Chapter 1 #2
I might have found myself in my pack lands without an ally if Lucas had done as both Morden and I expected and had attacked our pack in an act of retaliation for what Morden had done in order to find me.
“Where do you think we are?” My gaze strayed to Morden as he glowered at the trees, my fingers restlessly toying with the silver charm bracelet he had returned to me, taking it from Lucas after he had beaten what had happened to me out of my fated mate.
The lone wolf on my bracelet seemed to mock me as I tried to recognise where we were, and it kept Kaeleron at the front of my mind.
Would he make me that tiny dagger he had promised me, the first token of travels I had begun to believe I would never experience?
Damn straight he would. I was going to demand it when I returned to him.
But I had a lot of things to do between now and then, starting with figuring out where we were. “Somewhere between the two?”
I hoped we were anyway.
“Could be the fae world.” Morden turned in a slow circle and scented the air, lifting his nose towards the dark canopy that blocked out the sky, preventing me from seeing if aurora danced across it.
Not that I needed visual proof to know this was not Lucia.
“No. This is our world.” I bent and touched the damp ground, reaching through the decaying pine needles for that connection to nature I had felt when I had been in Lucia.
“How can you be so sure?”
“The trees are different there.” I jerked my head towards the pines that surrounded us.
He shrugged. “I saw plenty like them in that place.”
I pushed aside the part of me that believed he would think I was crazy if I put it out there, if I told him of it, and said, “It doesn’t feel like Lucia.
In Lucia I could feel nature. It felt different there.
I’ve never felt such a clear connection to it, and it drew me to it. Didn’t you feel it too?”
“No.” He stared at me as if I had lost my mind, but then his expression shifted and he scrubbed his nape, shrugging again. “Maybe I was too focused on finding you to notice.”
It was nice of him to try to make me feel I wasn’t going crazy, but it would have worked a lot better if he hadn’t looked at me as if I was mad first.
“Well, I know what I felt.” I pushed to my feet and dusted my hands off. “This isn’t Lucia. If we’re lucky, it’s Canada and we’re somewhere between the fae town and… the pack.”
Not home.
I couldn’t bring myself to call that place home for some reason.
“Where did you say that fae town was?” I moved closer to him, trying to get his attention as his jaw flexed and he radiated tension.
Morden had never been the most talkative male.
He was prone to dark moods and had always been a bit of a lone wolf, but usually he was friendly enough to me.
I wanted to ask him what he was thinking as he looked at the woods as if he was ready to murder all the trees in it, but rather than being blunt I tried to draw him out of his thoughts, something he had always responded to better than being forced to talk.
“Whistler,” he grunted and fished something out of his pocket.
My heart leapt as I realised what it was.
A phone.
He scowled at it and then at me. “No signal. We could be anywhere.”
Those words were hard, bit out from between clenched teeth, and they hit me like an accusation, blame for our situation that some weaker part of me immediately felt I deserved and I began to shrink inwards, but then I gritted my teeth and tipped my chin up, because I wasn’t the one who had thought of a place other than our pack—of where we needed to be.
“Why did you think of the fae town?” I levelled a hard look on him, not wanting to pull rank on him as the alpha’s daughter, but refusing to let him put all the blame on my shoulders.
“If you had thought of our pack too, we would have been there now. I would know what happened to my parents and if they’re okay.
But now… now we don’t have a clue where we are. ”
He huffed and jammed his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans. “I wanted to talk and the fae town had merchants. I saw some good weapons there. I figured we could strategize and arm ourselves before we travelled to the pack.”
I relaxed a notch, because it sounded like a good reason to head there first rather than straight to the pack. I placed my hand over the hilt of the dagger secured at my waist, feeling the coolness of it and the weight of its presence, together with the comfort of it.
“Maybe we should have asked Kael for some weapons,” I said as I glanced at Morden’s waist, even though I knew if it came down to a fight, he would roll with his wolf side.
A side I should instinctively pick over a weapon too, but the dagger felt right in my hand, and I felt more confident with it.
I had trained to use a blade in combat. I hadn’t trained to use my wolf form.
My pack and outdated traditions were to thank for that.
Females didn’t fight.
Well, this female fought, and this female would train in her wolf form just as soon as she could. It would be good to have options in a fight.
He growled, flashing short fangs.
“I don’t need shit from him, and neither do you.” He grabbed my arm, tugging me forwards. “Come on. I can smell water in this direction. We’ll camp for the night and get our bearings in the morning.”
I trailed behind him, holding back the words I wanted to say to him, because it was futile.
I could tell Morden about how Kaeleron had taken care of me, how kind he had been to me, and my growing feelings for him, but it wouldn’t change a thing.
Morden had made his mind up about the fae king.
As far as he was concerned, Kaeleron was the enemy, and he had rescued me from him.
He muttered, “I’m not really sure I was thinking clearly either. When we entered that portal, I mean. I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
I lifted my gaze to his profile as his fingers flexed around my wrist, as he loosed a long sigh and stared off into the distance. He was talking about more than just our current situation now. He was talking about what had happened to me and how I had ended up in the Shadow Court.
“It’s not your fault, Morden.” My words sounded hollow, despite how firmly I said them and how deeply I believed them.
I didn’t blame him for what had happened to me, but I had known he would blame himself, and that no matter what I said to him, it wouldn’t make that feeling go away.
Even if I said I forgave him, he still wouldn’t forgive himself.
“You couldn’t have known what would happen to me. ”
He turned sharply, his face a dark mask of fury. “I should have known. I should have seen him for the bastard he is, and I shouldn’t have left it so long without going there and demanding to see you.”
He stepped up to me, lifting his free hand to brush his knuckles across my cheek, his stormy gaze growing sincere as he looked down into my eyes and his voice lowered.
“I should have known. I should have protected you.” His tone softened as he stroked my cheek, towering over me and filling all my vision, and I softened a little as his words registered, and I saw his regret and his pain, but then he added, “If that fae bastard had given me a sword, I would have run him through with it.”
I stepped backwards, wrenching free of his hold and glaring at him. “Kaeleron did nothing wrong.”
He had done a multitude of things wrong, but I wasn’t about to admit that in front of Morden when he looked as if he was contemplating returning to the Shadow Court to carry out that threat to Kaeleron.
“Lucas told me exactly what happened to you and how you ended up the captive of that bastard fae,” Morden bit out and my eyes widened as those words hit me, revealing how much he knew about my situation. Far more than I had thought. He scoffed. “He stole you for sex, Saphi, for your virginity.”
I shook off my surprise and stood my ground, unwilling to let him badmouth Kaeleron when it was clear that he didn’t know everything after all. He didn’t know the truth.
“Kaeleron didn’t steal me. He bought me for vengeance,” I countered.
“Are you telling me he didn’t lay a hand on you?
That he didn’t fuck you?” Morden stepped up to me, closing the distance between us again, his tone as unyielding as his grey eyes as they narrowed on me, his dark eyebrows knitting hard as he clenched his fists.
Apparently, he was a wolf with a bone, and he wasn’t going to let his idea of what had happened go.
“I saw that kiss, Saphi. I was right there. I heard what you said to him. The son of a bitch has you brainwashed. It’s probably a spell.
Magic. Cast on you to make you do what he wants, so he could fuck you all he wanted and you wouldn’t complain, would be more than compliant and happy to spread—”
I punched him.
Hard.
Knocking his head back.
Making him stumble and almost lose his footing.
He lifted his hand to his face, shock rippling across it as his eyes widened.
“Shut up!” I snapped, heart thundering, breaths coming fast, my chest heaving with them as I tried to catch my breath and slow my pulse, to tame the dark urge to shift and rip into Morden for speaking to me like that.
For speaking about Kaeleron like that.
“He would never—” I sucked down a calming breath and curled my fingers into tight fists, fighting to rein in my darker desires as they goaded me, whispering at me to strike Morden again, to keep hitting him until he cowered at my feet and knew his place.
Cold snaked down my spine at that desire, and I shut it down, pushing back against my darker urges, because, no matter what Morden said, he was my friend and I would never hurt him like that.
But I would also not stand for him saying shit about Kaeleron.
“Kaeleron would never do that. You don’t know him.
You don’t know him. So don’t speak like you do. You weren’t there, Morden.”
He flinched, pain surfacing in his eyes before they grew stormy once more. “I saw enough.”
“You saw nothing!” I barked and squared up to him, fists itching to hit him again, that darker part of me urging me to draw my dagger and run him through with it just as he had threatened to do to Kaeleron. “You. Weren’t. There.”
Those softly spoken words seemed to lash at him again as he reared back, as if they had been a physical blow, and I felt like a bitch for throwing it in his face, for stirring that guilt he felt over what had happened to me, because it wasn’t his fault.
Pain—fathomless and dark—welled up inside me, swelling to the surface of my heart.
He saw it.
And whispered, “So tell me what happened. Tell me what happened to you.”
I knew it would only worsen his guilt if I did, but then again, so would wondering what had happened to me.
That would torment him, filling his head with twisted imagined things Kaeleron had done, darkening his heart all the more.
If I wanted him to see Kaeleron as anything other than a monster, I needed to show him who the real monster was.
“Kaeleron…” I sighed and closed my eyes, and he appeared so easily in my mind, conjured by my aching heart to soothe it and my restless wolf instincts as I tried to steady myself, bracing against the pain as I forced myself to walk down a path I never wanted to tread again.
But Morden needed to know. “I was breaking. Falling apart. And he saw it. And he did all in his power to stop it. He helped me put myself together again, piece by crumbling piece, forging me into a stronger version of myself, opening my eyes to who I really am. He didn’t break me, Morden.
He didn’t treat me badly… or torment me.
The man who was supposed to love me eternally did that. ”
“Why were you breaking?” Morden went very still on my senses, the tension he radiated twining with mine as I forced the words up my throat, willing to put myself and my wolf instincts through this pain again if it meant Morden would understand what had happened to me, and what Kaeleron had done for me.
“Lucas… when we ran as wolves that night… he led me to a barn.” I swallowed as my wolf side snarled, as I saw that cage again and felt as if I was back inside it, those magically reinforced bars closing in on me.
“He rejected me and the mate bond. He drugged me and made me listen to his vicious words as he rejected me. He made me watch as he fucked another female to drive his rejection deep into my soul. And then he sold me to the highest bidder… to Kaeleron. And I thought I would die. I wanted to die. But then… then I lived. I lived, Morden.”
I dared to open my eyes and look at him—right into his eyes that shimmered with so many different emotions, making him look as torn between rage and hope as I was.
“I lived like I had never been allowed to live. I was given everything I had ever craved. Adventure. Training. The chance to discover who I really was, beyond the walls of the pack.” I slowly shook my head, my mood taking a dark turn as I thought about Lucas.
“And I was given everything I need to fulfil a new desire, a purpose that brought me back here.”
His look grew wary.
I drew the blade from my waist.
Staring at my dim reflection in it as I held it before me.
“Vengeance.”
I snarled that word and the ones that followed, all the darkness that poured through my veins lacing them, together with the conviction I felt deep in my soul.
“I’m going to kill my fated mate.”