“I’m sorry,” I whispered, because I was sorry. Sorry for how it all turned out. Sorry that I couldn’t reach him, keep his better side around longer than his evil side. Sorry I had to do what I’d spent this last minute mapping out.
“Sorry for wh—” he started, but he didn’t finish. He coughed out as I rolled up, using the full force of my head to butt his skull. My ears rang and the dense pain dropped through me like an elevator falling, but I got up, flipping him onto his back in his moment of agony. He fought at me, trying to get his hands around my waist to flip me off, but my rage was complete; like a health bar in a video game it was running through me and fueling my strength now. The wolf inside of me, suppressed, brought to life only by Luther’s good intent, surfaced. She guided me, supported me, honed my senses and made it easy to do what I did next.
Everything slowed down; I could hear the slaves outside, whispering, concerned for me; I could hear footfalls at a run, heading this way; I could smell the mix of meat and wine tarnishing the newly polished floorboards, noting that Katy’s dead body smelled remarkably like beef. And finally, I saw my chance. Luther’s face looked ugly as he fought me, his mouth gaping wide as he screamed my name. I needed little wit or intelligence to gently yank the chain from around my neck and in a moment of clarity, jam it into his mouth. His eyes rounded in surprise, jaw loosening to release the object, but I shut my eyes and brought my elbow up, dropping it down on his jaw with the mighty strength of the alpha female.
I didn’t stay to see if it worked. I spun around on top of him and got to my feet, running so fast for the door that it felt like slow motion—like being trapped in those dreams where you’re flying and can’t get off the ground.
My silk dress and the tight corset stiffened me, making it impossible to breathe. I gasped and whimpered as I fled to the other side of the room, feeling him hot on my trail, his fingers an inch away from my neck. But as I hit the door and hammered it hard, screaming for help, the absence of his reaching touch stopped me.
I hadn’t noticed the deathly, panic-induced silence until all sound suddenly flooded back to my ears. I glanced across the room, eyes widening when I saw Luther rolling around on the floor where I’d left him. I wasn’t sure from back here, but it looked like he was choking. As if smoke was billowing out of his mouth in the way it would when cold water’s thrown over a hot pan.
My brow contorted and my shoulders relaxed. I walked closer, but not too close, and watched for a moment.
He writhed and wriggled, clawing at his throat with tightly curled fingers, but the silver dagger was wedged tight; the only sound he could vomit out was a pathetic and almost inaudible “Ga-ga-ga.”
I squatted down, hugging my knees in my stained silk dress, and prayed to Carne that he’d die.
His face swelled up right before my eyes and his head went redder than when he realized that his son loved a slave. As the struggling died down and his hands left his throat, grasping and scratching at the ground now in a final attempt to win his life, I looked up at all the eyes looking down on him, as if the souls of the women depicted had been painted into each portrait so that at this very moment each one that he’d hurt could look down and watch him suffer.
“This is for them,” I said.
He rolled his head up, twisting his body to look at me. “C-c-c,” he said, and I smiled the smile of a deeply satisfied woman.
“What’s that?” I put my hand to my ear, angling it to him. “I can’t hear you when you talk with your throat full.”
He gave up then, and his whole body went floppy, aside from his chest. But after a moment, even that gave up the fight and the alpha lay there, hopefully dead.
A moment passed, like the suction before a blast or the rush of a wave being dragged out to sea. I was keenly aware that I’d killed him, and yet it didn’t feel like murder. It felt like justice.
I tugged the iron ring off my finger and tossed it onto his corpse, glad to be rid of it. Glad to be rid of the need to feel accepted. Glad that it was finally all over.
“Well, I might only be fifty percent wolf, but I am one hundred percent badass right now,” I said to myself, kind of wondering what to do next.
The door burst open on the other side of the hall then and I screamed, backing away on my bottom and hands.
Theo marched toward us. “Where is he?” he yelled. “Where is my father?!”
He didn’t see him on the floor behind me until he was right upon us. His steps slowed then, and the anger burst away from his face, leaving him bent over his knees as he saw the steamy, bloodied mess around his father’s mouth. “What did you do?”
“I did what you should have done a long time ago,” I said simply, terrified of him for the first time.
Theo turned his head and waved his arm. “Out! All of you!”
The doors closed with a heavy thud that echoed around the faces of all those women that came before me. They looked at peace now, as if the fake smiles that were painted there before had changed.
Theo knelt down, and I thought he was going to inspect his father, but he picked up my hand instead, patting it softly. “Are you all right, Red?”
I shook my head. I was fine. I fought my battle and won. But Katy…
My lips turned down and trembled uncontrollably. “He killed Katy.”
Theo covered his jaw with a flat palm, trying to get something out, but he couldn’t speak.
“Theo, what is it?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“He only thought he killed her.”
“What?” The new breath left me dizzy.
“He wouldn’t have a clue who is who around here, Red. The fool sent me to kill the slave girl you’d befriended.” He laughed, his eyes lensed with springing tears. “Did you really think I’d kill her?”
I laughed too. “Then she’s all right?”
He nodded. “She’s gone. I had to help her escape quickly. There was no time for goodbye.”
I jumped up on my knees and hugged him, ignoring the fact that my armpits were really sweaty from all the stress. “I don’t care. That is the best news I’ve had all week!”
Theo laughed, patting my ribs as he drew away. He looked at his father then and closed one eye in consideration.
“Are you upset with me?” I asked timidly.
“Why would I be, Red?” He lifted his eyes to mine. “Not when I came here to do the very same myself.”
My face opened out in disbelief.
“He crossed a line, asking me to kill the girl I love, and you were right.” His brow went up as though he still couldn’t believe it. “When I was asked to serve her up for dinner, I sought help, and that help was only too willingly given.”
“Help from who?”
“Mrs. Potter, among others.” He stood up and looked around the room, walking over to the wall when he spotted what he needed. “So, if anyone asks, you didn’t do this, Red. I did.”
“You did?”
“Yes.” He took down one of the many decorative swords from the wall and inspected the blade. “If one kills the alpha—”
“He becomes the new alpha,” I said, eyes wide as I got to my feet and moved quickly away from the body.
“So you can either inherit his empire,” he said, holding the sword out to me, “run it as your own, or you can go back to your normal life.”
I almost cried, covering my mouth and nodding instead. “I wanna go home.”
“I thought you’d say that.” Theo gave one good swing into the air and I covered my ears, turning away. As much as I hated Luther I didn’t want that image in my nightmares. The way he choked on that necklace would be enough to haunt me for the rest of my days. No matter how evil he was, it surely had to leave a mark on the soul when you take a life. Which led to another thought.
I whipped around and looked at Theo. “Who did they serve?”
“Pardon?” he said, hiding his father’s head behind his back so I wouldn’t see. But I
saw the thick pool of blood all around his feet, new drops joining it by the fours. I chose not to look.
“If they didn’t cook and serve Katy, who did they serve?”
“Florence.”
“Who was she?”
“An old black cow.”
“A cow?”
“As in ‘mooo’,” he said with a laugh.
My legs went weak. I moved to the chair and sat down, allowing myself a moment to make sense of everything that happened here tonight. No wonder Steak à la Katy smelled like beef.
“Things are going to be different around here from now on, Red,” Theo said gently. “You have my word.”
I smiled, jumping as the doors burst open again. Theo lifted the severed head of Luther and held it up for Aerik and Agnes to see. They stopped in their tracks and stood defensively as they took in the scene.
“As you can see, I have killed my father,” Theo said boldly. “Bow to your alpha or challenge me, if you will.”
They looked at each other and didn’t hesitate to drop to one knee.
I stood up proudly beside Theo, averting my eyes from the greying head. “Can I go home now?”
He nodded. “Of course you can, Red.”
Part Four: Chapter One
After Alex: The Other After Alex
With all my belongings packed into the one suitcase in the trunk, and with Max on my lap in the front seat of Theo’s car, we headed back to my old life, as if I’d never been there in that mansion to begin with. I didn’t feel even a pang of sadness as we drove away. I just felt numb and confused, like any moment someone would spring out of the dark and say “April Fool’s!” Then they’d take me back to that tower and lock the door, and I’d never see the light of day.
I was wrong when I said my life could be divided into three parts. Because, back then, I never imaged there would be an After the Darkness. Free now, on my way home, it didn’t feel like I always imagined it would. A part of me wished I’d stayed one more night at the mansion to get my thoughts in order. I wanted to see Mom and Alex, but I was also afraid. What would I tell them? What would I say had happened to me there at Ravenswood? How would I face the shame in my pack that Luther still, to his dying day, had not consummated our vows? They’d take that to mean I was unworthy of the alpha. And you see, these thoughts were worse than the fact that I killed him. I was so messed up right now that I actually cared what people thought. So messed up that I was worrying about still being a virgin two-and-a-half months into marriage. Really, had I not learned anything about life in all this time?
No, I decided. I had. I would push those thoughts to the back of my mind and tell people the truth. Luther was not worthy of me. He never had been. He’d never been worthy of our pack. And now, there stood a more worthy alpha than any before him, and our new alpha female would not even be wolf. She’d be a human slave girl. I wasn’t sure it got any cooler than that. It was unorthodox; it wasn’t in keeping with tradition; but it was better.
As the forest released us and backed away solemnly, the town center came into view, its modern lights and the giant cinema bustling on such a clear, crisp night. I looked at all the warmly dressed people as we passed, in hopes I might see Alex, but he wasn’t there. A few old friends were, but they didn’t see me.
After that, each familiar street became more familiar as we neared my house. Theo didn’t say a word the entire time, and Max, excited to be in a car, stood up on his hind legs, paws on the door, his breath making circles of fog on the window. A part of me worried that Mom might send the dog back with Theo. After all, I’d only begged for a puppy my entire life. Why would she say yes now? But that concern was far at the back of my mind. My biggest now, after the dinner conversation with Luther before he died, was Anne and her baby girl.
“Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“They all turn into ravens,” I said softly in the darkness. “You left that bit out.”
He nodded, his shadowed face lit by an oncoming car. “I didn’t think it was necessary.”
“Why?”
“I guess…” He looked down at his hands, lifting one off the steering wheel to thumb away a sliver of blood that had been left between his fingers after his shower. “I didn’t want you to feel like you made a mistake helping Anne escape.”
I nodded, looking at the thinning snow and for some reason comparing it to the cold in the hills; it was still like mid-winter up there, but down here the last rainfall had melted a lot of the snow away, leaving it patchy and muddy along the sides of the road.
“What about Anne? What will happen to her daughter?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his deep voice calming somehow. “But I’ll find her and I’ll help her if she’s alive, I swear to you. That little girl is, after all, my only sister.”
I looked up and smiled at him. “That’s right. I didn’t think of that.”
He smiled back, eyes moving to Max then, the smile growing. “He looks happy.”
“He’s going to love home,” I said, stroking his back.
“He’s grown a lot. He’ll be bigger than you before month’s end.”
I laughed. “Not that big. But he’ll be bigger than Alex’s dog.” I got a flip in my heart then, thinking about seeing Sacha. “Did you know?”
“About what?”
“That Alex came to the mansion?”
“Yes. I drove him home.”
“What?” I sat up taller in my seat. “Was he okay? Is he—”
“He was fine. No one hurt him.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“No. He had nothing to say.”
“Did you tell him you knew me? Did you tell him I was okay?”
“No.”
“Why? Theo, you knew how much I—”
“Because he needed to forget you, Red. I didn’t know then what would happen. As far as I knew, life would go on as it always has, and to offer him hope, news of you, would only have been to torment him—to torment you, should I have told you about it.”
I sat back, sullen. He was right. But I hated that Alex had been so close and I had no control over what was said or done from there.
Theo slowed the car as we came upon the front of my house, and I leaned forward, as if I could jump right out the window and land in my mom’s arms. It was dark, all the lights out but the porch light, but I knew she’d be home, most likely still awake.
“Do you want me to come in?” Theo asked.
“No, it’s okay.”
“Okay.” He pulled up along the sidewalk and put the handbrake on. “I’ll just get your suitcase then.”
“Okay.” I smiled. “And Theo? Thanks.”
“No, thank you Red.”
We exchanged gazes for a long moment, maybe seeing the future that would have been if I hadn’t killed Luther tonight, haunted by it. By rights, since Theo overthrew his father’s reign, he technically could have killed me too. Or kept me for entertainment. When word spread, people would ask questions. They wouldn’t understand that Theo was just good through and through. They might accuse him of an ulterior motive.
“I’ll see you soon, Red,” he promised, touching my knee. “I’ll bring Katy to see you when the dust settles.”
I smiled. “Tell her I love her, and I’m so glad I didn’t eat her tonight.”
“I will.” He laughed, then shifted a nod to the beam of light that met us at the sidewalk. I looked to see my mom’s silhouette in the doorway, creeping out curiously to see who was here.
My whole body tightened up, as though everything I’d suffered all these months hadn’t hurt until right now.
I passed Max to Theo as I pushed the door open and ran up the path, hearing her cry out my name as I slammed into her arms. My legs couldn’t hold me anymore. I let them take me down to the ground and Mom came with me, kissing my head and wetting it with tears.
Amidst our loud, tearful reunion, Theo’s shadow appeared over us. I buried my face in my mom’s blue dressing gow
n, breathing in the smell of her and the dad that seemed now like only a character from a book I once loved.
“Things will be different now,” Theo told her, standing there with Max in his arms. “With great thanks to you for the offer of your daughter, I am pleased to present her back to you, untouched, of course.”
Mom cried harder, wiping her mouth. She looked so young like that, almost more like a sister than a mom. “But why? What about the agreement—”
“Luther is dead,” he added, “and I am your new alpha.”
I felt Mom shift. As the shock wore off, she went to get up and bow, but he stopped her.
“Please,” he said in that deep, soft and kind voice. “There’s no need to bow to me. I will forever be in Red’s debt, Mrs. Redwood, and as such, in yours.”
I looked up at Theo as he bowed to us, smiling softly after.
“You are to keep the payment you received for your daughter’s hand in marriage,” he added, passing Max to me, who whimpered and licked my face as if I’d left him for a year, “and there will be another large one made in remuneration for her courage and ingenuity.”
Mom looked at me as if to say ‘what on earth happened?’, eyes going then to my fluffy, shivering puppy.
“Red.” Theo squatted down and touched my shoulder. “Get up out of the slush. Go talk with your mother. Tell her of your adventures.”
“All of them?” I asked, making sure I had permission to say everything.
“As you see fit,” he said with a nod, taking his hand down from my shoulder. “Provided it stays between the two of you.”
I nodded, looking at Mom with melted eyes as I fought hard not to sob. I’d lived a terrible, lonely existence at that mansion these past few months, but it wasn’t so awful that I needed to sob like a baby, and yet I just needed to so badly.
She helped me get up as Theo pulled way, beeping his horn as a farewell. I waved, knowing we’d meet again very soon. Knowing that, when he arrived back at the mansion, nothing much will have changed for him. He had always run the pack for Luther. The only difference now is that he could run it as he saw fit, without answering to anyone—maybe free all the slaves, or at least pay them for their service.
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