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Then it stopped. The magic within me pushed the metal fragments from my shoulder and head, repairing me from the inside out. Soft thuds sounded as the bullets fell to the forest floor. The wounds closed. The darkness faded. My strength returned.
Mathis looked pale.
He should have known better than to rely on a pack of wolves and a gun. Fire and beheading were the only ways to kill me.
“That includes healing.” I grunted. “Fuck, you’re lucky I want to find Dannika because I’d drag this out even more for shooting me in the head.” His eyes widened. Hair sprouted along his arms.
Mathis’s eyes filled with fury. “Shade. Andreas, kill Markus now.”
I chuckled. One sideways glance at Shade and a single dip of my chin was all it took. He released Markus, who twisted and pulled Andreas into a headlock. Shade stepped back, lips firm in a grimace.
“What the—” Mathis panicked, his eyes darting between his second and third.
“Shade here has been working with me for almost a decade,” I said. The blade in my hand disintegrated in favor of a double-sided halberd, my preferred weapon of choice. “He saw the writing on the wall that you would be Fire and Fluorite’s ruin. We came to an agreement of sorts.” I twisted the halberd, and the metal sang as the dual blades cut through the air. “I got to remove your head when the time was right, and he got to put Fire and Fluorite back on track. Sounds like a win-win, am I right?”
Mathis let out a growl. “You son of a?—”
I conjured a throwing knife and hurled it at his left shoulder. The blade sunk into the skin, and he grunted, not finishing that sentence. “You don’t get to speak about my mother that way, or any other woman, for that matter.”
Shade lifted both eyebrows, seemingly surprised by that. I ignored him. We may not have been friends, but we were allies. His family had come from Blood and Beryl, after all. His father had been a murderer I’d put down. His mother and her children hadn’t been able to escape the man’s reputation, even though they’d been blameless. I’d worked with Scott’s father to have them transferred to Fire and Fluorite for a new start.
It had been all too easy to form a connection with Shade after Scott had been murdered. Especially when he’d known what Mathis had done to come into power.
“If you think my House will settle for this, you’re wrong.” Mathis growled threateningly under his breath the closer I came to him. “This will be a war that rivals the Great Sacrifice, and it will be your fault.”
I rolled my eyes, unbothered. “No. It won’t.”
“Fire and Fluorite will never know what happened here,” Shade said. “We’ll tell them you tried to launch an attack on Blood and Beryl, and you died at the border. Elias was never here. Upon realizing it was a lost cause, your warriors fled and were sadly slaughtered. Markus’s honor will be restored for fighting bravely. My son will corroborate our story, of course.” He tilted his head toward Andreas, then tipped his chin toward me in confirmation.
Andreas didn’t look pleased that his father had kept secrets from him, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“Markus—” Mathis began, changing tactics when he realized neither his second nor his third were going to step in.
Markus laughed, and it was bitter. “As far as I’m concerned, you weren’t murdered. You made a choice and killed yourself. Elias is just the hand finishing the job.”
While his words carried conviction, he still looked away from his father’s angry, red face. Like a victim conditioned to be submissive, his eyes lowered and shoulders slumped. I didn’t think he had it in him to kill his father, but that was okay. He didn’t have to. He’d played his part getting him here, and that was all I needed.
Mathis tried to shift. I whirled the halberd, and the blade struck true. His face froze in a grotesque state in between that of man and wolf. Fur covered him in patches. His nose was elongated, as were his teeth. His eyes were the same, always filled with hatred.
Blood slicked my blade, falling in droplets when the magic disintegrated.
A red line blossomed across his throat. Mathis’ head slid sideways.
His body fell a moment later.
Silence descended over the clearing. The last remainders of my blood rage slipped away. For so long, I’d wanted him dead. Now he was.
The reality wasn’t fulfilling for my revenge, but Danni’s safety meant everything to me. That Fire and Fluorite would no longer have a bounty on her life was a weight lifted from my shoulders. His death wouldn’t bring back my sister or her father, but it would prevent him from taking her too.
“Stay,” I commanded them. “I need to find Danni.”
“I can help—” Markus volunteered. His voice cut off with a single hard look. I may not have viewed him as a threat, but I didn’t like him near her. Especially when she was feeling vulnerable.
I turned for the forest and started running, following the paw prints. Whatever birds lived here had gone silent. Not a single creature scurried or chittered, likely terrified of what had taken place.
Dread soured in my gut as I took in the dead wolves. A leg here. A head there. A carcass chewed in half. Blood saturated the ground, leaving a copper tint in the air. Unappealing even to my kind. Like rotten fruit.
Deep growling indicated that I was getting close. Then I saw my mate. The harvest moon cast her eerie glow on the blinding white fur of a giant wolf.
