Chapter 20 #2
He chuckled and canted his head to his right, studying me. “If it had been up to me, my parents would have rotted on that mountain, never destined to meet our ancestors.”
I snarled, “You’ll never meet them if I have something to say about it. I’ll leave your body to rot just as you’ve left my wolves.”
He flat out laughed in my face, breath washing my skin with each loud guffaw, and was it really so impossible to imagine me as a harbinger of death that everyone had to keep laughing whenever I threatened them?
It was infuriating.
My claws came out.
Morden shot me a warning look and subtly shook his head, pretending to scratch his neck as several Hunt wolves watched him.
“Get her dressed.” Lucas shoved me towards someone as he smirked at me, still chuckling over my threat to kill him. “We’re having a party.”
I stared back at my pack as I was pulled away from them, and then my parents when I passed the wall of the barn and my view of the pack was blocked. It was only when I was being led up the steps of Lucas’s house that I noticed who had been ordered to dress me for this party Lucas planned.
The female Lucas had fucked that night.
A growl tore from my lips as my fangs lengthened and white fur rippled over my skin.
My wolf instincts howled for blood.
Before I could lunge for her, a shadow in the doorway snagged my attention.
Braxton.
“Mindy, get a move on. Alpha wants us back ASAP.” He folded his arms over his broad chest, his rough features a cold mask as he stared at me, his dark eyes silently daring me to step out of line. “Got to get the princess here back to her prince.”
I didn’t have a prince.
I had a king.
A king who would rip Braxton apart with his shadows if I summoned him right now.
It was tempting, but too dangerous. If Braxton failed to return, Lucas would take it out on my pack and my parents. As much as I hated it, it was better I waited until Lucas and Braxton were together and take them both out at once, reducing the potential fallout and cost to my pack.
Mindy pushed me towards the stairs and I trudged up them, barely leashing the urge to turn on her as I stared at the floor above me.
How many times had I dreamed of this being my home?
Too many.
Lucas had taken those dreams and shattered them, scattering the fragments to the far reaches of my soul, and each shard had lodged itself deep. I might have pined once, might have even cried and mourned what had been taken from me.
No longer.
Now a darkness grew within me, a vicious twisting thing that demanded blood and turned my mind to spilling his, painting the walls of this house with it in a declaration of war, and a banner of my victory.
When we reached a large masculine bedroom, I halted on the threshold, frozen by the sight of the article of clothing hanging on the oak door of the walk-in closet.
The summer dress I had worn that night.
The bastard had kept it.
Why?
Mindy pushed past me and grabbed the sickening trophy he had kept, returning with it to me and shoving it against my chest. “Dress.”
I fumbled to grab it, shock sweeping through me to render me dumb for a moment as I stared down at it, unable to believe Lucas had not only kept the dress but now expected me to wear it to another celebration.
Another celebration that would end with me sold.
The mark on my chest pulsed with soft warmth, and for a moment, I savoured that connection to Kaeleron and the comfort it offered me, reassuring me that no matter what happened tonight, I would not find myself the slave of another male.
But that softness gave way to dread as I looked at the dress I clutched.
A revealing summer dress.
I wouldn’t be able to hide the mark Kaeleron had put on me.
And by the gods, part of me didn’t want to hide it.
I wanted Lucas to see it.
My wolf side snarled, viciously and victoriously, my instincts wanting me to show Lucas that another had claimed me—that someone wanted me.
Craved me as he should have. And now I was bound to them.
It might not be a bond between mates, might not be the bond my wolf instincts desired with a male, but it was a bond born of love and a fierce need to protect.
It was a bond born of true desire, not a feeling manipulated by fate or instinct.
The beautiful mark on my chest represented a deep desire to keep me safe, to keep me protected, and it made me feel cherished, and loved.
It made me feel needed.
I wanted Lucas to see it.
I wanted everyone to see it.
I wanted to scream at the world that what my so-called fated mate had done to me couldn’t hurt me anymore because I had found something deeper, something more beautiful, than a bond created by fate.
I had found true love.
I pulled my blouse off, uncaring of how Mindy stared at me, and shed my boots and trousers. I kept my back straight and shoulders squared as I donned the dress, feeling as if I had donned a set of armour, battle gear I intended to wear to war.
I shoved my feet back into my boots, fastened them and straightened again, staring at Mindy as oily darkness poured through my veins.
“Are we done here?” I snapped, impatient to get going, to shove my fated one’s face in the mark I bore on my skin—the mark of another male.
Mindy said nothing, just came to me and turned me towards the room, guiding me to a full-length mirror. This room smelled of Lucas, and rather than rouse the pain and the need I had felt when I had first awoken in the Shadow Court, his scent roused a viciousness that thrilled me.
When Mindy began arranging my hair, loosening the silver strands to spill down my back, I snarled, “If he wants this to be like that night, braid it. Better yet, I’ll do it.”
I met her gaze in the mirror and she backed off, a flicker of fear lacing her scent.
When I looked at myself again, I saw why.
My blue eyes glowed with inner light—with my wolf side.
I held it at the surface as I brushed and braided my hair.
I looked fierce like that. Brave. A wolf not to be messed with. A warrior.
I was a warrior.
I had fought an ancient lich.
It might have almost killed me, but I had fought it, and I had helped Kaeleron defeat it. Lucas was nowhere near as powerful as that enemy had been, and nowhere near as terrifying. If I could face such a powerful being without crumbling, I could face Lucas.
Besides, I wasn’t alone.
I turned away from the mirror, letting the thick rope of my hair fall down against my spine, and marched from the room, my chin tipped up and strides sure.
Feeling not like a warrior.
But like a warrior queen.
There was power inside me, strength I hadn’t known I possessed the last time I was here. I would use that strength and courage Kaeleron had seen in me. I would show Lucas he had messed with the wrong wolf.
That he underestimated me.
Just like every wolf here did.
I pushed past Braxton and strode out into the falling night, the cooler kiss of air bliss against my bare skin and the shadows that gathered beneath the trees a comfort.
I breathed deep of the familiar scent of pine and earth, pulling it down into my lungs and savouring it as it stirred memories of better days—of brighter days.
Days when all I had known was my pack, when I had been so sheltered and innocent, blind to the imperfections of the world—blind to the complexities of it all.
Back then, I hadn’t seen the darkness all around me.
I had bathed in the light.
Ignorant of what the world was truly like.
I couldn’t go back to those days, and truthfully, I didn’t want to. My eyes were open now, and things were no longer black and white, and I liked those shades of grey that made everything feel more real to me. I loved the complex nature of the man I was coming to love.
My gaze slid to the trees in the distance.
A male who was waiting for me, no doubt impatient and holding himself back, eager to sweep in like some knight in shining armour to rescue me from the ‘prick of an alpha’ I had come here to kill.
A small smile teased my lips as I pictured him there, watching me, his shadows most likely tracking my every step, guarding me in the only way he could right now.
I could do this.
Braxton and Mindy fell into step behind me, and then, as if he realised what he had done, Braxton overtook me, moving to lead the way.
The silence of the forest gave way to the murmur of a crowd, the scent of pine surrendering to the aroma of meat cooking and the smokiness of wood burning. My step didn’t falter as I walked towards the centre of the small town, knowing exactly where this ‘celebration’ was going to take place.
I could do this.
I was strong. Brave.
Lucas wouldn’t know what had hit him.
The green came into view, tables and benches arranged just as they had been in the barn that night.
Strings of warm white lights illuminated the clearing, curving between the barn and the nearby buildings, and two of the trees near the green.
Some asshole had even attached one end of them to the posts my parents had been bound to, and if I had to guess, I would say it had been Lucas.
Tormenting me. Keeping me aware that he believed he held all the power.
I was going to prove him wrong about that.
I strode through the gathered wolves, ignoring the way their eyes tracked me, heading straight for him.
When he noticed me, he patted the seat beside him, a grin curling his lips.
This little re-enactment of the night we should have been mated wasn’t going to make me crumble.
It only made me stronger, more determined to make him pay for what he had done that night by ending him.
I plonked down into the seat beside him and when he went to pour me wine, I pushed it away and glared at him. “I’m not falling for that little trick again.”
I wasn’t going to drink a drop or eat a bite.