Chapter 35 Lucan
Shifting so quickly my bones feel as if they’re going to snap, I stand on two human feet.
“Let them go.”
My voice rumbles through the ground, walls, and thrones. It vibrates the very air with the intensity of its command, strong enough to bend any werewolf to my will.
But Arad is not a werewolf. A smile twitches at the corner of his lips.
“Say please. Then I’ll consider it.”
Bullshit. I know it’s fucking bullshit, but then he presses his knife deeper into Vivian’s neck, and a small bead of blood begins to sprout from the indent.
“Please,” I hiss through my canines as Merrick shouts Vivian’s name.
“Hmm,” Arad hums, swiping the tip of his finger through Vivian’s trail of blood, making her suck in a breath. “Werewolf blood does taste disgusting, doesn’t it? And I’m afraid you don’t sound sincere enough.”
That’s when Kyra, held hostage by the First Guardian, breaks into a wail.
“Gabriel! Do something! This isn’t what we—”
The First Guardian, despite looking as if he’s as ancient and crusty as the earth itself, gives her a nick with his knife, and she falls silent with a whimper.
Gabriel twitches toward her, seems to rethink, and then catches my eye. I told you rolls off me in fiery waves, and he must understand, because he actually flinches. His shoulders hunch, his head bowing in the slightest tilt of submission before his eyebrows tighten and he turns to Arad.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt the rest of the pack.”
“Did I?” Arad presses a hand against his heart. “I seem to remember promising you the only werewolf I’d get rid of is their current alpha. Which means I get to keep the rest.”
Gabriel’s face goes wan, his fingers still twitching, and my inner Monster begs me to explode. But one wrong move could send any of those blades into the flesh of my pack members, and that’s unacceptable. I have to control my bones and teeth and claws—play this game carefully.
“What do you want?” I grit out. “Name your price.”
I half expect him to tell me to surrender myself, and I know deep down that I’d do it. If the only way to get Saskia and the pack out of here safely is to offer my own neck, I’d do so in less than a heartbeat. But it’s not me that his eyes slide to. It’s…
“Her,” he says immediately, pupils grazing over Saskia so heavily I want to rip them from their sockets. “I want her.”
My anger is like a flash flood raging through my core, a fire igniting my limbs, until my vision goes red.
I should have predicted this. He’s always wanted her, from the moment he approached her during the last Choosing and he realized how defiant she really is.
But he doesn’t want Saskia the person, I know.
He wants Saskia the object. The prize. The win.
So I cock my head, about to tell him over my dead fucking body, when Saskia herself breathes out a single word that reverberates through the throne room.
“Okay.”
“No,” I say immediately, grabbing her arm when she moves to take a step forward. “You’re not giving yourself up.” I try to fill my voice with an alpha’s warning, so that she knows this isn’t negotiable. The last thing we need is to be arguing in front of these parasites.
“Lucan.” Her lip curls up, revealing her fangs. “Let me go.”
“No.” Never. I wish I was in my werewolf form so that I could impale her brain with that word. Make her see reason. Still, she tries to jerk away, and I tighten my grip on her arm.
“Lucan, stop. You’re hurting me.”
I release my hold like she shocked me, horrified to find large fingermarks purpling her skin. Arad releases a chuckle from across the room.
“Well, isn’t this a turn of events? Looks like you can’t get her to obey, either, Monster, but I’ll tell you what. If you stand for freedom as much as you say you do, why don’t you let her choose? You… or me.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. As every eye flits to me—ranging from the amber of my pack mates to the crimson of the vampires to the varying shades of green, blue, and brown of the human sentries—I know that Arad has me backed into a corner.
At this point, the only thing I can do to stop Saskia from giving herself up is physically restrain her.
Which I will. I will. That’s what Monsters do.
“Saskia,” I try again before I have to resort to that, softening my voice and reaching out to grab her hand instead. If she would just meet my gaze, I’d be able to read her better. “We can figure this out. Don’t leave me.”
At that phrase, she physically recoils. For some reason, her attention flickers to Gabriel, who gives a miniscule shake of his head that I don’t understand. Saskia, however, sets her mouth in a grim line and wrestles her hand out of mine.
“I was wrong,” she says, the reddish hazel of her eyes solidifying into something I’ve never seen in them before as she finally meets mine: repulsion.
“Life outside the Wall… I thought it might be better on the other side, but it’s feral and wild out there.
No electricity. No order. No Rules. It wasn’t until I experienced it and came back that I realized how much better it is in here. ”
Confusion ricochets across each face in this hideous throne room, from Guardians to werewolves to sentries… to mine. My heart no longer pumps.
She’s lying. She has to be lying.
But Arad’s grinning as if she isn’t—as if he actually believes what she’s saying. “We all make mistakes, Saskia. I’m glad to see you’ve finally arrived at the same conclusion as everyone else. So who’s it going to be?” He pauses. “Guardian or Monster?”
Every breath seems to waver as Saskia glances at the thirteenth throne, an unmistakably hungry expression in her gaze. “I know I’m not human anymore, but my ancestor sat in that chair. And I want to come back… if you’ll have me.” She dips her head at Arad.
Who throws his head back up in a cackle.
“Is that so?”
Saskia’s face pales. “Yes.”
Arad grins with all his teeth. “Then prove it.”
Again, Saskia physically flinches at that phrase, glancing at Gabriel. Once again, he shakes his head, so subtly that I halfway wonder if them communicating is just a part of my imagination. And again, I reach out and snatch her hand.
“Saskia.”
“Stop touching me!” she shrieks, ripping herself away. “I’ll always choose my own blood.” Warning seems to ring through each word.
My own dirty werewolf blood whooshes in my ears, and understanding barrels into me. If this is truly what she wants to do, then I have to respect and honor her choice, or else there won’t be any difference between Arad and me at all.
But my vision still blurs when she unstraps her belt from her waist, letting her weapons clang to the floor.
Vivian’s eyes widen. Soren tries to shake his head at her.
Merrick grunts. My claws extend from my fingers, digging into my own palms until blood wells from each mark.
It takes self-control granted from an unearthly power for me to refrain from lunging forward to snatch her back.
Then, like a scene from my worst nightmare, Saskia drifts toward Arad.
Each of her steps claps against the floor. Every breath tightens.
Arad’s eyes widen a fraction, as if he didn’t expect her to actually do it. And when she gets close enough for him to touch, he removes his knife from Vivian, who stumbles away with a gasp.
Prove it seems to ring through the room.
Saskia does.
As the other Guardians and sentries lower their own weapons from the rest of my pack members, she raises her hands and cups Arad’s pale face.
His entire countenance shifts, his eyes running over her neck where the gold chain hangs, as if she’s still human. As if the blood that runs through her veins right now isn’t mine.
Then he swipes a tongue along one of his fangs and lifts his eyes to her lips. She leans toward him with a tilt of her chin, closer and closer, but the second before their lips meet, my own curl up in a grin.
Because the moment Arad lets his eyes close in preparation for a kiss that he never won at all, Saskia rips his head off his neck.