AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m beat, Daph.” I flopped onto her bed. “Tell me about him. We barely got to talk after the ball.”
So Daphne did. I heckled her about her crush, and she indulged me by telling me about every single flirty exchange the two had since she’s come to the realm. I kept teasing until my eyelids refused to stay open and my lips moved with no sound coming out. Daphne settled in next to me, pulling the covers over us.
I couldn’t bring myself to admit the true reason I didn’t want to sleep.
What if I saw Cole in my dreams?
What if I didn’t?
But when I slept, I couldn’t find him, no matter how my soul searched. Instead, my dreams were filled with fire.
Chapter III
For most of mylife, my sleep either went two ways—either it was empty, and there was only darkness until I awoke, or Cole was there. He’d found me—or as he claimed, I’d found him—when I was just a kid, passed out after the Alpha Clique had stuffed me in a locker. From then on, he’d been the one constant I had, the one person I could confide in without fear of seeming weak. I hadn’t realized he was an actual person, of course. He hadn’t even shown himself, cloaking himself in every dream after the first time I’d surprised him, as a muffled voice that teased me when my spirits were low and comforted me when they were lower still.
Dying had muddied the connection, first making my dreams blank again, but then, I was able to seek Cole out in them—and vice versa—with much greater ease.
That night, I slept with another purpose. I was afraid to find him, hadn’t wanted to fall asleep, but as I did, I couldn’t stop my soul from reaching out for his.
Instead, all I found was pain.
My body was alight with it. The world was dark, dark, dark, and then there would be a flash of red flame, so bright my eyes nearly burned, the heat searing me. Then darkness again.
“Cole?” I tried to call out. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”
A fresh waveof torment hit me. I sank to my knees and screamed.
“Cole?” I called again. “Cole!”
But no matter how many hours I spent calling out, pleading, there were only three things.
Pain.
Darkness.
Fire.
I’d been on themove for hours, my paws devouring the ground in front of me as I moved away from the capital.
“Those who have the potential to rule the realm, and only those, can find the mantle’s resting place and claim it as their own,” she’d explained when she met me in the morning, as promised.“You must find it by feeling the pull within and let it guide you. Just as you did so once before.”
My dreams had not been restful, and I’d set out only minutes after she’d given instructions. It was a journey I had to make on my own. At first, my movements had been uncertain. I didn’t immediately feel the pull Hecate described, my thoughts still wrecked by the nightmares of last night.
Or what I hoped was a nightmare.
It had felt only right to take my second skin. Once, turning into a wolf had been an impossible task. I’d nearly collapsed from the effort anytime I tried in the pack. But ever since I’d died, it felt easy. Like a missing piece had slotted into place. It was the first time I’d shifted since Phaidros’ deal had trapped me as a wolf. Then, the three days had frustrated me.
Now, it was as if for the first time since Cole had left I could breathe. My wolf had the clarity I lacked. Her senses were sharper, less muddled by the torment and grief that threatened to drown me. She had one mission: Find the mantle. And nothing would stop her.
“I cannot promise you an easy quest, only that it will not be too far,”Hecate had said. “It’s never more than a day’s journey, for the realm never knows when it will need a new leader.”
An easy journey? No. But when the Scorpio demon attacked me as I followed the path I could only sense, I hadn’t minded venting my frustrations. My wolf couldn’t wield the magic I could in my human shape, but she had no issues sinking her teeth through the thick exoskeleton.
The Aries demon that had attacked from above when I’d paused to rest for a moment had met a similar fate. Its curved horns tried to ram into me. Instead, I’d split its throat wide and nearly sipped its blood for spite.
My wolf was focused, but perhaps more than asmidgeunbalanced with the absence of the one male she cared about.
On and on, miles disappeared beneath my run. What had started as a small thread I struggled to grasp and follow had turned into a chain, reeling me closer. I wasn’t sure I could’ve stopped if I wanted to.
