Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lorkan
Defeat clung to the Drengr Village like frost on pine trees, and Lorkan exhaled the blood-clotted air.
It wasn’t as sweet, seeping from the dead, but it still conjured his thirst like a demon emerging from the Void.
Ravenous, wild. Lorkan weaved past warriors and caught the thump, thump, thump of their beating hearts, a hypnotizing tempo drawing him back.
He slipped out of the village, away from temptation and in pursuit of finding the elm tea he’d lost.
The morning sun crested the pines, and the clouds parted to reveal the blue sky of the next day.
Lorkan slunk from shadow to shadow, wincing when the sun’s rays kissed his skin through gaps in the forest’s canopy.
Shifting into his werewolf form had cost him—the elm tea’s effects were dwindling.
If he didn’t drink a cup soon, others would sense what he was.
But did hiding what he was matter anymore?
There were vampyrs like him, his mother one of them. She was alive. Lorkan didn’t know how to grapple with that fact. There wasn’t a single day in the last ten years when he hadn’t thought of his mother. Missed her.
Lorkan’s thoughts tumbled through him as he searched for his abandoned satchel.
A dusting of snow had fallen since he’d alerted his pack, and as Lorkan squatted on the forest floor, he found most of the tea bags wet and ruined.
The color hazel bled into the snow, the tea’s properties wasted as they seeped into the ground.
His shoulders slumped as he assessed the rest of the forest. There.
Relief shot through him. Up ahead, his satchel sat atop the roots of an ancient oak. He sifted inside it, and stars above, he found a week’s worth of tea. What the hel was he supposed to do if he remained in the Drengr Village longer?
“Using your howl was a risk,” his father said from behind.
Lorkan sighed, breath pluming into the morning air. “Every day is a risk for those like me.” He stood, raising an expectant brow at Aramis.
He joined him under the oak tree. “I suppose you’re right.”
The weight of a thousand stones lifted from Lorkan. After witnessing his father’s ailing health up close and working tirelessly to find remedies, he sent a thanks to any gods that would listen. His father had aged backwards.
“How?” Lorkan asked.
His father sighed and told him the details of the council meeting, his mother’s timely arrival, and revealing Claus as the Lone Wolf.
Aramis’s next words came out rushed. “I didn’t write to you because I feared it compromised your mother’s whereabouts—“
“Father, it’s alright,” Lorkan said. “I don’t need an explanation.”
They’d operated on secrets for years, and yet, Lorkan trusted his father above all others. Aramis had held Lorkan’s vampyrism close.
After Lorkan had turned, he’d sought his father out. Alone and frightened, he didn’t know where else to go. End it. Please, he’d begged. But his father had refused to let the curse take another soul he loved away from him. He’d let Lorkan live, protected him, and hid what he was from all of Sorin.
But bitterness coated Lorkan’s tongue. “I feel like a fool. I should’ve noticed the effects of wolfsbane.”
“There is no one else to blame but Claus.” His father’s spring-green eyes bore into him. “I had healers attending to me daily, and they didn’t even notice. Eldrick spent almost every day with him, too. My brother was more fox than wolf, it seems. He fooled us all.”
Still, responsibility nipped at Lorkan’s heels. After everything his father had done for him, he’d not protected him in return. He’d assumed it was the severed mating bond from his mother, but to learn it was Aramis’s own brother made it all that much worse.
The foundation of everything Lorkan knew shook, and he was certain there was no coming back after today’s events. Prince Riven’s attack aside, things were different. The definition of darkness had shifted, or so he hoped.
Lorkan sighed, driving his hands into his pockets. “I never liked Claus.”
Aramis laughed. “You and Kade both.”
At the mention of his brother destined to defeat the darkness, a lingering question came to the forefront of Lorkan’s mind.
“What now?” he asked. “I’m sure my secret will come as a shock to Eldrick and Kade but—“
“You can’t tell them,” Aramis said, tone stern.
Lorkan straightened. “Why? Have they not accepted mother as a vampyr?”
“This goes beyond your brothers.” Aramis clamped his eyes shut, sighing as his shoulders sagged.
Lorkan waited, his heart hammering inside his chest. The forest stilled around them. No snow or winds to disrupt the tension between them.
When his father’s eyes sprang open, his saddened gaze pinned him in place.
“I’ve seen it firsthand with your mother and Queen Tovi.
Sorin still isn’t ready for your darkness, Lorkan.
We must continue to hide it. There is also a matter of the Earl vote.
If the other alphas discover I’ve withheld Fjall Pack from them for years, it’ll jeopardize your brother’s chances.
Our secrets will tarnish the Drengr name. ”
The truth of his father’s words wrapped around Lorkan’s limbs like a set of chains. “I’m tired of lying to my brothers. Our family has had enough secrets. I want to help.”
“You can as the second born and scholar. There is an entire prophecy to decipher, and your expertise is best suited for the task. If we reveal what you are, it puts you and your efforts at risk.”
Phantom chains tightened at his wrists and ankles, but Lorkan understood Aramis’s caution, had for over a decade.
“What of my scent?” Lorkan said. “The Void is spreading, Father, and the elm trees are dying. Our tea stores are dwindling, and I’ve already lost half the supply I brought with me.”
Aramis dropped a ring into his awaiting palm.
Embedded in the gold band, a scarlet gem reflected his hardened expression. Rook cawed his arrival, descending from a nearby tree and landing on Lorkan’s shoulder. He tilted his head as he, too, inspected the ring and crimson jewel.
“It is called a bloodstone,” his father said.
“Made from the blood of fallen gods, or so they say. It allows vampyrs to walk in limited sunlight and conceals their scent. Tovi used it for years among the witches in Nūa, when she befriended Evelyn. While you wear that, no one will detect what you are.”
Lorkan turned as rigid as the stone in his palm.
He’d learned what his mother was. Glimpsed the vampyr queen in battle.
And allowed hope to wiggle its way under his skin like a fool.
Alone. Before Lorkan had found Alvin and the others, he was the only one of his kind—part werewolf, part vampyr.
He’d navigated those first few years clinging to the shadows, desperation his only friend.
To know he lived with the same affliction as his mother but couldn’t utter a word about it was like a blade piercing his lungs.
It was suddenly a likeness Lorkan wished they didn’t share—something that should’ve drawn them together only wedged a larger distance between them.
But his father was right. Too much was at stake, and there was honor in working in the shadows. Lorkan had discovered that with Fjall Pack in the north. With them in mind, he couldn’t risk their safety with so much uncertainty, too.
Lorkan clenched his fist, clutching the ring like a lifeline. “What of my hunger?”
Aramis shook his head, frowning. “That, I’m afraid, is up to the elm tea.”
His father clasped his hand on his shoulder. “I’m proud of what you did today, Lorkan. Continue to be brave. One day, when the curse is finally lifted, we’ll share what you are and reveal the Fjall Pack.”
Lorkan nodded, trying to find some hope in his father’s words, but like the frost clinging to the winter forest, a sense that Sorin would never be ready for his kind.