Chapter 78 The Salt and the Iron
Elara hit him with the force of a falling star.
Her claws, now jagged obsidian talons, raked across the shadow-cloak covering Ronan’s chest. The sound wasn't of flesh tearing, but of magic screeching against magic. They tumbled into the dirt, a chaotic tangle of silver hair and black veins, rolling through the white fire and salt the trackers had left behind.
"Elara, look at me!" Ronan roared.
He caught her wrists, his dark-veined hands shaking as he pinned them against the damp earth. She didn't respond with words. She thrashed beneath him, her spine arching with a strength that shouldn't have been human. Her face was a mask of beautiful, terrifying carnage. The silver of her eyes was gone, drowned in a sea of black that reflected the bleeding moon above.
"Grrr... Enemy!" She shrieked, the word vibrating with the layered, distorted voices of the wolf and the witch.
"It's me," Ronan gasped, his voice cracking as he felt the Shadow King stirring in his gut, hungry to strike back. "It’s Ronan. I came for you. I'm right here!"
Elara’s head snapped forward, her fangs baring as she tried to sink them into his throat. A jagged, high-pitched scream ripped from her lungs, echoing off the ravine walls. To her, he didn't smell like her mate. He smelled like the void. He smelled like the thing that had stolen her life.
“She is right, you know,” the Shadow King’s voice vibrated through Ronan’s skull, dripping with amusement. “You aren't the King she loved anymore. You’re a hollowed-out husk. Why do you think she wants to rip your throat out? She can smell me all over you.”
"Shut up!" Ronan snarled, his eyes flickering between gold and black. He pressed his weight down, trying to keep her from shredding his chest. "Elara, listen to my voice! Remember the garden. The peach... the nine years I waited. Don't let the moon take you!"
Elara’s body buckled. She let out a low, pained whimper that turned into a vicious snarl. “No... Ronan... dead...” She choked out the words, her eyes flickering for a fraction of a second, showing a sliver of hazel through the abyss.
"I'm not dead," Ronan whispered, his forehead pressing against hers. Sweat mixed with the blood on his face. "I'm right here. Look at me, Elara. Fight it!"
“Kill... the dark...” she hissed, her claws digging into his forearms.
“She’s going to kill you, Ronan,” the Shadow King whispered, his tone mocking. “Unless you let me take over. One flick of my wrist and I can bind her in shadow-chains. She’ll be safe. Quiet. Compliant. Isn't that what you want?”
"I won't break her!" Ronan yelled back into the emptiness of his own mind.
He looked at Elara, whose face was contorted in a silent scream of agony. She was a passenger in her own body, watching through a veil of blood. He could feel her soul vibrating, trying to reach for him, but the Nosferu blood she had consumed was a poison, a dark fuel that kept the beast in control.
Suddenly, a cold, whistling sound cut through the trees.
A silver-tipped arrow thudded into the dirt inches from Ronan’s head. From the shadows of the upper ridge, more figures emerged. They weren't trackers. They were Nosferu warriors, their skin bone-white under the red moon, their eyes fixed on the "Keystone" pinned beneath the Lycan King.
"The girl belongs to the Mother!" one shouted, his voice a dry rasp.
“Oh, look, guests,” the Shadow King snickered. “And you’re so very busy pinning down your girlfriend. What a dilemma.”
Ronan didn't look up. He couldn't. Elara had found a gap in his defense, her hand swinging up to rake across his jaw. He didn't flinch at the pain. He grabbed her hand, his voice thick with a desperate, raw love. "Elara, they're here. They’re coming for you. I need you to stay with me. Please. Just one second of the girl I know."
Elara’s pupils dilated. She looked at the blood on his jaw—the blood she had drawn. Her breathing hitched. For a heartbeat, the feral mask cracked.
"Ron...an?" It was a breath, a ghost of a name.
"I've got you," he whispered.
But the moment of clarity was a trap. The Red Moon reached its peak, pulsing with a blinding, bruised light. The "Twin Flame" bond flared, but it wasn't warmth that traveled through it. It was the Shadow King’s cold, limitless power.
Elara’s body went rigid. Her fangs didn't just drop; they elongated into ivory daggers. The scent of the Shadow King’s essence within Ronan’s blood was no longer a threat, it was an invitation.
She didn't shriek. She didn't struggle. She moved with a speed that surpassed even Ronan’s shadow-fueled reflexes. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him down with a strength that felt like tectonic plates shifting.
"Elara?" Ronan gasped, his hands falling to her waist.
He saw her eyes, pure and unblinking black, before she tilted her head.
With a sharp, predatory inhalation, Elara sank her fangs deep into the side of Ronan’s neck.
The sound of his skin tearing echoed in the silent ravine. Ronan’s back arched, his hands clutching the earth as a jagged, silent scream died in his throat. She didn't just take his blood; she began to pull at the darkness. She was drinking the Shadow King’s price right out of his veins.
Ronan’s vision began to grey at the edges. The last thing he heard was the Shadow King’s voice, sounding genuinely startled for the first time.
“Wait... what is she—? Stop her! She’s taking the soul-third back!”