring the surge of power filling the cave and the vines that popped from the stones. Tendrils writhed across the sand like snakes—the result of Fee’s irritation. “You’ll ruin all the comforts you created,” I warned.
“Yes, and then you can sleep in the snow.”
I gave Fee a biting grin. That was the whole point in being out here, hunting ferals and killing them. Letting the punishing weather numb me to the reality.
“What is it you’re worried about, Fee?”
“The Carmag. It corrupts, like those leeches, and my wards Anson remakes all the time.”
“Shrinking nymphs?”
“The corruption affects her when you’re not there . ” Fee’s magic flared, zinging around the cave with none of the puppy exuberance he used when Noa was around. I let my power surge, the trace of quelling shadows I’d used to smother Noa’s flames when she was irritated. The shadows snapped at the magic and the magic snapped back.
I surrendered before things escalated. The standoff was pointless, anyway.
Fee had gone back to slurping soup, and he said around a spoonful, “Anson delivered the box you sent.” Filled with Noa’s mementoes, salvaged from Azul. A second small box held Fallon’s pink, sparkly things. I’d included the faille journals on loan from Aine, along with the small book from Set. Amal’s journal. I’d sensed the chilled evil in it, hesitated before including the book. But there might be something important for Noa to discover.
I went back to the soup, while Fee tore off a piece of freshly baked bread, still warm—the benefits of magic.
“They’re keeping the books in the archive,” he said. “I understand Laura’s quite happy with the researching.”
“We have cell phones,” I reminded him dryly. “Mace gets updates.”
“Mace is doing an excellent job. It’s the Christmas season, Grayson. Everyone hibernates.”
“I want her with Leo. With Hattie and Oscar. Her family.”
“You are her mate. Her family.”
I smiled as if I wasn’t asking the gods to spare me from this argument. “I nearly destroyed her, Fee. I won’t be like those kings.”
“You can’t defeat Amal on your own.”
“I won’t risk her life.”
“You won’t have a choice,” Fee said sadly. “But know there is a reason for everything, and while you can’t see it now, you will have to be together before the end.”
My power surged, and the acidic scent of ozone, signaling a lightning strike, filled the cave. I didn’t know if it was my power, or Fee’s.
Because the King of the Forest was gone.
In the morning, I woke on the ground. Fee’s magic had disappeared. So had the kitchen, the bed, and the bathroom, not that it mattered. My task here was done.
I waved my gratitude to the tree nymph and splashed through the creek. Blew out a long breath.
Snow had fallen during the night, piling on the bare branches of the trees and falling in little flurries as the sun rose.
The forest silence rubbed at me. Fee’s visit had not been random. No new gadget to show off, or a need to avoid Aine.
But all that talk about the Carmag, corrupting things—affecting Noa.
I braced against the idea that magic was involved and beyond my control. Anson would protect her with his life and his honor. He wasn’t asshole enough to leave Noa vulnerable, no matter what his grievance was with me. We’d been through problems before, where his interests were at odds with mine, and we’d worked through the difficulties.
I wanted Noa to heal and be with her family. I didn’t want her where she’d not be protected. But after Fee’s warning, maybe I didn’t want her in the Carmag, either.
Mace was waiting when I reached the Refuge, and every other deliberation disappeared when he said, “Vampires and a wolf with three to sell. We leave now, we’ll catch them in the act.”
I shoved down the rushing pressure in my chest. Forced myself to focus on the details.
“My contact sent a message,” Mace was saying, arming up, sliding knives into the sheaths in his fighting leathers. “No forewarning. They’re wary with so many attacks on the hybrids.” The last of Mace’s knives slammed home. “There’s a passage.”
“Who?” Not that it mattered. The wolf—elder, coward, enemy—would be dead within an hour. And it wouldn’t be dead like in his sleep, easy and unnoticed. No, it would be the sort of death a dread lord handed out. The shit people loved to whisper about when the nights were long and boring.
“I don’t have a name. Won’t know until we kill him.” Mace turned, a cruel tilt to his lips. “But you’ve guessed, Gray. I’ve guessed.”
Even the rumor of a Sentinel Falls elder kidnapping wolves, selling them, was a stain on the pack. A personal stain on Mace’s leadership, as well as mine and Fallon’s. Put us on the same immoral level as the Alpen.
We’d soon learn the truth.
“This is a fucking win.” Mace was as primed as I was, a powerful, efficient killer who inspired dread in the soon-to-be dead. “Rid ourselves of a traitorous elder while cutting Barend off at the knees. One more long-standing problem off your list.”
Nothing was closer to the truth. Even without visual proof, all the evidence pointed to Mosbach, and it made me sick. The many times he’d touched Noa, insulted her. Threatened to give her to the vampires—for this? To sell to Barend?
My wolf was on board for everything. What he did to the hybrids would pale against the vengeance shimmering in him now, the malice that echoed in his growl when he surged with the need to shift. Take control.
I pushed the flash of brutality down, encased it in ice. Giving in to blind impulse wouldn’t serve me. I would deal with Mosbach, and the aftermath would become another shit storm. “He has men loyal to him.”
“Every settlement and den in the territory has lost someone in this war.” Mace slid another blade into a leather sheath, as if he wasn’t already heavily armed. “And no wolf would dare challenge you now. They know you fight for them. Go out night after night to hunt creatures and hybrids. They see what you’ve become and they’re loyal.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face.
You didn’t create hybrids , Mace hissed through the pack bond.
I didn’t prevent them.
Every wolf in the pack honors—
“I know,” I said firmly.
“This is not about those gods-damned seers—what they told you years ago. You are not responsible.”
“I will always be responsible.”
“ We , Gray. None of us are meant to have normal lives. That happy ending? For others, maybe. But not for us. Even Fallon knows the truth.”
“And you, Mace?” I turned to look at him. “What truth do you know?”
“The one I see every time I close my eyes at night.”
“This never had to be your fight.”
Mace’s hand landed heavily on my shoulder. “I was born for this fight. A rebellious kid who ended up here—because fate wanted me here.”
“Noa doesn’t believe in fate,” I said. “She believes in changing it.”
Mace tipped his head back and barked out a laugh. “Then let’s gods-damn fucking change it.”
His grin was wide, his eyes bright with the challenge.
Enough that I ached.
The scrape of boots against the floor told me Mace was striding outside. I followed. A glance around the empty sparring yard revealed no movement. Torches guttered from the stakewall. Mace was heading toward the open gates, where at least the guards stood stiffly. Perhaps they read the challenge in his gait, the warrior taking the field.
“We go alone,” he said to the man who stepped up, offered his service, along with several men standing behind him. Sentinel Falls rangers. Those from Carmag stood along the stakewall, silently watching. Honoring when I did not deserve the respect. I’d let Mosbach slip through my fingers and sin without notice, too willing to blame the Alpen for rumors of missing wolves.
It was a dark shame that Mace felt as intensely as I did, although my second had always been skilled at suppressing his emotions. Pain hid behind a stiff spine and an aggressive leadership style. We’d both fought our way up from broken childhoods, and despite the minor differences in rank, he would always be my equal. My brother. I would be his. We shared experiences no one else had—other than Fallon.
Few understood the unique loneliness in leadership. Mace’s alpha tattoo was just as binding as mine. The same for Fallon. A lifetime of service. But always, the three of us together made it bearable. We were a force few wolves resisted. Amusing, Fallon said, that two assholes and a redeemer generated such an unbreakable aura of power.
But Mace had always known how to hide his emotions. How to compartmentalize, to stomach the fawning fakery without ripping throats out. One withering look from the warrior, and most men nearly twisted their necks, trying to dip a chin fast enough. Expose a throat in submission.
I’d never known anyone as strategic as Mace was in battle, the instincts he’d honed over decades. On that field, he was lethal. But he’d never had to face challenge fights, one after another, tasting the blood of those he knew until it was thick in his throat.
His enemies had always been strangers, and I envied the gift he had in that anonymity. I had hoped he’d never lose it, but that could end tonight.
The passage carried a whiff of cinnamon. The rocky walls supported more bioluminescent vines, glowing with that faint blue light and bearing red berries in clusters. Silver fireflies bobbed through the dark, reminding me of the childhood Christmases when I’d still believed in benevolent magic and a laughing fat man who rewarded good children. When my mother would bake cookies and my father would—
I jerked those memories to a halt. The passage ended, and I stepped out behind Mace, entering a silent forest tainted with the malevolence of vampires. Our quarry was still some distance, but we walked silently, careful where we put our feet, weaving around moss-covered trees and those with barren, spiky branches.
Ahead, a weak and yellowed light leaked across the snow; the light came from hooded lanterns sitting on the ground, understandable with the vampiric abhorrence of fire. We crouched. I counted two vampires waiting with that preternatural stillness. The elder stood with his back to us, but his energy screamed his identity.
Three teens lay face-down on the ground, closer to where Mace and I hid in the trees. Two males and a female, judging from the long hair and her slender build. Mosbach had chained them together with links wrapped around necks and ankles. Hands tied behind their backs. Attached to each left foot were odd, triangular padlocks—anti-vampiric burial tech from the 14 th century. Supposedly, the triangle shape “locked” the vampire to the earth and made escaping the grave impossible. I wondered if the message being sent with those locks had much effect on the waiting vampires.
From what I could tell, neither vampire was interested in getting close enough to touch the locks, so perhaps there was something to the history, the tools that humans used then that we laughed at now.
I picked up no other scents after scanning the spindly pines, their branches dragging low. No vibrations from an enemy in hiding. The target was out in the open. With the three victims immobilized, the group would be difficult to move if the vampires disappeared. I doubted vampires would carry three bound, struggling teenagers, even with their special skills. The captives would instinctively fight, twist against each other. But I counted on their panic. A fight would give Mace the distraction he needed to rush them.
Because I’d be going after Mosbach.
I knew without a doubt who he was, and I flashed back to that day in Azul, when he’d challenged me in front of the pack with such arrogant confidence. I’d promised myself this day would come, when I’d let my wolf loose on Mosbach and let him take a very, very long time with the execution.
I was the judge and jury. Beside me, Mace was tense.
Mosbach’s hand gestures grew agitated, as if he argued for the price and quality of the exchange against the vampire skepticism. Then he strode toward the tethered group, yanked the first boy by the hair until he was shaking and on his knees. “How old?”
“Fif… fifteen.”
A knife blade glinted in the lantern light, bright and cold even with the thread of red. The boy howled as his cheek dripped blood. “Don’t lie,” Mosbach snarled.
“Seven. Seventeen,” the boy sobbed.
“Old enough to have your wolf.”
“Y-y-yes.”
“You disgust me. Wolf trash.” He pushed the blade against the boy’s wrist. “Maybe I cut off this hand for lying. Maybe skin you like a rabbit.”
The boy’s grimace hardened into what should be admired, if Mosbach wasn’t such a sick prick who got off on torture. The blade teased against the kid’s skin enough to bloom with blood. But the first cut went no deeper, just enough to trigger pain. Not do any lasting, incapacitating damage since the vampires wouldn’t pay for damaged goods.
Instead of cowering, the boy raised his chin, his lips drawn back, the youthful canines descending—proof his wolf lurked beneath the surface.
Neither vampire spoke.
“Not enough for you?” Mosbach asked.
A flick of a pale, long-fingered hand was the only answer.
Mosbach moved to the girl, dragging her to her feet. “How about you, sweetheart? You got something to show your new daddies?”
She spit in his face.
Mosbach hit her cheek with a full backhand swing.
Her head jerked.
The third boy lunged to his feet. The blade slashed across his face.
And Mace was moving, shifting into his wolf, the molten gold of the wolf’s pelt as hard, cold, and lethal as any ancient sword descending in vengeance. Devastation incarnate. A gilded demon from the pits of hell.
The vampires were mist, fleeing. Although the mist was blood-tainted, which meant Mace’s bite hit the mark, the wolf’s venom even now leaching into undead flesh and blood. They’d die slowly, no consolation for their crimes.
The night grew eerily silent, other than the pressure in the air expanding, as if driven by my wolf’s explosion upward from a coiled crouch. Mosbach turned, his wolf shifting into control, desperate claws scrabbling as he stumbled, ran.
My wolf outweighed Mosbach’s wolf by hundreds of pounds. The elder had no chance of survival against steel and snapping jaws. His skull cracked beneath the crushing bite force of my wolf’s jaws. Warm blood flooded. The pulse in Mosbach’s veins fluttered like something too eager to die.
And the moment felt strange. I’d always imagined the screaming going on and on.
But the sound lasted barely a second.
Not long enough for the debt Mosbach owed.
Not long enough to quell the black, destructive vengeance roiling in my blood. A king’s vengeance. A shit-show vengeance.
It would never be long enough.
“Gray,” Mace said.
But it was my wolf who stared back through empty eyes. Shook his head. Ran and kept on running… running. Endlessly.
Running…