Chapter 77 A Third of a Soul
The Shadow King’s demand hit Ronan like a physical blow. It was a gamble that defied every law of the Lycan throne, but as the red light of the forced moon began to bleed into the tunnel, Ronan realized he was out of time. He looked down at the twisted, sentient patch of darkness at his feet.
"Fine," Ronan gritted his teeth. "Take it."
The shadow didn't just move. It slithered. It chuckled with a sound like grinding stone before snapping back to Ronan’s feet. The transformation was instantaneous and violent. Ronan’s golden eyes were snuffed out, replaced by a terrifying, matte black void. On his forearms, the ancient moon runes flared with a blinding white light before turning a charred, bruised purple.
The pain wrecked him. Ronan collapsed to one knee, his lungs seizing as he felt a piece of his spirit being systematically dismantled and replaced by the cold weight of the abyss.
The Shadow King smirked from within him. He felt the connection anchor.
"Ronan!" Matthew’s voice ripped through the tunnel.
Matthew was barely hanging onto his own sanity under the red lunar pull. He skidded to a halt, his face pale as he took in the scene. Ronan didn't answer immediately. He was hunched over, his left hand white-knuckled as it gripped his right arm, which had gone dark up to the elbow.
"You had better not go back on your word," Ronan hissed into the empty air.
“Of course not, little King,” the Shadow King snickered. “A contract written in soul-dust is the only thing I truly respect.”
"What have you done?"
The voice belonged to Arwen. Ronan’s mother stood behind Matthew, her face etched with a panic that surpassed even the fear of the Red Moon. She stared at her son in disbelief. Ronan snapped his head toward her. The sight made her stagger backward.
His eyes were as dark as the orbit itself. Half of his hand had turned into a claw of living shadow, and beneath his hair, two small, jagged protrusions had begun to break the skin.
"Elara is in trouble," Ronan said, his voice carrying a hollow metallic echo. "I am going to find her. I am bringing her back."
"No..." Matthew whispered, his voice failing him.
The Shadow King didn't miss the opportunity. He forced Ronan’s mouth open, his own ancient, rasping tone vibrating through Ronan’s vocal cords. "It’s been a long time, Arwen."
Arwen’s eyes widened. She gritted her teeth, fighting the nausea and the weakness the Red Moon pressed upon her. Matthew held her arm to keep her from falling. "You bastard," she spat. "Let go of my son."
The entity inhabiting Ronan’s body stepped toward her with a predatory grace. He reached out and patted her head with a mocking, chilling gentleness. "Oh, but I can’t. I own a third of him now. We are woven together, Arwen. You can’t get rid of me. Ever."
He began to snicker, a dry, rattling sound that filled the tunnel. The sound was abruptly cut off as Ronan’s eyes flashed back to a defiant, molten gold. Ronan bared his teeth, forcing the darkness back into his subconscious with a sheer act of will.
"We are leaving. Now," Ronan growled.
Without another word, he sprinted. He didn't use the stairs. He launched himself through a jagged crack in the stone wall and vanished into the woods, following the faint, fading trail of Elara’s scent.
“You didn't have to take control that aggressively,” the Shadow King remarked inside his head.
Ronan ignored him. He pushed his legs until the trees were nothing but a green and red blur. "Where is she?"
“Such a killjoy,” the shadow muttered. He went quiet for a moment, sensing the ley lines. “I see her. She is drenched in blood. Valerius is gone, and his pets followed him into the ash. With the speed she is moving, she will hit Northwood before midnight.”
Ronan frowned as he leapt over a fallen cedar. "Northwood? Why there? That is where her nightmares started."
“Unless she is going back to finish what they started,” the Shadow King suggested lazily. “She isn't a girl right now, Ronan. She is a reckoning. Head north.”
\---
In the ravine, Elara was drowning in her own skin.
Every breath felt like swallowing needles. Inside her head, the argument was no longer a conversation. It was a riot.
"Stop," the girl-version of her whispered, cowering in a corner of her mind. "That man has a family. Don't hurt him."
The Wolf didn't answer with words. Lyra simply flooded Elara’s vision with the color of heat. To the Wolf, the tracker pleading for his life wasn't a man. He was a threat. He was a heartbeat that needed to be silenced.
"I am Elara," she tried to scream, but her vocal cords were busy forming a guttural, vibrating snarl.
Her vampire blood surged, making the scent of the man's neck smell like the only thing in the world that could stop the fire in her throat. She felt her fangs drop, clicking against her lower teeth. She hated the taste of blood, yet her mouth was watering.
"Please," she begged herself as her hand, now tipped with obsidian claws, rose to strike. "Don't let me be this."
But the Red Moon was a heavy, thrumming hand pressing down on her brain. It amplified the hunger and drowned out the mercy. She watched, like a passenger in a runaway carriage, as her own arm swung with enough force to snap the tracker's neck.
He fell. The forest went quiet for a heartbeat.
Elara stood over the body, her hands trembling. "I did that. I killed him."
She wanted to cry, but her eyes were too dry, too focused on the next movement in the brush. Then, a scent hit her.
It was him. Ronan.
For a second, the girl in her mind surged forward. "Ronan is here! He’ll save me!"
But the scent twisted. It wasn't just the cedar and rain she loved. It was rot. It was the smell of the very shadows that had pinned her down at the academy.
Danger, the Wolf screamed.
Enemy, the Vampire hissed.
The girl tried to fight back. "No, it’s him! Look at his face!" But as Ronan stepped into the clearing, Elara didn't see her mate. She saw the matte black eyes. She saw the horns. She saw the thing that had stolen her soul's twin.
The internal argument died. The girl was pushed back into the dark as the predator took full control.
"You," Elara rasped, her voice sounding like grinding glass.
She didn't wait for him to speak. She didn't wait for a sign of peace. She launched herself at him, a blur of black lightning and feral grief, aiming her claws at the throat of the only man she had ever loved.