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The house rose quickly in front of me as I ran full-pelt, the wide building hidden by a bend in the mountains until suddenly it was there, and gravel crunched under my paws. I'd slammed the front door into shreds begotten I processed being inside.
Don’t leave me, Wane. Please, I’m begging you, stay with me.
I sucked in a long breath, faltering in the foyer for a moment. Memories tried to form—tears and hugs and gunpowder, screams, and blood, always blood—but the beast's mind was taking over, and all I could focus on was the smells coming from deeper in the house. Brimstone, piss, and iron—torture.
Where is my brother?
I scanned the hallways as I raced out of the foyer, but the house was empty. No hoards of followers or minions, no monsters, gods, or titans. Why is it abandoned?
A trap,my primitive brain warned, and I feared it was right.
But Wane could be here, my brother could be so close, so I followed my nose, leaving the trampled door behind and skidding down long corridors until I barrelled into another door. This one didn't shatter; it took three slams before it swung off its hinges.
At the sight of a staircase that led down, I froze.
Shut your fucking mouth, or I'll kill your brother. Just shut up and take it. Or do you want me to get your father?
I shook the voice free, a vicious snarl curling my lips back from my teeth. I couldn't escape the memories. I didn't want to go down there, didn't want to enter another basement. The last one…
The tunnels were bad, but at least they didn't remind me of whattheydid to me. My own father and his black-hearted brother. Twenty years I lived down there, with only Wane for strength.
Wane, who was at the bottom of these stairs, where the scent of blood and excrement was thickest. He had to be here. Even the beast knew that.
I trembled, but I swallowed in the whine that formed, and forged on down the stairs before my courage could escape.
My whole body quivered, air barely filling my lungs before it was forced out, my fur standing on end. I flinched when the wall brushed my side, spinning with a bestial snarl—but it wasn't a threat. Wasn't a threat.
My mate was coming. She wouldn't let anyone hurt me again.
Buttercup? It's Haley. I'm here, you're safe now.
She'd always kept me safe. So I plunged deeper into the basement and—realised it wasn't a basement at all. Not the way I knew it: a single room with two beds, a bucket, and misery sunk into the walls. Below the house was an endless dark corridor, so black even my beast's vision struggled to pick out the shapes of doors and bars on either side of the corridor. Some were rooms. Some were cells.
Had Wane been locked in a cell like I had, all this time?
I took a tentative step, and when I wasn’t attacked by shields, I took another. The scent of blood was stronger here, cloying in my lungs until I tasted it with every breath. I prayed Wane wasn't here in this place that stank of death.
The corridor went on for miles, stretching ahead for an eternity. I lost track of time and the only thing keeping me going was knowing the house was too far behind to offer an escape.
I didn’t hear a single sound, didn’t smell anything but torture and death—until I did.
My steps slowed, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard my fur rippled. I made a low, questioning sound, my beast struggling to form his name. I shook harder, and if this firm had been able to sob I would have broken down.
Movement scuffed the ground at the end of the corridor. Someone was alive down here. I picked up my steps, hoping it was someone else, praying it was Wane—
I froze when another scent wound through the blood and piss and worse things down here. A scent I knew. Sharp, nighttime air and rich woods, but faint, buried under so much filth and pain.
My knees buckled, but Haley’s voice had me straightening, urging me to be strong, to not give up now. Wane needed me. Oh gods, he needed me.
This door collapsed when I threw my shoulder into it, and then he was there, folded up in the corner exactly like I remembered but—blood crusted his hair to his face, and his horns were snapped off and his wings—
Where were his wings?
Worse—where were hisshadows?Only a few flickered to his defence when I stumbled into the room with a whimper.
His head lifted, his expression dead but those eyes,myeyes … rage burned within them, limitless and dark. And from one look, I knew he didn't recognise me.
Had he forgotten me, like I forgot Halwen for a hundred years?
