by Melle Amade
I don’t lower my head in fear or shame. Reap what you sow, is all I have in my head, and if this is what I will reap for trying to assassinate him, I will take my punishment properly.
He glares down at me, the green light still blazing in his eyes. What the heck is that? El Oso has some sort of energy power that protects him. Why didn’t anyone tell us about this? Did they know? If Aiden and Callum had known… If Zan had known… Roman would’ve known.
They must not have known.
And now, Roman is dead.
My heart aches and bleeds inside of me, pouring all my grief into every organ, but I can’t let it show on the outside. I need to keep in all these emotions that will destroy me if they fly out.
My father. My friends.
But I can’t tear my eyes off El Oso.
I gave them all up when I chose to try to remove El Oso from power. I have lost, and I mustn’t look at them or implicate them.
“You will die for that.” El Oso’s words are a growl erupting from his chest and cascading over the terrace. The crowd is quiet. “It is the law. Bring forth her Ridder.”
The crowd parts. I swivel my head to see Callum’s shoulders hunched forward as he comes towards us. If he was white when he first joined the gathering, he is doubly so now. His skin is almost translucent.
“Have you your sword, Ridder?” El Oso asks.
“But—but wait!” Zan’s voice is shaky but clear. “There must be a trial.”
No, Zan. No. It’s too late. Don’t implicate yourself. I can only pray and hope Aiden has the good sense to control her, get her back to safety, and away from the wrath of El Oso.
“No trial is needed for this!” El Oso’s voice breaches no argument as it sails over the gathered shifters. “Unless I am wrong?” He turns to look around the silent terrace.
Nobody responds.
Nobody has a solution to this regardless of how many Ravensgaard or others wished to rid the world of the Berzerken control. The attempt we made failed. The element of surprise is gone, and I will stand now with nothing left.
I am pulled forward and turned to face the crowd. This is where Zaragoza stood. Accused by the Berzerkens in front of the gathering. Soon my head will fly. Tremors start to shake my body.
My friends will watch this.
My father will watch this.
The boy I love will be required to do this.
He has no opportunity to even stop this from happening. The only thing he can do that is of any help is to give me a swift death. I quickly look up into his eyes and nod.
It’s okay, I mouth.
I glance away before I crumble.
But my actions have likely made a statement that is worth hearing. It is worthy of people to notice, and everybody here has seen. A sixteen-year-old girl made a stand against fascism, against the supreme ruler. Against a bear shifter who would control us in such a way that we have no opportunity to be free. None.
Now I understand that look in Zaragoza’s eye as he sat here in front of everybody awaiting execution. It is simple. I have done the right thing, and if doing the right thing means my death, then that is something I am willing to accept.
I pray Callum doesn’t do anything stupid. There’s a look in his eyes of grim determination, but if he does anything but decapitate me, he will join me as a criminal. He will be the next one here. There is no defying El Oso. There is no getting away from him. He has ruled for generations and will continue to do so. He has some crazy power that cannot be overcome.
Nothing is happening. I glance up. Callum stares at me, slowly shaking his head back and forth like a bewildered beast that doesn’t know what the next right move is. Our eyes are locked, fear and torment in his. But the only thing worse that I can imagine right now is if another one of my friends were trapped like me. They have already killed Roman. I cannot be responsible for the death of Callum too.
“You must.” I say the words strong and loudly. I’m not an alpha, but with every bone in my body, I try to bring forward an alpha tone. He must listen to me. I want to look at Aiden, but I can’t tear my gaze from Callum. Aiden can command him. Aiden needs to command him to do this horrific task.
“Stop!” My father’s thick Australian accent grates across the entire terrace as he pushes his way through the crowd.
“You want to fight with someone, y’bastard?”
“Dad! No!” I cry.
“How about not picking on my daughter, eh?”
“Who the hell are you?” El Oso asks.
“I’m the one you’ve been looking for,” Dad says.
My father turns to the crowd. “Me for the girl.”
El Oso laughs. “Why would I take you, some old Ravensgaard, and set this assassin free? That is not how the law works.”
“You have been operating outside of the law, too,” Dad says, but his voice is low.
El Oso frowns at Dad, but doesn’t say anything.
“I know you like to bargain,” Dad continues. “So I will give you this bargain. You will take me and free the girl.”
“No!” roars El Oso.
“I know how to get what you’re looking for.” Dad’s voice is quiet.
El Oso’s eyes grow large as his gaze bears down upon my father. A single phrase comes out of his mouth, it’s so low and quiet only a few of us at the front can hear it, I’m sure. “The chalice.”
Dad swallows as if it’s the hardest thing he’s ever had to do in his entire life. “I know where it is,” he says. “You free the girl and leave her in peace for the rest of her life, and you can have me and the chalice.”
El Oso’s head cocks to the side as he takes in my father. I want to scream something, but there’s nothing left I can say. My dad is in command. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and I am the one to put him in this position.
“Why would I want you?” El Oso asks.
My father takes a deep breath, and he pushes off the ground into the air. He is flying, hovering above us, a beautiful white dove. He is massive. His wings beat in the moonlight that pours down upon the shifters.
Patch and Polaris rise to attack, but El Oso pulls them up. “He will come back down.”
The crowd is silent. I gaze at the Ravensgaard. They stare in awe at Dad, the dove. They are not horrified like the first time I shifted in front of my friends. The Ravensgaard are impressed. Some are even smiling.
Dad does a single circle and then lands. “You can have me and what you want.”
“No!” I scream. But no one pays any attention to me.
I have no idea what Dad is talking about. How many secrets has he kept from me my whole life? Inside, I know what he is doing. He is trying to do almost exactly what I was trying to do. I was trying to save everybody.
He’s trying to save me.
“I accept,” El Oso says.
“Both,” Dad says. I have never seen him so strong and so valiant in my entire life. He is fierce. A force of power and strength that will not back down. His strong, silent power goes beyond my understanding.
El Oso frowns.
My gaze turns to Roman. Something in him twitches.
He’s alive.
“Both,” Dad says.
“And once I get what I want?” El Oso says.
“Then you can kill me,” Dad says.
“No!” I shriek. It’s high and shrill and carries out across the terrace and down over the canyons of Topanga.
“If you can catch me.” Even in all this horror, Dad’s face lights up like the sun as he throws El Oso a sideways grin.
“Agreed,” El Oso’s rumbles. “However, they will wear irremovable collars. That is what I will agree to.”
“Done.” Dad doesn’t even hesitate.
“And be cast out of our society. Banished,” El Oso says.
“Agreed.” If El Oso lets me live, Dad will agree to anything. “Have them removed. Let their friends take them. I will remain with you. When they are confirmed safe, then I will take you to what y
ou want.”
“Bring the collars,” El Oso says.
I don’t even struggle. There’s no point. If I struggle against this, I will have nothing. I bow my head. There’s no way to remove the collar—it has no hinge. It is exactly like the one Lady Heather wears. They bring it forward in two halves. El Oso touches his fingers to it, and his force field comes out of his fingers, welds the metal together, fusing it into a single, unbreakable choker. It’s so tight, it rubs against my skin.
It removes the power to shift completely.
Roman’s head hangs low. I want to cry out because now I can see he’s breathing. He is alive. But I can’t do anything because the collar has drained my energy.
Patch and Polaris take my father. El Oso snarls as he brushes past me. “We leave now.” All the Berzerken trail after them.
“No. Dad!” I scream and reach towards him, but there’s nothing I can do. Dad, my protector, my sun, is lost to me.
23
The metal is like a noose surrounding my neck, weighing heavily against my collarbone and pressing against my throat. It feels like I’m constantly constricted. As if somebody has their hands against my neck even though they don’t. It’s like when my mother was choking me in the bath. It feels…it feels like it’s going to be impossible to live with this.
Aiden, Zan, and Callum take us to the study inside the manor. Bears stand guard at the door. We’ve been given a few minutes at Aiden’s request, to speak with Lord Van Arend. But, I have no idea what it’s going to achieve. Aiden’s father is staring out the window at the bleak horizon, reclining in his red velvet chair. His hands fumble in his lap a moment, before gripping the top of a whiskey decanter. He doesn’t bother to grab a glass; he just presses it to his lips and tilts his head back to drain it.
“Can you help us?” I ask, even though it should be obvious by his state that he cannot. How could anything get through the alcohol-induced mist that surrounds his brain?
“You know,” he says, “when my wife died, he was the one who came up here and was kind to me.”
My gaze shifts to Aiden, but he shrugs.
“Did you know?” I ask. “Did you know he was a Passief?”
Lord Van Arend’s eyes bore into me. “It was obvious your dad had secrets. But people should be allowed to keep their secrets.”
I swallow hard. Does he know? Could he know that I’m still able to shift into a dove? But his eyes don’t see me. It’s more like they see through me.
“He didn’t tell me, and I didn’t ask. But sometimes he’d come up here with a six-pack of VB’s, and we’d just sit on the terrace looking out across the valley and have a drink together.”
“He never told me,” I say.
“It was the middle of the day. While you were in school,” Van Arend says. “Can’t imagine he’d want you to know. I know I couldn’t let shifters know I was hanging out with a human. But he started coming around after my wife died. It’s like he knew I was lonely, and he understood it.”
I think of all the years my dad wandered lonely in the world after the death of his family.
“He never stayed too long. Just enough for one beer. It became a regular practice of ours. I had my suspicions he was a Passief, and he most certainly knew I was a Plunderaar. There’s no shifter alive who doesn’t know of the Van Arends.”
“So you’ll get him out,” I say. “Away from El Oso.”
A wistful smile plays on the corner of Van Arend’s mouth. “It’s not possible, Shae.”
“How can it not be possible?” I demand. “He carried you through your dark time. How can you not get him away from the Order? Away from the people who killed the rest of our family?”
“It is the Order,” Van Arend says.
“But you’re the most powerful shifter in the Order.”
“Perhaps I could have been,” Van Arend says. “But my greatest strength is also my greatest weakness—my family. If I go against the Order, they could destroy us. They could start a battle against us and ruin everything for generations to come.”
“Your seat. Your money,” I hiss. “What is that compared to my father’s life?” But even as the words come out of my mouth, I realize it’s not those things that concern Lord Van Arend.
“It’s me,” says Aiden.
“I cannot sacrifice my son’s future,” Van Arend says. “As much as I respect your father, as much as he’s quite possibly the only friend I’ve ever had, I cannot go against the Order.”
“But they will kill him,” I say.
“I don’t even think you realize what you are asking, Shae,” Van Arend says. “There’s no going back from this. You are collared and banished. My home and my son’s home and his future are not worth risking to save your father’s life.” Van Arend doesn’t look at me as he says it. He looks out to the sky while gripping the whiskey decanter as if his life depends on it. “I made a promise to his mother that I would protect him from the Order, and this is the way I am doing it.”
“Well, I can’t stand by and do nothing,” I say. “We can’t just leave him to be killed!”
I pick up a vase and hurl it at the wall. It shatters into a million white and blue porcelain pieces. I’m at the door as the last one rocks to a standstill on the floor.
“Shae, stop,” Aiden says.
But I can’t stop. I can’t even shift right now. I can’t escape because everything inside me is battling against itself. Because I hate how much I know he’s right, and I hate how much I can’t live with my dad alive and a prisoner of the Order.
“Where are your mother and brother?” Lord Van Arend asks.
“There at a safe house,” Zan says.
“Borrow my jet and go to them,” Lord Van Arend says, raising the whiskey decanter again. “Be safe. Stay away and you will survive.” It’s clear my audience is over.
We go one last time to the Sanctuary. Roman is still dazed and quiet. The collar is making me nauseous. I’m sure it’s doing the same thing to him.
The tunnel to the Sanctuary looks like a gaping wound in the side of the hill. I throw myself down on my stomach and crawl in the dirt. I don’t have to, but I want to. Crawling low I rub my belly in the dirt and dig my hands into it. I grip the soil under my fingernails. This is what it’s like to be buried in the earth.
Our tree is still there, on the other side of the tunnel, the charred stump black and blunted. All the branches burned off and fell into the canyon. There’s just enough remnants to show the majestic tree it once was. I sit on it with my feet dangling over the edge. I’m not even sure I care if I fall.
It’d be one thing to tell Mom that Dad was dead. But how can I tell her this? How can I tell her he’s a voluntary prisoner? How can we go on living as a family knowing Dad is alive but held captive by El Oso? A slave.
The sun burns up the horizon, falling into the ocean and dying a purple death as blackness descends over the canyon. I feel the darkness all around me like a cloak. I still sit here waiting for something to happen, but not knowing what it is. Yet somehow deep inside of me, I do know. Because this is worse than the charred bodies in the Australian outback. I know exactly what Dad would do if he knew his family was imprisoned. He would’ve rescued them before it was too late. And, for me, it’s not too late. Topanga means nothing without my family. I love my friends, I understand why they must live here, I understand why it makes sense to play it safe, and I don’t even blame Lord Van Arend. It’s not his battle.
But it is mine.
And I will take it.
We sit in the same places where we have sat so many times before—Callum, Roman, Aiden, Zan, and I. But now our Sanctuary is crumbling around us, and the sky hangs heavy upon us. The silence is like a funeral shroud until I break it.
“I’m going to go after him,” I say.
“Shae.” Aiden’s voice sounds like he’s being strangled.
“I’m not asking you to go with me,” I say. “I understand why you can’t, and I don’t think you sho
uld. Just… You know how before when you had to stand by me? You don’t have to do that now. But I have to do it for my father.”
I stare out across the canyon, but I can feel Zan bristling next to me as if the hair on her back is standing on edge, even though she’s still in human form.
“You are sworn to me,” says Callum.
“I know.” I don’t tell him I’m still a dove on the inside, and I don’t tell him. I will break my oath to him to save my father. “I know.”
“You’re not an oath breaker,” Aiden says.
I turn to look Callum directly in the eyes. “Will you command me to not go after my dad?” I ask. “Will you command me to abandon my family?”
The darkest shadow sweeps down the plains of his face. His eyes are closed, so I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but a single word comes out of his mouth. “No.”
“Callum.” Aiden exhales in horror as if he’s been holding on to the belief that Callum, as his Ridder and my liege lord, would command me to abandon my father.
Callum eyes are alive with a dark tempest. “If they would have locked my brother up instead of assassinating him, I would’ve gone to get him, too.”
“It’s not going to end,” Roman says. We all turn to him. “The world is changing. I know your father wants to hold on to his manor. I understand that. And maybe he can. But for how long? Did you see that energy that came out of El Oso? I guarantee you that is what he is hunting. That is what he’s trying to find or grow or gain or something. The Order is gaining new powers. And once he has those powers, he’ll destroy all of us. Fighting against El Oso and the Order is the only thing that should be done.”
“You think I should go with her?” Aiden asks.
No,” Roman says. “Aiden, I think you must follow your own path. And if that’s following in the footsteps of your father, if it’s commanding your Ridder, if it’s commanding me…then do it. But I will break my oath to you because I agree with Shae. I’m going with her.” He looks at me with a crooked smile. “I’m not a bad ass frog anymore, but I’m with you no matter what.”
