Chapter 83
Chapter Eighty-Three
Abeast stood before Eldrick, the kind that prowled in one’s nightmares.
And yet, it was his brother.
The reserved, stern Drengr scholar was a vampyr—and not latent—and Eldrick’s shock rooted him in place. When had Lorkan found his wolf? How long had he kept this secret?
The great hall spun. Eldrick didn’t know where it began or ended, or what in the stars above to do. A hundred werewolves stood on the defense, eyeing his brother—
No. They looked to Eldrick, waiting on his command.
Because he was their future Earl. Eldrick’s hands and face were still wet from ceremonial paint. Incense wafted the air, herbs that represented leaders, rite of passage, and new beginnings. But Eldrick smelled a standoff between expectations and his racing heart.
They’d never finished his ascension. By vote, he remained Earl, but the magic of the Vadon Mountains hadn’t solidified it. As if fate presented another test, he had to walk the thin line between pleasing his people and protecting someone he loved.
What a cruel twist, hours after Tovi had broken his heart, too.
He took a cautious step forward, holding up a hand like he soothed a wild animal. His stomach churned. Two dead bodies lay at Lorkan’s clawed feet, and his talons dripped with their fresh blood. His eyes, usually the same color gold as their mother’s, now glistened crimson.
He took another step. “Lorkan—”
His mother grasped his arm. “The signs are clear. He hasn’t fed in days, Eldrick. The curse—”
“If it truly had hold of him, he’d be far worse,” Eldrick said. “I don’t see a scáth—I see my brother.”
Nadia swallowed, tears glistening in her all-knowing gaze. She shared a silent conversation with Aramis, who kept his distance. His jaw ticked as his attention jumped between sons. When he caught Eldrick looking, Aramis grimaced ever so slightly. Moons, had his father known what Lorkan was—
Eldrick ignored the questions tumbling through him and refocused on Lorkan.
He stood taller than any werewolf Eldrick had faced before, but he had a lithe frame compared the muscle rippling in other werewolves prowling in the crowd.
Vertebrae by vertebrae, his brother hunched onto all fours and bared his fang-like canines.
A deep growl—Bjorn’s from the sound of it—echoed in the silent hall. “Fucking do something—”
Eldrick threw up his hand, silencing the alpha but not bothering to look in his direction. He kept his sights on Lorkan. Arrows still stuck from his chest and leg, the blood seeping into the wooden shafts old and dry.
“Lorkan,” Eldrick whispered, “it’s me, your brother, Eldrick. Can you hear me?”
His brother’s ears flicked back, and he took a tentative step as Eldrick grew closer. Werewolves in the crowd heaved forward, hands dropping to their weapons.
“Stop,” Nadia hissed.
The hall returned to a silent stillness. Eldrick picked up Lorkan’s cracked glasses, grasping something that was familiar, anything to conjure his brother back to himself.
Lorkan’s head tilted to the side, and Eldrick stood close enough to touch him. He reached for his inner wolf, bringing it close to the surface in case he needed to shift, and inhaled a deep, rallying breath.
Eldrick laid a hand atop Lorkan’s chest, right over his heart. His fingers threaded through his thick midnight fur, and the distant thump . . . thump . . . thump of Lorkan’s heart beat beneath his palm.
“Come back to us, brother,” Eldrick whispered.
The land vibrated under his boots. He’d not used his alpha baritone, but a certain power lay in his words.
Lorkan trembled, and his fur slowly vanished. His limbs shrank. Bones snapped, and his face returned to the sharp scholarly Drengr Eldrick recognized.
Tears glistened in his once-again golden eyes. “I’m—” Lorkan winced, falling forward as pain rippled across his face. Eldrick caught him by the shoulders, keeping him steady. “S-s-sorry.”
Words dried on Eldrick’s tongue. He didn’t know what to say or feel, and there were too many questions to count. Later, he told himself.
“Mother, get the healers—”
“Healers?!” Bjorn seethed, storming towards Eldrick.
His father intercepted his path, hand falling to his axe strapped to his belt.
Bjorn’s face reddened. “This matter no longer concerns you, Aramis. You are no longer an alpha, and despite your efforts to keep this a secret from us all, it is now known.”
Eldrick reared straighter. Bjorn confirmed his suspicion—his father had known Lorkan was a vampyr.
The crowd murmured among themselves. Leif Thorn emerged from the crowd, chest heaving.
“What is Bjorn talking about?” the alpha demanded. “How long has your son been a vampyr?”
Eldrick’s being burst with the same question, but the tension inside the hall rose.
The ceremonial incense faded, and the paint on his hands and cheeks cracked as it dried.
They were moving further and further away from him becoming Earl—and moons, he was a right bastard for thinking of himself and not Lorkan in this moment, but the fate of the Vadon Mountains depended on him ascending.
“Lorkan Drengr was turned a decade ago.” Dalinda thrust a handful of letters up into the air. “There are more like him—an entire pack of cursed werewolves. The Drengrs have lied to us all. Aramis has corresponded with their pack leader, Lorkan, for years.”
The crowd grew unruly, and the cold from the outside crept through the hall. Eldrick’s skin tightened like frost crawled across his skin, and his wolf bared its teeth. Dalinda was more fox than wolf, her timing impeccable—she and Bjorn had orchestrated this reveal, all to jeopardize his ascension.
He was a fool to think they’d not try something.
“This”—Bjorn’s voice boomed in the hall as he addressed the werewolves—“is who you have placed your faith in, a pack who knew some of our brothers and sisters might still be alive, that the curse was more than it seemed, and allowed vampyrs to walk amongst us!”
“That isn’t true,” Aramis said. “I am to blame for these secrets. Eldrick knew nothing.”
“You expect us to believe you kept your eldest son in the dark?” Alpha Skau shook with rage, his pack members stalking closer towards Eldrick and Lorkan. “How can we trust a word you say?”
“Eldrick’s shock is just as genuine as all of ours.” Ragna frowned, trailing Eldrick up and down with ancient eyes. “He didn’t know what his brother was.”
Bjorn growled. “That is hope blinding you, Ragna.”
“I’d rather be blinded by hope than full of hate like you,” she hissed.
Alpha Alland pointed his blade towards Eldrick’s mother. “Perhaps Bjorn’s instinct is just. We can’t forget Nadia Drengr, who we all thought was dead, is also a vampyr. The Drengr Pack seems to be woven with secrets.”
Ragna blinked, and Eldrick sent her a pleading stare, but a shadow fell over her gaze. His grasp on control was slipping.
He took a mighty breath. “It is fair to be frightened of the unknown, but we must judge cautiously. They curse is unkind, but it doesn’t define all vampyrs—”
“They are an abomination!” Spittle flew from Bjorn’s lips as he pointed a meaty finger towards Lorkan. “And this monster slaughtered two of my pack members. We all witnessed it. He is no different from a scáth.”
Next to Eldrick, Lorkan flinched. He turned paler and paler as the minutes went on, and at the sight of the arrows sticking out of him, Eldrick’s anger rose in a hot, fiery wave.
His boots slicked through the blood seeping into the stone floor, and Dalinda’s waterskin lay a few feet away.
“Your daughter spilled blood first,” Eldrick whispered. “She is just as guilty for their deaths.”
“How fucking dare you?” Bjorn marched towards Eldrick and grasped him by the collar of his tunic. “I demand retribution!”
Eldrick swatted Bjorn’s hand away, reining in his inner wolf. He held his ground, standing between Lorkan and Bjorn. Moons, he couldn’t let the Johanneses win.
He searched the alphas for his allies—Drabek, Thorn, and Alland, Lindstrom—but they stayed back, away from him and his brother.
“Can you see what Bjorn is doing?” Eldrick shouted to them. “He is dividing us to become Earl.”
“We deserved to know this, Eldrick!” Thorn’s jaw ticked. “All vampyrs are cursed, even those who once were werewolves, and they have cast darkness on our lands for far too long. How can we trust you when you chose them over our own kind?” He gestured towards the dead bodies.
The crowd burst with agreement, nodding and muttering aye all around. Leif spoke Eldrick’s fears out loud, and sweat prickled at his brow.
How could he undo this?
Bjorn held up his hands, silencing the crowd. He turned to Eldrick. “Perhaps you didn’t know your brother was a vampyr, but this is a chance to show us you’re not like your father. What kind of Earl will you be, Eldrick Drengr?”
Just. Kind. Nothing like Bjorn. His heart beat with rightness.
Before he had time to answer, winds circled above the dais.
A scene grew sharper and sharper as the winds spun, revealing another place—a forest dense with snow and frost. At the center, Blair Carson, dressed head to toe in black and a raven on her shoulder, stepped through her danu.
Her mouth fell open at the sight of Lorkan, horror flashing across her face.
She rushed to his side and draped her cloak over Lorkan’s body.
Dalinda growled, stepping forward. “Stop her!”
Blair screamed, releasing a wave of her shadows. They knocked a dozen werewolves back, and she gathered Lorkan in her arms, cursing as she spied his various wounds.
Shadows converged up the walls, darkness draping over the crowd. The lit fireplaces and candles whooshed out, the cold worsening.
“A dark witch,” Bjorn muttered.
Eldrick tasted winter, storm and chaos in the air.
But it was love brimming in Blair’s eyes as she held Lorkan. Fierce and strong and real. More real than any title, duty, or fate’s path. The truth knocked the breath from Eldrick, for it was not what sort of Earl he would be, but the type of werewolf.
“Stars above,” Dalinda hissed.
She aimed her axe and threw it in Lorkan’s direction. Time slowed, but Eldrick’s heart didn’t miss a single beat of the power he’d possessed earlier when he’d laid his hand over his brother’s heart.
Out of love, not duty, he stepped in the line of Dalinda’s attack.
The axe hit true—square in his chest—lodging into his breast plate.
He stumbled back, blinking past the searing pain.
The blade pierced skin, though thank the stars above, not deadly deep, but enough Eldrick forgot how to breathe and crumpled to his knees.
His mother might’ve screamed. Perhaps his father roared. Lorkan definitely rasped his name. But when he blinked, it was a phantom voice of a vampyr queen he heard, her one word like a whisper in the wind.
Choice.
For Eldrick had made his, and he’d loose everything because of it.
Tears glistened in Blair’s eyes. She opened and closed her mouth, but no words came out.
“Go,” Eldrick whispered.
Wisping shadows swallowed his brother and the witch whole, and as Eldrick stared deep into Blair’s vanishing danu, he fell farther and farther into darkness until oblivion held him like a dear friend.