by Brea Viragh
“This is the craziest thing I’ve heard you suggest, and at this point, you’ve said some doozies,” Calen commented.
His muscles protested every movement. Van had been training with him each afternoon for the last week, and no matter how many hours he took up with the sword, it didn’t make the next day any easier.
“We had to do something.” Van shouldered his pack and kept walking, sunlight glinting off the bit of scalp peeking through his close-cropped hair.
“And contacting the Nightwalker is something?”
The creature was a legend among legends. Her origin forgotten, the beast known only as Nightwalker became a bedtime story to scare children into behaving. Except this nightmare didn’t resign itself to oral history or written pages. No, this one was out there living, hidden away in a nest of its choosing.
And apparently Van had found a way to get in touch.
“It’s a serious step in the right direction,” Van said.
“If you don’t mind bargaining your life away, then yes.”
“She will have the information we need. If there is a way to break the curse, then she will know of it and point us in the right direction. It’s foolish to drag our heels when this option exists.”
Yes, but at what price?
Calen could do this. He could master the fear, because he had to do it for Odessa. He’d given his word that he would do whatever it took to free her. Even if it meant giving his life for her.
The Nightwalker lived in the mountains where grassy slopes rose to steep heights and met ice and snow. Beyond them, far in the distance, a restless sea crashed against rocks, the forest yielding to those shores. And further still toward the inland of the country was the manor house. The place that had once felt large enough to be a world onto itself and now felt like a tiny splotch on a map of infinite size.
Van drew a sword from a shoulder holster in a single practiced movement. “Stay behind me, Siegfried. Do as I say and maybe we will both leave in one piece.” A glance over his shoulder had him sighing. “And don’t look so surprised.”
“It was supposed to be you behind this, and now you’re helping me.” Calen shook his head. “I can’t make the two pictures come together in my mind.”
“And Odessa would probably laugh at us.”
Calen was quiet for a moment, thinking about how it would be if Odessa were traveling with them. Hell, if she were free, then they’d have no reason to be there. And they would certainly not have a reason to work together. Then he said, too softly, “Thank you for helping. I still don’t understand why, but I know I wouldn’t have made it this far without you.”
Despite his fear and hesitation, he knew he would not have taken this step had it not been for Van.
“Don’t give me too much credit,” Van stated, as though reading his thoughts. “I’m doing what I have to do. It’s my duty.”
“Your duty,” Calen repeated.
“My father had two sons who were prepared to fight for the throne. Me and my brother. He was cruel and spoiled and tried whatever maneuver he could to undermine me. He would lock me in a dog cage for days, without food, without light, waiting on him to come and let me free. Whatever instincts I had were sharpened and honed. I knew I couldn’t let my people fall under his hands, and so I would do whatever it took to use my gifts. For them.”
Nausea swamped Calen at the thought of the cruelty. Whatever terrible circumstances fate had thrown at him, at least he had been well cared for in Alex’s kitchens. He’d been given a roof over his head, food to warm his stomach, and a purpose. A place to create and hone his craft into something that brought joy to others.
What horrors had Van endured over the years, to craft him into the wolf he was today?
“What did you do to your brother?” He couldn’t help but ask.
Van’s face became as unfeeling as the rock they climbed, the wind screaming around them. “Eventually, I crushed his windpipe with my teeth.”
There was enough rawness in his words to make Calen question the rest of the conversation he had planned. The conversation he’d hoped to use to distract himself from his own fears.
“And your father?”
“Baron bows to tradition and duty. Although my brother Theron was older, the mantle fell to me with his death, and I had proven myself to my father through the act. This marriage contract was the next step he took to ensure the future of the Evertooth pack.” A pause, and then, “If our positions were reversed, I would have made the same decision, for my people.”
Calen’s blood chilled. “After what you went through, you were just supposed to follow through with this marriage.”
Less a question than a statement. A truth.
Van tightened his grip on his sword. “You’re asking an awful lot of questions for someone who doesn’t like the answers.”
“It’s not that I don’t—”
“I can smell it on you, Siegfried. And the further we go to break this curse, the more you’re going to come up against things you don’t like. You’d do well to learn to mask your scent from others. Otherwise it will give you away every time.”
Calen shivered against the wind as they stopped, staring up at the smooth rock face in front of them. “How much further?”
Van reached into his pocket and drew out a small square of paper. He narrowed his eyes, staring at the lines. “We should be here by now. Fuck, I don’t see anything. Did we somehow miss it?”
For some reason, the way Van spoke, Calen had the distinct impression that he’d been to this place before. But how? Why?
Stepping forward, Calen placed his hands on the sheer stone wall. “There has to be somewhere else we can go.”
“The gate is supposed to be here.”
“I don’t see one.”
Maybe because this wasn’t something one could see. Closing his eyes, Calen reached out with power he didn’t have. Or maybe it was power that he did have. Power that was stuffed so far down inside of him, fractured into so many pieces, that he would never be able to gather all of the pieces up again. But he sent his senses forward.
Please.
The stones melted in a ripple of light. And before them stood massive carved gates with their tops reaching the mouth of the cave.
Van’s smile tightened. “Well, at least we know we found the right place. Good thinking.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
Yes, they were in the right place. The sinking feeling taking Calen’s stomach down to his shoes assured him of such.
It took both of their combined strength to push open the gates, revealing a cavern of inky black unlike anything he had ever seen before. A darkness that swirled around them, alive. Breathing. Waiting for them to make one wrong move so that they lost themselves to the mountain.
Calen gripped his own sword at his side without drawing it, feeling the metal warm beneath his palm. For Odessa, he told himself. It was for Odessa he would walk into the mouth of Hell itself. And for her that he would walk out again.
Those gates... Either they had been designed to keep the rest of the world out, or, something else inside.
Van motioned him forward with a sweep of his hand and guided them both into the darkness. “The map doesn’t say anything about the Nightwalker’s den. But if we follow the cave trajectory, we should run into her eventually. She moves within the caverns at her own will. She is no prisoner.”
He removed two sticks from the pack strapped to his shoulder, the wood already soaked in a chemical to keep the tip burning. A flick of a match saw the flames bursting to life, the light bobbing ahead of them, leading the way.
Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe, and everything will be all right.
“How do we know what she looks like?” Calen asked, managing to get the words out past the tightness in his lungs.
“There are no descriptions of the Nightwalker in those books. I only know what I saw the last time, and who can tell if she changes her shape to suit her wishes?”
So, Van had been here before.
“We go until we find something. And if nothing and no one turns up, then we head home and try to find another way to get the answers we seek. It’s just that simple.”
Nothing was ever simple, Calen knew. Least of all the situation they now found themselves in. He tried to breathe, to make his lungs and heart work the way they were supposed to as he and the man who was once his enemy stepped into the gloom of the cave. Past those stern and imposing doors where sunlight didn’t dare show its face.
Calen gripped the sword at his side until he felt the bite and press of the handle against his palm. Others had come to visit the Nightwalker and gotten out, so word said. He would as well.
He followed Van along the tight stone passageways with torchlight leading the way, trying not to look too hard at the walls, knowing what he would see there. Dripping water and lichens clinging to the stone. And the claw marks cleaving through all of it.
His boots slipped along the murky ground, clear of pebbles but growing thick with slime, with plants that did not need the sun to live and thrive. Another corner took them into a small antechamber just off the main cavern, their light bouncing off the walls on either side of them.
“Calm yourself,” Van ordered. One sharp retort. “You’re going to give away our position if you keep hyperventilating. I’d rather not have her sneaking up on us before we are ready.”
“Sorry if I feel like the walls are closing in.” As they had in the manor house the other night.
Trapped. They’d be trapped here if something went wrong. They’d be locked in this horrible place of darkness and death. Waiting for the final end to claim them.
Is this how Odessa feels during the day? A small part of him wondered. When she had no control over her body, trapped in the tiny, helpless, dying form of a swan?
Their path took them further into the belly of the mountain, both males struggling to keep their footing.
“The walls very well may be closing in. Keep your eyes sharp and your senses on high alert,” Van warned. “These walls...they’re filled with a type of magic you don’t want to know about. They breathe.”
Van’s words were so soft Calen nearly lost them in the darkness. But when he tuned in, when he closed his eyes for the briefest moment and sent his senses outward, he did feel it. A faint thrumming of power coming from the mountain itself, burrowing deep beneath his skin, his muscles, into his bones.
“Have you ever been here before?” He found himself asking Van even though he knew the answer. “Have you ever asked a question from the Nightwalker?”
“Yes.” The other man kept his reply short. “And I’d rather not get into it now, beyond saying the asking price was steep. I left with the information I sought...but I paid for it. And I have been paying for it every day since then.”
Calen didn’t want to know any more.
They continued through the darkness where there was no light. No sound. Even the faint trickling of water he’d sensed when they first entered had slowed and eventually stopped.
But through those senses, the ones he was finally beginning to understand, Calen could feel her. It. Whatever creature the Nightwalker was. He felt her like claws running over the sides of his mind. Ancient in a way he would never fully comprehend, even if he had the same amount of time to learn. Patient. Hungry. Waiting for someone unsuspected to fall into her trap.
Calen nearly turned around, shaking his head, a nameless sensation of terror rolling around in his gut.
Van must have sensed it as well, for the way his footsteps slowed, his grip on his own sword tightening imperceptibly.
“You know,” Calen said, finally, using the soft hush of his voice to blot out the horror he felt. “Some people say that you and your packmates dabble in black magic.”
Van replied with a sharp bark of laughter. “I’ve heard the rumor before. My question being: where did it start and who did you hear it from?”
“Rumors do abound, and no one notices kitchen staff,” he said simply, without recrimination. “I didn’t hear it from one person alone. Before you and the Evertooths arrived, the hallways were buzzing with speculation.” Along with a healthy dose of admiration from the females.
“Yes, I’m sure. I can tell you that no, no one I’m aware of in my pack practices black magic. We have enough to deal with just trying to make sure everyone is fed when our resources run thin. Magic like that would only cost us more than we have to give. And I know what you’re going to say. I locked you in the closet using magic.” Van’s smile was grim. “Different type, different cost.”
That gave him a start. “I thought you said everything was fine.” Did Van have another reason for wanting to save Odessa? Beyond relations?
“Our territory land is dying. If people get wind that my father and I are not able to deal with it, then it will be chaos and leave us ripe for a takeover. There will be no coming back from something like that.”
Calen understood. He shivered beneath his jacket, breath forming a cloud before his nose.
“What about you?”
He followed Van down, time losing its meaning. “What do you mean?”
“You’re awfully invested in helping me, for someone with little skin in the game.”
“You mean, what do I have to lose if we don’t find a way to break the curse?” Calen clarified. Then said before Van had a chance to speak, “Everything.” It was an unconscious repetition of what Van had said earlier. “I would lose everything.”
“Does she know you’re in love with her?”
The question didn't surprise him. “I don’t think so. She’s never given any indication that she knows, and none that she feels the same. I’ve loved her since the moment I met her.”
He still remembered the day the sentry had knocked on the door to his house. He’d been at home with a slight fever, his parents out because Alex had called a meeting of his people. The clan had gathered together, betas and omegas drawn to the manor house to answer the call.
Calen had expected them home shortly after dark, but the fever had him losing whatever sense of time he possessed.
Until that knock when his world changed.
The sentry took him to the manor house with a blanket wrapped around his slight form, not a word or a hint as to why he’d come to fetch the boy. Calen remembered the light of the moon flashing through the trees as they drove. Further and further away from the quiet comfort of their cabin in the woods, until the sentry had thrown him on Darrow's doorstep. With the rest of the pack watching, their gazes probing and their lips silent, Alex had crossed to Calen and knelt until they were eye level.
“Do you know why you’re here?” he’d asked.
And the boy, confused and still unwilling to completely rule out the possibility of fever-induced hallucinations, had shaken his head, his stomach knotted.
“Your parents were found earlier this evening skinned alive.”
Alex had never been one to sugarcoat the truth. Not even to a frightened, sick child. Calen remembered the way his heart had stopped beating for a moment, his vision darkening, and that pit inside of him, one he hadn’t been aware of, yawning wider until it swallowed him from the inside out.
And he found himself telling Van the story. “I wanted to disappear on the spot,” he said. “Until I saw her. Until I saw those moon-colored eyes and sweep of hair peeking out from behind Alex. She hadn’t been allowed at the meeting, but she’d shown up anyway when I arrived. And no matter what others thought of me, no matter that it was against pack protocol now that I was an orphan, she strode around him and took my hand. Then she smiled. Because she knew in part what it was like to lose a parent, her mother gone years ago to an infection from a hunter’s trap.”
He’d felt the smile in the darkness, a lifeline thrown to him. The one single tether keeping him rooted and grounded in this reality. To life.
“I don’t think I would have made it through losing my parents if Odessa hadn�
��t been there for me. And I would not have been given a place to stay at the house without her intervention.”
She’d seen whatever worth inside of him had been hidden from the others. She’d seen it through his preteen years, when he hadn’t been able to shift into a wolf like the other children. And she’d managed to keep him employed despite it.
Calen stopped, reaching behind him into his pack to grab a drink when his throat demanded water. Even as he drank, he couldn’t forget the image of Odessa peering around her father’s legs. The smile.
For a heartbeat he was back in that moment, the reek of fear cloying in his nose and the frantic beat of his heart making him light-headed.
Van reached back to tap him on the shoulder. “I know how it feels to love something that is forbidden to you. My own mate...the match was unsuitable. So much so that I never told my father about it, or else I would have been the one with teeth to my throat.”
“What happened to her?” Calen asked.
Van ignored the question. “It’s a little bit farther now.”
“We have to be getting close.”
“We are. A few hundred more feet and then we’ll be there.”
“Do you know...what she is?” He’d only read the barest amount of literature written about the Nightwalker. And nothing that told him what to expect.
It only made the panic more real.
Van shook his head. “No, I—”
“Why don’t you ask me yourself?”
The words came crashing out of the darkness right behind Calen’s ear.
Chapter 12
He bleated like a sheep, he was sorry to say. Although when the story was told later, much later, he conveniently left that part out.
Calen refused to turn around for fear of what he might see. From the periphery of his vision, he got the sense of black hair, clicking fangs, and soulless eyes. His blood stilled inside of him. A woman’s figure, perhaps, if a mad scientist had crossed a woman with a spider and a demon.
