Jessamine
Kier’s ‘signal’ was shifting.
I’d thought fifteen men, who were nearly as skilled with their weapons as I was, closing in on us was scary, but fear had been watching Kier rip out of his clothes and transforming into something brought straight out of nightmares. A red wolf, taller than any of the gathered men, more menacing, much, more terrifying. Demonic, is what he is. Hauntingly beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, both in fear and awe, and I completely forgot what the plan had been.
To run.
He leaps, and Darrock seems just as frightened as I am, staggering back and falling to avoid getting shredded into pieces like the male, whose head is currently in Kier—Zephyr’s mouth.
“Jessamine!” Randale snaps as he surges forward, snapping the neck of another who blocks his path. He discards the body like a weightless, empty sack. “You can eye-fuck him later. There are more coming from that direction!” He nods towards the dense expanse of the forest east of us, and even if I can’t see anyone, I know better than to question his instincts.
A man lunges for me with bare hands large enough to crush me, but before he can get within five feet of me, he is snatched by maws too large, blood spraying everywhere. Merciless, unforgiving. Those are the only words I can think of as Kier tears him apart. Literally.
I stagger to my feet, looking around, but the men seem more occupied with trying to subdue Kier at the moment, and from the looks of it, I’ll only be a liability if I tried to help. So, I help Randale pick up Darrock and I nearly stumble under his weight. Randale groans, his discomfort glaring as he adjusts us, bearing Darrock’s full weight. “Care to carry yourself? You’re heavy as fuck.”
Darrock hisses in pain and annoyance as Randale lifts him, wedging his shoulder underneath the former’s arm. “Why should I? I have you twits to do it.”
Twits? I think, but my thoughts are cut short when a dark figure appears out of nowhere, charging for us. Getting out from under Darrock’s arm, I push my sword forward on pure instinct, and I’m surprised at how easy it is to run him through; how easy it is to…kill. My fingers tremble as blood pools and Randale’s grunt snaps me out of the numbing feeling curving up my legs. I take out the sword and step over his body with great difficulty.
I spare a glance back and Kier…he’s fine. Watching him kill is both entrancing and nauseating. It is as effortless as watching him take a breath. There is no hesitation—there is only death. He breathes it, gifts it with artful precision. Perks, he’d said, and now, I truly understand it.
“Is it really okay to just…leave him behind if there are more on the way?” I ask as we run down a cut path I don’t recognize, Darrock’s muffled groans mingling with our pants. His words are starting to slur and I don’t think he’s lost enough blood to be lightheaded, yet. Speaking of which…My gaze shifts from his wound to the surface cuts on Randale’s cheeks. They haven’t healed.
I halt, eyes wide.
“We do not have time for last minute epiphanies, princess,” Randale growls impatiently, shifting Darrock’s weight and it says enough. He knows that the blades have been poisoned with wolfsbane.
“One deep cut and he’ll shift back and be helpless!” I yell, my eyes stinging. “What is wrong with you people? How are you comfortable with leaving your friends behind in precarious states, just because they say they’ll be fine? How can you do this again, especially after what’s happened with Lloyd?”
Randale’s black pupils widen. “I’ve known Kier for longer than you have—”
“—I seriously doubt that—”
“—and I’ve fought alongside him to protect our pack and kingdom. I am not abandoning my Alpha. If you must know, leaving him behind, letting him forge ahead to secure our safety is the most difficult decision any Beta could possibly make—”
I hedge on, my anger and hysteria rising with every passing second. “This is different! Should something happen, we wouldn’t even know! I wouldn’t feel his pain because the wolfsbane dulls the connection he has with me. You! He’d truly be alone, unable to reach for help—not that he would because he believes he alone has to fix everything every damn time! And just because you haven’t found his limits doesn’t make him invincible!”
A muscle jumps in Randale’s jaw, but I see the uncertainty in his eyes. I don’t wait for him to decide that for once, the little girl who used to run about the castle causing nuisance after nuisance could be right for once. I turn on my heel, throwing over my shoulder, “Take care of Darrock. I’ll kill you if he dies on your watch. I’ll go get my mate.”
*************
Kier
Fucking Asher, I think through the pain, limping forward and reaching out to hurl myself in front of the oak. My blood smears the deep, rotting brown and I hold my breath, waiting. Praying.
There had been too many, and getting a severe, unhealing cut in the ridge of my shoulder doesn’t help.
I’d give Asher the credit, thinking ahead of himself and sending an entire horde after me. He knew it’d take more than a few men to take me out. I’d been pushing, forcing his hand, taking drastic steps to force him out of the council. Before heading to check on Lloyd, I’d called upon the priestess, not so subtly, to fix a date for Jessamine’s coronation.
It had been bait.
And Asher took it. A challenge would have been a more ideal way to seize power from me, but if I could have easily been ousted by a few assassins, it’d still work. They’d blame it on the skirmishes and Atticus. I’d thought it through. I had expected an attack. An ambush. But this…this is fucking absurd.
I’d played the long game, and won. I’d have the perfect opportunity to execute Asher for committing treason and strip Moira of her station, banishing her from the pack. I’d won, but now, I just might die before I get the yield of all I’ve worked for.
Leaves rustle nearby and my muscles tense in preparation. Sweat trickles down my naked back as an axe comes to view first, and then a bloody, injured hand. A body surfaces a moment later and the male glances at the blood trailing west. Darrock’s blood.
I mean to kill him silently, but I am injured in too many places and my movements are sloppy. He yelps as I careen into him, calling attention to us, and my teeth clamp onto his shoulder before his can reach mine. It takes longer than usual, but he stops thrashing at some point, going limp under me.
But I barely have time for reprieve when something heavy smashes into the base of my spine, throwing me off the dead male, and the pain cripples me. I reach out blindly and when my fingers close around of a tuft of clothing, I pull down, hard. The fool’s surprised shout dies when my fingers close around his jaw and I rip it clean off.
“Restrain him!” another yells as I push yet another body off me, struggling against the pain in my spine to get up. My senses are nearly muted, but I can feel their fear as heavy as thick as the blood on my skin. None of them approach, even as they surround me, cornering me like the beast I am.
But a pained howl is unleashed from my lungs when both my ankles erupt. Roaring in outrage, I reach for the arrow that has been shot into my foot, only to have another hit my wrists in quick succession. I look up, snarling. They back away a step even if they have the weapons to kill me.
My blood chills and the world around me slows as more wolfsbane is released into my bloodstream. My vision darkens, but I forced my eyes to sharpen as I make a mental inventory of how many I might have to fight before I return to Jessamine.
Too many.
I may not make it back, but I know she’s safe, and I did something right for once. I lived up to my promises for once. I doubt she’d call me a coward or a fool now. I wonder if she’ll tell me again that she loves me when this is over. If I survive it, because fuck if I don’t want to. But the bane is doing its work and I’ve been hit too many times with the poison to still be conscious.
I am brought back to the present when a boot smacks into my jaw and I hear a crack in my head. I fall to my side and another boot slams into my rib.
A firm hand grips mine and I lash out, closing my teeth around his wrist. Panic darkens his brown eyes and he rams his fist into my face. Once, twice, thrice. Again and again with two words tumbling off his lips, “Get. Off!”
Eventually, perhaps, on the seventh blow, my grip loosens, my face now a structure of broken bones. My eyes feel too heavy to keep open, so I shut them as he lifts my hand and smears my blood on a parchment.
“Hey, Balor,” he calls out. “This is all?”
“You got it in the right place?”
The man snorts a reply, but not before jamming his foot into my stomach, calling me a resentful pig who deserved to die anyway. I laugh as I ponder upon it. Father used to say it all the time when he hit me. I’d always take mother’s side through each fight, confronting him. He’d seemed…surprised at first when I stormed into his study and told him I hated him. Sad, even, or my childish mind may have imagined that.
He wasn’t always a terrible father. It was why I couldn’t stand him. There were times in my younger years where he would slip into my room and tickle me until I was crying. He would read to me. Tuck me in at night when mother was away.
I don’t remember when it changed, but it began slowly. I couldn’t comprehend how he could just…become something unrecognizable, and I hated him.
Growing up was realizing it was all mother. Manipulating father. Manipulating me. I’d known, but it wouldn’t, couldn’t accept that. That she could turn him into that. Destroy him completely. It was her revenge, how his life had turned out, and because Aiden loved was obsessed with her, he never saw how every word she whispered in his ears in bed, every time she fucked someone younger was all purposeful. To drive him mad, and oh, did it work.
If there is any regret I have in her dying by Jessamine’s hands, it is that I never got to find out what her long game was. And if she ever…really did love me. Because even if I knew the truth and wouldn’t accept it, I couldn’t not care for her. I must be broken, somehow.
My mind drifts between consciousness and unconsciousness. I try to force it to stay aware and in those brief moments, I realize they’re talking about me. They’ve dispatched a few men to retrieve Randale, Darrock and Jessamine, and they are loitered about, waiting for their return. “…need to get rid of the Beta and the other one. Orders are to bring the girl back alive.”
“Feisty bitch. We’d need to roughen her up to make it believable that she killed him.”
Fucking Asher. I don’t move, keeping still as I force myself to listen to the rest of a plan I already had an inkling of.
“No,” a deeper voice responds. “Can’t touch her. She’s pregnant.”
“Don’t we all know it’s a lie?” It’s an entirely different voice this time.
“Can’t be sure until the physician’s taken a look. Can’t risk her losing it because you’re in a violent mood.”
“Hard not to be when this fucker,” boots slam into my torn ankle, and I stifle the growl traveling up my throat. “killed more than half of us. I’d find his mate and make her pay if she wasn’t important commodity.”
I can not force down the primal, vengeful sound that tears from my throat as I crack one eyelid open to see them ruffled and startled. The instinct to kill nearly erodes my senses, and I might have adhered to it if I had even a little bit of strength left. But I don’t, and I can only try and talk myself out of this. “How much gold did Asher promise you? I could triple it. Give you enough to go around—"
The one with the parchment crouches, but not before folding it and tucking it into his pocket. “Not so tough anymore, are you now? You speak one more word—”
“He’s going to kill you all, surely you must know that,” I rasp, and at his startled expression, I continue, “You think he’d leave behind evidence of my murder? He may have half the council on his side but he is not beyond the laws. He knows that and once your job here is finished, I can assure you your relevance to him is done.”
The male’s lips curl into a sneer. “No need to worry about the laws if your freakish bride will take the fall for it.”
I see it then, Asher’s plan, and it’s fucking brilliant. It’s easier for the people to believe an outsider murdered the king than his wife’s father. They wouldn’t even question it. They wouldn’t even seek to prove how true it was before they condemned her to the executioner’s block, and because she murdered a king in his lands, her father’s influence as Dawn’s King would do nothing her—he’d need to fight a war to get her back and since half of his army is already here, it’d be a bloody loss.
Asher and Moira would then show mercy, using the same laws I created—we do not kill pregnant wolves.
They would hold Jessamine prisoner, until she births the child they believe her to be with, and then, they’d either really kill her then, or demand a crucial exchange with Dawn. Either way, none of that is going to matter because when they find out she’s not pregnant, they’ll have no use for her.
The startling realization that Jessamine IS NOT safe forces fear to spear down my middle, and the man chuckles when he notes it in my gaze. “While I’d very much love to dangle your head before your mate, just to see her reaction, I’m afraid we’ll have to stick to more conventional methods.” He licks his lips, extending a clawed hand for my chest and I watch, helpless, as it sinks into my chest.