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The trees beginto thin as we near the forest’s edge. Cherno sleeps in one of the saddlebags, hiding from the sun that weakens them. Our return to Nightwich has come far too soon for my liking.
I don’t know if I’m ready. But we don’t have the luxury of time. Alaric and I ride Nyx, while a small group of reinforcements travel beside us in wolf form.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say. Though my entire plan depends on his willing participation, I do not want to use him… and that is exactly what this feels like. “We can think of some other way.”
After the meeting, I went straight to see Alaric and filled him in on everything. And I have been trying to talk him out of it since he agreed to go along with it.
Alaric leans forward in the saddle, his chest is warm against my back. The hand resting at my hip slides across my stomach, fingers splaying, pressing me tighter against his body.
“You said yourself, there is not enough time to come up with anything else. And if Elizabeth is the one who cursed me, then only she can remove it.” When he speaks, his lips brush the shell of my ear. The heat of his breath reminds me of how it felt on other sensitive places of mine.
He is trying to distract me. And it is nearly working.
Several yards ahead, Oliver comes to a stop and shifts into human form, then the rest of the pack follows suit. Alaric dismounts, then hands me down.
I cling to him, soaking up as much comfort from his firm grip as I can. “I will come back for you. I promise,” I say. “Get her to break the curse—whatever it takes.”
Adalynd pulls something from a bag strapped across her shoulders, and hands it to Hunt, then reaches in for another.
They each hold a round, clear glass bottle wrapped in gilded filigree with an atomizer pump filled with a cobalt blue liquid. They go around spraying each pack member before coming over to us.
Adalynd lifts her hands, ready to spray, and pauses. “It’s exactly what it looks like,” she says. Then narrows her eyes at Alaric and adds, “Nothing more than a simple perfume I found in a human market, but it will disguise our scent.”
Between the two betas, they have Alaric and me, and even Nyx sprayed in no time. I inhale, wanting to identify anything about the perfume that could explain how it could keep vampires from recognizing the wolves through scent. It’s slightly floral and woodsy with a smoky incense underneath. The fragrance is faint, especially considering the amount used.
There must be something my human nose can’t pick up that is the source of its magic. Despite what Adalynd claimed, I doubt it is something so simple.
The wolves break off into three groups. One to the north, another to the south, the last remains here—they will follow us at a distance.
For a few minutes, we are alone. This feels like a moment for no longer holding back the things I have been wanting to say. For last confessions. For all those words that people always wish they said before it was too late.
But I don’t say any of them. Doing so would seem too much like surrendering before the fight even began.
Alaric leans over and kisses my forehead, then holds out his hands for me to tie. My efforts at binding him are halfhearted until he lightly chastises me for making them too loose. When I’m done, I check to ensure they don’t chafe his wrists.
I look up and meet his gaze. His expression is hard, and there are shadows in his eyes. Deep down, Alaric is still the man I’ve known him to be. It’s in the way he moves, thinks, acts…
As much as I want to believe he is wholly loyal to me, that there is no question in his mind that everything I told him is the truth—deep down I am afraid the curse has too tight a hold on him. That once he is with Elizabeth again, she will make him believe he is the hollow version of himself that she crafted… and I am terrified that the night we spent together was nothing more than a dream.
“You look uncharacteristically frightened,” he says.
I release a shuddering breath and nod. “I wish I could say I wasn’t.” He arches a thick, dark brow in question. “I’ve asked a lot of you recently.”
“I told you—”
“Not just this plan,” I say. “Everything. Who we were—are to each other, our oath bond, the curse….” My words trail off.
Oliver clears his throat. He nods to me from several yards away, signaling that it’s time. There’s only a short window of opportunity. Alaric and I need to be out in the open while there is still plenty of daylight to make sure the guard sees us, but not so much that we’d be waiting long enough for Elizabeth to question why he hasn’t tried to escape.
“It’s a lot to ask you to believe,” I add quietly, hating that the fears and doubts I have about him are stark, even without voicing each one.
“It is,” he says. The admission is slow and measured. “Yet I cannot deny the evidence, and the longer I thought about it, the more everything supported what you said, and Elizabeth’s claims fell apart under the weight of it.”
The best I can do is offer a weak smile. I reach into a saddlebag for a borrowed dagger. With the weapon in one hand, I grab the tail of rope with the other, then lead him forward.
I pause when we are beside Oliver. “No matter what, stay out of sight unless I signal. We are not here to fight.”
He still looks displeased but doesn’t argue.
