Chapter 18
KAELERON
It was difficult to hold my tongue as the sun began to dip towards the horizon and we prepared to leave the Ryland Pack.
My gaze tracked Saphira as she busied herself with checking our meagre belongings for the tenth time, and then absently drew her dagger from the sheath at her waist and polished it.
It was at least the twentieth time she had done that.
She was nervous, and with good reason.
None of us knew how this fight would play out.
And there would be a fight.
I knew it in my gut, my battle-honed instincts warning me that blood would be spilled this day, and lives would end, and whispering that it had better not be mine.
I silenced that voice as I always did before a fight, but I could not as easily silence the one that was concerned about Saphira losing her life.
Our training session after we had eaten and rested had gone well, and part of me was sure she was ready for this coming fight, but there was still part of me that wanted to hold her back, to convince her to let me go instead, or to at least delay the inevitable a little longer so I had more time with her.
Not that she would listen. And rightly so.
She needed to do this, and she would not be alone.
I would be there with her every step of the way, a wrathful shadow ready to strike down anyone who dared target her.
“You’re brooding,” she muttered as she sheathed her dagger.
“Perhaps.” I rested my hand on the hilt of my sword, and never had it felt so heavy as I focused on it and what was to come.
And the things that might happen if I did not keep my wits as sharp as my blade.
I had come too close to losing Saphira once already. I would not let it happen again.
“I’ll be fine.” She forced a smile and came to me, and even the feel of her palms on my chest through my light leather armour was not enough to soothe me and make me believe that. Her fine eyebrows furrowed as she gazed up at me, worry flickering in her blue eyes. “Will you?”
“A mere wolf is no match for me.” I threaded my fingers through her silver-white hair, the softness of it making me want to fist it and pull her to me for a kiss.
Or perhaps it was this growing need within me, this pressing demand to hold her and not let her go, to keep her with me where she was safe, or better yet, teleport her to the Shadow Court.
I could not do that.
She would despise me for it.
This was her battle to fight. This was her victory.
She needed this.
“Are you sure you do not wish for me to bring an army?” I stroked my thumb along the soft line of her jaw, trying to tease her into giving in to that request I had made countless times now.
“Absolutely. If it’s the choice between bloodbath and a bit of a tough fight, I’ll take the tough fight.” She smiled, genuine warmth in it as she pressed closer, leaning her weight on her palms as they scalded me through the leather of my armour.
“I would take the bloodbath.” I grinned down at her.
She teasingly rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Because my little wolf knows me well.” I tugged her closer, relishing the squeak that left her lips as our bodies collided, and dipped my head to capture her lips.
She responded instantly, her lips sweeping across mine, dancing with them as I kissed her, as I held her close to banish the fears that whispered at the back of my mind—deep in my heart.
She broke the kiss and rested her cheek against mine, a sigh escaping her as her mood shifted on my senses, veering towards sombre.
“Do not think of all that might go wrong.” I needed to take my own advice as I held her, as I imagined her dying in countless ways, killed over and over again by that alpha.
Shadows bled from me, curling around her, pinning her in the shelter of my arms, as if every part of me right down to my power feared losing her—feared she would be taken from me if I let her go.
“Let me go instead,” I whispered.
She gently shook her head, rubbing her cheek against mine.
“You know I can’t do that.” She eased back, her gaze meeting mine, filled with understanding as she smiled softly. “It’s my family. My people. The ones I would do anything to protect. So I’m going in there and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get them out.”
I scowled down at her, a denial forming in my throat.
One she saw in my eyes.
She lifted her hands and framed my face. “This isn’t your court, Kael. It isn’t even your world. You can’t tell me what to do here.”
I knew that.
And I was not sure I would order her to do something she would hate me for even if we were in my court.
I wielded no power over her.
But my little wolf wielded far too much power over me.
“I will not.” I raised my hands and mirrored her, cupping her cheeks and keeping her widening eyes fixed on mine, the shock that rippled through them making me want to shake my head or smile.
I was not sure which. “I will not tell you what to do, Saphira, but I will not stand by and do nothing if you are in danger. Do not ask that of me. Do not.”
My voice threatened to break on the last two words that came out so desperate, so fearful, that I felt more vulnerable than I had ever been.
Flashes of her in the Forgotten Wastes tormented me, memories of her wounded and on the verge of death.
Covered in blood. Fighting for her life.
I could not breathe. I fought for each one I pulled down into too-tight lungs as a wild need to stop this crashed over me, and I felt I was drowning in that need.
Darkness loomed, the waters around me turning black, and all I could hear were ragged breaths, frantic and terrified, so loud in my ears as I shook.
“I know.” Her voice pulled me back to her, slicing through the crushing darkness like beams of pure light, so soft and gentle, and soothing.
“I know I’m killing you and I’m sorry. I know you can’t bear to see me in danger and this is cruel of me, and I know you want to whisk me away to the Shadow Court now the war is over—to safety—but I need to do this. ”
She lowered one hand to my chest, and my heart beat frantically against it.
“I know.” I lowered my head and rested my forehead against hers. “Just… be safe, little wolf. That is all I ask.”
She nodded, her forehead shifting against mine. “Only if you vow it too.”
I smiled tightly, no humour or warmth in it or in me.
There was only frigid cold filling the far reaches of my heart, freezing my soul as I held her, as I fought that need to take her far away from here, from her vengeance.
Only the thought of how I had felt when someone had taken my true vengeance from me, slaying the one who had slain my parents and stolen my brother, kept me from teleporting with her. I could not do that to her.
“I vow it.” I lifted my head and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Come. Before Malachi grows bored and restless and challenges Morden to a duel.”
I slipped my hand into hers, the feel of our fingers linking melting some of the ice that encased me.
“Has that happened before?” She glanced up at the side of my face.
“Oh, yes. He made the mistake of challenging my sister to a duel once, because a meeting I was in overran and I was late to the war room. It was a rather bloody affair.” I shook my head as I recalled it.
“I found the two of them on the green near the barracks, half the soldiers stationed there watching them brawl. It took weeks for the grass to heal the scars of their battle.”
“Let’s not keep them waiting then.”
We stepped out onto the raised wooden deck to find Malachi idly playing with one of the blades he wore strapped to his ribs in a leather holster while he watched Morden.
“Come.” I beckoned both males and they came to me, and I focused as I placed one hand on Malachi’s shoulder and Saphira gripped Morden’s wrist with her free hand.
I resisted the urge to growl at the male, the need to put him in his place strong even when she had been the one to touch him, and summoned the magic, feeling it flow through me, steadily building it so I could teleport us all.
Without accidentally losing Morden.
What a terrible shame that would be.
As if she knew my thoughts, Saphira gave me a hard, warning glance.
I realised I had been grinning at Morden.
It morphed into a gentler, more tender sort of smile as I turned it on her, as I thought about what lay ahead of us and let the magic swirl outwards from me, encompassing all of us.
Darkness swallowed us, cool against my skin as I held on to Saphira and Malachi, carrying us through it and out the other side.
We landed a short distance from the buildings I had surveyed in my previous visits, deep in the woods where no one would see us.
My senses reached around us as I stilled, and the three of them went just as still with me.
We all glanced at each other and nodded one by one as we sensed no threat, not even a flicker of movement in the vicinity.
I released Malachi and motioned with the flat of my hand, pointing in the direction we would travel to reach the perimeter of the town, and began leading Saphira in that direction.
My shadows unfurled, racing through the trees in all directions, casting a net around us as we moved and extending the reach of my senses.
“Not even a patrol,” I whispered and Saphira glanced at me, worry building in her eyes. “I am sure it is nothing.”
But it was unusual.
In the times I had come here before, I had been forced to keep track of several males who patrolled the perimeter of the Hunt territory. Now, there was no sign of them. Why?