Chapter 42 The Old Wound
Darius stormed through the lower corridors of the keep with the fury of a winter storm breaking against the mountains. Every guard he passed flattened themselves against the wall, eyes lowered, knowing the second-in-command was a blade looking for a throat. The council’s betrayal had already set his blood on fire, but the thought that clawed at him now was Alberto. He had locked the boy away for the good of the pack, for the good of Fernando, and yet something inside him screamed that everything had just gone wrong.
He reached the cell block and kicked the iron door so hard the hinges groaned.
The corridor was dead quiet.
No pacing footsteps. No ragged breathing. No heartbeat against the silence.
He strode to Alberto’s cell and stopped.
Empty.
The cot had not been slept in. The water cup sat untouched. The grate in the eastern wall yawned open like a fresh wound, iron bars bent outward by desperate hands.
Darius seized the nearest guard by the front of his tunic and slammed him against the bars hard enough to rattle teeth.
“Where is he?” Darius roared, voice echoing down stone like thunder.
The guard’s face went white. “My lord, I swear by the moon, he was here. I checked not an hour ago.”
Darius flung him aside and rounded on the second guard, sword already half-drawn. “You. Speak.”
The second guard dropped to his knees, palms up. “I do not know, lord. No key was used. No alarm raised. One moment he was inside, the next the cell was empty.”
Darius’s blade cleared its scabbard with a hiss of steel. “You expect me to believe he vanished into air?”
He drove the sword through the first guard’s throat before the man could finish gasping. Blood jetted across the bars and floor in a hot arc. The guard clutched the wound, made a wet choking sound, and slid down the wall leaving a red smear.
The second guard whimpered and tried to crawl away.
Darius placed a boot on his chest and pinned him. “You will join your friend unless someone starts talking.”
He kicked open the neighboring cell and hauled the old inmate out by the scruff of his neck. Chains rattled as Darius threw the man to the blood-slick floor.
“You,” Darius snarled, sword point hovering at the old man’s throat. “You spoke to him. Where did Alberto go?”
The old prisoner looked up without fear, blood on his teeth from a split lip. “He went to save his mate and his Alpha. That is the only answer you will get from me.”
Darius pressed the blade until a bead of blood welled. “I will carve the rest out piece by piece.”
A massive hand closed around Darius’s wrist from behind, stopping the blade a hair’s breadth from the old man’s neck.
Samael’s voice cut through the air like a whip. “Lower the sword, Darius. You do not punish inmates. That right belongs to Fernando alone. You know the law as well as I do.”
Darius spun, wrenching his arm free, sword rising again. “You dare interfere? Did you let him go?”
Samael did not step back. “I did. I met him at the edge of the Thornwood. I gave him my own short sword and told him to follow the black stream. He is gone.”
Darius stared, rage and disbelief warring on his face. “You sent him into the Thornwood? Have you completely lost your mind?”
Samael’s eyes blazed. “Yes. I have lost my mind. I have lost it enough to let a human boy with no wolf walk straight into that hell if there is even a chance he can save Fernando. I have lost it enough to believe that courage is worth more than your precious caution.”
Darius took another step, sword trembling. “You would gamble the Alpha’s life on a dream?”
“I would gamble everything,” Samael said, voice rising until it filled the corridor. “Because at least he is moving. At least he is not hiding behind stone walls like a coward while the one he loves dies a slow death.”
Darius’s knuckles went white on the hilt. “Choose your next words with care, gamma.”
Samael stepped forward until their chests nearly touched. “Here are my careful words, second. You are the reason Nadia is dead.”
The air in the cell block turned to ice.
Every guard froze. The old inmate pressed himself against the wall. The only sound was the slow drip of blood from the dead guard’s corpse.
Darius’s voice dropped to a whisper that somehow carried farther than a shout. “Say that again.”
“You heard me,” Samael snarled, teeth bared. “Nadia went into the Thornwood because you charged into an ambush like a fool, without scouts, without orders, without a single thought in your thick skull. She followed to drag her foster brother out alive. She never came back. And you lived. You still walk and breathe and give orders while she feeds the roots of that cursed place.”
Darius’s sword rose until the point rested under Samael’s chin. “I mourned her every single day.”
“Not enough,” Samael spat. “You mourn with pretty words and locked doors. Alberto mourns with his feet and his blood. He is walking through the same forest that took her, and he is doing it for the Alpha you claim to serve.”
Darius’s hand shook. “He will kill Fernando by forcing the bond.”
“Or he will save him,” Samael fired back. “We will not know until one of them is breathing or both are dead. But I will not chain a wolf, human or not, who is willing to pay the price you never paid.”
Darius stared at him for a long, terrible moment, chest heaving, sword still at Samael’s throat.
Then he slammed the blade back into its sheath with a sound like a gunshot.
“You have overstepped every boundary,” Darius said, voice low and lethal. “When Fernando returns, you will answer for this.”
Samael’s laugh was bitter and broken. “If Fernando returns, he can flay me himself. Until then, pray the boy makes it through that forest. Because if he fails, the blood is on every hand that tried to stop him, including yours.”
Samael turned and stalked down the corridor, boots striking stone like hammer blows, disappearing into the shadows without looking back.
Darius stood alone in the center of the cell block, surrounded by fresh blood, a dead guard, a trembling one, and an old inmate who watched him with ancient, knowing eyes.
The old man spoke softly into the silence. “He will reach the ancient home, my lord. Or the forest will keep him. Either way, the debt is being paid.”
Darius did not answer. He stared at the empty cell, at the bent grate, at the faint smear of blood leading into the drainage tunnel, and for the first time in years felt the cold certainty that a choice he had made might destroy everything he had sworn to protect.