Chapter 11
Eleven
For a second, for a heartbeat, all I can feel is the shock of pure pain.
The pain from the spear lodged into my ribs takes the breath from my lungs until it is all I’m able to focus on. The world slows as the king looks me in the eye, a face so much like Rune, yet there is no love in his gaze, no comfort. Nothing but hate. He throws me in the air and for a moment I’m flying in the stars until I slam back into the ground, and I scream. The dagger is still lodged in my side as I lift my head to the stars, to the moon.
Help me, gods. Please, help me.
The gods don’t reply. They offer only silence. My heavy breathing and Em’s terrified screams are the only sounds to break through the quiet as I cup the end of the blade, soaked in my own blood, and search for the king. He is walking straight towards Elemence. She’s still crawling away from him, dragging that damn cast on the ground as she cries and screams for me to save her. He is going to kill her.
“NO!” I scream at him, throwing my power out from the tips of my fingers.
My power wraps around him, ensnaring him in a net of pure concentrated magic, before flinging him several feet away from her. He falls to the ground beside me. Groaning, he angrily throws his cloak aside and rises on his knees, a look of utter venom aimed right at me.
“Have you not given up yet? Do you wish for more suffering, half wolf?”
He pulls himself up and crosses the small distance between us. With a snarl, he kicks me in the stomach. I breathlessly roll away from him, wincing when the dagger is pushed deeper and grazes my lungs. It’s hard to breathe as my hand falls to my stomach, to the life that might be growing inside me. For the first time, I feel protective over it. I can’t give up now, not after everything I’ve been through. I must keep going and fight back.
If not for me, then for my future child. For our pack and home. For my mates.
The king’s heavy boots thud on the ground as he comes after me, his cloak whipping around his bloody heels. I roll on my back when he gets too close. Sneering, he presses his boot onto my chest and pushes down. Magic swirls around his hands as he reaches for me. He lifts my chin, cutting my skin with several shards of dark crystal. “You need to die, painfully, in front of my son. I won’t kill you yet. It’s more fun to break your spirit first by slaughtering that child.” His eyes cut over to Elemence still trying to crawl away. “You are going to watch me kill that girl, and then I’m coming for you.”
“Leave her alone!” Elemence screams out.
Gods, she is so brave, so firehearted. And so am I.
Horror strikes me when I see her crawling towards me instead of away. I need to distract him—stall him somehow. When he glances at her, I grab hold of his hand under my chin and dig my fingernails into his wrist, pressing as hard as I can. He merely laughs as I pull whatever trances of power I have left within me, gathering them inside my chest. I thread them together and let them build and grow like a pressure that needs to be released.
“You’re not going to touch her.”
My power explodes out from me, sending the king spiralling through the air. Crystal shards rain on us as my scream of power shatters everything, as it radiates out of me like a tsunami crashing over buildings, until I feel them. Wolves, just like me. Somehow, someway, we’re connected through the crystals in our wolves. They want me to shift. I close my eyes and let my wolf take over. The moment I do, it’s like I’ve merged into one with the other half wolves.
All our powers combined, our strength unified.
I let the magic flow openly between us, powering up every half-wolf in the city so that they can become living explosions against the fae. I snarl with them, and howl as they let their power free, and every enemy within reach is hit with powerful crystals that tear them apart, ripping them to nothing.
And then there’s just silence. An eerie, triumphant silence as our enemy is defeated.
I go to Elemence and use my head to help her sit up. It’s okay, I want to tell her. We’re okay now.
To my surprise, Elemence hears me, which means only one thing. Elemence is half fae too.
A shadow swoops over our heads. Rune’s familiar boots land beside me, and not a moment later, Elias and Lazuri join us in their wolf forms. My heart soars at the sight of them. It really is okay now. We did it.
Rune’s lips tilt into a lopsided smirk as touches my crystal fur. “We should have known you’d walk right into trouble, Mercy.” I flick my eyes down to Elemence and he nods, lifting her up. She clings to my side, sobbing, but I can sense her relief through the half wolf bond.
All four of us all face his father, who is somehow still holding on. His clothes are ripped, soaked with own blood, and dozens of my crystals are stuck in every inch of his body except for his face. When he dies, this will all be over. He made a mistake coming here alone. He probably thought I was too weak to be a threat to him. Well, I’m about to show him why he should never have tried to cage a wolf, and why he should’ve stayed hidden behind his pathetic army.
He only looks at Rune. “Come here and defend me, boy. Defend your king!”
Rune straightens his back. “I don’t fight for you anymore, father. I fight for the wolves now, and I’m very much going to enjoy watching them rip you apart. Your name will be erased from history, wiped from the records, forgotten on tongues and lost in memory. I will make this world anew, with the wolves and the fae, in all the ways you were frightened of. And when all that is said and done…” He steps back, a vicious smile spreading over his lips. “The gods will destroy what is left of your empty, dead soul.”
We watch as my alpha wolves prowl forward and descend on the king. They mercilessly rip into him, tearing him limb from limb, until there’s nothing left but a gruesome pile of blood remaining and his deafening screams dying in the wind.
Just like that, the fae king is gone.
I shift back and fall to the ground, relief surging through me. Rune cups my face between his hands and searches my eyes as I smile up at him. These are the eyes I know and love. There is nothing cruel about them at all. His expression twists when he sees how injured I am, his hands finding the dagger still lodged in my chest. I slump against him and close my eyes, letting the darkness sweep me away, as his desperate voice echoes around me along with my guys’ howls.
“GET A HEALER!”