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KAEL
The mountain trail before me is red with blood — some of it mine, most of it that of the rogues who stood in our way. Aeliana's claws tear through my chest, and it feels like every breath is blood, and exhaustion. But through the bond, I can sense Raven’s energy returning, her wolf swiping angrily back.
She's close. So close I can almost smell her on the wind.
"Alpha, movement up ahead," whispers Vance, beside me. Marcus, our lone soldier, is crouched behind a boulder to my right, aiming his rifle at the ridge over Darian’s fortress.
Built into the mountain itself, the fortress looks like nothing so much as broken stone and iron supports. Torches line the walls and I see sentinels stationed every so often. But something is off about their placing — too predictable, too convenient.
"It's a trap," I say quietly.
“The whole situation stinks of setup,” Marcus says in agreement. “They really don’t try to hide their numbers.”
My enhanced senses allow me to sense at least forty rogues on the fortress walls, not counting those in the tunnels beneath. Those should be impossible odds for three of us. So why do they seem like they’re holding back?
“Sir,” Vance says, his voice carefully neutral. “I need to tell you something about the council.”
I don’t turn my eyes from the fortress, but my Concern is on my beta. "What about them?"
"I overheard a few things before we left the station. Secret messages pinging back and forth from the Spire and … somewhere else. I couldn’t break the code, but the timing was fishy.”
"Suspicious how?"
And they overlapped with all of the most significant rogue attacks of the last three months. "Someone was giving them information about our movements, our defensive placements, and they even knew about your private meetings with the pack leaders.
The effects were like a punch to the gut. "Some one in the council is leaking information to Darian."
"That's what I think, yes. And sir… I think I know who.”
I turn to face him fully. Vance has been my trusty beta for a solid three years. If he’s coming to me with suspicions about the council, he’s not taking it lightly.
"Tell me."
"Councilor Thane. I saw him with those communication crystals in the old storage chambers, talking to someone in code. And as I attempted to approach, he felt me and abruptly severed the connection. But Alpha…the reason he was keeping tabs on you in the first place was to track down Raven.
Thane. The cold-eyed councilor who has questioned Raven’s authority since the day she turned up. Who advocated most fiercely for limitations on her training, who always seemed to harbor anxieties about her “influence” on pack decisions.
“How long has this been the case?”
“I don’t even know, but maybe months. Perhaps since the wedding.” Vance's jaw tightens. “Sir if Thane has been involved with Darian, then he knows about the prophecy. He might be planning to—"
"To destroy me and take leadership of both packs as his own. The puzzle pieces drop into unbearable clarity. “If Raven is corrupt in whatever sort of ritual Darian’s planning, and I’m dead, the council would have to appoint a new Alpha.
“And Thane had been the voice of reason for years,” Marcus says bitterly.
It’s a cold, sharp rage that fills me. Not the rage of a wolf betrayed, but the measured anger of an Alpha made a fool of. But beneath it all and pushing everything else along is the desperate desire to reach Raven in time.
"We move now," I decide. "Before they can—"
Howling fills the night sky and bounces along the hillsides. But it is not the call of rogues, or the victory howl of attacking wolves. It is a scream of pain and terror, and a female one at that.
Lysandra.
I feel Raven's wave of horror brace like lightning the moment she knows the voice belongs to her mother. The bond between us swells like I’ve never felt since she was taken from me, and I feel her emotions—fear, anger, defiance, and underneath it all, a new power I can feel deep in my wolf.
“That’s her mother,” I whisper.
"Who?" Vance asks.
"Lysandra. They are playing her as leverage.” I look again at the fortress with fresh eyes, noticing things I missed the first time. "This is about more than catching Raven or staining the prophecy. They're forcing
Another scream sounds from the mountainside — a weaker one, but it’s undoubtedly Lysandra’s voice.
“Alpha, we gotta go,” Marcus commands. “Whatever they are doing to her—”
“Is intended to make me do something careless.” I consciously try to think tactically, though every fiber of my being screams for me to throw myself against the walls of the fortress. “They want me to jump the gun, to make mistakes.”
But even as I work the problem, I can sense the clock ticking.
There's something else in Raven's feelings creeping in though, through the bond, something I don't understand. Her wolf is evolving, growing more powerful in ways that should not even be possible.
"The ritual," I realize. “They’ve already begun whatever it is that they’re trying to do.
A new voice rings out in the night, carried by some variety of amplifying magic. It was Darian's voice, in the ceremonial tone of an ancient ceremony.
By moon and blood, by shadow and flame, I evoke the ancient powers to witness this claiming. Round she went making the leaves and branches quiver with her amount of energy, let the Moon's Daughter's strength pass to one more deserving let her hold be released and let it be mine."
"We need to leave," I say, no longer bothering to be quiet. “Whatever happens, we disrupt that ritual.”
We pop out of our hiding spots and attack the castle. The sentries see us at once but give no loud warning. They have no intention of killing us—they’re driving us toward a particular entry point, trying to funnel us exactly where Darian wants us.
I don't care. Each second we continue to wait is another second of suffering for Raven and her mother.
The front gate is heavily guarded, but there’s a smaller entry cut into the stone face about 50 feet up the east wall. It’s reachable only by a narrow,
dangerous-to-navigate-in-the-dark ledge, but it would get us into the keep faster than breaking through the main defenses.
“Come,” I bark, and start to scamper up the side of it.
The rock is jagged against my hands, smooth in parts from wind and rain. I can hear Vance and Marcus behind me and their breaths are steady, despite the effort of keeping pace. We’re all on adrenaline and desperation now.
When I am halfway up the wall, my communication crystal begins to vibrate. I’m half about to dismiss it, but there’s something about the patter — three short bursts, a pause, three more — that makes me pause. It’s a password I’ve not had to enter in years.
I power up the crystal, speaking quietly. "Who is this?"
“Someone who has waited a very long time to make things right.”
The voice is corrupted by magical interference, but it sounds familiar. "Identify yourself."
"You know me as Thane but that is not my name. My name is Gareth Shadowmere, I’m the son of that family your father threw out two decades ago.”
The world seems to stop. Gareth Shadowmere -- I recognize that name from the ancient scripture. His family had been exiled for practising forbidden magic, for attempting to twist the ancient ties that bound the packs.So the tension between Deirdre and me – tension he casually dismissed in word but no doubt feared in action as well – was only one-third the inevitable squabbles between teenage girls.
“You’re Darian’s ally,” I say.
“I’m not anyone’s ally but my own. -So I have, been feeding Darian information not for the reason you may think. I've been biding my time, waiting for you and him to conspire in your own destruction, so I can take what was rightfully mine all along."
"The head of the Obsidian Spire."
"The leadership of all packs. With Raven’s power tainted and siphoned through the ritual, with you and Darian dead, I'll have the power to bring every pack to my rule." The old divisions, the age-old hatreds—I’ll put an end to them.”
I hear the muffled sounds of the ̈ritual being played behind the crystal. Darian’s voice warping dark magic, other voices chanting back. And there, beneath it all, the sound of Raven struggling against whatever binds her.
“But I’m in a generous mood tonight,” Thane goes on. “So I’m going to give you a choice, Kael. You can either save your precious mate or save her mother. But not both."
"What do you mean?"
“The practice called for two victims, a willing one and a coerced one. Darian will murder Lysandra and use the corruption of Raven for fuel. You give up for her and I will see to it that Lysandra does not. Your mate is going to be a corrupt bitch by anyone's standards, but at least her mother won't pay with her life while I make my revolution."
There is staccato interference on the crystal, and my ears prick up as I hear footsteps walking towards Thane. "Choose quickly, Kael. It is at moonrise at its climax when the ritual reaches its zenith. In 10 minutes time your choice will be removed for you.
The link severs, and I continue to stare at the lifeless crystal in my hand.
"Alpha?" Vance’s voice tightens with concern. "What was that about?"
I glance up at the fort above us, then back at what’s left of my own men. Faithful and fearless, and will follow me into hell. But I’m not the one to go inside what’s waiting for us.
“Slight change of plans,” I call back down and I continue my ascent. “We’re not just here to save Raven. We're here to prevent a ritual that will taint the prophecy and give Thane control of every pack in the region.”
"And?" Marcus asks.
I step over to the ledge and pull myself up, then turn to help the others. I can see the moon rising in the distance and somehow I can feel Raven's power surging to the breaking point.
“And we’re walking into a trap set by someone who’s been mapping this out for 20 years.
We're slipping inside the narrow entrance for the fortress and now I can hear Thane's voice bounce off the stone walls, it's not been hidden or muffled anymore.
"Welcome to my fortress, Kael Rathmore. I do hope you are ready for the decision that will determine the course of the rest of your exceedingly short life.”