Chapter 19 Nightbane witch

Chapter 19 Nightbane witch
KANE

(Hours earlier) 

Sable, wide-eyed, slips in with a pocket of cheer like she pukes rainbows and sunshine. 

First, her hawk eyes carefully scan the room. I watch her shoulders flex when she registers, ‘no whores.’ Well, she has got nothing to criticize me for today. 

Her usual whirlwind of chatter begins, from her father’s nagging to Daciana’s birthday, but she doesn’t mention Nyx or throw any questions about her like I thought she might. I’ve crafted the necessary lies in advance.

Just a maid.

Just a slave. Simple.

I’ll sooner die than say use the mate to introduce an omega, even though Sable is my closest friend with whom I have no secrets. 

This one secret is as huge as it is shameful to spill. 

The only reason her stare lingered on Nyx is the same as anyone who stares at her—the maid who threw a snake into the Luna’s bath and lived.

A stupid thing to be known for if you ask me. 

Anytime Sable looks overjoyed, some mischief is brewing somewhere. And I always find out after she comes running for help.

After excruciating minutes of droning on about silk banners and honeyed wine that I tune out until the moment she happily skips out, the room falls back into its familiar, ringing silence that instantly swallows me up. 

I am suddenly deathly aware of how empty and hollow the entire room feels.

But it’s always been empty. And hollow. But today, that realization is all too clear, too uncomfortable.

I turn to the tray the omega left behind, hiss at it, and rise to my feet. Why would I want to eat something she prepared?

In my twelve years of taking the throne, I haven’t ever had breakfast. Why start now?

But my gaze lingers on it and I hear her little voice in my head. ‘You saved my life.’

I did. To me, rape is even more disparaging than murder, so I see no reason why she’s turned a chef for the bare minimum. Before I know it, I lean closer for a closer look.

I tear off a piece of the warm bread and dip it in the egg yolk—runny, golden, perfect—and the flavor explodes on my tongue in a betraying, shocking kind of way.

I grow bug-eyed. 

It’s rich, herbed, with an aftertaste of garlic, and something sharper I can’t name—maybe the poison she added. 

Better than the kitchen drudges have managed in years. I hate that I notice. Hate even more that I take another bite of it. 

Skol stirs. I groan already without hearing him, rolling my eyes.  “Shut up,” I mutter around a mouthful.

I take another chug of the wine and plop into my seat like a sticky mess.

She always keeps me wanting, doesn’t she?

Wanting her cunt. Now, wanting her food?

The door slamming open without a knock draws my attention. My jaw tightens in annoyance until I see

Draven fills the frame.

His expression is grim, and the black cloak is dusted with road dirt. He’s been out. “Emergency, Alpha Kane,” he starts calculatedly, menacingly calm. “We found some rogues in the deadlands. Also captured a pack of them sniffing too close to the border.”

I grit my teeth. “Why is that an emergency? Bring them in. Public execution at dawn. Make it messy.”

He hesitates. He’s not done. “One’s different.”

“Different how?”

He meets my gaze. “A Nightbane Dargo.”

The name lands like a gauntlet thrown. A dirty laugh rips from my throat. “A what?”

“Exactly as I said.” Draven’s stoic expression doesn’t crack into a smile to show he’s joking. 

After all these years, a Nightbane wolf. And not just any, it practices dark magic? 

I’m already moving, shrugging into my riding coat. “I thought I wiped out those bastards!” I yell, upturning the tray of meal before me.

The dishes crash across walls and the floor. 

Skol surges forward. ‘Find her. Break her. Hang her head from the gates so every Nightbane bastard remembers what happens when they crawl back.’

“Prepare the horses,” I snarl.

Draven’s hand catches my arm. “Kane—”

“I’m your Alpha!” I shake him off, shooting him a glare. “I decide, you obey.”

“But—”

“Question me one more time and it’s your body parts that litter the market square,” I warn, growling dangerously. “Not the Dargo’s. Gather the horses, now.”

He casts his eyes downward. I see the disappointment in them, and he’s preparing a speech already, something to convince me that not all Nightbanes are evil. 

That I should ignore the prophecy and all the despicable things they’ve done.

I won’t need to find out whether or not they are evil because I will kill this one too.

We ride hard out of the manor, the other guards following behind us. 

The strong wind tears at my cloak and whips my hair across my face. The trees blur by and my grip around the reins tightens until it bites into my skin. 

Draven keeps pace, shouting over the thunder of hooves. “You’re blind with it, nephew. Slow down before you ride us into a ditch.”

“I wiped them out,” I shout back. “Every last Nightbane. Either dead or scattered. How dare one slither back into my territory?”

“Kane. You have to slow down. We also found Luke and Mesh’s bodies. No one rips a heart out as clean as you.” He catches up to me, worry dressing his pretty face. “What’s going on?”

I spare him one glance. “They touched what was mine.”

“Hiyah!” I don’t wait to hear the rest, I gallop faster.

The deadlands are the outskirts, swarming with dry trees and shriveled up leaves. My men are on guard, their swords drawn to the necks of the rogues. They bow as I climb down from my horse. 

The rogues kneel in a ragged line, a couple of bound wrists and bloodied faces. Most are young, feral, forgettable. 

However, that is not the reason I am here.

Finally, I see her at a corner. The old woman sits cross-legged in the dirt like she’s at a tea party. She has long, white hair braided with bones and feathers and her skin is inked with runes that crawl like living things. Huddled beside her is a boy no more than twelve.

She looks up as I dismount and laughs. A sound like breaking glass.

“Mad king,” she croons, her whiny voice ancient and amused. “Irresponsible pup playing at the throne.”

Draven steps forward, grabs the hilt of his sword. “Watch your tongue, witch.”

She ignores him, keeping her eyes locked onto me. That sick, strong, and metallic Nightbane scent rolls off her.

It crawls up my nose and settles behind my eyes. My stomach clenches. My fists ball.

I despise it. Despise all of them. Yet here she is, daring to live and running her filthy mouth before me.

“You think you ended us?” she says, tilting her head. “You only scattered the seeds, boy. We grow in the dark.”

“Haul the others to the dungeons,” I tell Draven. “Cage the Dargo. She’ll decorate the market square by sunrise.”

The guards move into action. The boy beside her screams as they drag him away yet the old woman doesn’t flinch. She spits at my boots. “Bastard!”

I shake my head, biting back a laugh because I know how much I am going to enjoy driving a stake up her tainted little heart.

Draven murmurs, “Alpha Kane, the boy—”

“Is a Nightbane,” I cut in. “Likely. He has no scent yet. Till then, he’s collateral.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

We ride back through the market square. As usual, the crowd parts like water, bowing low with bright faces that unknot my chest.

I fall silent, scanning all of their faces. Farmers, merchants, and children clutching their mothers’ skirts. This is what I bleed for. 

This is what I keep.

This… is Blackhollow. 

Then my eyes fall upon her.

Sable, her red hair blazing, eyes wandering, with another tense woman beside her. The stranger’s face is half-hidden by a scarf, but something about the way she holds herself snags at me.

I know that frame. 

My eyes narrow. I rein in my horse so hard it rears. Draven swears behind me, almost having his face crushed by my horse’s hind limbs.

“Sable,” I call.

She startles, facing me as though she didn’t already know I was there. In one jump, I dismount and my boots hit the cobblestone with a thud that silences the square as I stalk forward.

The woman beside her is still immobile. 

“Who’s your friend?” I ask, pleasant as poison.

Sable’s hands twist in her cloak. Her eyes wander from mine and land on her feet. It’s her tell whenever she is lying. “A friend of mine. None of the Alpha’s business.”

I don’t let the lie drop before I reach the stranger in three strides, grip her shoulder, and spin her around.

The scarf peels off and the woman raises her eyes to meet mine.

“Daciana?” I echo, the name tasting wrong.

She recovers first, curtsies with mocking grace. “Husband. Fancy meeting you here.”