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“Valko, don’t.”
“Will you show him how to extract the sword?”
“You’re going to torture us more. Just let her go.”
She told me. She told me outright in the hot spring that she had to leave, that she couldn’t abandon her people. I thought my words and my love were enough to sway her. I was blinded, but it wouldn’t stop me.
“Lucien.”
“Valko,” he pressed. “I watched her go. I watched her embrace the man who came to rescue her. Even if she told me ’I’ll be back for you’, and left me another fucking mark in my ear, it doesn’t mean shit when she looked at him the way she’s been looking at us since we first touched her.”
I shook my head again. I couldn’t believe she had a lover. I wouldn’t. Not after we had…Not when… “She is our mate,” I said dully.
“She’s a fucking vampire!” he snarled, throwing himself forward on the sword, crying out in pain. “And we forgot.” He choked, more blood spilling from him. “Exactly like you said we would.”
“I have to try.”
Fillian’s numbness was affecting me. But she was out there. She could still be in the forest.
“Then try.” Lucien glared. “And return empty-handed, and we will wait to hear of the new Scarlet Queen, ready to continue Cordovan’s campaign to destroy the wolves, especially the ones who captured her.”
I growled, low and deep, trying to control the storm of emotions that were pounding me from every angle, all the while keeping the howling of my wolf at bay. “Look after Fillian.”
“Of course, alpha,” he snarled. “As you command.” He bowed his head, reminding me sharply of the vampire I had locked in the dungeon three weeks ago, the one who warned me of her father, compelled me, and came by my hand only days later.
I shifted, the burn a balm to my senses, helping me focus as I locked onto her scent.
“Don’t be disappointed when she rejects you again,” Lucien called after me as I leapt into the bushes.
I sped towards the Crimson Palace. My muscles already ached from the run back from the market, but I would ruin my body if it meant I could reach her in time.
I could smell horse, as well as five humans. Three had the familiar stench of the Vermillion Knights. There was no sweetness to them, unlike her, nothing that made me want to protect them, only rip them apart.
It was her scent I wanted.
As I ran, I drew a deep inhale of that beautiful apple tang that had tortured my nights, driven me wild with lust, and had me breaking open - all for her.
I was right to call her a witch; she had cursed us all.
I didn’t care if what Lucien said was true. They had stolen her from us, just as they had stolen the lives of my parents and siblings, and almost every other wolf I had known. And we had let her in, we had opened ourselves up to her, and she stole our hearts in the process.
I wouldn’t lose her this way.
The magic of the border tingled in my blood, setting my teeth on edge as I neared. I could already smell it. I knew exactly where her scent vanished.
She’d crossed over into the Obsidian Realms, and there was only one place she would go.
I burst onto the road, the same road that we had attacked her on three weeks ago. Where I had first drawn in her scent, calling to me like one of the sirens of the Cerulean Shores.
Only hers. Only ever hers.
And she was gone.
I stood at the border, panting, glaring at the red spires of the Crimson Palace, just visible in the weak light of the dark night of my homeland.
I couldn’t contain the ache that tore into me, that was pulsing soundly through my pack. I eased my shoulders, tilted back my head, and let my wolf loose.
One low, mournful howl ripped through me, digging up my deepest heartbreak, singing of my loss and betrayal. It echoed through my chest, sounding out into the dull night encased around me. The only sound for miles around, calling for her, seeking her, demanding she return to us.
