Chapter 33
SAPHIRA
Ihated this place.
The barn in the centre of the green seemed to mock me as I stood on the grass amidst fragments of broken furniture, feeling as shattered as they were and just as scattered.
My breaths came faster, my heart beating quicker as I stared at that barn and images flickered across my mind, a stilted and broken replay of bodies, of weeping mates, of claws and tearing fangs, and fur flying.
Blood spraying.
Power brushed against my back, darkness that comforted rather than terrified.
I absorbed the tender caress of shadows against my limbs, how they gently wrapped around my legs, blending with my black leathers.
I listened to Kaeleron and Chase as they discussed how this investigation would play out, feeling as if I should be part of the conversation, but unable to pull myself away from this spot.
I was drifting away.
Away from this cursed land that had taken so much from me.
Away from the lingering scent of blood I swore held a familiar note.
I felt I would drift forever, until this place was nothing more than a speck in the infinite darkness that had devoured me—darkness where I curled in on myself, holding my knees to my chest, afraid to face the things that lurked in it.
A strong hand came to rest against the small of my back.
His power curled around me in a tender embrace, drawing me back to this world as the darkness exploded, shattering to dust before it drifted away instead of me.
“Saphira,” he murmured, his voice pitched low, concern ringing in it.
I sucked down an unsteady breath, blew it out and dragged my gaze from the barn.
“I’m fine.” I forced a smile as I looked up at Kaeleron where he towered beside me, his silver eyes worried.
“Do not lie to me, my little wolf.” His tone was dangerously soft and calm, the gentlest demand I had ever heard. “Never hide your feelings from me.”
I sighed, my shoulders heaving with it.
“I hate it here. Better?” I looked around at the small town that formed the heart of the Hunt Pack territory and shook my head, a whirlwind of emotions sweeping me up in them as I remembered all the times I had been here and how I had felt, and how it had all ended.
“I thought my future would be here. Instead, I was rejected, humiliated, and sold… My pack were treated like hostages. My friend turned against me. My best friend stolen from me. My parents murdered.”
He placed his hands on my upper arms, turning me away from the buildings so I was facing him instead. Inky black branched from eyes that were brighter than I had ever seen them, like twin pools of moonlight as he stared down at me, the sculpted planes of his face set in hard lines.
I waited for him to tell me he was taking me back to the Shadow Court.
Tearing me from this place I felt I needed to be, because I was being weak, and I needed protecting.
He surprised me by saying, “He will pay for everything he did to you, for everything he took from you. He will pay for it when you next face him, when you exact your vengeance upon him, and beyond it. I swear it to you, Saphi. He will suffer for what he has done. An eternity for every drop of pain he inflicted upon you.”
His vow roused my wolf side, bringing it to the fore as I listened to him and those words felt as if they were being etched on my soul—a promise I knew he would keep.
A vengeance I wanted to carry out.
That was the reason I was here. Not to grieve over what I had lost, or rage over what had been done to me.
I was here for vengeance, and to save my friends.
For those two things, I could bear it. I could bear the oily, venomous touch of this place that felt as if it was burning away my flesh to reach my soul so it could sear that away too, scorching it until my strength was ashes in my chest and I sank into that dark void inside myself.
“Focus on your vengeance, on your friends. Find strength in it, and in my promise that he will suffer. I will not have it any other way,” Kaeleron growled, crimson ringing his pupils.
I lifted my hands and framed his face, canting my head as I gazed up at him. My dark fae king. Shadows made flesh. Wrath incarnate. A blade forged from an iron will, tempered by a desire to protect at all costs and sharpened by his past.
“You’re beautiful when you’re wrathful.”
Those words were steady and a little bold as they left my lips.
I stood before him, wanting him to see that I wasn’t afraid of the darkness he exuded or how his power wrapped around me, buffeting me as I kept my gaze on his, memorising how he looked as he plotted my revenge for me and supported me rather than coddled me.
He chuckled, and even that sounded dark and malevolent—a promise of death.
“Come, my wrathful wolf. The quicker we find that foolish wolf and carry out this investigation, the quicker I can obey this violent need to sweep you back to the Shadow Court.” He dropped his right hand to my back, turning me from the green, towards a place I really didn’t want to go.
I stared along the road to the wooden building.
Dread pooling within me.
Morden would be there. I was sure of it.
Morden who had somehow convinced Malachi to teleport him here ahead of the rest of us, having grown too impatient to remain in the Shadow Court any longer.
Kaeleron had had stern words to say to his spymaster about what he had done, and I would have just as stern words for Morden when we found him. We had agreed we would go together.
I had arrived at the pack camp with Kaeleron only twenty minutes after he had left, finding a very annoyed Chase who had hurried to explain what had happened. Kaeleron had been quick to snag his arm and teleport us all, and I knew why he hadn’t wanted to lose a second.
With fae hunting me—fae who knew this place—it was dangerous to come here without him as backup. Even for Morden. Even for Malachi.
“I must admit—as far as castles go, it is rather lacking. One might say you have traded up. Did I say that right?” Kaeleron glanced at me as we walked, his hand still against my back, his touch light but comforting.
Not controlling.
He didn’t place his hand there to steer or make me do his bidding, a show of force and dominance I had seen other males do in my time here and in the Shadow Court.
It was done to keep in contact with me, a constant reminder that he was with me every step of the way.
I wanted a different kind of contact though. A stronger one.
I glanced down at his other hand and he moved away from me slightly, enough that his hand fell from my back and came to claim mine. His hand was far larger than my own, but they fit together so perfectly as his fingers linked with mine, as if they had been made for each other.
“You said it right.” I looked at Lucas’s home—what should have been my home—and felt only relief that it had never happened.
Fate had been cruel to me, but it had also been kind.
It had shown me that no matter what happened to me, I was strong and would rise from the ashes, reborn from them and reforged by the fire into someone stronger still.
Or perhaps I had Kaeleron to thank for that.
His thumb grazed mine. “Speak.”
He issued that command without looking at me, his darkening silver eyes fixed on the wooden house as we neared it.
“I love… your castle.” I smiled wickedly when his gaze shot to meet mine, a beautifully startled look in it, and then narrowed in displeasure. “It has everything a girl needs. Big bed. Hot bath. Mountains of bacon.”
“Handsome king,” he added.
I pulled a face, scrunching my lips up and wriggling them. “Egotistical king.”
“Handsome,” he countered. “Or perhaps, beautiful.”
“I’m never living that one down, am I?” I rolled my eyes.
“Never. I shall remind you of it every day for the rest of eternity.” He squeezed my hand and I stopped, forcing him to stop too. He glanced back at me, confusion written in every line of his stupidly beautiful face.
“Eternity?” I whispered.
I know I had teased him, but this was too much. He couldn’t just throw words like eternity around, making me believe he really did have plans for us, that he was being serious every time he talked about a future with me. Calling me a queen. Making me a throne.
Spending eternity with me.
“Oh, my little wolf,” he purred as he rounded on me, moving like a predator as he eyed me like prey, the corners of his lips tilting in a wicked smile that warmed me down to my soul.
“You did not think you would escape me one day? Did I not tell you that you are mine? Did you believe them to be idle words, spoken by an inconstant heart?”
His right hand claimed my jaw, his fingers pressing into the side of my neck as his thumb pushed my chin up, forcing my eyes to meet his as he came to tower before me.
“I wasn’t sure… I wasn’t sure what to think,” I whispered, ashamed to admit that.
“Another reason the alpha will suffer.” He lowered his face towards mine, filling the whole of my view. “Know this, Saphira Harper. You are mine. Mine to protect. Mine to cherish. Mine to—Mine forever. I am never letting you go.”
A chill skated down my spine.
Mine to love.
The words he wouldn’t say. The words neither of us seemed able to voice.
I hadn’t meant to tease him earlier. It struck me that I had wanted to tell him that I loved him, and I had lost my nerve, because I had been afraid to be the first to say them.
“Kael,” I started.
“I got something!” Morden stormed out of the house, jogging down the steps from the porch and his eyes widened as they landed on us, a flicker of fear surfacing in them as Kaeleron glowered at him.
He was in deep shit, but that didn’t matter right now.
“What is it?” I snapped, just as impatient as he had been when he had made Malachi bring him here early.
He jogged over to us, waving some kind of file.
I snatched it from him the moment he was close enough, flipping the tan file open and scanning the documents inside it. Impatience gnawed at me as I read a second and then a third. “There’s nothing here.”
Morden snatched it back from me, flicked through the pages and moved one to the top, and then turned the stack of papers back towards me and slapped his index finger down on what he had found, pointing at it. “There.”
An image of a beautiful sandstone mansion.
Blood rushed in my ears.
“It seems the alpha wolf has traded up too.” Kaeleron’s deep voice curled around me, comforting but not enough to keep polar emotions from colliding within me, forming a tempest that had my head spinning with a thousand thoughts.
Had we found him?
Had we found them?
My hands shook as I picked up the piece of paper and read it, my heart galloping and hope soaring. And then plummeting.
“There’s no address.” I looked at Morden as Chase and Malachi joined us, my cousin peering over my shoulder at what I held. “Is this it? Isn’t there any other papers? There has to be something more. There has to be.”
“This is all I could find. I’ll keep looking.” Morden looked back at the house, the excitement that had been in his voice gone, replaced by a defeated look as he said, “There wasn’t much else in there and his laptop has a password.”
“I’m sorry. I just… I want to find them. This is good, I think?” I wasn’t sure.
“It is good.” Kaeleron took the piece of paper from me. “Malachi.”
The big demon nodded, took it from him, and disappeared into a hole that opened up in the ground, teleporting away from us.
“What’s he going to do with that?” Morden snapped and lunged at Kaeleron, as if Mal intended to destroy our one lead or something equally as terrible.
I stepped in his path, pressing my hands to his chest through his dark flannel shirt. “Calm down, Morden. I know you want to find your sister, but you need to calm down. Take a breath.”
His heart rocketed beneath my palms. His breaths coming too fast.
His grey eyes glowed with his wolf side as he stared Kaeleron down, ignoring me.
“Braxton mentioned the mansion is near Vancouver. Malachi will use the image you found to identify the alpha’s location, and hopefully the location of your sister and friend.
” Kaeleron looked from Morden to me as my friend relaxed a notch and stepped back, some of the tension fading from his shoulders.
I lowered my hands to my sides and stepped aside, forming a circle with Chase, Morden, and Kaeleron as he said, “It seemed the most appropriate course of action.”
“It was. Thank you.” I touched his arm, the hope that had deflated just seconds ago filling me up again.
“Morden, come with me. A few of the Hunt wolves who helped us were feeling chatty when I was just with them. We might be able to get more out of them. Maybe some clues the demon can use.” Chase strode away from us and Morden followed, leaving me alone with Kaeleron again.
“Would you like to look around in case the incompetent wolf missed something?” Kaeleron drawled, his gaze hot on the side of my face.
I scowled at him. “His name is Morden, and he’s… well… sometimes he’s a little emotionally incompetent. Or at least emotionally constipated. But then I know someone else like that too.”
He pursed his lips. “Chase?”
I smiled and shook my head, and then it faltered when I dared to glance at the house. I remembered what Kaeleron had told me. No lying. Not to him.
I was tired. I was done. I didn’t want to be here any longer.
I met his gaze.
“Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Right now, I just want to go home.”
He gestured to the house that should have been my home. I scowled and boxed his arm.
“Home, home,” I said.
Which only made him look more puzzled, or he was acting a role again—drawing out words he wanted to hear—ones I gave him easily.
I slipped my hand back into his and met his curious but hopeful gaze.
“Take me home to Falkyr.”