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I pressed my salt-stained lips together as more tears spilled down my cheeks. “I love you, too.”
“You can’t be serious,” Sawyn hissed, snapping her fingers. “Disgusting.”
Grae flew across the room and I screamed as he hit the grate, stopping inches from falling into the open drain.
“You two would erase the Wolf way of life if you could,” she sneered. “You spit on your ancestors’ graves with these human words. ButIwill make it better. My reign will be magnificent.” She turned over her hands one more time, straightening her emerald ring. “Unfortunately, you won’t live long enough to see it.”
“You don’t have to do this, Sawyn.” I yanked against my chains. “This is your last chance.”
“Your spirit is admirable,girl. Most entertaining.” Sawyn huffed. She cut a glance at the gurgling drain. “But I have celebrations to attend, a victory to claim. Goodbye, niece—may our ancestors shun you in the afterlife.”
She vanished, leaving sparks of dark magic in her wake. A swirling rumble echoed up the black pit in the corner. Grae scuttled away from the hole, watching in rapt terror.
“What in the Moon’s name is that?” But we didn’t have time for an answer before a black tentacle slithered up from the abyss.
“That can’t be.” I watched in horror as another obsidian tentacle snaked up from the pit, probing the wet stones, searching for its prey.
“An ostekke.” Grae’s eyes darted around the room, looking for a weapon.
“I thought they were all dead,” I hissed, gaping as a third tentacle suctioned to the wall.
The tip of the slimy limb reached Grae’s bare foot, and he drove his heel down, stomping on it. A keening wail split the rotten air as black water burbled up the pit and sloshed over the edges. The ostekkewithdrew only an inch and then shot forward, grabbing Grae around the forearm and yanking him off his feet.
I screamed as he crashed into the slippery stone, his free arm barely catching him before his face hit the floor. Grae frantically clawed and punched the corded limb, but the monster wouldn’t release him. The ostekke pulled again, yanking its victim toward the hole and a watery death in the lake below. I thrashed the skin of my wrists raw, the stinging adding to the pain in my shoulder joints, but to no effect.
“Grae!” The soles of my feet slipped on the cold stone, trying to reach my mate.
My scream seemed to split the ostekke’s attention. Its second tentacle shot out toward me, slithering around my shoulder. Its grip was so tight, suckers pulling painfully on my skin. In desperation, I twisted my head and sunk my teeth into the slimy flesh. Hot goo burst into my mouth and I gagged as the foul mucus coated my tongue.
The creature shrieked, recoiling so rapidly its tentacle ripped through the chains. My arm dropped and my body lurched forward, hanging from my one tethered arm. The pain shot through me, calling forward my Wolf, and with one blinding jolt I shifted, my forearm slipping free of its shackle as I dropped onto four paws.
Grae groaned, lifting a hand to clutch his head as the beast released him. Relief flooded through me, and as his eyes landed on me, he shifted, too, his Wolf being beckoned by my own.
His paws scrambled toward me when another unearthly wail burbled from the pit. Five limbs emerged, shooting wildly across the room, tearing stone from the walls and twisting the iron door.
Grae ducked under the thick, flailing limbs as one wrapped around my barrel chest. My paws slid across the slick floor but I was held in place by the beast. A snarl escaped my maw as I twisted to and fro. The air whooshed out of me—my howl dying on my lips—as the muscled tentacle constricted. My ribs stabbed with pain under the crushing weight.
Grae raced over, biting into the limb around my chest, tearing into it with his teeth. Yellow mucus rained down through my fur, but one tentacle was instantly replaced by another. No matter how Grae attacked, the beast wouldn’t release me.
We worked in unison, twisting and snapping, biting and shredding. Something in the way we growled and attacked felt primal, ancient—the same way my ancestors battled these monsters centuries ago. But my ancestors battled the ostekke as a pack, and Grae and I were only two. Another tentacle lashed out and wrapped around my center again and I yelped. How many fucking tentacles did an ostekke have?
“Hang on!” Grae shouted into my mind, whirling toward the warped and twisted iron door. He leapt over one tentacle and ducked under another, lying belly down on the ground to crawl under the gap in the gnarled door. His human form would’ve never made it, but his Wolf squeezed through.
I tried to swallow and winced. It felt like a blade being dragged down the back of my throat.
The ostekke pulled, but I had no air to yowl. Another tentacle wrapped around my front leg and yanked so hard I was certain my leg was about to pop out of its socket. Grae reemerged with the torch clenched between his snarling teeth, leaping over to me and holding the flame to the beast’s mucus-covered skin. One tentacle retracted, only to instantly be replaced by another around my neck. I felt the blood vessels bursting in my eyes as I choked, desperately trying to get a purchase on the slippery floor.
As Grae moved to burn it again, he was knocked to the ground, a flailing limb sweeping out his feet. My eyes spotted, even in this form I could barely hang on to consciousness against the brutal, unending wrath of the ostekke. The monster grabbed Grae by one front paw and one back, yanking in opposite directions until his screams stabbed through me.
A muffled shout came from the end of the hall as four Rooks appeared beyond the door. One booted down the twisted iron grate as another charged into the fray, holding aloft an unlit lantern. Swinging, they smashed it against the wall, oil dripping onto the wet stone. They threw it into the pit while another Rook grabbed the discarded torch and lit the oil. The flame trailed down toward the abyss, and then—
The room erupted, fire shooting in a scorching beam upwards, singing my fur. The tentacle around my neck released and I turned my face from the white-hot blaze. A sickening squeaking and popping filled the putrid air as the flames turned from white to red. With a final flash, the bright light faded back to darkness.
My limbs finally freed, I collapsed to the ground, my head lolling onto the boots of the nearest Rook. I looked up into those hazel eyes, instantly recognizing them.
“Calla?” Ora asked, cocking their head at me.
I whined, my tail thumping on the stone as Ora surveyed my Wolf form with an appreciative smile. My chest rose and fell, my mouth open and panting from the exhaustion of battle.
