Chapter 19 Rhys
RHYS
The forest air changed. It was hours or days later. Even in wolf form, I couldn’t tell. I’d been in a sleep that could have rivaled death.
But I was waking up.
One moment, there was only wind and earth and the sound of my ragged breathing. The next, there was something electric, a change so subtle only a wolf would notice.
My nostrils flared when my wolf caught a scent.
Ash. Cloves. Ancient things. And beneath it all, the unmistakable smell of power.
My wolf rolled off his side, righting himself. To my surprise, he was getting ready to move. Forward or back, I didn’t know yet. We were still disconnected, but I felt the surface coming closer. In our current situation, being in wolf form wasn’t a bad idea.
I didn’t know where I was, but I knew it wasn’t Orion land.
The scent led me to a clearing fifty yards ahead, and my wolf pulled himself upright against my restraint, curiosity warring with caution.
As I approached the edge of the clearing, invisible threads wrapped around my legs, my chest, my throat. Magic—old and unforgiving—held me fast just inside the tree line. I couldn’t move forward, couldn’t retreat. Could barely breathe.
What the hell—
Mariyah, that horrid shifter witch, crouched beside a small fire. Her gnarled hands hovered over flames that burned blue-white instead of orange. Not looking at me. Acting as if the forest belonged to her. As if she expected me.
“The foolish pup awakens after a good night’s sleep,” she muttered to the fire, not to me. “Running blind into Blackwood territory. Even I don’t dare linger here long.” Her eyes flicked toward the darkness beyond the clearing. “These lands hunger for wolf blood. They have for centuries.”
My hackles rose, a growl building in my chest. The magical bonds tightened, cutting off the sound.
Her hand darted into the fire, fingers closing around something I couldn’t see. The flames licked at her skin, but she didn’t flinch.
“I wouldn’t struggle,” she said without looking up, her voice gravelly, like stones grinding together. “The magic here feeds on resistance. And you’ll need your strength for what’s to come.”
My growl cut off as the threads around my throat constricted.
She withdrew her hand from the fire, unburned, clutching what looked like ash and embers. Still crouched, she turned her face to me.
“Come closer, Rhys Orion, if you’ve the stomach for truth.”
The magical bonds loosened just enough to let me move forward. Every instinct screamed danger, and yet my paws carried me into the clearing. My wolf pushed against my resistance. We need to know.
“There you are.” Mariyah’s mouth curved. Her smile was more like a slash across weathered skin. “The mighty beta of Orion, reduced to a feral pup licking his wounds in cursed lands.”
I lunged, teeth bared, fast as a striking snake.
She shot up her hand—the one covered in ash—and blew it into my face.
My body seized in mid-air, suspended, unable to move while the ash burned against my fur like acid rain. Memories ripped through me—the weight of Sable beneath me, the moment the bond shattered, the cold black hole that replaced it.
The first vision she threw struck, and I saw Sable, cradled against me in some dream-world version of our bond—eyes soft, lips parted, her touch lighting sparks along my skin. This had never existed outside the imagined. Her wolf was beside mine. Tangled. Merged. Peaceful.
The vision transformed. Moonlight now spilled over us, silver and silent. Her fingers laced through mine, her whisper a prayer to the Shadow Moon Goddess—just before my teeth found her neck and the bond sealed between us.
I knew—this was what the bond wanted.
What it was meant to be.
And I’d shattered it.
The ash dragged me deeper. Showed me things I’d never lived, but that felt more real than my own hands.
Her breath on my throat as she licked the wounds on my chest back to wholeness.
My voice, laughing—actually laughing and not deflecting—as I carried her over my shoulder through a rainy field.
Her fingers in my hair when I kissed her like I’d never had the chance to.
The bond ruptured again, in real-time and in my memory.
The sensation tore through me like ligaments ripped from bone.
I saw Sable curled in the woods, blood on her lips.
The scream didn’t make it out of her throat.
Her wolf was clawing inward. The silver on her finger flaring.
And me, I was walking away like a goddamn coward.
Another vision snapped into place—a future I would never reach. A child with dark eyes and a grin like mine. A territory watched over by both Crux and Orion, united. A home I never built.
Gone.
I thrashed against the magic. The ash gripped tighter, crawling under my skin, rooting itself in the softest parts of me.
Every instinct screamed for Sable, for the bond, for the future I’d destroyed before I let it take root.
My wolf howled, but no sound came out.
Mariyah watched, unflinching. “Now you’ll listen.”
She flicked her fingers, and my wolf dropped to the ground, legs buckling. The ash still clung to my fur, pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
I shifted involuntarily, bones cracking, fur receding, until I lay naked and trembling in the dirt. Human again. Vulnerable. “What did you…”
“I showed you what you did.” Her voice was flat. “To yourself. To her. To the bond the Shadow Moon Goddess herself knotted between your souls.”
I spat, trying to clear the ashen taste from my mouth. “There is no bond. There never could be with the woman who killed my brothers.”
Mariyah barked a laugh loud enough to startle birds from the nearby trees.
“Lie to yourself if you must, but don’t waste my time with falsehoods.
” She stood, her cloak rippling, though there was no wind.
“Your brothers. You think everything is about your brothers and not at all to do with the sacred bond you just tossed away as if it were common trash. You wish to know where these precious brothers are?”
My heart stuttered and my fingers dug into the dirt as I rose to stand before her.
“I do.”
“Then look.”
She tossed a handful of dirt into the fire. The flames leaped higher, spitting sparks that formed patterns in the air.
“I don’t see a fucking thing,” I snarled.
“Because you choose not to.” Mariyah stepped around the fire, eyes narrowed. “Your mate showed you in the vision she cast at you. You ignored what you didn’t want to see.”
My jaw ached from clenching my teeth. “She’s not my mate. She said she killed my brothers.”
“Did she? Or did she say what was necessary to make you walk away?”
I surged to my feet, naked and filthy but beyond caring. “Don’t twist this—”
“Your brothers.” She cut me off, one finger pointing to the fire. “Look.”
I looked. The flames had formed a shape that resembled a mountain range, jagged peaks silhouetted against smoke.
“The Silverspine Ridge,” I breathed. “That’s folklore.”
“It’s where they were taken. And held. And changed.” Each word fell like a stone. “Their souls wait there still. Neither alive nor dead. Trapped in the in-between, where shifter becomes monster.”
My stomach lurched. “What does that—”
“They are kept by those who feed on what you are, little son of a king.” Her eyes reflected the unnatural fire. “Those who bled your mother dry. Who feast on the marrow of the Shadow Moon Goddess’s children and grow stronger with each passing moon.”
Vampires.
The word hung unspoken between us, but my wolf howled in recognition. The ancient enemies of our kind, the blood-drinkers who existed in shadow, the night-walkers who preyed on what was sacred.
“That’s—” I shook my head, disbelieving. “That’s impossible. There was a pact, centuries ago. Fuck, we even do business with them. We know they are self-serving assholes, but it’s not like before. They backed off for the sake of profits.”
“Did they?” Mariyah’s lip curled. “Or did they simply grow tired of open warfare when stealth served them better?” She kicked dirt into the fire, and the images disappeared.
She reached out, fingers stopping just short of my chest. “You carry the curse in your blood, Orion. As did your father, and his father before him. The curse that hollows out your pack, steals your children before they draw breath. That curse was no accident. It was crafted. Distilled. Perfected. And now it has almost accomplished what it was designed to do—extinguish the royal bloodline of the Shadow Moon.”
“That was the vampires?”
Mariyah chuckled. “You give them too much credit.”
“Then who?”
“When you figure that one out,” she smiled with gray teeth, “everything will become clearer. There will be no peace for Orion until the lost threads are woven together again. And if you think that speaks only of your brothers, you will lose the threads most precious to your future. Enemies and fate have always been bedfellows, after all.”
“Another fucking riddle.”
“A contradiction. And you have one written in your stars. A walking contradiction with fate around her neck like a noose.”
My wolf reared back.
“She is a Crux enforcer.” Mariyah picked up a stick, poking at the dying fire. “Sworn to find and shield the lost ones. Protecting them from the forces who come for all powerful wolves.” She glanced up. “Forces who have even come for you.”
My head spun, too many pieces floating in my head while the bond still stabbed at me from the inside. Eve and Sable, both Crux. The silver magic she threw at my chest. The way she’d pushed me away.
I didn’t know whose word to believe. My fated mate claiming she killed my brothers, or this witch wolf saying she didn’t. I couldn’t trust either of them, but one of them was telling the truth.
I lurched toward her, questions burning on my tongue. My legs gave out, sending me crashing to my knees.
“What’s… happening…” I gasped. Pain speared through my chest, molten and raw.
“I remind you that you rejected her.” Mariyah seemed unsurprised. “The rejection devours you from within. The bond fights to repair itself, but without her, it tears at your soul like a trapped animal.”
I curled inward, a groan escaping between clenched teeth. It was like I was being torn apart, cell by cell.
“How do I…” I panted. “Make it… stop?”
“You don’t.” Mariyah came to kneel beside me, her cloak brushing my skin. “Not without her.”
Through the haze of pain, a clarity hit me. “You’re saying I need her.”
“I’m saying you’ll die without her. As she will without you.” She sighed. “And if you both die, the curse will never break. Your brothers will remain trapped. Your pack will slowly wither to nothing. Your alpha and his mate will never bear children.” She leaned closer. “Blah, blah, blah.”
I struggled to my knees, then my feet, swaying like a drunk. “And what’s your stake in this? Why do you care if we live or die?”
Mariyah went still. For a moment, she seemed to be listening to something I couldn’t hear, her head tilted. Then her eyes snapped to the darkness beyond the clearing, pupils dilating.
“They’ve found us,” she hissed. “Your alpha scent clings to you like a beacon. In these lands, that’s as good as a dinner bell.”
“What are you—”
“I can’t stay. You’ve taken an awful lot of my time, son of a little king, and now we’ve attracted attention I can’t afford.” She moved faster than should have been possible. Her hand shot out, fingers digging into my jaw with inhuman strength.
“You will go to Sable because without her, everything falls.” Her voice had changed, layered with others that echoed beneath her own.
“You will go to her because the blood curse must be broken. You will go to her because she is yours and you are hers, and together you will either save your kind or watch them burn.”
I tried to pull away, but her grip was like iron. Power rolled off her, making my wolf whimper and retreat.
“Go to her,” Mariyah said, her voice her own again, “before the wound becomes a scar. Before what can be healed becomes permanently broken. The night is half-spent, bringing new hunters.”
The fire flared, then died completely, plunging the clearing into darkness. When my eyes adjusted, Mariyah was gone. Only the lingering scent of ash and cloves remained.
And something else. Something that made my wolf’s hackles rise.
Death. Cold and hungry and getting closer.
Three shapes emerged from the tree line—pale, lean, moving with predatory grace. Their eyes reflected the moonlight, and when they smiled, I caught the glint of fangs.
Vampires. Low-ranking by their scent, but vampires nonetheless.
“Well, well,” the tallest one purred, his accent carrying centuries of decay. “What have we here? A lost little wolf, reeking of alpha bloodlines.”
My wolf surged forward, bones cracking as I began to shift. They were already moving, faster than my eyes could keep up with.
The first one reached me before my transformation was complete, his claws raking across my ribs. I roared, half-human, half-wolf, and caught him by the throat. My claws punched through his pale skin, black blood spurting out.
The other two were on me before I could finish him off.
Fangs sank into my shoulder. Another set found my thigh. Pain exploded through my nervous system as their venom hit my bloodstream, designed to weaken shifters, to make us easy prey.
I fought anyway. Claws and teeth and desperate fury, fueled by the fire of the broken bond and the knowledge that if I died here, Sable would feel it. She’d know I’d failed her again.
The vampires snarled and hissed as I tore chunks from their flesh, but they kept coming. More wounds opened across my back, my arms. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision.
One of them latched onto my neck, fangs seeking the major artery, though he just missed. I grabbed him by the hair and hurled him into a tree, the bark splintering on impact.
The venom was spreading, turning my limbs to lead.
Deep within me—so faint I might have imagined it—I felt an echo of silver magic. A flicker of cold that had nothing to do with my failing body.
She was calling to me, and I didn’t know how to answer.
As I staggered, gasping, the tallest vampire circled me like a predator savoring the kill. My knees hit the dirt.
“Alpha blood always tastes sweeter when it’s desperate,” he purred, wiping my blood from his lips and coming straight for me.