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And laugh.
The man had an imposing figure, but it grew even more so when he stood. The closest I had been to him was when he’d barged into my quarters, but somehow this was so much worse. My inner wolf could sense that here was a powerful and dangerous alpha not that far away from me, and he was exuding pheromones that screamed dominance.
But there was something else. There was a weight I hadn’t noticed before. and it wasn’t until his dark eyes, those eyes that looked so much like Kai’s, settled on me that I saw recognition flare in them.
“So, you finally found me out.”
Wait, was he…
Suddenly, a blast of gray smoke violently erupted out of King Nathaniel, sending all of us flying backward several feet. I instantly recognized the cold and cloying touch of the Shrouded Shriek, and I’d never wished so hard in my life that I’d been wrong.
I wasn’t, though, and when I scrambled to my feet, I saw the king had shifted into his alpha form, taking up much of the room, while the Shrouded Shriek hovered in the air above him. While the eldritch terror was diminished in a way, he still radiated danger.
We were in for a fight.
The queen and Amelia screamed, and I took a step toward them, but Darla and Felicity were already on it, grabbing the two women and yanking them toward the servants’ door through which we’d entered. The two royals certainly put up a lot of fight, no doubt confused, but both Felicity and Darla were clearly stronger than them.
I felt the shimmering tingle of Aodin’s glamour completely fall away as the fae retreated toward the far wall with a crossbow in his hand.
“So, you think you’ve done something here, little witch?” the Shrouded Shriek seethe;, his voice more audible than it’d ever been but also even more alien in nature. Gods, it made my skin crawl, and my stomach churned in ways that just weren’t natural. He really was an abomination in every sense of the word. A wicked curse parading around as a sentient being when really, he was a blight. An echo of what might’ve once been a man.
“What’s happening?” the queen cried again in near hysterics. I felt bad for her, I did, but I couldn’t spare her any more time. I had to concentrate fully on the Shriek, and it seemed like my enemy was in a talkative mood, because his voice kept filling the room.
It was strange that after so many years of knowing him as a faceless apparition, a Boogeyman that all feared and hoped they would never meet, the ancient figure was taunting me. It felt so banal in a way. All that power, all that wisdom, only to amount to playground bullying now that he was backed into a corner.
“Why did you curse me?” I demanded. If I was going to destroy the enemy that had been plaguing centuries of peoples, I wanted answers. “What’s the point of any of this?”
“My plans are too grand for your tiny mind. You think you’ve somehow bested me, but you have no idea all the strings I have within my grasp. My methods span—”
“It’s to eat,” Yvonne said, her hands already glowing with magic. I couldn’t sense what kind, but it crackled through the air. “Fucker’s been doing all of this because he’s hungry.”
I had no idea what she meant, but the Shriek surged toward her while the king lunged toward Kai, the alpha clearly ready to fight. I threw a shield in front of the enchantress when I felt Kai shift somewhere behind me, intercepting his father with a snarl. I wished I could help him, protect him, but I put my all into shoving my shield forward, sending the Shriek pinwheeling back.
“Do not pretend to understand me,” the Shriek hissed, slithering out from where I’d pinned him.
I rushed closer to Yvonne, figuring that we’d be stronger in proximity to each other. “What do you mean?” I hissed to her.
“I didn’t realize it until I had direct contact with his energy,” Yvonne said, her face grimmer than I’d ever seen. I was vaguely aware that there were sounds of battle far to our left, and realized it was the other members of our party holding back any guards who were trying to enter. I was immensely grateful I didn’t have to worry about any sudden intruders. “But now I get it.”
“Get what?” I hissed. I didn’t mean to be short, but we were on a time limit, as I had to throw up another shield while the Shriek sent another spell hurtling our way.
“His curse wasn’t just some ancient spell he concocted from that terrible, decrepit mind of his.” Yvonne threw a crystal toward the Shriek, freezing him in an explosion of giant, jagged formations, but soon they began to crack. It would only be seconds until it shattered. “After all these centuries, you really have nothing, do you? So many years of blood and you’re not even a shadow of the man you once were.
“Ayla, that curse… you know how it was so hard to circumvent because it had a voracious appetite and was feeding on the pain it caused around you?”
Oh, I was acutely aware.
“That’s because it was made out of a part of him.”
That was enough to shock me into dropping my shield. “What? Are you saying that a piece of him was inside me?”
At first, I felt shock, then revulsion, followed by a lot of things suddenly connected in my mind, like how I’d put together that he was inhabiting the king.
If Yvonne thought that the curse within me was a part of the Shrouded Shriek, and she was saying that the ancient being was doing this because he needed to feed…
He didn’t really have a physical form. His mouth was barely that, and as far as I could tell, he didn’t even have a tongue. I’d never so much as seen him drink.
But that was the thing: the Shriek was clearly alive, and in some abstract way, he was taking in sustenance.
