Chapter 157 Enemy Number One
❀ Maeve ❀
Past the wrath and disorientation from learning about my father, I finally felt it.
A hollowness in my chest, an ache through my bond with Nikolai.
Drusilla being his sire allowed her to feel it more clearly, I supposed. Because her eyes were molten with menace.
Obeying some silent order, all the IronWolf guards cleared the room, leaving Drusilla, Lilith, and the original group.
I looked into Bastian’s stricken face, fearing the worst.
“Bastian, where’s Nikolai?”
I gasped when he pounded his fist into the stone table. It cracked.
Bastian then gripped my shoulders, as if to hold me upright for some shattering news.
“After you… died,” his hands trembled, “Nikolai was convinced he could cure your curse with a transfusion. He drained you to the marrow, and I fed you my blood, bringing you back to life.”
I concentrated on his mouth, reading the words as well as hearing them. Panic made my breaths shallow.
“He looked physically worse after taking all your blood. Even I was convinced it had worked. Nikolai greeted the sun to end it.”
I swayed. Thank the gods for Bastian’s steady grip.
“That method would have saved someone like Nikolai, who had only contracted the curse by ingestion. It didn’t work on Maeve because she was born with it. Short of death herself, or the services of a high witch, which are extremely scarce, she may never be cured. The wrath corrupts her very essence.” When Drusilla finished, the room was silent.
“That’s one less leech in the world, hardly a loss,” Leif said callously.
A fire flared in my chest.
The disrespect.
Maim. Kill. Destroy—
“You will not get the attention you clearly seek, as you’re blind to see what’s in front of you,” Lilith said.
Leif faced her, his tone mocking, “And what is that?”
“A new order. For once, the vampires and wolves are united in a common cause. Maeve.”
Leif did not respond.
My rage faded back to panic, from panic to a thorough realization.
Nikolai had been willing to die for me. Selfish, stupid vampire. Didn’t he know we were a team? We were supposed to find a cure together.
I took a step back. “When was this?”
“Last night,” Bastian said. And it was almost sundown.
I refused to deduce what that meant.
“I’m going to get him. I can trace to him,” I declared, closing my eyes.
“Trace to him? Drawing on your connection, I presume. That is a rare and valuable talent—”
“Please, I need to concentrate,” I cut Drusilla off.
I swallowed, sweat slicking my hands.
Ignoring the tangible presence of them all, I used my wolf and essence together to trace Nikolai through our bond—
“If he made that decision last night, he’s ash by now. You can’t trace to ash.”
“Shut up!” I screamed, voice breaking.
Ignore them. Ignore them.
There—my mate’s essence, his scent… the memory of his touch…
A flash of dizziness swept me up. I steadied myself and opened my eyes…
Nikolai’s rooms. At his private mansion.
“Nikolai?” I spun in place. “My darkness?”
No response.
I checked the bathroom, the wardrobe, and the balcony overlooking his vast lands.
Nothing.
Employing my senses, I tried to scent him, but this was his house. His scent already lived in every corner.
I clenched my fists and traced again.
This time, the trail brought me to my chambers at the castle.
“Nikolai!” I called, my eyes misting.
My ribs felt too small. Too tight.
No response.
He wasn’t here, but his scent was. From past times, or more recently?
Another jump took me to the greenhouse he’d commissioned for me.
I looked around frantically, running through the long and expansive paths of the natural, forest-like structure.
All the flowers were in bloom, healthy and perfect. The staff had tended to them.
“Nikolai, my love!”
Nothing—
I stopped short.
At the jasmine fountain, a bouquet rested just shy of the water. The arrangement was beautiful. Intentional.
I hurried to it, finding two boxes beside it.
There was no time. I needed to find my mate, yet something told me he’d intended for me to see this.
As I picked up the smaller box, dread built.
Had I traced to these specific places because they’d been his last locations?
Had he gone to his rooms to see his space one last time, to my chambers to feel closer to me?
To this greenhouse to leave me a parting gift?
With a cry, I tore open the box.
The crimson venom dagger he’d gifted me. The same one I’d tried to kill Alpha Mordane with. The same one I’d killed Vladis with. Repackaged and presented.
My fingers trembled as I tore open the larger box in haste.
Satin gold fabric. I took it out. A dress. A truly decadent dress with provocative cuts and satin softer than a cloud.
And underneath it—diamond rings. Gold armbands and bracelets, long and short chained necklaces. Huge earring studs of pure glass.
My mind whirled. I laid the box back down and traced again.
Right back to IronWolf’s war room.
“What?” I said, disbelieving. “Why did I return here? I was tracking him.”
Drusilla had taken a seat. She watched me with an expression I didn’t like. Pity.
“Maeve. It’s unlikely that your ability is lacking. Nikolai is no more. I do not sense him.”
“And why should I believe you?” I snapped. “I’m his mate. I would know.”
“And I’m his sire,” she said, without venom, like a fact. “My blood formed his essence. Maeve, you need to let go.”
“How dare you!”
The rest of them watched on. Silent.
The silence was toxic. Like an acceptance of loss.
Then Bastian stepped forward.
He pulled me into his arms. And that’s when I broke.
I choked on my own breath, blood tears rushing down my cheeks. My heart twisted and burned simultaneously.
“He wouldn’t do this to me. He wouldn’t purposely leave me. He can’t.”
Bastian rubbed his hands down my back. He said nothing.
“Tell me what he said exactly. He must have said where he went!”
In my periphery, Alpha Mordane—my father, pulled out a dangling object.
The amulet.
I released Bastian, striding to the alpha.
“Give it to me. That thing is part of my plague.”
He closed the distance wordlessly.
Then he grasped the pendant of the amulet, where the red swirled like a crimson tempest.
Before my eyes, he crushed it in his closed fist. His fingers moved powerfully, grinding the metal and blood until it ran between his knuckles.
My mother’s blood? Or mixed with my father’s?
“Had I known it caused you such pain, I would have done this sooner.”
My lips parted uselessly, my shoulders slumping.
It was gone. Finally.
I was free from the crimson stone’s shackles.
That left finding my stubborn, selfish mate. And curing the curse.
If something existed, then it could be destroyed. The curse had a cure. We just had to look harder.
Alpha Mordane cupped my face with a large hand. But I didn’t look up.
“I don’t know what to do… how do we find him? I’m not good at it. Not like he was.”
I’d never actually done it, not even once. Meanwhile, Nikolai had traced to a place he’d never seen, heard of, or imagined. He’d found me using my essence. Our bond.
Out of sheer love, he’d discovered a skill even Drusilla termed rare and valuable.
I’d failed him.
“So Bastian and Maeve are cousins?” Leif interrupted petulantly.
How my veins boiled. The wrath seethed and festered like a rotten wound. Leif was testing the bounds of my control.
But he had a point. I’d been ignoring that angle.
My head throbbed with everything happening. It felt like all my luck had been squeezed clean by some deity.
“Bastian’s father was my closest friend. Us being the only Lycans at the time encouraged the assumption that we shared blood. We did not.”
I glanced up then, but lost my words when I met my father’s eyes.
Discussing the appropriateness of my relationship with my mate with him was too heavy.
My heart was raw.
Nikolai couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t—
A loud horn boomed in the distance, the deep note tearing through the stillness.
I flinched upright, looking around at the others.
“What was that?” I demanded.
The sound came again, more urgently.
I glanced at the alpha to see his eyes slitted, jaw tight.
“The war horn.”
Immediately he said it, an IronWolf soldier burst through the door.
“An army, alpha, from the east. A horde of vampires.”
Leif shook with accusation. “Can you see that? And they brought their army! For one sodding missing leech!”
Drusilla looked bored. “Not ours. And you forget—the queen is standing right here. If they are her army, she can easily have them stand down.”
My brows furrowed. Past the pain, the exhaustion, questions arose.
What kingdom would move against IronWolf now?
What enemy did we have?
As realization dawned, the darkness in my veins simmered in anticipation.
I’d just been delivered the perfect outlet for my wrath.