Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
Lorkan
Lorkan cracked his neck from side to side, trying to shake away the sight of Blair peering up at him.
Lips parted. Fathomless eyes wide. Heart skipping.
It took all his strength not to crash his lips to hers and do every delectable thing he’d imagined since he was a seventeen-year-old lovesick fool.
Her storm-and-sage scent had stained the leather cord holding his bloodstone, sitting right under his nose.
Stars above, the curse heightened his hunger.
He imagined sinking his teeth into her neck and dipping his fingers into her sex, drawing out her pleasure as he lapped up his.
Lorkan growled, snuffing his desire with the fact that he had to hide what he was. With one misstep with Blair, there was no telling where the line between desire and hunger lay, and may it be her lips or blood—that line blurred too deeply.
To make matters worse, Alvin stood in the shadows of the stables, a scowl carved into his face like stone.
Rook landed on his shoulder as he stepped out of the sun’s light. “I’m sorry—”
Alvin held up a finger. “You haven’t written, not once, not even to confirm you’d made it to the Drengr Village.
” With hood up and against a wall shaded in shadow, his friend stayed clear of the sunlight peeking out from the clouds.
“I thought you were dead, and a letter from Mya filled me in on your little adventure. I risked leaving the mountain, figured I’d sit and wait here and maybe cross paths with you.
Then, by some luck”—he pointed to Rook perched on his shoulder—“I spotted that menace in the village. What the fuck, Lorkan?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “There hasn’t been time.”
“Time?” Alvin spat. “What about the pack? They’re running out of time with the tea. Rations are lower than ever before—”
“I’m working on it,” Lorkan hissed. “Did Mya mention I’m working on deciphering the prophecy? I’m trying to break the curse.” The one flowing in our veins, he thought, but didn’t say in earshot of those in the village streets.
“I don’t want messages from Mya.” He jabbed his finger into Lorkan’s chest. “I deserve to hear from you.”
Lorkan seethed, “Well, here’s my update: My father forbade me from telling anyone what I am, or the pack for that matter.
He also forced me to work alongside a particular witch, so forgive me, Alvin, if I haven’t time to spare and send a message while a traitor as my partner has chased me halfway across Sorin.
And let me not forget that my bloodlust is worse than it’s ever been because it’s her. ”
Alvin paused. “I guess that explains it.”
Lorkan grunted.
“Is that gem doing anything?” He nodded towards the bloodstone.
“It hides what I am,” Lorkan said. He knocked back his hood, and Alvin jumped. “Helps me with the sunlight, too, but does nothing for my thirst.”
Alvin nodded, shoving a few vials of blood into his hand. “Since you haven’t written, I’m taking the fun out of guessing. Bear.”
“That’s rude.”
His friend shrugged. “You know, I might know a solution to your current problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell her.”
Lorkan’s blood ran ice cold. “What? No, Sorin isn’t ready for what we are, not until the curse is broken.”
“I didn’t say Sorin, I said her.”
Wind blustered through the village, and snow drifted off the rooftops. Lorkan froze as solid as the icicles dangling off of the clay shingles.
“My father—”
“Isn’t here,” Alvin leaned in close. “I wager, if he were though, he’d understand if it prevented you from the task at hand: figuring out a way to break the curse. What’s your plan exactly?”
“Avoid her,” Lorkan bit out the words. He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation.
Alvin scoffed. “How’s that going so far?”
“It’ll be easier once we’re at Vísdómr,” Lorkan said, sweat tingling at the back of his neck.
He lied to himself because he knew they’d have to work together to get answers about how to break the curse. Yet, he’d told Alvin about the girl he loved and left behind after he’d turned, breaking her heart to protect her from what he was, but he’d not told him the entire truth.
Not how this village flooded his memories of their love, and yet he’d been turned on his way here. He’d marched out of the Drengr Village to finally lay with the woman he loved. To start anew, to tie their souls together. No, it wasn’t what he was that he feared, but how he hurt Blair.
Farther down the street, a cottage overgrown with vegetation sat as empty as Lorkan’s heart. It pained him to spy it, to know its promise died the day he’d turned into a monster.
Alvin cleared his throat, glacier eyes focused on something behind Lorkan. He whirled and found Blair scowling, arms crossed, ire directed at Rook and then at Alvin. Her eyes widened, and she blinked, jumping her attention between all three of them.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Alvin.” He outstretched his hand to hers.
As his friend introduced himself, Lorkan’s wolf bared its teeth. Unwarranted territorial thoughts wheeled in his mind, but Rook tapped his feet on Lorkan’s shoulder, snapping him to the present.
“Blair. How do you know Lorkan?”
Suspicion lay in Blair’s tone, and wariness gripped Lorkan.
“I’m a fellow scholar,” Alvin lied.
“Really?” Blair’s dark eyes roamed over his warrior braids, running tightly across his scalp.
“He’s also a friend,” Lorkan said.
Blair snorted. “Didn’t know you had those.”
Alvin laughed, slapping him on the back. “I’ll let you two get on with your travels, aye? It was good to see you, and stars above, write. Nice to meet you, Blair. I hope the next time we have more time to chat.”
His friend fell into the village streets and stuck to the shadows, leaving Lorkan yet again alone with Blair.
“Shall we?” he asked.
She didn’t grace him with a response, turning on her heel and stormed towards the stables.
After four hours of silent travel, the valley Vísdómr sat beyond the hills they trekked, and the sun inched below the overlapping mountain peaks in the distance, the horizon sharp, blazing, and pink.
Lorkan’s horse snorted, continuously disagreeable about allowing him to ride, which was an improvement compared to Lorkan’s usual relationship with animals. He thanked the bloodstone’s properties, perhaps not hiding everything he was, but just enough so their travels weren’t delayed.
Beside him, Blair’s curls whipped in the wind, and her eyes brightened at the sight of the infamous library.
Carved into the caverns of an actual mountain, windows shimmered as if pieces of broken glass were sewn into the rocky crevices.
The mountain sat alone in the valley, miles away on each side from others in the Vadon Mountain range.
Its brothers and sisters stretched far beyond, but its peak towered over them, the tip lost past the clouds.
“It’s a wonder, isn’t it?” he asked.
Blair’s nostrils flared, and she dismounted her horse, using the beast to separate her and Lorkan. He followed suit, leading his horse towards the narrow, winding path that reached to Vísdómr’s front entrance.
“You haven’t said a word since we left Fika,” he said.
Blair winced at the town name, and the winds whirled through the valley, bowing the long, frostbitten grass in its mighty current.
“That is our normal, Lorkan. You and I don’t talk.”
Which wasn’t far from the truth, and Lorkan should’ve preferred it that way, set the tone before they entered Vísdómr. He wanted distance between them, needed it, but Alvin’s “solution” had replayed in the back of his mind for miles, and with each passing hour, Blair had turned more rigid, and it was the first time since being at her side that he realized that . . . that . . .
He’d fucking missed her. Moons, she’d been his anchor in this world. After he’d turned, he’d lost the one person he loved most, and like some selfish bastard, he enjoyed having her back at his side, and now, she was rigid, cold, and so—
“You’re angry,” he whispered.
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and he realized his mistake too late. Blair halted her horse on the path and charged towards him. “That is the understatement of the century.”
“Blair—”
“Don’t say my name,” she hissed. Dirt swirled around her boots as her wind bronntanas awakened.
Rook descended from above, landing on Lorkan’s shoulder and cawing in Blair’s face. Red rose up her neck, spreading towards her cheeks. Her midnight stare flared, murderous.
“He is my familiar!” she yelled. “Not yours, mine!”
“We both found him together. Don’t blame—”
“No, that doesn’t make him yours. It is my magic he tied to, and you”—she balled her fists and gritted her teeth—“abandoned us.” Tears welled in her eyes, and the instinct to comfort her and keep his distance warred within him. “At least, that’s what I thought.”
“What do you mean?” he whispered, unease creeping us his spine. Had she overheard his conversation with Alvin? Did she know?
Blair dug into her trousers and retrieved something. She snatched his hand, pressing items into it. She stepped back, and a mixture of disgust and anger marred her face.
Lorkan opened his hand, and Rook peered down at the treasures he’d collected, a pleased caw squeaking out of him.
“I recognized the beads in Alvin’s braids,” she whispered.
“For years, Rook has brought me shiny trinkets. Sure, I noticed a few had markings from the west, but I never once thought he visited you, or imagined, not for a single second, that you had the audacity to be around my familiar after what you did to me.”
“Please—”
She stepped closer, tears streaming down her face. “Aina told me about the books, Lorkan. That it’s been you sending them all these years. Why? Was it your way of a sick apology?”
Lorkan winced. His fondest memories were visiting Saga my entire being fractured, and I have never, ever been the same since you.
I’ve suffered in silence because no one knew what we were, but you got to spend time in the places we fell for one another, picking out books for me from afar, being with my familiar as if you had a right, all while a piece of me died. ”
Tell her, a voice whispered. Hide, his father had instructed. Lorkan might burst with indecisiveness.
“I was afraid,” he whispered a half-truth, a false lightness washing over him.
“Do you think I wasn’t?” Blair wiped tears from her eyes.
“It wouldn’t have worked,” he whispered. “We were both young and fools, Blair. I am a werewolf; you’re a witch.”
She shook her head. “But did I not deserve at a letter? A goodbye?”
Lorkan swallowed, words like knives in his throat. “I thought silence was answer enough.”
Blair scoffed, wiping away her tears. She clicked her tongue, and Rook flew to her shoulder, staring off at the mountain and ignoring Lorkan. “Stay away from me inside Vísdómr.”
Relief should’ve washed over Lorkan, but dread crept up on him instead, like the shadows of the descending night. But he was the villain, right?
“Gladly,” he said. Cold, hard, meaning it so he could convince himself.
Her hand connected with his cheek, a deafening crack echoing across the valley. He kneaded his sore jaw, blinking past the radiating sting.
They stared at one another. Blair’s chest heaving. Lorkan stunned into silence.
Something within him broke. How had they come to this?
He couldn’t bear the pain lacing Blair’s midnight stare, not for one single minute longer.
He’d hidden for so long and tried to find the honor within the shadows, but there was none in the way he’d hurt Blair or denied himself.
The power beating through his soul for her outmatched the wretchedness of the curse.
Love.
Lorkan couldn’t admit what he was, but what if he revealed his heart instead?
“Fuck it,” he breathed, and in two long strides, Lorkan crashed his lips against Blair’s.