The Night Prince (The Wolf King, #2)(113)

My heart stops. She is not talking to the sleeping child. She is talking to me.

“He locked me in my chambers, and made me take more and more of my medicine as punishment. He told me he would kill you, if I did not.”

My breath mists in front of my face, and the soft grass hardens beneath my feet. A crack fills the air as the lake freezes, and snow falls from the sky. I knew he had killed her, had taken her from me, but the knowledge of how long his abuse lasted, and that my mother knew she was being poisoned. . . I cannot bear it.

“So I took it. I got weaker, day by day. I let him kill me, because I was afraid. Afraid of him, afraid he would harm you. And because I was afraid he would find out the truth.”

Tears slide down my cheeks, hot in the winter air. My throat is tight. “What truth?” I whisper.

“Ghealach did not rip out her heart so the Elderwolf could be close to her power. She sent him her daughter, so that he would protect her. The power the Wolves seek. . . it was never a rock, or a relic, or a tool to be used. It was a person, and then a bloodline. We are descended from Ghealach and the Elderwolf, little one. You are the Heart of the Moon.”

My heart shatters into a thousand jagged pieces. My fists clench, and my fingernails bite into my palms. The ice thaws, and the snow stops falling. The shadows shift, and the moon lights the lake once more. The summer breeze makes the green trees rustle. She kisses the small version of me on the head, then lays her down in the grass.

My mother stands up and looks out onto the water.

“What do I do now?” I ask her.

“Whatever you want to do.”

Slowly, she turns. My heart almost bursts when I look upon her face. I had forgotten how blue her eyes were, and the way she wore kohl to underline them. I had lost count of the freckles that covered her nose, and I misremembered the warmth of her smile. I forgot how she smelt like lavender and snow and horses. And how that scent made me feel warm and safe and like no one could harm me.

Facing her as an adult, there are things I don’t think I even recognized as a child. Like the grit in her stance and the steel in her gaze. My mother, I realize, was a warrior. She did not fight her battles in the field with swords and shields, but she was a warrior nonetheless. She fought every day to protect my brother and me, to keep us safe from the man who would harm us.

“First,” she says, “you must fight.”

“I miss you so much.”

She touches my cheek. Her hands are delicate yet calloused. Warm. I had forgotten. “I’m so proud of the woman you have become.”

A tear slides down my cheek. Her face starts to fade. The warmth of her touch disappears. The sounds of the summer become distant. Panic swells within me.

“Don’t go,” I plead. “I’m not ready. Don’t go.”

“They will make you feel as if you have no choice. There is always a choice.” She smiles, and her voice sounds like it comes from a whole universe away. “Have courage, little one.”

I’m hurtling upward. The wind tears at my face and my clothes. I squeeze my eyes shut. I cannot breathe. I cannot feel.

My knees slam onto hard earth. I open my eyes. Pain sears my back, and the sounds of battle fill my ears. I’m in the amphitheater and a wave of shadow crashes toward me.

I let myself feel the rage of losing my mother, the emotion I was beaten into suppressing, the wildness I was taught to prune. It fills my lungs, and makes my entire body vibrate with the force of it. It hurtles inside me. It presses against my skin. I push myself to my feet.

Enough.

I meet the obsidian gaze of the darkness.

And the scream that has been building in my chest all of my life. . .

I let it go.

No.

I unleash.





Chapter Sixty-One





A scream erupts from my lungs.

The jagged pieces of my heart tear like glass, and the wild thing inside me extends its claws. Power flares up from my soul. I taste it. Night, and untouched mountains, and moonlit forests, long before the first men came to this world. My back knits itself together, and the pain melts from my bones. My skin glows, and a bright blinding light flashes before my eyes.

As the tide of darkness crashes down, a wave of my moonlight rises to meet it. The serpentine creature rears back, and releases a bloodcurdling shriek of its own. Its eyes bleed like ink as it looks upon me, as if it’s used to only darkness, and still, I scream. The shadows that shield its body dissolve and expose scales the color of obsidian. When my light touches its skin, the sizzle of burning flesh fills the air.

The creature flails. Its tail cracks the stands. Debris rains down upon me but still, I scream. Threads of light burst from my body, and they link me to the Wolves. I’m pulled in what feels like a thousand different directions. It’s like the night of the full moon. My soul is being pulled apart, and I don’t stop.

My senses erupt. I taste seawater and rum. Jack. There’s a flicker of black fur beside me, and when he leaps past me and crashes into Night’s prisoner, he is a snarling wolf with claws like knives. I catch the scent of heather and as a man swipes his sword at Claire, he finds himself pinned by a grey wolf. The smell of the battle and bracken crashes through me, and James shifts at my side and rips off the head of one of the acolytes.

I can’t breathe. Whispers fill my ears. Fingers claw my body. They pull at me. Try to take my soul from me. I scream. I catch the scent of the mountains at dawn, there’s coolness against my skin, then pine and shadow fills my lungs until they’re all I can breathe. Blake is there, fighting. The thread that connects me to him is stronger than the others.