Ella
The crowd is hissing, booing, and screaming curses down at my mate.
Ryatt looks around, panting, his shoulders rigid despite the welts covering his skin.
Jaxon is still staring at me, but my attention is stolen by several people trying to climb down into the pit. A tremor of panic shudders through the entire arena.
“Alpha Jaxon, you need to get him out of there,” I say hurriedly, turning back to the Alpha of Oasia, the man who just lost the crown of Eastonia to my mate.
But suddenly I feel cool metal against my neck and freeze.
“Play along,” Jaxon rasps along the shell of my ear before yanking me upright so violently I shriek in alarm.
Below, Ryatt’s face has turned from grim amusement to absolute rage as he spots Jaxon with his hands on me and a blade to my neck.
“If you shift, she dies,” Jaxon taunts as warriors race out into the pit, shoving delirious onlookers out of the way before they can get to my mate.
“Ella!” Granger screams my name over the chaos erupting all around us. I can barely turn my head to look at him, not with a knife resting against my throat. But I slide my eyes toward Granger and see that he’s being held back by four men with four blades pressed against his sides.
‘What the fuck are you doing?” I hiss at Jaxon, but he yanks me backward, toward the archway that leads into his sprawling network of rooms that make up his sand covered fortress. Darkness swallows us whole, and the dry heat bleeds into the cool shadows as he guides me underground.
Only when we’ve turned into a room–a large, open space with windows toward the ceiling spilling bright sunlight over what looks like a library of some kind–does he loosen his grip and take the knife from my throat.
I gasp out a breath and stumble away from him, wrapping my arms around my throat. “What the hell?”
“Stay. Here.” He levels me with a look that reminds me he’s an Alpha. Not just by title. No, this man was born an Alpha. He radiates the kind of dominance one has to be born with, just like Ryatt. Just like my brother and my dad.
He leaves the room so swiftly I don’t have time to catch my breath before the door slams shut and locks from the outside.
I stumble back another few steps until my back hits a bookshelf and then sink to my knees. Beyond the door, I hear rapid footsteps and several voices lifted in alarm. I count the seconds, then the minutes, until the lock jingles, and the door swings open.
“Gods above,” Ryatt rushes out as he shoves past Jaxon and hurtles into the room. He pushes a table out of the way to get to me. “Are you all right?”
“What’s happening right now?” I ask, grabbing Ryatt’s fingers when he tries to caress my face to check me for harm.
“Just a distraction,” Jaxon says gruffly as he closes the door. Granger, who I didn’t see enter the room behind Ryatt, is snarling at Jaxon.
“How dare you touch my Luna like that?” Granger shouts, shoving Jaxon.
Jaxon’s eyes narrow. “You fucking brutes need to get what’s about to happen through your thick skulls. I just gave you Eastonia on a silver fucking platter, Ryatt,” he growls, turning from Granger to look at us. “Now, my people are going to riot. I can handle it, but the three of you need to get out of here, now.”
“What about our deal?” I ask hotly.
Ryatt slowly rises to his feet. “What deal?”
My heart is still hammering against my ribs as I look between my mate and the man I thought was our enemy. “My witches are going to find his family if he can lead us to the witch in the Alabaster Mountains.”
“Ella,” Granger growls, but Ryatt raises a hand to cut him off.
He turns to Jaxon, his eyes narrowed to cat-like slits.
Jaxon raises his hands. “I wasn’t the one making deals with your wife. It was her idea.”
“And can you lead us to this witch, or not?” Ryatt looks like hell. His body is bruised, scratched, and still coated in bloody sand.
“There’s no witches this far east,” he says. “None that I know of.”
My heart sinks.
Jaxon goes on. “But there’s rumors, okay? The packs in the Alabaster Mountains are suspicious, untrusting people. Even King Kane couldn’t get them under control. They don’t take kindly to outsiders and don’t, and won’t ever, bend the knee to an Alpha King–or Luna Queen.” He gives me a little bow. It’s a mocking gesture, but he continues, “There’s a witch there, according to local legend. She’s a real bitch and practices a dark kind of magic.”
“Is she real?” Granger asks. “Or are you sending us on a wild goose chase?”
“Their fear of her is real, and that’s enough to make me believe that if this is the woman you seek, she’ll be there.”
“Which pack?” Ryatt says sharply.
Jaxon shakes his head. “Hell if I know.”
“There’s not many in that territory,” Granger cuts in, his eyes on Ryatt. “We’ll be able to find her, or hear word of her possible whereabouts–”
Beyond the door, I can still hear people running and occasionally shouting.
“We don’t have time for this,” Jaxon cuts in sharply, ending Granger’s statement with a wave of his hand. “You will do your little trick and spirit yourselves to the mountains, and her witches will start hunting for my mate, is that clear?”
Ryatt looks like he wants nothing more than to snap this guy's neck, but he gives a sharp nod. “And our deal is done as well, Jaxon. I am Alpha King of Eastonia. Your forces are to remain in Tarsian. You can be the king here, I don’t give a fuck, but if you so much as step a foot outside of your boundary–”
“I get it,” Jaxon hisses, jabbing a finger into one of Ryatt’s bruises. Ryatt doesn’t so much as flinch. But then Jaxon looks down at me and sniffs deeply. “Moonstone and black diamond dust, huh? How long did you really think she’d last with only that to keep her curse at bay? I can already smell it in her blood. You’re almost out of time.”
To my surprise, his tone takes on a softer, more concerned edge.
“You and I,” Jaxon says to Ryatt, “can finish our business at another time.”
“You’ll be sent a decree and a treaty to sign,” Granger snarls.
Jaxon only smirks over his shoulder at Granger before looking back at Ryatt. “Keep your Beta on a leash from now on.”
Ryatt shoves Jaxon away and extends a hand toward me. I take it, and allow him to help me upright. All of this is happening so fast. I can’t figure out if Jaxon is screwing with us or if he’s actually not the enemy I suspect him to be.
The realization clicks, however, when I notice his eyes raking over the swell of my stomach.
“You could have just asked for help,” I tell him. “We would have helped you.”
“Are you Ryatt’s mouthpiece now, too? You know nothing of this man, little queen. You have no idea what he did in order to fool Kane into believing he was on his side.”
“He did it for me and this kingdom,” I tell him.
“And my family paid the price, didn’t they?” He looks at Ryatt. “Enjoy your new title, Lord of Shadows. You’re in my debt.”
My blood grows cold as Granger steps forward and places a hand on Ryatt’s shoulder, and then the world tilts, and the edges of my vision go blurry. A deep, throbbing pain rips through me, and I scream as total darkness replaces my vision. Pain I’ve never experienced before shreds me from the inside out.
The outside world shimmers into view. It’s almost night here, wherever we are now. I can barely hold my eyes open as Granger and Ryatt’s voices trickle back to my ears and grow louder with each passing second.
They’re arguing about the jump Ryatt just made.
“Ella,” Ryatt says, hauling me upright. Had I landed on my knees or simply slumped to the ground?
“Ryatt, I can’t–it hurts, just wait–” I try to shove him away, but my arm is totally numb. I try to lift it and examine my fingertips and I… “What is that?” My fingertips are black.
Ryatt and Granger are silent for the space of a breath before Granger says, “This was too much for her, Ryatt.”
“I know,” Ryatt growls. “I didn't have a choice, Granger.”
“We need to abandon this and get her back to the coven.”
“She will not survive another jump,” Ryatt grinds out.
I can taste the desperation in the air between the three of us. My vision finally clears enough that I can see that we’re in a dense crop of trees. Huge, towering spruce trees that stretch three or four stories above our heads. The air is humid and thick, but cool.
I don’t catch the rest of their argument. Ryatt lays me back on a pile of cool, soft leaves while Granger pulls supplies out of a large leather backpack. Then, the Beta shifts to go scout in the area while Ryatt sets to work smearing the magical, curse-eating salve on my hands, and legs, all the way up to the scar. I feel the effects immediately. It tingles over my skin, but the pain is now settled so deep I find it hard to think past it anymore.
“I’m going to call on Isaac tomorrow,” he says to me, laying the back of his hand over my forehead and pulling it back with a wince.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “I’m so sorry, Ryatt. I’m trying. I wasn’t feeling well before the fight. I thought it was stress, but–”
“It was the jump to Tarsian,” he rasps. “I knew–I knew it was a huge risk, Ella. This is my fault. I had to choose between weeks of traveling on foot or–or this.” He sounds so broken as he massages the salve between my aching fingers.
I try to send a rush of my powers forward to warm my suddenly chilled skin, but nothing but a tearing, enormously painful sensation echoes through my body.
“I have no regrets,” I tell him suddenly, my voice sounding far, far away. “This last year of my life was… well, I do have one regret.”
“Ella,” he whispers, “please don’t talk like this now.”
“I wish I’d never let go of your hand.”
I look up at my mate and find his eyes closed and his face twisted with grief and guilt. I squeeze his hand as a sharp ache spreads through my back, twisting all the way to my lower belly.
“I wish I’d never let go of your hand so I would have had a few more days with you.”
I imagine the girl from the clearing. I can see the freckles on the bridge of her nose as another wave of pain crushes my abdomen.
“Not yet, darling,” I whisper as my vision begins to go dark. “Just a little longer.”
“Ella? El–”
Ryatt’s voice is suddenly very far away.
My body locks, and I fight the feeling of being shoved deep, deep underwater.
Then I simply slip away, and for the first time in weeks, feel no pain at all.