Evander
My mind is a roaring, tangled mass of chaos as I tear through the castle with Kenna at my side. It’s full night–nearly 3:00 AM–but the castle is alight with activity as warriors canvass every inch of every room and winding hallway.
Kenna’s tears have dried, but her eyes are wide and hollow as I guide her to my family’s wing, neither of us saying a word.
Brie was taken last night, and so far, she hasn’t been found. A maid is dead–killed in my mate’s bedroom. Neither of us have eaten or slept.
Worse yet, the prisoner I interviewed in the barracks is gone as well.
All signs point to the Draven Coven for the kidnapping and murder.
I yank Kenna into the foyer of my family’s quarters. It’s quiet–my parents are out, probably sitting in Ella's office or Ryatt’s war room deciding what needs to be done, but I’m sick of waiting.
Kenna’s despair is like a blade in my chest.
I take her upstairs into my bedroom which hasn’t changed at all since I was a young teenager and I left home for training. I haven’t been home much at all since then.
I shut the door behind us and immediately start gathering supplies. Extra clothes, extra weapons, coins and a variety of medicines and herbs.
Kenna watches me in total silence. She doesn’t question why I’ve kept a stash of these things hidden around my childhood room. Deep down, we both understand the reasoning behind this. Being royal comes at a cost, and thankfully there were only a few times when some threat had our families packing up in the middle of the night to put the children into hiding.
This is different, though.
“They’re going to know we’ve left,” Kenna says absently. Her normally sunny, bright voice is completely robbed of feeling as she crosses her arms under her chest and hugs herself tight. “We can’t leave the castle without someone seeing us.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her, stuffing my supplies in a backpack designed to be worn while in wolf form. “Brie is probably dozens of miles away by now. We’ve waited too long.” In her parents’ defense, with Ryatt’s wards in place, it should have been impossible for anyone to pass through the wards around Moonrise undetected. Something is wrong, though. The hundred or so miles that surround Moonrise and fall under Ryatt’s protection have been canvassed thoroughly.
I know, because I’ve been out there in the woods looking for my daughter since the moment I heard the news.
“Don’t ask me to stay behind.”
I zip the backpack and turn to her, holding her gaze. She’s shaking, picking at her shirt, and anxiety oozes off her, turning the air in the room to ice.
“You’re not staying behind. I need you,” I tell her, meaning every word. “But I don’t know what we’re walking into. This is obviously a trap, Kenna. They know we’re going after her. They know Brie was in our care, or at least the care of the royal family, and knew someone would come looking for her.” I hike the backpack over my shoulder. “We need to be prepared for the worst. You need to be prepared to fight.”
She sucks in a breath. “I’m prepared.”
“Good.” I search her eyes, hating every second of this. I don’t want her to go, to be in danger, but I can’t stomach leaving her behind.
Kenna’s a ball of nervous energy when we leave the castle, passing guards and frantic maids. We don’t reply when people shout at us to ask where we’re going. They should know, and when the sun rises, and we’re no longer in Moonrise, our families will know as well.
By then, we’ll be long gone because Kenna has a secret.
* * *
“She’s not far,” Kenna says as she pulls the hood of her cloak over her head. Her eyes shine a molten silver in the darkness as her powers surge.
She’s bonded with Brie. She holds her in her heart, and somehow, her powers are honed in on Brie like a tracking device.
But we’re deep in the woods now. We haven’t shifted yet. We’ve passed a few patrols, but now that the sun is starting to rise, the past mile or so has been quiet and empty of others.
I step into a clearing on the very edge of Ryatt’s ward. I can feel the change in the air as we near the magic, invisible wall. Stepping through it is impossible. Without permission to leave the Wards, we’d end up walking in a circle, growing more and more disoriented.
I’m not confident Kenna and I will be able to leave Moonrise. If Brie has been taken across the wards somehow, there’s nothing we can do without getting Ryatt involved.
I really don’t want to have to do that.
“I don’t understand,” Kenna whispers, looking around. A creek burbles nearby. A log-jam forms a small, clear pond that’s surface ripples with small fish in the ever growing morning light reaching through the dense canopy of trees.
I set my pack down and scan the area. No scents of other wolves or warriors. The birds chirp and sing as the first rays of light touch their wings, oblivious to any nearby threats.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
Her face is cast in shadow beneath her hood as she turns to me, defeated. “I can’t feel her as strongly, but I feel like she’s–she’s been here. Right here.” She points to the ground. “Then she just vanished. Her scent isn’t strong here. I can’t pick it up.”
“Me neither,” I admit, perplexed. “There’s no way they could have carried her through the wards. Ryatt would have been notified someone was trying to leave.”
A crunching sound echoes through the woods, and I immediately sense a new presence.
“What are you doing here?” Kenna breathes, startled, as Sydney edges out of the woods in a cloak, dressed for a journey.
His blue eyes sweep over Kenna as if looking for injuries, and when his gaze cuts to mine, I glare.
“I thought you were in the Roguelands.”
“I was. I asked your father to spirit me back to Moonrise when I heard what happened. I was about to leave for the border to return to Crescent Falls with my men, but this was more important.”
I guess this is perfect timing then.
“Do you have your compass?”
Kenna looks between us. Sydney sighs. “I’ve already tried. It doesn’t work. I thought the two of you had already crossed, so I tested the wards. They’re even stronger than before after what happened in the castle. I heard your voices and–”
“You came here to help us?” Kenna says, looking a little shocked.
I know things have been tense between them since Ryatt lit into her about our relationship. She made it sound like Sydney took Ryatt’s side, but I know that's not the case. Sydney is simply stuck in the middle, a prince of Crescent Falls essentially trapped in Eastonia.
“Your parents don’t know you’re out here, do they?” he asks her.
She shakes her head.
I say, “We waited all day for someone to act. Queen Ella already sent word to the Alphas of the Roguelands and Jaxon of Tarsian about Brie’s disappearance and the murder. King Ryatt spent the day preparing for a counter attack on the Draven Coven.”
“And Evander and the Ghosts in Moonrise spent the day looking for our baby,” Kenna whimpers.
My heart wrenches, but I keep my gaze steady on Sydney’s face.
He looks at me and a memory floods my mind. We’re boys, running through the woods together. Ryan didn’t want to come with us and chose to stay behind to be doted on by our mothers during one of Kenna’s family vacations here.
We’d gotten lost for a while, having gone so far from the city-center that we ended up in these very woods.
“The tunnels,” we say in unison.
“What?” Kenna asks, but Sydney and I are already moving. I grab my pack, motioning for Kenna to follow.
I can’t believe I’d forgotten about the tunnels. In my defense, it’s been fifteen years, at least, since the day Sydney and I found them but were too scared to explore.
It takes another thirty minutes to reach the strange, leaning trees about two miles up the creek. The forest is denser here. The morning light barely touches the forest floor as I follow Sydney through the trees to a place where the trees have been bent at odd angles to create a strange, wooden tunnel.
Kenna halts when she sees it. It’s just as eerie as the time Sydney and I stumbled across it as children.
He is pleased as he pants and rests his hands on his knees. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this.”
“I know,” I say, heaving a breath.
Poor Kenna is out of breath behind us after thirty minutes of matching our pace. “What is this place? I don’t like it.”
“Eastonia is covered in old ruins and temples. A lot of them are connected by intricate tunnel systems,” Sydney begins.
“From the time of the fall of the Firestone queens. The various covens built the tunnels as means of escape in times of war,” I add.
Moonrise has over a dozen ancient, buried temples dotting its territory. Most have been explored, but this place… It’s wholly untouched.
“It’s like a vortex into another world,” Kenna breathes, her feet firmly planted in place as she looks through the tunnel formed from bent trees. “I don’t like it.”
“This is the only plausible way they escaped through the wards. If there’s an old ruin down there, there will be tunnels.” Sydney takes a few steps forward.
“They went under the wards?” Kenna doesn’t sound like she believes this for a second.
“We need to try,” I tell her. “It’s the only option we have.”
Kenna nods, her eyes downcast to her hands. I watch her, noticing the lines of grief and pain around her puffy eyes–eyes red from crying.
It’s been the worst day.
I don’t know how to comfort her.
I only know that I won’t stop until Brie is safe in her arms, and they’re both on a ship to Maatua to wait out this ever nearing war.
Movement over the top of her head catches my eye a moment too late.
“Kenna, run!” I shout, swinging my pack from my shoulders as my wolf form takes hold and I shift, my clothes shredding to ribbons. Six wolves tear toward us through the trees, jaws slack and teeth gleaming in the morning sunlight.
But they’re not just wolves.
Hellhounds. All six of them. Their bodies are mangled and furless, their eyes shining with the powers of the witches who command them.
Sydney shifts and races forward, putting himself between the hellhounds and Kenna.
She doesn’t move. Her eyes dart to mine.
‘Go. Go through the tunnels. Follow that sense you have about Brie, and find her. I’ll hold them off,’ I beg her.
Kenna’s expression is pained as I leap forward and come to Sydney’s side. The hellhounds reach the clearing and bound toward us.
I don’t see any witches, but they have to be nearby.
Or these creatures have been separated from their masters by the wards somehow, and they’re out for blood.
‘Sydney,’ I say through the mind-link as the hellhounds circle us, ‘we’re going to let them take us.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘Is she gone?’
I look over my shoulder at the tunnel.
Kenna is nowhere to be seen.