Aviva
A shift in the air wakes me up with a start. I sit up, reaching to peek through the blinds. Snow falls in lazy spirals, blurring the tents rising in the pastures just outside the Silverhide village in the Deadlands.
Nothing seems amiss, but…
Ryan lifts his head from his pillow, blinking into the darkness.
“Did you feel that, too?” I whisper.
He groans with the effort of leaving our warm bed, stumbling in the darkness as he pulls on a pair of sweatpants. “Stay here, okay? I’m gonna check it out.”
We’ve grown used to the noise of having several hundred warriors sharing our space–our village–but this wasn’t a sound. It was a feeling that’s still lodged in my chest as I ignore Ryan’s command to stay in bed and follow him through the quiet house.
This feels like deja vu. Weeks ago, when Misty had been taken, this exact same thing happened. We felt a shift–like the air in the village parted–and then received earth-shattering news.
Ryan’s thinking the same thing I am. It’s been a rough night. One marred by stress and the uncertainty of Ryatt and Isaac having gone to Tarsian and Ryan having just returned from Navvan, where most of our army is located at this point, after delivering the news we could be going to battle by daybreak. We found solace in each other, closed away in our room, tangled together under our sheets, ignoring the what ifs.
Now, we’re staring them in the face.
A blood-curdling scream echoes through the village before we even step out onto our front deck. Ryan takes off in a sprint as the scream tapers off, replaced by bone-shattering sobs.
My heart quakes as I tie my bathrobe around my waist and tear after my mate, wearing nothing but the robe and pair of slippers. Black mist settles all around the center of the village as three figures come into view.
Misty’s golden hair falls loose from an intricate updo as she pushes against Isaac’s chest. He’s holding her, wrapping his arms around her as he crushes her to his body like she’s a child having a total breakdown.
“TAKE ME BACK!” she screams, her voice full of pain. “TAKE ME BACK! YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!”
Isaac’s shushing her gently, calmly, like she’s still his baby. His eyes are glassy with tears as he struggles to keep a hold of her.
Ryan stands totally still several feet away, watching with marked concern as Misty–wearing an amazing pink ball gown–doubles over their father’s arm and sobs so hard she can’t breathe.
“T-take me back!” she chokes, sucking in a shattering breath before screaming again with so much sorrow my own eyes sting with tears. “Take me back to him. Please! Please, I’m begging you! He’ll die. He’ll die there–”
Ryatt turns to her, taking her face in his hands. “Listen to me, Misty–”
“YOU!” She bursts out of Isaac’s hold and sends her hand flying, racking her nails over Ryatt’s cheek.
He takes it. Closing his eyes against the pain as Misty screams at him, calling him horrible names.
“YOU COULD HAVE TAKEN HIM!” she bellows with heartbreaking clarity. “YOU COULD HAVE FORCED HIM TO COME WITH US! WHY DID YOU LEAVE HIM BEHIND? WHY!?”
“What the fuck is happening?” Ryan says under his breath.
Misty’s sobs wake the village. People look out of windows, drawing back curtains, gathering in their doorways as the Princess of Crescent Falls breaks into pieces in her father’s arms.
For a moment, she seems to be calming down, sucking in deep breaths, blinking away her tears, but… I taste metal on my tongue, and electricity crackles around my feet.
Misty shifts for the first time, tearing out of her ballgown. Isaac shouts a curse as he struggles to keep his grip on his daughter–turned–wolf. She claws the hell out of him in what I think might be fear, or surprise. It’s her birthday. This is probably the first time she’s ever shifted, and I doubt it was voluntary.
“Fuck,” Ryan murmurs, watching with wide eyes as Misty leaps out of Isaac’s arms and sprints on unsteady legs into the snowy night, her golden coat disappearing into the darkness.
We whirl to Isaac and Ryatt, who stare at each other for a moment before getting in each other’s faces and arguing–shouting over each other’s words. Isaac shoves Ryatt, seething, “You fucking knew, didn’t you? You knew they were mates!”
“I didn’t know,” Ryatt snarls, shoving him back and then grabbing his jacket.
“Mates?” Ryan shouts over the chaos brewing between the other two Alpha Kings. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I turn from the men, who have been at each other’s throats for weeks. Ryan and I talked about it in length last night, when we heard they left for Tarsian together. He mentioned how this war is opening old wounds, reminding his dad, and his uncle, of a time when they were enemies–when they hated each other. Now, we’re at war again, but they don’t have their wives around as buffers.
They’re just two alpha males fighting over who has the better idea, the better solution.
“She’s my fucking daughter!” Isaac screams in Ryatt’s face.
Ryan squeezes my arm before edging toward the men to try to defuse whatever’s happening, and I… shift. I shift, and tear through my favorite robe, kicking off my slippers, and slink away unseen.
Poor Misty. I follow her tracks, noticing how she struggled to get her legs under her. Shifting for the first time can be tough. Sometimes, the transition can be painful, especially in the legs, on the paws.
I lift my snout to try to catch her scent then turn and sprint to the left, toward the towering mountains fanning each side of our precious valley.
It takes me a few minutes to reach her, still sprinting as fast as she can like she’s running from whatever just happened. She doesn’t look at me. She keeps her big, glowing blue eyes locked on the ridge line.
I can’t do more than follow, keeping a few feet of space between us. We reach the ridge line, but she doesn’t stop. She runs along it for a mile before dropping down again, near the hot springs and the lake below.
She slows when she reaches the lake, babying her paws like they hurt, which I’m sure they do. She pads toward the dock, her feet leaving deep paw prints in the snow, and lets loose a sharp, painful whimper before slumping to the dock.
I edge toward her, stopping a few feet from where she’s lying. Her body shakes with wolfish sobs, pained whimpers echoing across the frozen lake.
‘Oh, Misty,’ I say, more to myself than through the mind-link. I have questions, of course. I’m sure everyone does. But instead of pestering her, demanding answers, I lie down beside her, laying my head over the back of her neck.
‘I missed you,’ I tell her quietly, gently.
She whines like she’s in pain, and I think she might actually be in great pain, and it’s not from shifting and running over ten miles first thing.
I press my weight against her, cuddling close, watching the snow gather on the ice as she cries, and cries.
* * *
“They were supposed to take her directly to Moonrise,” Ryan says in a near whisper as he pours two cups of coffee at the kitchen table, and one mug of tea, for me, of course. It’s the bitter, nasty stuff Kenna has me taking for my morning sickness. She’s the only one who knows about our baby so far.
He glances at Misty, who’s sitting silently on the couch in our living room, her legs tucked beneath her and body wrapped in a thick blanket.
The jewels in her hair glint in the frosty daylight coming through the windows, but her eyes are on the fire.
“Why didn’t they?”
Ryan shakes his head. “I’m not sure. I think they just needed to get her out, to anywhere. While you were gone, I separated them. Ryatt disappeared in a puff of smoke, and Dad is somewhere blowing off some steam, I hope. I have no idea what happened.”
Neither do I. I sat on that dock with Misty until she rose and shook me off, padding back to the village. She came here, to our house, and locked herself in the bathroom for over an hour before emerging in a pair of my pajamas, her face dry but gaunt.
Now, her eyes are red, and her face is so white she could blend with the snow gathering on the windowsills. She hasn’t said a word.
Ryan sighs heavily and gives me a look before creeping toward his sister and extending a cup of coffee, but she doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t acknowledge him at all. He rolls his lower lip between his teeth and sets the mug on the coffee table.
I watch with bated breath as he turns from her, running his fingers through his hair as he makes his way back to me. “I’m going to go find Dad and make him tell me what the hell happened.”
I nod, keeping my eye on Misty as Ryan shrugs into a jacket and leaves the house.
The second the door closes, Misty says in a broken voice, “He rejected me.”
I lean my hip on the kitchen table, curling my hands around my mug of tea. “Why?” I already know it’s Cole she’s speaking about. I mean, it has to be. The fight between Ryatt and Isaac would make sense if that’s the case.
Misty heaves a breath, her voice rattling as she replies, “Because he’s going to die, and he… he didn’t believe I could make a difference in that outcome. He did it to force me to leave.” She shakes her head, her face contorting with pain. “I thought–he knows–” She pinches her eyes shut, sucking back a sob.
I’m at her side in an instant, sinking beside her on the couch.
“I’m pregnant,” she whispers, her puffy, red eyes meeting mine. “I’m pregnant, Aviva.”
“It’s going to be okay,” I urge, but inside, I’m spiraling.
“He told me–he told me to–to not tell the baby who he was. Cole is so… he’s so broken. I thought I could heal that part of him. I thought I had. I healed his body, but the damage was done. He’s been through too much and he–he doesn’t see a future anymore. He gave up.” She hangs her head, fisting her hair as she squeezes her eyes shut. “He’s going to die out there like he planned. He turned on Richard. He told Uncle Ryatt to ready his forces, to get me out, and then he–he attacked. I don’t know if he made it out. How could he have? I could have helped him. I could have saved him, but he wouldn’t let me.”
My hand ghosts down her back, steady and unyielding. She leans into my touch, her body moving toward mine on impulse. “It hurts to breathe,” she whispers, choking on another sob. “I have a hole in my chest where our bond should be. I got–I got to feel it for a moment.” Her tears soak into my shirt as she presses her face against my shoulder. “Now it’s gone. He’s gone. I knew when the sun rose, he’d be dead. He’s gotta be dead now. There’s no–no other way–”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, the words barely audible over her choked cries.
“What am I going to do? What do I do without my mate? I held on,” she says through gritted teeth, her grief turning to sudden fury. “When he rejected me, I held on. I refused. I still feel–feel just a glimmer of what was there. How do I move forward? I can’t accept this! I can’t accept that he’s going to die, and I did nothing.”
Her words settle in my chest. The memory of storming back to Endova when I got the news that Ryan was dying rushes back, clouding my senses.
I know how she feels because I felt that same fury. That same hurt and desperation.
Mercy walks through the door without knocking, Freya close behind. I silently nod for them to come in, having called them through the mind-link for backup a few minutes ago.
But Mercy’s face is pale and wan as she allows Freya to skirt past her, carrying an armful of precious handmade clothing and little treats to try to cheer Misty up.
“What’s wrong, Mercy?” I ask as Freya kneels in front of us, laying a supportive hand on Misty’s thigh.
Mercy swallows hard, shaking her head. “We just received the first reports from the border. It’s begun.”
Misty lifts her head, blinking at my sister.
“The battles have begun. We’re officially at war with Tarsian.”