Chapter 18 Sable
SABLE
I’d never felt this weak. In my head, my heart, my soul.
My wolf was weak, too.
Everything was clouded in dense fog, like I wasn’t me anymore. My existence cut in half.
Before. After.
This was the after. A cold emptiness where warmth used to live.
My body temperature had dropped so low that even under heavy blankets, I couldn’t stop shivering.
The other side of my heritage was asserting itself now that my wolf was damaged, making me feel dull and predatory in ways that should have terrified me.
I was too numb to feel terror. Too broken to feel much of anything except the phantom ache where the bond used to pulse.
“Convenient,” Kenza muttered from the corner. “Just as you want to confront her, the traitor-bitch passes out again. This has been going on for days. Can we get a healer to slap her awake with some herbs or a spell or a frying pan to the head, maybe?”
The bed was too soft, and my will to communicate was at odds with my desperate need to sleep. Worse than that—I kept feeling echoes. Flashes of pain that weren’t mine, moments of desperation that came from somewhere else.
From him.
The bond might be severed, but something was still bleeding through. Like those who lose a limb still feeling its pain, but in this case, it was my soul that felt a phantom presence.
My wolf wanted the long sleep. The eternal sleep. She was withered, exhausted, dejected. My human side urged her to continue, for she was as much Crux as me and knew we had to carry on. It was our reason for existing.
Words formed in my ears every time I prodded her.
There is no reason for us to exist without our mate.
My own wolf was turning on me.
“Hey!” Kenza watched me from across the room, her arms crossed, lips twisted into something just shy of a sneer. She was pacing the perimeter like a caged wolf, and now I was awake—barely—she’d found her target.
She stomped to the bedside and sat so hard I bounced.
Eve, Astrid, Anwen, and Raina were at the far side of the room.
Kenza was small, both as a woman and a wolf, but I never underestimated what she was capable of.
I may have been the enforcer and the stronger of us both, but she would fight dirty if she had to. And I was in no state to fight her now.
“You don’t get to just weave into real life when you feel like it,” she said. There was something else in her voice. Not just anger—fear. Fear of what I represented, what I might do to their carefully rebuilt pack. She was always loyal to Eve.
My eyes fluttered shut. A slap struck me hard enough to make me gasp, and my eyes whipped open again.
“Fated mates.” She spat the words. “You always find a way to make yourself the center of the drama.” She stood up and circled the bed. “What’s the matter, Sable? Still feeling weak from your rejection hangover?”
Another flash hit me. A burning sensation across my chest, an ache so deep it made me curl in on myself. Kenza saw my reaction and her eyes narrowed.
“Still feeling him, aren’t you?” she asked, and there was something calculating in her tone. “That doesn’t happen after a rejection. You’re either faking it or…”
She didn’t finish, but I could see her mind working. Kenza was smarter than she let on, and she was putting pieces together I didn’t want her to see.
My head throbbed.
She crouched beside me, her voice dropping to a low whisper. “Or is it that your pretty little wolf doesn’t want to come out anymore now she knows she’s fucked?”
Who does she fucking think she is?
My fingers curled into fists, but I stayed still.
“Poor Sable. Couldn’t keep her mate. Couldn’t keep her pride. Maybe that’s why you’ve always hidden behind your secrets. Behind that silver ring.”
My magic sparked, unbidden. The temperature in the room dropped a couple degrees and Eve’s breath misted in the suddenly frigid air.
Kenza smiled. It was sharp-edged. “There it is. Your fucked-up wolf.” Her wolf pressed forward, teasing mine.
As long as she believed my powers were coming from my wolf side, I was safe.
“You think I don’t feel her? Your wolf, pacing behind your eyes, all sad and pathetic.
No wonder Rhys threw you away. Even your instincts are broken. ”
My wolf surged up in one fluid, explosive burst.
I was off the bed before I could register the movement, my hand shooting out and slamming Kenza against the wall. The impact sent a shockwave through the stone, and dust rained down from the ceiling.
She grinned like she’d won.
And then she shifted, just barely. Claws extended from her fingertips. Her pupils blew wide. She swung at me fast, a trained fighter, aiming for my throat. I ducked, pivoted, and slammed my elbow into her ribs, sending her stumbling sideways.
“Sable!” Astrid screamed. Eve held her back.
The floor groaned as we collided and fell. Something was wrong with me—I was moving too fast, hitting too hard. Strength from my blood was seeping through now my wolf was damaged, and I had to consciously draw back to keep from seriously hurting her.
Kenza’s wolf was trying to dominate mine from within. And mine, even wounded and trembling, refused to kneel.
She came at me again—lower this time—and I caught her by the arm, twisting and using her own weight against her. The maneuver was fast, efficient. Before she could blink, I’d flipped her onto her back and straddled her hips.
My forearm braced across her throat, pinning her. Her lips parted, eyes flashing with triumph.
“That’s the Sable I know. Not feeling so sick anymore, are you, little fated mate?”
The venom in her use of the term made me want to grab her by the ears and fling her against the wall. I held back. First, that was what she wanted—to make me lose control again. Second, I was already showing too much of my dark side, and I knew it wasn’t lost on Eve and the others.
The cold that followed me around was unnatural. My speed was inhuman. And the way I’d nearly crushed Kenza’s ribs without meaning to—that wasn’t wolf strength.
I couldn’t afford to call any more attention to myself. Instead, I stood up, fighting to rein in the side of me that wanted to feed on the fear I could smell rolling off her.
Kenza scrambled to her feet, at the ready in case I came at her again. She was looking at me differently. Calculating.
Worried.
“Thank you, Kenza,” Eve said, with an alpha finality that made it clear Kenza was being dismissed. “You woke up our friend, just as I asked, and now I need some time alone with her.”
Kenza wasn’t done. “She’s fucked up, Eve. The rejection did something to her.” She huffed, and a misty breath escaped her lips. “Shifters don’t do that.”
“Alone,” Eve repeated, steel in her voice.
Kenza’s nostrils flared as she scanned me. When she caught sight of my ring, I felt the question rise in her again. She opened her lips to speak, then closed them and cocked her head.
“That’s quite the ring,” she said. I held my breath, wondering how much she actually knew about silver magic and those who possessed it. “I think it’s a good idea that I stay here, Eve. You don’t know all she can—”
“Alone.”
Kenza’s head dipped in reverence at the alpha command. I contained my sigh of relief. Anwen and Raina looked at each other, speaking in that elder way, and nodded.
Anwen reached out to Astrid. “Help this old woman back up the tunnel, would you, dear? After you, Kenza.”
Kenza’s exasperated sigh was enough to fill the room, but she started leaving anyway. “We won’t be far away,” she said—to me, not Eve—before storming out.
Astrid looked at me. I offered her a weak flicker of a smile, and she moved in my direction slowly, as if she might spook me. “If you need me to stay…”
I took her hand in mine and reached behind her head, bringing her closer so I could speak to her through our Crux bond.
You watch yourself. Eve will be on our side, but I can’t say the same for everyone here. Kenza suspects something. Watch your back.
You too, she replied, squeezing my hand and turning for the door. She took Anwen’s arm and didn’t look back. I was glad she didn’t.
When everyone was gone, Eve pulled over a wooden chair that looked about as old as this underground room. It scraped on the floor, the sound echoing against the stone walls. She gestured toward the bed.
“Please sit.”
“I’d rather stand.” Even as I said it, another wave of phantom pain hit me and I swayed on my feet.
“You’re unwell,” she said, and I knew she was right. My balance was shaky now that the adrenaline of the confrontation with Kenza had passed. The cold was getting worse too, creeping through my bones. I sat on the bed, pulling the sweater they’d given me tighter around myself.
She adjusted her dress as she sat in the chair.
Even though she was no longer the oracle of Heraclid, she continued to wear the dresses.
Long and flowing, giving her an otherworldly look.
Many times I had thought that if the Shadow Moon Goddess were to take human form, she would look something like Eve.
“This has been a long time coming.” She inhaled deeply and sighed.
I nodded. Another echo of his pain made me wince. “It’s hard to know where to begin,” I said.
Her eyes were on fire, dark eyes that had become confident in her position as alpha. She spoke to me through the bond.
Begin when you knew I was Crux, but you continued to treat me like filth.
Shame flooded me. There had been several times over the years that Eve had come to me, probably sensing there was something we had in common, and every single time I had sent her off with insults. In my mind, it was the only way to keep space between us, but for her it must have felt like betrayal.
Even more so now.
“Why did you keep your distance?” she asked directly. “All these years, you knew what I was, and you let me suffer alone.”
“Because I couldn’t protect you if you knew the truth,” I said, the words coming easier than I’d expected. “And because there were others depending on me.”