by Lyra Evans
“And who is the source?” she asked, still affecting the same air of feigned boredom. “Surely it’s someone every Wolf here can trust.”
Oliver watched her eyes narrow, watched the dipping sunlight glint off them, and saw as she let herself smirk. She knew they only had Sky and that no one would trust Sky’s word. How she knew this, Oliver didn’t know, but he needed to get her to admit to that fact.
“A Fae,” Oliver said, taking up his place by Connor with as much confidence as he could muster. A murmur passed over the crowd again, and Kayla spared Oliver the barest glance. “Werewolves have no problems with Fae, do they? I know you’ve been unconscious for a long time, so maybe you’re behind on some of the finer points of political machinations between the Courts, but the relationship between Maeve’s Court and yours goes back far before you went camping.”
Kayla’s eyes flashed again, the blue of them cracking, deadly. She impaled Oliver with her gaze, rooting him to the spot. But Oliver was done being cowed and frightened by power-hungry killers who thought they owned the world. She had nearly ruined Connor’s life, and Oliver was going to make her pay for that.
“I’m aware of the political climate,” she snapped. “It’s a good thing you didn’t end up mated to the Alpha, as you clearly have no political savvy at all.” Some of the Wolves immediately surrounding her chuckled, but largely the packs gathered remained silent. This seemed to shake her slightly. Her jaw twitched. “But individual Fae may still murder their own reputations, hanging their trustworthiness on deceitful actions, seeking to blindfold Werewolves with charm and underhanded exchanges.” Oliver smiled inwardly. Her every word hinted at the serial murders Sky committed in the Werewolf Court months ago. But Kayla should have no knowledge of those details, or very few. Even if she did, she had no reason to assume Sky was their source—the Wolves of the Court believed him dead. That was, unless she had some personal contact with Sky. “Is your source anyone like that?”
Oliver considered her coolly. “For the protection of our source’s safety, we would prefer not to name them for the time being. But let it be known that the testimony this source provided was vetted by both Queen Nimueh and Queen Maeve, who both express the utmost determination to see Logan’s murderer brought to justice.” Oliver paused. “Or do you not trust the judgment of two Leaders of the Three Courts who worked tirelessly to avert war with your Court?”
The fury rolling off Kayla in waves was nearly visible on the air. Her hatred for Oliver was tangible, cutting through the waning day to root in the ground between Oliver and Connor.
“Of course I will consider any testimony the Queens Nimueh and Maeve have deemed relevant,” she said through gritted teeth. “So. Regale us with the tale of how I somehow murdered Logan and made it so only Connor’s scent and magical signature remained on his body. Please.”
Connor stepped forward again, addressing, instead of Kayla, the entirety of the pack. “I loved Logan deeply. He was my cousin, my kin, as well as my Alpha. I crossed the border into Nimueh’s Court that night at Logan’s side. He and I had plans to spar, as he was training me to take over for him.” Kayla snorted. Connor ignored her and went on. “Once we were finished, I departed and returned to our Court to prepare for my bonding ceremony. I was slightly injured in the sparring, and I wanted to tend to the wounds.” He rolled up his sleeve to show the injuries to his arm and undid his pants to reveal the bruising at his hip and leg. Readjusting his pants, he continued, “Logan travelled in the opposite direction to me, venturing further into Nimueh’s Court. I did not see him again, and it was only when we were informed of his murder that I knew he was dead.” Connor took a deep, steadying breath, and Oliver watched the crowd, always drawing his attention back to Kayla in the end. “What I did not know was that Kayla, the sister I had grieved and lost years ago, was actually alive and planning a coup. Working in tandem with High Warlock Carmichael of Nimueh’s Court, a Fae to help cover their tracks, and Nadia—my only remaining cousin—Kayla murdered Logan and framed me. Logan was drugged after his appointment in Nimueh’s Court, and as he stumbled back to our Court, Kayla ambushed him. She tore him to pieces, taking advantage of an already weakened opponent to win a fight she otherwise could not have.”
“How dare you!” Kayla cried. “I could have taken on Logan, were he still here, and I would have! Not like you! I didn’t need my Alpha to train me in order to take control of this pack!” Her eyes wide, her pupils pinpricks, Kayla seemed almost feral as she chided Connor. “It was your scent on him! Your scent. And your magical signature! How could I ever hope to manufacture that?”
Connor glared at her, his expression stony, full of disgust and disappointment. “You didn’t. Your job was done, with Logan dead. The Fae did the work—cleansing the site of any sign of you or your DNA, then spreading down my scent and magical signature in place of all the other evidence. It wasn’t difficult for him, as your scent is so close to mine, anyway. I suspect our magical signatures are just as similar. We’re twins after all.
“The Werewolves who searched the scene found only what you wanted them to. You laid out a scent track back to my home, to our family home, in order to frame me for the murder of my only trustworthy family.” Connor shook his head. “And all because a Wizard promised to leave you as Alpha of this Court when he took it over.” Connor looked to the Wolves around them. “She sold our Court to a hateful, bigoted man in order to gain a position she never deserved. Is that the Alpha you want for your pack?”
“You have no evidence of any of this!” Kayla cried. “And if I had sold out the pack, why did I return and condemn this Wizard’s claims against us? Why would I lead us to war if he was my ally?” She spat the words as though they were venom in her mouth. “I would never sell out this Court or my Wolves, no matter what High Warlock Carmichael or Sky Hawthorne try to tell you!”
But the Wolves standing behind her, ready to rally at her words, suddenly fell back. Silence tumbled like an avalanche over the gathered Wolves, and Kayla looked around in confusion. Oliver smirked.
“We never named our source,” Oliver said slowly. “How could you know it was Sky Hawthorne?”
Kayla blinked, her weight shifting slowly backward on the dais, her shoulders sliding until she took up a defensive pose. “I don’t know,” she said quickly. “It was just a guess, based on what I was told about his part in the murders of three of our Wolves.”
Connor shook his head. No one else moved, as though the Werewolf Court was populated by statues of Wolves rather than living ones. “The Wolves of my pack believe Sky Hawthorne is dead. They tore him up so badly, he should have been.” Looking around at the shocked and horrified faces of the Werewolves around them, Connor said, “But by their faces, they didn’t know he was alive. And if they didn’t know, how could you?”
Kayla froze, glaring down at Connor, and Oliver called to mind his strongest shield spell. Her ruined mouth pulled back in a snarl, and she barked at him. “You could never do as you were told, could you?” she cried, launching from the dais and transforming midair. Her Wolf form was easily as large as Connor’s, if not slightly larger, and her mouth was a crevice of jagged teeth. Oliver threw up the shield just in time to catch her in her leap, throwing her back against the dais. She whimpered once on impact, crumpling at the side, before forcing herself back to her feet.
“You would attack a Wolf unprompted?” Connor cried. He shook his head and pulled off his jacket and shirt. “Just as well then. By the right of my blood and kin, I challenge you, Kayla Pierce, for the rank of Alpha of this Court.”
Kayla snarled again, shaking her head violently from side to side. Oliver stepped back toward the gathered Wolves, allowing them room to fight. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a large black Wolf move, darting forward into the fray.
“Stop her!” he cried. He cast a temporary freezing spell on Nadia’s Wolf form, catching her mid-bound so that she hung awkwardly in mid-air. Lane gestured for his Wolves to rush forward and gra
b her, pinning her back against the base of the mountain. Donna stepped forward and took the dais as Connor transformed. His massive white Wolf form shone brilliantly in the evening light. Where he was sleek and glorious, Kayla was rugged and scarred, her fur matted in places, short and tufty. Connor howled to the sky once, taking his position and standing proudly. Kayla prowled over to the position opposite him.
“Challenge met,” Donna said. “For the glory and light of the Moon, fight!”
Connor and Kayla launched at each other, all teeth and claws, swiping and slashing. They collided in a clash of maws, Kayla thrashing violently as Connor dodged to one side and another, swiping his paws away every time she tried to slash at them. He snapped at her neck, catching a mouthful of fur and tearing it from her. She yelped again and head-butted his side, knocking him sideways against the stone dais. Connor gathered himself quickly, bounding forward and leaping over Kayla’s low-aimed strike and empty bite. Connor kicked downward against her head as he passed over her, pushing her down with a jerk, then landed and spun immediately to attack again.
Kayla lifted on her hind legs as Connor jumped again, this time catching the underside of his belly and cutting shallow strips into the vulnerable area. Connor growled as he stumbled sideways, his white coat beginning to turn pink from below. Connor snapped at the air, finding his footing again, and Kayla rushed at him, jerking sideways in a feint. She meant to catch his muzzle in hers, tearing strips of flesh from his face and forcing him down, but Connor saw her trick and feinted opposite her. Kayla was too reckless, too furious, and too unpractised to see the move, and she bit into nothing as Connor finished the move she had tried. His sharp jaws clamped down on her muzzle piercing into flesh straight to the bone, and he tried to force her down.
With a yelp and a growl, Kayla tore her muzzle out of Connor’s grasp, slashing her own face in the process. Bits of fur and skin dangled from Connor’s teeth as he jumped back, shocked at her drastic move. He spat out what he could and watched her warily. She stumbled sideways, her face a bloody mess of cuts and bites, the scarring newly opened and worse than before. One of her eyes was swollen over, a cut across it likely destroying the orb. She blinked unevenly out of her remaining eye and growled again. Connor barked sharply, and Oliver knew without asking he was telling her to forfeit. She should have stood down there, given in. She was clearly beyond fighting, her injuries too severe, and Connor had no desire to actually kill her. But Kayla howled wildly and threw herself forward again.
Only she was moving too fast for her own paws, her muscles clearly unsteady from the blood loss and falls, and she overshot Connor, barely biting into his flank when she aimed for his neck. Connor spun on her as she snapped, and caught her throat in his jaw instead, biting down as hard as he had to in order to down her for good.
There was a yip and a crunch, and Oliver shuddered as Kayla’s body fell to the ground with a dull thud. Connor stood over her, his eyes a turbulent storm of emotions as he gazed down at the body of his sister. Dead for the second time, Connor panted heavily, unable to do anything but stare at her. Oliver felt his stomach churn. The first time she’d died, Connor had believed he was responsible. But now, the second time, he knew he was responsible for her death, her blood dripping from his teeth.
Oliver rushed forward and gathered Connor in, nuzzling into the thick fur of his neck. Behind him, Donna stood up on the dais again, raising one hand to the sky.
“Before the pack and the Moon, before the sky and the mountain, this Court has a new Alpha,” she called out. “All howl for Alpha Connor Pierce!”
And one by one, in a curious wave of fur and raised muzzles, all the Wolves of Connor’s Court transformed and raised their heads to howl, belting out an eerie, beautiful song in honour of his rise. As they did, Connor lowered his head against Oliver, his eyes tightly shut, the fur around his eyes and muzzle wet and getting wetter. His tears dripped softly onto Oliver’s shoulder, and Oliver held him still, brushing a hand through his fur.
While the Wolves howled in honour of Connor, Connor cried for his sister. And all Oliver could do was hold him and whisper, “I know.”
Chapter 29
The world was a hazy scene of fluttering pixie lights and sparkling gemstones. Jade and topaz and aquamarine stones strung up in trees and bubbles of light cast by many different hands floated around like something from dream. A low, wispy fog rolled in, curling its tendrils out around the base of trees and stones and seats, carpeting the ground in an ethereal mist. But for all the fog over the ground, the sky was as clear as polished quartz, glittering with a thousand stars. At the centre, just above the peak of Mount Razortooth, hung a perfect black circle, the spot where the Moon should have been, bathing the night in serene shadow.
The group gathered in the clearing was larger than it had been. Seats were packed with bodies, logs and stumps and stones played perches for Wolves, while Wizards and Witches conjured chairs and pillows and blankets on which to sit, sharing their space with the nearby spill over. Fae huddled close in with Witches or Wolves, all cross-legged on a blanket, or else lifted up on a mound of soft moss temporarily shaped into a seat large enough for seven. The ground, coated in a lush grass and chirping with crickets, was barely visible between all the gathered people, and at the front sat two women together, holding tightly to one another, both grieving and celebrating, their golden and platinum headdresses making them unmistakable.
Maeve and Nimueh were both clad in traditional dress, Nimueh in a flowing silk gown with gauzy over dress and dotted with obsidian and diamonds, Maeve in bright, flaming red and yellow and orange, like fire given life, her full lips painted a shining buttercup yellow for the affair.
But through all the masses of people, not a one of them was more than a mirage to Oliver. As insubstantial as cloud, they faded away into the background haziness of the night. Instead, all Oliver saw was Connor, standing before him, bearskin cape fastened to his collar, his hair swept cleanly to the side, his hands grasped in Oliver’s, their forearms bound together by chains. Atop his head was a golden circlet wrought like twigs or antlers pointing upward at the sky—a mark of his new position as Alpha.
They’d spoken the words, the vows, the promises. They’d made their declarations to the sky and the Moon, to the people seated not three feet away from them, to each other. All that remained was to set the bonding magic into motion, to begin the irreversible process of melding their two souls, of making themselves one. Oliver’s heart tapped an erratic rhythm against his ribcage, his throat tight, his eyes full of stars as he let himself be lost in Connor’s lightning-bright eyes. The familiar fear, the panic and worry, crept up within his chest, circling around his spine like a spiralling staircase that never seemed to end. And in Connor, Oliver found himself standing at the edge of a cliff, at the precipice of change, of a bright new day, and he was desperately eager to jump.
“We stand before the Moon and Stars, begging Her radiance guide these two lovers on their path into the darkness, that She may alight their souls and weave them together eternally, for the endless run of Night,” Donna and Rory said together, their voices melding melodically and carried upward on the evening air.
As the last word left their lips, the chains that bound Oliver and Connor’s hands began to glow and tighten, the heat in them pressing outward into skin and muscle and bone. Oliver held fast to Connor, the pain of the bond almost impossible to bear. And as Oliver felt he was pushed to his limit, to the edge of his mind’s sanity, to the point of release, where he would have no choice but to let go and try to remove the pain, he felt the pain ease.
Then the heat turned to cool, the light to softness, the metal to a fine, silky powder, and the chains disintegrated before their eyes, falling away between them to reveal fine lines, crisscrossed and in woven knots, in their skin. The pattern of the knots and lines was only clear when their hands were bound, their arms together.
Oliver marvelled at the fine scars along his wrists, letting himself
be carried onward by the pleasure of it, but as he thought the ceremony was over, again the magic reared its head, pulling Connor and Oliver closer together, chest to chest, stomach to stomach, hips to hips. They pressed against each other as though trying to push through each other, and Oliver felt Connor struggle with the pressure as he did. But again, just as it seemed too much to bear, they were forced apart, the space between them seeming strangely empty without them in it. Something urged Oliver’s head back, thrown as though by whiplash, and a bright, shining thread of light emerged from his core, bounding upward and toward Connor. A similar thread of light emerged from Connor, arcing to the sky and falling down into Oliver’s chest.
Eyes shut to the sharpness of the transference of energy, Oliver clung to Connor, who clung back. Flooding into Oliver, a magic so powerful it could have lain waste to the Three Courts flushed his system. It burrowed deep within, rooting in his heart and stomach and lower. It seeped down into his toes before spiralling back up again and encasing Oliver and Connor in a golden light so bright the people nearby had to shield their eyes.
And Oliver felt it, the bond to Connor. He felt Connor in himself and out, felt the tips of Connor’s fingers and the roots of his hair, the brush of his lips and the corded muscle of his back. He felt what Connor felt and how, and it was as though Oliver was Connor, and Connor was Oliver. The sensation was heady, intoxicating, addictive. He revelled in it, soaking in Connor and the sheer sunshine of his soul, until suddenly, the light died away and Oliver came back to himself. But different.
They were still clasping hands, still staring at each other though Oliver was certain he’d looked away at least once, but they were no longer separated by anything. As Connor slowly lowered their hands and released his hold, Oliver drew his own hands back down his sides thinking he’d lose the closeness he felt with Connor. But he did not.
