Chapter 79
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Lorkan
Three days had passed since the gates of Hel had opened, and the Blood Goddess hadn’t made herself known.
Lorkan counted it as a bleak blessing.
For the Drystan’s gray had bled all across Sorin. The curse spread. Demons emerged from portals, and vampyrs, brave enough to trek through the still desolate Void, invaded. Scáth attacks doubled.
Werewolves and witches worked in a frenzy to protect their own.
After Blair had created a danù to take them back to Sorin, she’d revisited Nūa to relay the recent events and hopefully encourage the Guard to prepare.
Eldrick awaited his ascension ceremony, and Kade and Evelyn had joined forces at the Void, protecting Sorin.
So, Lorkan had returned to Vísdómr to check on his pack.
Lorkan’s secret nipped at his heels worse than ever.
Blair knew, and his heart swelled at the fact she’d accepted him.
He didn’t doubt Eldrick and Kade would, too, but with darkness crawling across his homeland now more than ever, he feared his vampyrism would risk his brother’s ascension as Earl. They couldn’t afford any more problems.
Orange lined the snowcapped mountain range as sunrise teased its arrival on the horizon. Vísdómr, in all its might, stood to the north, the background light casting the library in a fiery spotlight.
Lorkan played with the bloodstone ring tied at his neck. Even with its advantages, Lorkan didn’t know how to not worry about the sun and its gradual ascent in the sky.
“Best hurry,” Alvin said. “Not all of us have a nifty bloodstone to protect us.”
Lorkan’s friend winked as he walked on by, and Lorkan almost smiled at his friend’s natural ability to add lightness to any moment.
Lorkan, along with Mya and Alvin, marched deeper into the forest to check on the elm blossoms. Mya had set them up in a clearing, far away from Vísdómr’s trails and the traveling paths of werewolf territory.
Rain nor cloud coverage had interfered with the blossoms and Mya’s sun-drying technique, and Lorkan hoped the blossoms were ready.
He craved Blair’s presence, though he understood her duty to the witches.
I’ll see you in a few days, she’d promised.
Lorkan wished to show Blair his efforts these last years; perhaps the tea first, and if she agreed, he’d lead her to Fjall’s Village through the tunnels.
Mya pushed a branch out of their way, and Lorkan entered the clearing and halted.
“Moons,” Alvin hissed.
They walked straight into destruction. Mya’s makeshift tables were overturned, and dried elm blossoms danced on the wind. Lorkan fell to his knees, trying to collect as many as he could, but it was no use. Brittle, they crumbled in his hands.
“Stars above,” Mya said, squatting and brushing her hands over the blossoms floating in a puddle and ruined by dirt. “Was there a storm we missed? I secured the tables and wire racks like I always do . . .”
Alvin growled. “It appears this was intentional.”
Lorkan’s friend held up a broken table, split down the middle like someone had hacked it with a blade.
“But who?” Mya hissed. “Why?”
Lorkan reared straighter, fear pulling him taut like a bowstring. His boot edged close to a patch of prints, but not just any sort, paw prints.
“Werewolves—“ He clamped his mouth shut, the scent of three others prickling in the air. “Both of you need to get back to village now.”
“And leave you?” Alvin hissed. “Stars above, who do you take me for?”
“My loyal and brave friend,” Lorkan whispered.
“But day will be here before we know it, and I have a bloodstone. It’ll protect me from the sun and conceal my vampyrism.
If werewolves destroyed these blossoms because they had an idea of what we were creating, there’s a chance they’re searching for Fjall as we speak. We need it defended and monitored.”
“I don’t like this,” Mya whispered. “You want us to hide while you risk yourself.”
“I’m tired of retreating, Lorkan,” Alvin said. “Of not fighting for what we are and what we’ve built.”
Lorkan shook his head, grasping his friends shoulder. “This isn’t the time. Not yet. Let me take this risk and discover what pack these werewolves are a part of, and then I’ll meet you in the village, okay?”
Objection rippled across both Alvin’s and Mya’s face, but after sharing a look, they relented and nodded.
“Be careful.” Alvin squeezed his shoulder back. “My life would suffer without your gruffness.”
Lorkan’s friends left him, and he let his nose lead him through the thicket of trees.
He stalked the werewolves like prey, crouching onto his knees.
The clouds peeking through the canopy lightened to a slate, and birds chirped their morning greetings.
Frost and pine tickled Lorkan’s nose, but over the fresh scent of winter, he caught the wear and tear of travel—sweat, stench, and wolf.
Snickering bounced off the trees, and Lorkan squatted lower to the ground.
Green cloaks blended into the landscape.
Lorkan recognized the shade, leading him to believe it was Johannes warriors sitting by a fire, throwing pine cones into the flames and watching them burst. But why would they be this close to Vísdómr? Had they vandalized the elm blossoms?
Voices hissed in the back of Lorkan’s mind.
The curse reared its nasty head. Lorkan blinked.
Cracked his neck side to side. Red flashed across his vision, and hunger bloomed in his belly, wretched and ferocious.
Lorkan swallowed, fighting the urge to release his fangs.
Why in the stars above was the curse so close to the surface—
Lorkan spotted the red smear running up the tree he leaned against. As he found the first, the other markings popped to life. Iron, sweet and beckoning him closer. Horror jolted through Lorkan. Blood marked trees all around him.
“BOO!” a werewolf jumped from a cluster of trees, landing in front of him.
Lorkan reared back, baring his teeth—no, his fangs. For they’d released of their own accord, all thanks to the blood berating his senses. He stepped to defend, but metal kissed his neck, and he found a female with her blade drawn, herding him into the clearing.
Her nose remained scrunched in a permanent snicker. The others sprang to their feet, hands falling to their weapons.
“Seems we found what we came here for boys,” she said, her sights never leaving him.
A male with a shaved head and rune tattoos running up his neck sized Lorkan up and down. “Your father is going to be so pleased, Dalinda.”
The others laughed, and Lorkan fisted his hands at his sides.
Her name tickled in the back of his mind, and it took him a moment to recall who she was.
Dalinda Johannes. Alpha Bjorn’s daughter.
Fuck. Lorkan’s father had feared this exact discovery, and here he was, walking straight into their trap, revealing what he was with his fangs and jeopardizing Eldrick’s ascension.
Lorkan studied Dalinda and her unit. Six against one. The odds weren’t in his favor, even if he shifted.
“What exactly does your father want with a Vísdómr scholar?” he asked.
Delinda pressed her blade harder, threatening to break skin. “We don’t give a shit about your birth order, second born. You’re an abomination to our kind, just like your mother.”
Lorkan growled, leaning closer. “Careful.”
Dalinda laughed, and the others joined in, and the sound grated against Lorkan’s control over his inner wolf. “It’s you who must tread carefully.” She flicked her wrist, and more werewolves emerged from the trees, dragging two figures tied and gagged.
Alvin and Mya.
Lorkan charged. “No—“
Dalinda swiveled her blade from his neck to theirs, running it parallel across both their throats. She fisted Alvin’s braids and yanked his head back, while another werewolf pulled Mya’s red hair. Both his friends flinched, and Lorkan growled.
“Don’t touch them, or I’ll fucking—“
“Kill me? They’ll be dead before you step any closer.”
“Then I’ll still rip your throat out,” Lorkan seethed. “You might think you know what I am, but you can’t fathom what the vampyr curse does to a werewolf.”
The werewolves stiffened. Even the breeze stilled.
Dalinda narrowed her eyes, debating her chances and snarled, kicking the back of Alvin’s knees.
The other warrior threw Mya to the ground.
Lorkan’s friends’ eyes pleaded with him, their voices muffled by the tightly tied gags. They looked to the canopy, the sky—
Moons, the sun was minutes away from shining its light into the forest.
“Please,” Lorkan rushed. “Let them go. Whatever you want from me, I’ll give it.”
Dalinda scoffed. “Moons, I should’ve known a Drengr would be so fucking easy to manipulate.
You’re all so . . . pathetic, sacrificing yourself for others.
I wanted to kill that whore of a queen to drive your brother to his end, but my father said it would be too messy.
Yet, you’ll do just fine proving how unfit the Drengrs are to rule the Vadon Mountains.
Lorkan Drengr, his pack’s ugliest secret, finally unveiled.
“ She jutted her chin at the others. “Bind his wolf.”
Lorkan’s inner beast raged at the kiss of metal as it clamped around his throat.
Twin shackles clanked around his wrists, and for safe fucking measure, the bastards added a three-part chain that connected the horrid pieces.
Enchanted and soaked in wolfsbane, it tamped his wolf fangs and talons—anything related to his shifting abilities.
But it didn’t quiet the rage of the curse.
“Tie them up,” Dalinda ordered the others.
Lorkan reared out of the werewolf’s hold only for three more to grasp him back from reaching his friends. “We agreed—“
Dalinda hit the blunt end of her axe against his jaw. White dotted Lorkan’s vision, but he fought to get free as the others dragged Alvin and Mya away and tied them against tree trunks.
No. No. No.
Lorkan’s beast began to unleash and then stopped, fur retreating back into his skin as the enchanted shackles bound his magic. Hopeless and empty yet bursting at the seams all at once. His chest heaved as he tasted blood on his tongue, for his fangs had pierced his bottom lip.
“I never agreed to let them go.” Dalinda used the tip of her blade to pull Lorkan’s necklace lose, balancing the bloodstone on the tip of the blade.
She hummed. “I didn’t spy one of these gems on your fellow freaks.
So, I decided not to touch them, just like you requested.
After all, why waste my time when the sun can do the work for me? ”
Something glinted deep in Dalinda’s eyes, and Lorkan discovered that darkness lived outside the curse.
It wasn’t a tangible trait only bestowed upon vampyrs or those touched by the curse.
Darkness embedded itself wherever one let it take root and nurtured it to bloom.
Darkness wasn’t innately evil either, unless one grasped it and wielded it as such.
Like Dalinda, feeding her hate until it manifested into darkness.
As five werewolves dragged Lorkan away from his friends, it wasn’t the curse that reared to life. It was love, in all its hurt and enormity. He roared as his heart fractured.
He’d done this—told Alvin and Mya to run and hide and not fight.
Now, they’d die, and the light they brought to this world would extinguish.