Chapter 12
KAELERON
Fatigue rolled through my bones, through my flesh, through my mind as I focused on the camp where I had left Saphira, leaving things at the Shadow Court in my sister’s capable hands.
The battle had gone well, and our forces had managed to drive the seelie back again, banishing them from the Wastes, but I was sure they would rally their forces and return for one last attempt to take it for their court.
The cut across the left side of my chest and my shoulder throbbed as I swept through the inky darkness, the balm the physicians had applied and the tight bandages that bound it doing little to lessen the pain.
The one who had given me this wound had paid with their life, torn to pieces by my shadows, as had the ones who had landed other blows on me, leaving me bruised in places and bleeding in others.
The battle had been fierce, so violent it had shaken the Wastes, but in the end, we had been the victors.
If the Evening Star Court seelie returned, they were fools who deserved to die.
The scent of the woods swirled around me, nature the first thing I sensed as I reached my destination, and I breathed deep of its calming influence, trying to catch another scent.
Saphira.
The strong smell of leaf litter, dew and pine needles drowned her out, but her subtle scent was there, soothing that ragged part of me that needed to know she was fine and nothing had happened to her in my absence.
I stepped out of the teleport close to the camp, the supplies I carried gaining form and weight in my arms. Two bedrolls, fastened with leather straps. A satchel of supplies, including the dried meat my little wolf adored so much, and a sword fit for the male she called friend.
Which was to say it had seen better days and was unfit for any of my soldiers.
Saphira shot to her feet as I came into view, her posture stiff as she instantly wrapped her arms around herself, and then seemed to notice what she had done and dropped her hands to her sides.
“Kael.” She beamed at me, her smile a little too bright.
Forced.
I strode towards her, looking from her to the wolf where he brooded on the other side of the meagre fire.
“What happened?” I shifted my focus back to her, catching that melancholy edge to her eyes, and the scent of blood that lingered in the air. Not her blood. The wolf’s. “Did you stab him because he disagreed with your plan to go to the Ryland Pack?”
I meant it as a joke of sorts, presuming Morden had been injured while hunting or something like it.
But Saphira’s lips flattened and she glanced at Morden, who was now staring at his boots as if they were the most fascinating thing in all the worlds.
“Saphira.” My tone demanded an answer as I looked back at her, because I was beginning to suspect the wolf had upset her. My rounded nails transformed into black claws, the tips of my fingers turning obsidian as the tension in the air cranked even tighter. “Did he argue against it again?”
She shook her head, her silver braid slipping from her shoulder. “No.”
Something was wrong. She did not look happy and she had been fine when I had left. The wolf had said or done something to cause this tension between them, and whatever it was, it was bad enough that she was hesitating, remaining silent about it because she worried how I would react.
She glanced at Morden again.
Looking as if she needed to say something but feared voicing it for his sake.
Which only made my darker side push to the fore even faster as a need to protect her stole control of me and had me closing the small distance between us so I was within striking distance if the wolf tried something.
“What did you do?” I snarled at Morden. “Because Saphira is hurting and I will not stand for it.”
The wolf surprised me by standing up and looking me right in the eye, his shoulders tipped back and head high.
“I didn’t beat Lucas up and find my way to the Shadow Court.
” He did not hesitate, his voice strong and even, and his look expectant, as if he knew where this was going and he was fine with whatever happened, because he felt it was deserved.
“Lucas captured our pack and sent me to you. He lied to me. He told me you stole Saphira from him, and he wanted her back. I have to take her to him, or he’ll kill everyone. ”
Shadows exploded, blanketing the glade, plunging it into darkness as I launched at Morden.
I slammed into him, claws pressing into his shoulders as I took him down, as my shadows lunged and pierced his legs, pinning him to the leaf litter beneath me as he grunted, biting back a scream.
My skin paled to white as I wrapped my hand around his throat, as the shadows cleared between us so I could see him as I choked the life out of him for what he had done.
He had betrayed Saphira.
He had tried to take her from me.
That was the reason she was so tense, so sorrowful this morning. While I had been fighting a war, she had been fighting for her life, against someone she trusted.
I sensed her stumbling about in the shadows as I snarled right in Morden’s face, barely leashing the desire to strip the flesh from his bones piece by piece with my claws.
“Kael?” Saphira called.
“Do what you want.” Morden sank against the dirt beneath me, not even bothering to struggle, let alone fight back, disappointing me as I willed him to fight me, to give me a reason to strike him down.
His voice was faint, resigned, as he said, “I deserve your wrath. I don’t care what happens to me… just… save my sister.”
I stilled, fighting the memories that rose in the darker corners of my mind, the terrified screams and agonised cries, my own stuttering breaths so loud in the darkness as fear held me immobile.
My brother, sobbing as they dragged him away, as he stared at our butchered parents, as frozen by shock and as useless as I was.
“He’s telling the truth, Kael.” Saphira grunted as she bumped into something, and snapped, “I can’t see a thing. If I fall on the fire and burn to death, that’s on you.”
I drew my shadows to me, funnelling them all into the points where I pinned Morden to the ground, and I knew the moment she spotted us because a soft gasp left her lips and she hurried towards me.
“Lucas has his sister, our pack, and you know he’ll sell her at auction if Morden doesn’t bring me to him. He’s—Kael, he’s threatened to kill everyone, starting… starting with my parents.”
I glared down at the wolf beneath me, squeezing his throat a little tighter. “Is this true? And do not lie to me. If you have lied to her about this to manipulate her for your own gain… it will not end well for you. So, I advise you to answer truthfully. Does the prick have her parents?”
Morden tried to nod.
I leaned closer to him, bringing my fangs close to his face as I twisted the shadows in his legs, as he loosed a satisfying muffled grunt and his face contorted in pain. Pain he deserved for what he had done to Saphira.
I could sense her fear as she came to stand beside me, smell the acrid tang of it that ruined her scent and roused the darkness within me.
I pressed down on the wolf’s throat as I snarled, “How can you call yourself her protector when you are so willing to sacrifice her?”
Anger sparked in his grey eyes, but it was gone a moment later as his body went lax beneath me, whatever fight I had ignited in him fading in an instant as he accepted his fate like the weak male he was.
“Whatever hatred you feel for me, whatever hatred she feels for me, I feel it for myself a thousand times worse.” His hoarse words bathed my face.
Pitiful male. Where was his fight? His courage to push back and correct the things he had done wrong rather than simply accept them?
He choked as I squeezed his throat tighter, slowly wringing his life from him, taking it breath by breath.
“I was going to tell her… thought about it so many times. But… my failure as her protector… was the reason… she was sold… in the… first… place. I couldn’t… bear… failing… her… again.”
“Kael,” Saphira said softly, her gaze imploring me as I glanced up at her.
I loosened my grip enough that the wolf could draw a breath. His chest heaved with it, bowing towards me as he gasped in air, and the redness of his face faded towards pink.
“I figured I could come up with a plan.” Morden coughed and wheezed. “A way of saving both her and my sister.”
I scoffed. “Did Saphira look as if she needed saving to you?”
“It was safe to assume she needed saving from someone who bought her like a sick fuck,” Morden spat, fire igniting in his eyes.
The darkness within me purred at the sight of it, at the thought I might get that fight I craved after all.
“I bought her, yes, but not for the reason she was sold. I bought her for vengeance.”
Morden rasped a laugh. “Did that noble pursuit stop you from getting what you paid for?”
I tightened my grip on his throat as Saphira tensed beside me, squeezing just hard enough to remind the wolf of his position and that when he hurled such accusations at me, they wounded her.
“I wanted Kael.” She stole the whole of my focus as she announced that, her voice strong and steady. “I was the one who made a move on him. Kael took good care of me.”
I grinned as I slowly lowered my gaze from her to the wolf, warmth washing through me as my chest puffed up a little. “Unlike someone.”
“Kill me or don’t kill me. Just get on with it,” Morden spat.
“I will, and the outcome depends on the answer to this question: What happened to my messenger?” I stroked my shadows down his sides, over his ribs, and pressed the tip of one into his flesh between them, aimed directly at his heart.
He stiffened beneath me, blanching as his eyes widened.
“Lucas captured him, used some spell or something that bound his powers. He never reached our pack. I saw him at the Hunt Pack and he’s how I knew where to find Saphira. Lucas tortured him until he broke and told him everything.”