Chapter 74

Gabrielle

I stared at John’s outstretched hand. It was clear he wasn’t there to rescue me, which could only mean one other thing. That he had betrayed Dire Mountain. He had turned his back on the pack.

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” I was so angry and hurt, I couldn’t even look at him, “why? Please just tell me why?”

“Gabby,” he said crouching.

Pulling Nero closer into my chest I glared at my father’s Beta, “and you took my wolf! How dare you?”

His eyes roamed over Nero’s back, “I thought you would be happy to see him. I brought him to save him.”

“And yet you doomed everyone else!? Left them to die like animals?”

John’s face hardened, “I didn’t need anyone else.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t you see, you are Dire Mountain. You are the future of the pack. It is in your blood.”

I took a slow shuddering breath, my Alpha-blood. The only heir to the pack, “you want to be the Alpha,” I breathed.

A grin. “I saw how you looked at that Alpha boy from Hollow Stone. And smelling his scent so strong on you now, I know I had made the right call. I thought you were going to choose him eventually and you did.” He gestured to the bright red, slightly swollen claim mark around my wrist.

I stuttered, “but you, I, we never…”

He pulled his shoulders back, smirking, “if you think about it, you don’t even need to like me. All I need is your mark and maybe a pup or two.” I felt the world sliding out from underneath me. “Once you give me all those things, you are free to go.”

“Are you mad!?” I snapped, eyes glowing yellow and claws elongating, “I am a mated woman! And you are a Beta!”

John waved a lazy hand in the air, “technicalities.”

“My mate is going to rip you to shreds!”

John rolled his eyes, but Heir approached, “he’s probably on his way here as we speak,” the prince said giving the Beta a pointed look. A silent order to hurry the hell up and get going.

“I’m already here.”

His words echoed through me like an electric current. That voice. I knew it like it had always been a part of me. My comfort, my home. The love of my life. My mate.

Axel’s low growl reverberated from the darkness as he prowled closer. Deadly.

John spun around, crouching into a fighting stance, his eyes so wide, the whites around his irises glimmered in the moonlight. At once, he stepped in between me and my mate.

Big mistake.

Axel’s yellow wolf-eyes glowed from the shadows and his canines gleamed as he pulled his lips back into a snarl. He was half-shifted but remained mainly human.

Behind him, more darkened figures appeared and Dire Mountain wolves already shifted into their beasts stalked closer. I couldn’t smell them and they looked different. Felt different.

Their eyes were not the golden-brown, yellow and orange I usually saw. No. These eyes were white as snow. Pale and lifeless. Mere windows for something squatting inside. Even their energy had pulled back into them, like the life inside had been contained and kept beneath the fur. A shudder went down my spine.

Heir, now standing beside me, sank his fingers into my hair, caressing my sculp in a tender, almost intimate manner. He smiled at the figures approaching. A wicked, roguish smile.

“Welcome,” he crooned, “the more the merrier.”

He hadn’t touched me once after he had gotten the wish out of me and handed me over to John. And for a second, I wondered whether it was all just an act. The smiling, the touching, the heartless front. Was he trying to prove something? Impress someone? Fool himself into thinking he had no emotions, no empathy, no love?

I knew it was a lie. His act. I knew because when he could have wished for anything in the entire world, he wished for a woman’s heart and in that moment, his energy had sparkled with silver and gold. Love. Hope.

Heir’s warriors scrambled around us, being caught completely off guard by their enemy’s sudden appearance. They were rushing for their weapons, getting into formation, and barking out orders amongst themselves.

My eyes locked onto Axel’s. “Stay put,” his order burst into my mind.

“John betrayed us,” I linked back.

His eyes shifted to the Beta between us, “I know.” There was nothing but hatred in the harsh lines of his face. Axel’s wolf wanted blood and vengeance. John’s blood. The blood of a traitor.

Locke and Coyne stepped out of the shadows, the latter snapping his fingers, to which a large, black dome of swirling shadows slammed down around us. In an instant, it encased the clearing, separating our warriors from those of Dreams and Seduction.

Heir glared at his father and Coyne scowled right back. They both looked so young like they could have been brothers.

Although Coyne had warm, almond eyes and Heir’s was electric blue, it was quite obvious they were related. The features were uncanny. Dark brown, almost black hair, strong jawline, pointed ears, and raw power emanating off them. Heir had his thick black bands over his face and Coyne was covered in slow swirling shadows, hidden just beneath the surface of his skin.

It was the first time they had met face to face. No one dared to move. To breathe.

“You have my blood in your veins,” Coyne finally said.

Heir tilted his head, a movement so predatory, it reminded me of Coyne. A lazy smile. “Surprised?”

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Coyne said, holding his hands out, palms facing Heir, “I don’t want to lose you before I ever got to meet you.”

“You never cared one bit, why the sudden change of heart?”

Coyne’s brows furrowed, “how can you say I never cared? I thought about you and the other, every day of my miserable life.”

“And I suppose sending a postcard was way too much trouble?”

“What?” Coyne stared at his son like a deer caught in headlights. “What are you talking about? I have been locked up in the Serpent Queen’s dungeon for more than forty years!”

“Liar!” Heir hissed, his cool and in-control act shattering. “You sired me, and I am turning nineteen this year! Or did you sire me from the filthy dungeons?”

Silence fell.

Coyne didn’t break eye contact with Heir as the boy’s words hit home. The tension in the air doubled and it became difficult to breathe as the two scowled at each other.

Heir’s electric blue eyes scanned Coyne’s face in frantic, desperate movements. His heart was beating so fast, I didn’t need my wolf-hearing to detect it. The fingers he still had in my hair tightened as he stared at his father while his entire world came crashing down around him.

Blackness and deep purple energy seeped from him, replacing his usual light blue.

“You’re a damn liar and a good one at that! She would never deceive me like you claim she did!” He roared out savagely. My heart broke for the young prince. For the lies he had been fed and the monster he had been manufacture into.

“I was the unwanted bastard born son to the king without a rightful queen. A shame and a disgrace. You wanted the problem to disappear and ordered me dead!”

Heir spat the word dead like it was poison on his tongue while tears of agony shone in his hate-filled gaze.

“That is not true!” Coyne’s voice boomed and shadows recoiled in fear. “You were stolen from me! She stole you and fed you these lies!”

My heart wept for both of them. What they had to face. The loneliness they had to endure. How one cruel woman had managed to rip two lives apart with one wicked tongue.