Chapter 37 Lucan
When a pack member dies, we all feel the pain of their soul slipping away.
It slices through us as if all our hearts take a last beat—a piece of our bond crumbling to dust. I felt it when my father died, and I feel it now.
Despite Gabriel’s betrayal and his brief split from the pack, my heart squeezes into a ball so tight, I can barely breathe.
Howls unfurl throughout the throne room, and Saskia gasps.
The Third Guardian uses that moment to grab my throat with both hands.
Even though my neck is as thick as a tree trunk in this form, Arad’s strength supersedes anything I can shake off. His grip tightens, cutting me off from oxygen, and his nails pierce through my skin like ten mini daggers.
If he gets to my lungs, I know I won’t be able to heal fast enough to live.
And I need to live for her. My reason for every breath that is slowly fading.
As my vision frays at the edges, I throw myself back, crushing Arad against the floor beneath my weight, but he doesn’t release his grip on my throat. I shift out of desperation, morphing back into a human, but the change doesn’t catch Arad off-guard either.
If anything, it emboldens him. I scrabble at his hands around my throat, managing to pry off a few fingers, and I can feel my blood spurting from the wounds he’s inflicted.
“Take out any more of my fingers,” Arad whispers in my ear sickeningly, “and you’re going to bleed out, wolf. I’m holding you together now.” He digs his nails deeper into my neck. “Aren’t I?”
I can’t speak with him clutching my throat like this. It feels like someone took a pitchfork and rammed it through my vocal cords. All I can do is try to end his life as he takes mine.
Instead of trying to pry off more of his fingers, I extract my claws, reach behind me, and plunge them into the sides of his neck, too.
Arad roars. From across the room, I catch Saskia’s eye as she lays Gabriel down against the wall, as gently as possible. I see the moment her pupils darken as she takes in the position I’m in—how Arad won’t let go of me, even if it kills him.
And vice versa.
Her mouth opens. I see her lips form my name, but I can’t hear any sound come out. My ears are ringing, a calmness creeping over my bones like vines twining around branches.
The moon seems to blossom right before my eyes.
If death means I get to dream of her forever, then so be it.
I close my eyes.