Soren
Sometimes I feel like I’m still standing on the train, gripping the railing while I just… look at her, memorizing every painful, beautiful, devastating detail. The way the wind whipped her hair into a frenzy as the train caught speed. The way her sea-glass eyes shone with tears. The way her fingers clutched my shirt, wrinkling the fabric. The salt on her lips–tears–that I swiped away with my tongue.
Her scent. Her warmth. Her voice, for fuck’s sake.
Then I wake up, reminded how far away she is, and the incredible distance between us that has nothing to do with miles.
Pale early morning sunlight drifts through the window directly behind me, casting rays of dusty sunbeams skittering across the freshly swept floor. Beyond the rusting metal window frame, a patch of sparse trees bow in the wind, and beyond that, the Deadlands stretch for miles of rolling nothingness.
This place, my safe house, is situated right on the border between the Roguelands and the Deadlands, tucked just beyond the shadow of the ever dark, endless enchanted forest where I just spent the last week trapped with… with her.
I close my eyes against Maeve’s memory but only for a moment. It’s been two weeks. Two quiet weeks. Two weeks where I’ve watched the news every minute of every single fucking day for a single sight of her to make sure she made it, and she’s okay.
I followed the train. I ran through the woods, spying on every stop, taking stock of who got on and who got off, to ensure she was safe. But I lost her once the train whirred toward the bridge hovering over the long stretch of forest. It didn’t matter at that point. She wouldn’t have another stop until she was safely back in Moonrise territory, but if I could have, I would have ran all the way there and watched her every move until she breached the threshold of the castle walls and disappeared from my sight.
She’s still hiding in the palace, but her family is starting to slowly arrive for the coronation–everyone. All of the people Patton knows by name, the younger kids included. If she didn’t make it home, I would have heard about it by now.
I scrub my hand over my face, groaning, and slouch into the cushions. A warm breeze whispers through the open windows, carrying dust Patton is going to annihilate within the next hour, I’m sure.
The Viper knows about my safe house in Twin Rivers. I’m certain her goons do, as well. It’s nothing but an empty apartment in a shitty part of town. When I told Patton to go there, it had been code for this place. This decaying hovel far enough over the border of the Deadlands that the Viper won’t risk sending her guys here. No one messes with Alpha King Ryan, not even her.
I reach for the remote on the coffee table and flip on the TV, grumbling to myself as static fills my vision, followed by a hazy mix of reality TV, sports, and then the news.
Somewhere outside Patton is feeding his precious chickens–chickens he carried here all the way from the Roguelands. We’re safe here. No one knows I have this place. The house itself is some old shanty left behind from the days of the war of the Old Kings, when this whole area was a city of refugees.
I wouldn’t call it home.
I don’t have one of those.
But it has a bed. That’s enough.
I take my first sip of coffee just as Patton strides through the door, chipper and smiling, squinting against the sunlight. “What’re you doing up so early? You’re never up this early…” His voice fades as he steps into the hallway leading to the kitchen.
I ignore him, watching the news instead, watching the fanfare reaching a peak hundreds of miles away in Moonrise.
“The capital of Eastonia is alive today, I’ll say that much,” a pretty, but heavily made-up, female news anchor says with a pearly white smile. “It’s estimated that over five hundred-thousand tourists have visited Moonrise so far in the past month to partake in the festivities, with another hundred thousand expected over the weekend for the coronation.”
“Which means,” her partner, an older gentleman in a perfectly tailored suit, says with an equally white grin, “if you were planning on traveling to the city, think again. You’ll be hard pressed to find a hotel at this point.”
His companion laughs.
I frown, my lower lip pressed to my mug, as live footage of Moonrise plays across the screen. People are already gathering in the main square in anticipation for this weekend's events–the main events of the festival. I listen as one of the anchors, obviously from Crescent Falls, goes on and on in an attempt to explain the Sacred Rite. Neither of them know the significance. Hell, up until three weeks ago I didn’t understand.
Now, all I can think about is whether Maeve is getting her powers back, and wondering how she’s going to feel when the eclipse ends, and they return in full.
“Soren?”
“What?”
Patton appears with the duster in one hand and a broom in the other, his dark hair swept back away from his face and blue eyes even sharper after several days spent in the sun, building garden boxes or whatever the hell he’s been up to since I arrived four days ago. His lips part to ask some question I assume pertains to what we should do for dinner, if we can risk going to the nearest villages for groceries, when he turns to the TV and gasps excitedly. “Wow, do you know who that is?” he asks, pointing to the TV.
I glance at it then turn fully as a beautiful young woman with light brown hair chases something across the sweeping balcony being decorated for the coronation in real time. She crouches out of sight, then reappears looking flustered, holding a wriggling, unhappy little boy in her arms.
“That’s Brie,” Patton says dreamily, leaning his weight against the broom. “Luna Queen Brie, I mean. And her son, Kieran. He’s the Prince of Emberfyll.”
My heart hammers as I watch the live feed, watch as Brie, slightly red in the face, waves down at the crowd gathered around the walls of the castle, everyone clambering for a view. A few maids scurry to her aid to get her and the boy off the balcony and out of sight, and I find myself smiling softly when the little boy tries to roll out of his mother’s arms.
But then my blood runs cold. A tall, broad shouldered, but lean, older man steps onto the balcony. The little boy reaches for him, wrapping his tiny arms around his neck while the man talks to Brie, his hand resting on her upper back as he guides her back into the palace.
Alpha King Ryatt glances at the crowd, giving the thousands of people below a diplomatic smile, but I see past it.
“The crowd is overwhelming them,” I say into my coffee, sipping. “He’s nervous.”
“I imagine so. I’ve never seen so many people in one place before.”
A prickle of unease scurries up my spine, pinging up and down without a place to land while I rack my brain. I haven’t heard anything through the grapevine of contacts I have with other men stuck in the Viper’s clutches about any targeted attacks in Moonrise. None of us have had jobs as it stands, not for months. The Viper wouldn’t risk any kind of business in Moonrise most of the time, anyway, and especially not with the royal family gathering together like this, all powerful and in one place, at one time. It’s why I was able to stay there for months without being bothered.
But still, the idea of Maeve in danger coils through my chest and squeezes so tight I have to stand, resting my hands on my knees.
The footage continues to play on the ancient TV I bought at a pawn shop a few years back, when I found this place and made it mine.
Patton watches dutifully, his eyes scanning the screen as the footage of the balcony zooms out to show the crowd gathered beyond the gates and the extra guards stationed all along the wall. I feel somewhat better until the footage pans to the city center where the festival rages, every street swarmed with people and wolves.
“Goddess above,” Patton says under his breath, straightening his back.
I chew my lower lip, my coffee forgotten, as the footage cuts out, switching to similar festivities being held in Crescent Falls in Maeve’s honor. King Sydney is her… cousin, I believe. The family is tight knit, that much I know is true.
At least, I’ve been told as much. Maeve barely spoke about her family. Patton and I watch footage of the royal family of Crescent Falls flash across the screen while an anchor rattles on about how the royals are heading to Eastonia for the coronation, but something catches my eye.
“Which one is that?” I ask, pointing to the screen as a young man with striking violet eyes briefly comes into view before lifting a briefcase to shield his face from the glare of flashing cameras as he leaves a massive skyscraper in the center of the inner city.
“Blake. He’s his father’s heir. King Sydney’s oldest son.” He brings his coffee to his lips.
I swear I’ve seen him before. Something in the way he moves scratches something in my brain, but I blink, and the footage moves on to the weather in the Roguelands.
Patton sighs heavily, leaning against the broom as he downs his coffee. I can feel his eyes boring holes in my profile, but refuse to look at him.
Four days ago, I walked up the front steps and acted like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t followed Maeve’s train until it completed its last stops, ensuring I saw the face of every person who got on and off before the train reached the suspension bridge and entered the outskirts of Moonrise territory. Like I hadn’t spent three days digging a pit and burying the bodies of the Hounds, leaving their leader naked, prone, and decaying in the woods with his head and hands removed from his body and nailed to a tree for what he did to her.
Like I hadn’t set fire to the cottage where I spent a single night with her in my arms, reckoning with every sin I’ve committed, before I burned it to the ground to scorch our mingled scents from existence. Like I hadn’t spent the next week and a half lying low in the Highlands, waiting for news to spread about the Alpha I killed there.
I’d just… walked in, walked upstairs, took a shower, and tried to forget her, but it's… she’s burned into my chest like a brand. It’s impossible.
“Have you… spoken to her?”
“What do you think?” I ask hotly, bringing my mug to my lips.
“Hey, man, you don’t gotta be a dick about it–”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say–”
“What happened between you two? Seriously. You’ve been on edge since you got here–”
“Patton, please–”
“Look, Soren, I liked her, too. She’s great. She’s–she’s a good person, funny, and kind of a mess, but she was our mess, and we were her mess, for a week, but–” He cuts himself off, humming under his breath. “I worry about her, too. I know you’re worrying over her every second you’ve been back.”
“She got roped into my bullshit–”
“With the Viper?” Patton snarls, dropping his good-boy persona in a split second. This is… very rare for him. “You really think the Viper would stand a chance against her? A Firestone? The Firestone? That’s what you’re so worried about?”
“The Viper and Hannibal aren’t like us, and you know that. They’re not like her, either. I’m not taking any chances–”
“So you sent her away, didn’t you? That’s what happened–”
“What the fuck else was I supposed to do?”
“Something for yourself, for once in your fucking life.” Patton whirls, stalking behind the couch on his way out the room but slaps me over the head with the feather duster so hard I see stars for a moment.
I grimace, growling as he hikes up the stairs and out of sight.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” I shout, but his bedroom door slams shut, sending a low vibration through the house. I turn back to the TV where live footage of Moonrise greets me, more views of the dizzying, overwhelming crowd. “There’s somewhere I have to be.”