Chapter 23
SAPHIRA
The male beneath me breathed hard, the frantic rasps loud in my ears as they twitched and I stood on his chest, staring down into his desperate eyes. They beseeched me, his words swimming in my ears meaning nothing to me.
His death was all that mattered.
Revenge was all that mattered.
My mate had fled, but I could still have my revenge on this male. I could still rip out his throat with my fangs. And then I would track down the wolf fate had been cruel enough to chain me to and watch the life bleed from him in the same way.
I bared my fangs and lunged for his throat, relishing the scent of fear and that terrified look in his eyes as he stared death in the face.
A strong hand gripped my nape hard enough that it hurt, and my fangs snapped together close to the face of my prey.
I snarled and wrestled against the hold of the person who had stopped me from killing this fiend beneath me.
“Calm, Saphira.”
His voice washed over me like a soothing wave, and when it receded, it took a little of the oily darkness seething within me with it.
“What do you speak of, wolf?” The dark malevolent presence beside me issued that demand in a voice dripping with the promise of death. “Who will be dead?”
The wretch beneath me smiled, his lips bloodied, and in his eyes flashed victory.
A victory I wanted to take from him with my fangs.
“Everlee. Danica.”
I stilled as images sprang into my mind of a russet wolf filled with light and energy, her eyes bright with joy and excitement as she bounded and looked back at me.
Everlee.
“Where is she?” Morden snarled as he landed on his knees beside me, body littered with bruises and gashes, and caked with blood. He gripped the male by his throat and shook him, slamming his head against the dirt. “Where the fuck is my sister?”
The male chuckled, the satisfied sound grating in my ears. “I’m not stupid, Snow. If I tell you, I’m as good as dead. I’ll make a bargain with you… my life in exchange for theirs.”
I bared fangs.
“Calm, Saphi.” The voice again, weaving black magic to steal another fragment of the darkness from within my heart, allowing light to slip into it.
Wolf instincts slowly swirled together with human ones, my consciousness rising to the surface to sever the hold that primal part had on me. I stared down at Braxton, growing aware of my position on his chest and how I was pinning him, and all the bruises and blood on him.
From blows I had inflicted.
It slowly came back to me, each moment unfurling like rays of light to drive back the darkness.
And then the pain came.
I threw my head back and howled as it tore through me, baying longer than I had ever managed as I tried to release all my pain and my grief, letting it pour out of me.
Kaeleron kneeled and pulled me into his arms, pressing his cheek to my neck as he held me, as he gently rubbed my nape and stroked my fur. I wanted to rip out the throat of the one who had caused this pain—this suffering—taking more from me when he had already taken so much.
But he was gone. Fled. Escaped.
I looked at Braxton.
I wanted to kill him. But if I did, I might never find Everlee and Danica. I might never find Lucas. This hunger for vengeance burning within me might never be sated.
“You sold them,” Kaeleron announced as he twisted to look at Braxton.
Braxton grinned.
“Lucas said he moved them. Something about trying to negotiate a better price for them. He hasn’t sold them yet. There’s still time.” Morden’s blazing grey gaze shifted from Kaeleron to Braxton as he wrapped his hand around the male’s throat and squeezed. “Tell me where the fuck they are.”
The thought of my friends in the hands of a wretched male only made me want to kill Braxton even more for his part in this sick business he was running with Lucas. I wanted to bathe in his blood. But he was right. If he died, their location died with him.
I looked over my shoulder at the barn and the clearing, and the fae and people milling around there, helping the wounded or dealing with the bodies of the fallen, separating my pack from his.
Most of his pack were dead, and those that weren’t had most likely run.
If I killed him, I would be killing Everlee and Danica too.
I would be letting my mate go free.
Gods, I hated him with all my heart.
I wanted to kill him.
But to do that, I had to spare the life of someone equally as evil, someone who deserved death just as much as his alpha did.
I looked at Morden. Rage shone in his grey eyes, mingled with grief and pain so fierce I wasn’t sure how he was holding it together.
If it had been my sibling in danger, out there somewhere in the hands of another who might be hurting her right this second, I wasn’t sure I could have held it together as he did.
I would have killed Braxton, venting my anger on him, unleashing all my rage without considering the consequences of my actions.
Needing to reassure him that we would find them, I let the shift come over me. He looked at me as I placed my hand on his, as I squeezed it and stroked my thumb across the back of it.
“We will extract the information from him. He will talk, Saphira.” Kaeleron placed a blanket around my shoulders, draping it so it covered my bare curves, that promise a comfort together with the way he firmly gripped my shoulder.
His cold crimson gaze slid to Braxton. “I will make this male suffer for what he has done to you. He will beg for death by the time I am done with him.”
Ribbons of shadows as sharp as blades curled from Kaeleron’s shoulders, their pointed tips aimed at Braxton.
Braxton paled and began shaking his head, no trace of a smile on his lips or that satisfaction in his eyes now.
It was tempting.
But I wanted to be the one to deal the killing blow.
“Do it,” Kaeleron whispered. “End him.”
I stared at him, shock sweeping through me at that cold glimmer in his sharp eyes as he stared down at Braxton.
“If I die, they die!” Braxton snapped and tried to move.
Shadows slammed into his shoulders, pinning him to the ground beneath me.
Panic lit Braxton’s wide eyes as he violently shook his head. “They’ll die. You can’t kill me. You need me alive.”
Kaeleron slowly canted his head, his dark lips curving into a vicious smile and his tone as cold as ice as he murmured, “It does not matter if you are dead or alive, you will speak and tell us where they are. In fact, it is easier if you are dead.”
I was lost.
It was easier if Braxton was dead?
My eyes widened as it hit me.
The court necromancers.
Kaeleron used them to question the dead.
Kaeleron slid his hand along mine and pressed my dagger into my palm.
He closed my fingers over it and looked into my eyes, and I drew down a deep breath as I stared into his, as I drowned in the tidal wave of pain that surged through me, a blend of grief and rage.
I slid my gaze to Braxton.
“You deserve this and far worse for the things you’ve done.” The words leaked from me, distant to my ears as his eyes grew wild.
His lips parted.
I silenced whatever plea wanted to leave them.
Plunging my blade deep into his heart.
I forced myself to look at him as he choked, as his great sobbing gasps for air rattled in my ears, denying the weaker part of me that wanted to look away as his life bled from him to pool beneath my trembling hand where I still gripped the dagger.
I didn’t notice Morden leave.
I didn’t hear Kaeleron speaking to someone.
Didn’t hear what Malachi said in return, but I felt his eyes on me, felt that concerned glance he gave me before he turned away.
All I knew was Braxton as the light in his eyes faded.
All I knew was the crushing tightness in my chest as I wished it were Lucas lying there.
Dead.
Severing this faint bond I could still feel between us.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, Kaeleron by my side, his hand on my shoulder, the weight of it grounding me and comforting me.
I stared at Braxton.
It had been dreadfully easy to take his life.
Frighteningly so.
And when my blade had pierced his heart and the deed had been done, I had felt only the barest flicker of remorse.
I should have felt more.
“It will come in time.” Kaeleron’s voice was low, soft, and I realised I had said that aloud.
I wasn’t sure if I had meant guilt or pleasure as I stared at the dead beta.
Kaeleron palmed my shoulder and I slowly sank against him, what remained of my strength leaching from me as I grew cold. I pulled the blanket closed around me, huddling into it and trying to get warm.
He wrapped me in his arms, but still I stared at Braxton.
Waiting to feel something.
He was gone.
Part of my revenge was done.
But nothing had changed.
I still felt pain. I still hated him. Taking his life hadn’t changed the past or erased what he had done to me. It hadn’t changed a damned thing.
His alpha—my mate—was still out there. Everlee and Danica were still in danger. Nothing had changed.
No. Something had changed.
Lucas had taken more from me. Somehow, he had taken more. I glanced in the direction of my father, a hollow chasm opening inside my chest. He had taken more from me, and he would pay for it. I swore it to my ancestors. I was going to find him, and he was going to pay for what he had done.
A familiar scent swirled around me and I dragged my gaze from my father, forcing it up to the half-dressed male who came to a halt next to me.
Dark shadows circled Chase’s pale blue eyes that were as cold as ice as he looked down at Braxton, but the emotions in them shifted as he lifted them and stared across the span of churned up grass and dirt between us and my father, his hands fisted at his sides.
“Saphi,” he whispered as his solemn gaze shifted to me, his brow furrowing as he gently shook his head and his mouth flattened before he opened it again. “Saphi…”