Lexa
I was only sixteen when I came into my wolf gifts. It happened overnight, jarring me out of my sleep. My dad and his brother were the same–early bloomers. But the same week I got my wolf and started training with my parents on how to use it, I found myself in a forest with my dad, my great-uncle Ryatt, and my grandfather, Isaac on a hunt that changed everything.
Dad was sulking, in the worst mood I’ve ever seen him in. His foul energy radiated off him, and I felt so uncertain and off kilter that I thought something was seriously wrong. He didn’t want to be out there with us, with me. I didn’t understand why until years later.
I’m like him. Like my grandfather, too.
I am not just a wolf.
It takes only a small spark of emotion to turn that wolf into something heinous and even more deadly.
Like a fucking fire melting the thick, otherwise impenetrable gate separating me from the Glade. Like a mate–a dead one–lying prone while my cousin sends the entire kingdom to the ground, likely killing himself in the process.
The second a fae guard turns in my direction, weapons outstretched and poised to strike, my body shifts from its sleek, wolfen form and bends into something large, dark as midnight, and terrifying.
I’ve only done this once before–shifted into what my family calls a beast form. It hurts like fucking hell, but I’m beyond feeling. I know I’ve done it now–likely maimed myself beyond repair when my spine sings in pain, and my lungs struggle to contract. Blake isn’t a healer. Whatever he did was a poorly applied bandage. This could kill me–kill us, if I’m truly pregnant.
But I have to try, don’t I?
The fae guard screams, but it’s cut short as I barrel over the top of him, his skull crunching like a crispy leaf under my massive paw. My course, thick fur reflects the heat radiating from within the walled confines of the Glade as I race toward the gate, seeing the fires burning in the tallest buildings, flames licking toward the sky. It might be the middle of the day, but the thick smoke makes time a mere construct. It’s nearly pitch black, only outlines of buildings visible against the glow of the flames. I pummel the ground beneath my paws and launch my body through the main gate like a battering ram.
Hot iron twists, groaning as the gate bends, splintering into pieces like the remains of an ancient building, and the Glade comes into startling view.
No one is left in the upper part of the city. It’s burning bright and hot, open doors pouring flames into the street. I pray everyone made it out as I race toward the pit, where the city dips toward the lower gate, the gate to the wilderness and plains beyond–to freedom.
A sharp, rumbling groan echoes over the crackling flames, and the wall around the Glade cracks.
If the wall comes down in its entirety, it will bury everyone within. I cannot let that happen.
The first bodies come into view. I ignore my own pain, slowing my pace to ensure they’re dead and no one needs help, but I’m… too late to offer that anymore. The pit comes into view, and I see the crowds, everyone clamoring for the lower gate, trying to find a way out when they know they’re trapped.
I see Chastan in the fray, standing on one of the look-outs that rise above the dirt, trying to direct everyone to stay calm, to stay with their packs, looking for someone, shouting a name over and over that’s lost in the fray, but then he sees me and panic shines bright behind his eyes.
“It’s me. Lexa,” I say into his mind. One pack. One people.
His shock is short-lived and quickly turns to terror as the wall continues to crumble, the guard stations at the top cracking and falling toward the Glade, shattering in the flames.
“Blake, if you can hear me,” I shout through the mind-link while my paws pound over flickering embers and ash, “everyone in the Glade is trapped! The lower gate is sealed! We cannot get out!” Taking them back the way I came is not an option because of the fire.
I try to shift back into my human form, but I have far less control in this form. My body aches, my healing wounds reopened and torn. It’ll kill me. I already know I’m on borrowed time when I skid to a halt where the wall has large fissures soaring through it, crumbling in vicious chunks that cave toward the towering buildings, smashing them into pieces, sending flames skittering between me and the crowd below.
“OPEN THE GATE FOR THEM!” I shriek through the mind-link, but Blake is silent. “BLAKE!”
“Get them! Round them up! If they try to run, kill them! That’s a direct order!” Guards sound out behind me. I whirl, teeth bared, but they charge. They have to know their king is dead, right? Or has the chaos made communication impossible? Far more guards than I was expecting run past the threatening flames. Dozens of fully fae warriors charge out of the smoke, weapons raised, but through a wall of gray they see me, and the first few stumble.
Pieces of the wall continue to fall. If the guards make it past me…
The citizens of the Glade need more time. They’ve seen enough blood, enough killing. Enough death.
Another chunk of the wall falls nearby, sending more waves of flames licking directly above my head.
If I go to them, I’ll be bringing the guards with me. If I don’t move now, I’ll miss my chance.
“Help! Chastan!” Lis’s voice rises at my left. My heart sinks. I’m near Kaleb’s house. I can just make out the courtyard through the smoke.
The guards move in, oblivious to the danger they’re in as the wall continues to shatter.
“CHASTAN!”
“BLAKE, PLEASE!” I scream through the bond.
The smoke suddenly funnels. A shattering sound reverberates through the Glade, knocking smaller buildings to the ground like the earth beneath us is suddenly turning to liquid. The wall erupts, falling.
The guards scream and turn back.
I’ll live if I follow them. I’ll see my family again. I’ll go home.
I whirl to the courtyard, leaping through the air as the Glade splinters all around me, tumbling into oblivion. Lis is in the doorway with a wet rag over her face, a basket of belongings in her arm. There’re two small children with her that I don’t recognize. She was trying to save them, wasn’t she?
We collide, my beastly body covering the three of them as the wall fall, burying us.
***
I’m dead. I feel it everywhere. It’s not what I expected it to feel like, but I’m no longer in pain. It’s dark here. It’s hot and smells of smoke and iron. I should have known I wasn’t going to the Goddess. I killed too many people over the past weeks. I killed Meg, my friend, and even though it was in revenge, I knew it was wrong, deep down.
Kaleb. His memory wraps around my cold, dead heart. His scent is everywhere all of the sudden, guiding me to whatever’s next. I wish we’d had more time. I wish I’d had a chance to know him outside of the world where we found each other. I wonder what could have been, what memories we would have made.
Our child… Poor thing. I wanted to believe it was real, that there was a future with the three of us in it, but… my selfishness and his inability to bend led us here, didn’t it?
Light flickers above me. I wonder if I’ll see Blake here. Isn’t he the God of Death? Isn’t this, wherever I am, his rightful home?
The light grows until it’s blinding. Everything goes dark again as muffled voices split the silence–the crumbling of rock and wood.
“I HAVE THEM! I HAVE THEM!”
The voice isn’t familiar. It grates through me, however, igniting a sharp pain in my back that threatens to split my spine. Suddenly, the light is too much. The pain ebbs before exploding with heat. Searing, blistering heat. The smell of scorched meat. My skin. I’m–I’m burned–
My breath comes in a rattling whoosh as hands reach for me, and I’m lifted, naked, into the sunlight, through feet of rubble.
I blink, my vision swimming with stars as a blanket is draped over me, and I’m pressed against a warm, solid body.
Lis’s voice lifts in a shuddering cry, and Chastan’s form is a blur as he races toward us and disappears behind me.
Kaleb presses my cheek against his cheek. His heart is racing, pounding against his ribs. He whispers a prayer. Several prayers as he stands on top of the remains of his home, holding me. Cradling me to his chest like an infant. My hair falls over my face, scorched, inches lost and curls burnt to a crisp, but through the strands I see what’s left of the Glade.
It’s gone. And beyond?
Open fields. Forests.
The sea.
There’s… something else. A mark in the sky–a long, silver wave like the aurora that’s so common in the far north. It glimmers like starlight, stretching so far I loose it against the horizon, and it turns crimson, shifting in shape.
“Keep looking for survivors,” Kaleb bellows and turns as the two children Lis was rescuing are pulled from a pit the size of my beast form.
My mind pulls me in and out of consciousness, trying to numb the pain with short and rapid fainting spells while Kaleb picks his way out of the Glade. The wall is gone, nothing left but several vertical feet of rubble. Wisps of smoke rise, the ground still sizzling, but it’s wet.
He shifts my weight so carefully, but I still cry out in pain. He says something over and over but my ears are clogged with ash. I grip his shirt, a clean shirt, smoothing my head over his heart where my blade should be, but he’s… whole.
“Blake?” I whisper. I’m not sure what I mean–whether I’m asking if Blake did this, fixed him, or if he’s still alive.
“Don’t talk. Don’t try to talk.”
Another fainting spell sweeps me into darkness, and when I open my eyes again, I’m under the cover of a makeshift, canvas structure. A buzz of noise is everywhere–voices, bodies moving, sheets shifting and people crying out in pain. I curl my fingers into a fist and find Chessie’s hand there. She looks up from her lap, eyes wet with tears, and takes a ragged breath before squeezing my fingers.
“Oh, Lexa–”
“Where am I?”
“We’re near the port. You–it’s been days. I thought you were dead. We’ve been looking everywhere for you and Felicity, and those kids.” She sniffles, shaking her head.
“Did everyone get out?”
“Most,” she says softly. “Most did. The fires were…the gates came down. Most were able to get out before the walls fell, from what I was told, but you were–not with them.”
I’m dreaming. I have to be. I close my eyes, and I’m back in that arena, in chains, seeing the king of the fae for the first time. How long has it been?
“Did we miss the harvest?” I ask, and Chessie chokes on a sob, her smile weak but eyes bright with a laugh she can’t manage to hold back.
“We did. We missed it by a longshot.”
“Where is Kaleb?”
“He’s nearby. He has a lot to do, you know, before you all leave.”
“He said–he said he’s not going.” I close my eyes, reaching toward my chest, but my body curls in pain. I can barely move.
“He will hardly let you out of his sight, Lexa. Blake–he’s very upset with what you’ve done to yourself, but I told him you get a pass. You did it. You won. Everyone is leaving. Blake was able to contact Maeve before his powers failed, and–they’re coming for you.”
“And you?” I try to process everything she’s saying, but it’s impossible. I look into those green eyes I grew up with. Memories of girlhood sprint by, so sweet, so innocent. But then I see her as she is now and the ocean stretching between us. “You love him, don’t you?”
“He’s sending Kaleb home with my bride price,” she smiles. “Do you think my mom will be happy and finally get off my back about being married?”
“Is it over, Chessie? Is this real?”
“Look,” she says, pointing through the opening of the tent at a clinic. Beyond the opening, the sky is streaked with crimson light, and in the distance, shadows bob on the water.
I close my eyes as another presence casts a shadow over my cot. Chessie grips my hand once before leaving, murmuring to the other person to let me rest, that the healers did what they could, but healing drafts are sparse, and I’m badly hurt.
Blake sinks onto the stool Chessie exited, his hand resting on mine like he’s too tired to even grip it. He feels cold, but something is different now.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
“What the Goddess demanded of me. I pray it’s enough.”
His fingers twitch. I can’t feel his powers. Normally, they buzz around him like he’s made up of electric currents, but now?
“You gave them up, didn’t you?”
I open my eyes, looking at him with effort. My back feels raw, my skin tight. Blake’s eyes are still violet but… normal.
They no longer glow.
“Maeve will decide if I’ve sacrificed enough.”
“They’re here.”
I turn my head to Kaleb’s voice as he enters the tent. Blake rises, leaving my bedside, and Kaleb cautiously replaces him, but instead of resting on the stool, he kneels, taking my hands in his.
“Come with me,” I whisper, my throat tight.
His smile is one I haven’t ever seen from him before.
But I have a lifetime to memorize the new lines, the dimples.
Don’t I?
Don’t we?