“We are nearly home, princess,” Adomnan said, smiling. His words made my skin crawl.
The trees here were reminiscent of those back home in Ireland, but there were far more of them towering above us here, like a shield from the heavens guiding our path to their hell. Not a single other creature left its footprints in the new snow, an unnatural warning. As white as the snow was, the darkness and shadows still loomed all around. Ice and fresh snow coated the branches of every tree, creating a harsh reality.
I followed them for miles and miles in my bare feet, but I didn’t feel the cold. We finally broke through the trees to a clearing where a white stone palace stood at the center of the snow-covered wilderness. The fog rolled around us, giving the already frightening baroque palace an even eerier appearance. A frozen moat surrounded it, keeping it safe in the summers; in the winters, the water froze everything still in time. We walked across the frozen water as it cracked and gurgled in disapproval under my feet. I watched the ice splinter its web as I saw faces frozen still in terror under the ice. My breath caught in my throat as I stared at their open eyes. I felt their fear, and it crushed what little confidence I had left. This was a land without hope.
We slowly ascended the frozen steps up to the black palace doors. All the windows stood dark. Not a soul seemed to live here. Adomnan pushed the doors open with a thunderous crack. The palace was a reminder that they were once a society of immense wealth and power, but now were only rebels. They were the night kings of this dungeon. Bento shut the doors behind us, securing them with a side bar, shutting us away from the outside world. Eamon lit the wicks, illuminating the darkened space with dramatic shadows.
Adomnan led the way down the dark corridor into the center of the palace. The baroque architecture seemed to be built in the 1800s—which was rather new for werewolves—though parts of it seemed to be much older. The walls were covered in paintings of their family. Their unnatural eyes seemed to follow our every step. Did King Crob himself still live here in this empty castle? Were they bringing me to cower at his feet? I was filled with dread, and my skin prickled. I didn’t want to meet my father’s oldest enemy.
We turned down a dark, damp passage. Looking around, I realized it was surrounded on both sides by barred cages, and to my horror, they were filled with humans. They huddled together in their tombs, watching Adomnan walk by. Men, women, and children all stared up at me, their eyes blank and deadened from all the pain and fear they had endured. Their clothes were nothing more than rags, but they were well fed. No doubt, they were stored for eating.
I was disgusted by it all. Everything here was surrounded by death. I was nauseated just thinking about all the lives they had stolen.
We entered a long throne room, and the ceilings were adorned with paintings of their family history. Each one told a gruesome tale of their conquests and death inlaid in gold. There was no mercy here. At the end of the room stood an enormous throne carved from human bone. The fierce head of a wolf was carved at the top, protruding out, teeth bared. It was meant to strike fear into all those who dared to enter this place. Adomnan touched the face of the creature with respect, bowing his head to it.
“Leave us,” he said. Bento bowed immediately and walked out a side door. Eamon looked nervous, but he bowed and left, leaving me standing before Adomnan, whose back was still to me. Slowly he sat down in the throne, looking far older than I had seen him before—instantly aged by the chair he took. His eyes were cold and judging as he looked down on me.
“We are finally alone, my princess. It has taken much time to get you all to myself.”
My hood still hid my eyes from his inspection, but my quivering lip was exposed. I would’ve given anything to have died in the forest instead of standing before this creature.
“How do you like my throne?” he asked.
“Do you dare disgrace your father’s rightful throne?” I said. This was Crob’s palace, and he wouldn’t take lightly to his son playing king in his absence. It was forbidden.
He slammed his fist down on the armrest. His face twisted with indescribable hate. He bared his teeth to me as he slipped leather gloves over his hands and eliminated the space between us in an instant. He wrapped his long fingers into my hair. I felt his breath on my face as he spoke.
“I drank his blood as he died in my bare hands.”
I turned my face away from him, repulsed. He had killed his own father and desecrated his body. I felt limp in his arms as he violently shook my tiny frame like a rag doll.
“What do you think of that, little princess? You are now in the presence of a real king.” I didn’t look at him. There was no greater sin than that of taking one’s father’s blood. He was inexorably evil and I was at his mercy.
“You will submit to me!” he screamed as his spit spattered on my face. He dragged me from the throne room by my hair. I grasped my fingers at his wrist, trying desperately to stop the pain. My legs writhed to right myself as he pulled my body up several flights of stairs into an empty marble room.
He pulled my battered body up to his as he tried to crush my lips with his. I gagged at the thought as I scratched at his face, my nails tearing into his flesh and releasing a trickle of blood from his cheek. “You little bitch!” he screamed in my face.
He yanked me farther into the room, locking silver shackles around my wrists, dangling me from chains. The instant the silver touched my skin, my mind began to swim with the poison. It had finally come to this. I would die here. The cold finality of the metal around my wrists devastated me. I could never shift here . . . not with the sliver poisoning my blood.
“I told Redmund I would train you, my love.” He lightly ran his fingers over my breasts as I wrenched my body away from his touch, but the chains just swung me back into his grasp. “Such beautiful skin,” he said, running his finger between my breasts up to my lips. I bit his finger, digging my teeth into his flesh.
He yanked his hand from my mouth and backhanded my face with a strength that vibrated through my bones. I hung lifelessly from the ceiling. “You are nothing without me,” he said and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
I wiped the blood and tears from my face with my shoulders as I looked around the room. I knew this room. I had been here many times in my dreams. Other than the black, ornately carved ceiling, a claw-foot bathtub, and an enormous chandelier, the room was empty. The chandelier contrasted against the blackness of the room with its carved-bone wolves covered in cobwebs. The light from the windows cast the dark room in an ominous glow.
The hours passed slowly as my body ached. My toes barely touched the floor—just enough to keep the pressure off my wrists. The agony made me want to die. I just wanted it to be over. Exhaustion must have lulled me to sleep because I awoke to Adomnan’s loud voice echoing.
“Have you come to your senses?” he sneered.
I looked up into his horrible face, at the bloody scabs on his cheek. “I will never submit to you,” I said, spitting on him.
To my horror, he smiled in return. “I was hoping you’d say that,” he said. A leather whip uncoiled from his hands like a snake. “I do love to punish you.” He dragged it behind him as he circled me. I tried to turn to see him, but the chains wouldn’t allow it. The first crack of the whip sliced into my back, releasing the most unholy sound from my lips. The gown protected only some of my skin, but the exposed pieces of flesh opened with each blow. I hated him. With every crack, I cried out again until I had no more tears to shed and my body had gone numb.
I didn’t hear him leave, but I was alone again.
I felt my blood dripping down my back onto the floor. I don’t know how long I dangled there, but the silver shackles were cutting into my wrists, and a river of my blood ran down my arms. I didn’t fear death, I knew Old Mother would welcome me home, but I had never imagined it would be like this. I tried to think of a better time, but I couldn’t force my mind past the pain. Even if I got out of the shackles, it would be days before th
e silver poison left my veins. Escape was hopeless.
I woke again to Eamon unchaining me, and my body crumpled into his arms. My face fell forward into his hands, and my tears broke free. Everything I had felt poured out into the hands of my enemy, and I was helpless to stop the flood.
“Do what he asks of you, and he won’t hurt you anymore,” he said.
I looked for salvation, but his expression was blank. There was no safety for me there. He wanted to me to obey Adomnan to survive, but what survival was that? Submission wasn’t in my blood. I wouldn’t bow to a false king in this land of eternal night. Through my tears, I shook my head no.
He nodded to me. “I will try to protect you,” he replied as he left.
I curled in a ball in the pools of my dried blood as I sobbed. When my body stopped trembling, I crawled to the corner of the room near a window, soothing my back with the cold walls, and there I waited for the end.
By now Grey’s soul would be with Old Mother. We never stood a chance. I had led him to his death by choosing to love him. It was my fault he was dead. If I hadn’t interfered in his life, he and his horrible father would both still breathe.
Several nights passed by, and I saw no one. No sound of another living thing moved in this marble casket. Whether day or night, the light never changed through the windows, as though the whole land was frozen in an untimely death. I was grateful to be unchained. The silver started to lose its strength over me, and my mind started to clear. I kept trying to shift, but it was still useless.
Suddenly, the sound of footsteps and whimpering approached my door, and I stood. Bento entered, dragging a young human girl no older than me across the cold marble. He dropped her at my feet. Her blonde hair was matted with tears, and her arms were bound behind her back. She’d been bathed and wore a simple ice-blue slip.
“His majesty thought you might be getting hungry,” he said.
The girl flinched as the door slammed closed. She was pretty. I leaned down to untie her, and she screamed, squirming away from me like a caterpillar. It was a pathetic attempt to save herself, though I had to admire her strength to try.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said softly. She had nothing to fear from me. “When you are ready, I will untie you.” I walked back to my corner and stared out the window at the ice-covered wilderness.
She lay where he had left her, but I wasn’t going to push her and frighten her more. Eventually she would realize on her own that I wasn’t a threat. I tried to pay her no mind, though I did peek at her. Her eyes were light blue and her skin as pale as mine. She was Nordic.
“Will you untie me?” she whispered. It wasn’t a request as much as a question. I could smell her fear. Her voice was soft and barely audible, but I could hear her clearly.
I moved over to her and knelt to untie her. I was a servant of Old Mother, and I would protect this girl, though I didn’t know how. “My name is Ashling.”
“Svana.”
I gave her a weak smile and touched her shoulder. I returned to my corner to stare out the window, giving her what little privacy I could. Soon she sat beside me, but her heart still raced.
“Why aren’t you going to eat me? You are one of them, aren’t you?”
“I have no interest in taking your life.”
“But you are a werewolf?”
I nodded.
“Why are you here?”
“I am no more a guest here than you.”
She considered what I said as she studied my face. Her eyes gave her away easily; she wasn’t fully convinced that I wasn’t going to eat her flesh, but she was willing to find out. Not that she really had a choice. Humans were interesting that way. They thought they were making choices when really they didn’t have one to begin with. Fate seemed to have a way of sneaking up on us all.
“Where is your family?” I asked.
“I am the last.”
I nodded sadly.
We slept that night huddled together for warmth. She seemed thankful to be with me, but what she didn’t realize was I couldn’t protect her from anyone but myself. She was as much at risk here as she was in the cages, but I thought it best not to tell her. It would only unnecessarily frighten her more. I wished I could set her free to live her life, but we were both captives.
As the false day dawned, Adomnan entered our chamber. I moved forward, leaving her behind me in the corner. I would protect her as long as I could, but it was a useless fight, I feared. He looked at her still living and breathing.
“Did you not enjoy my gift?” he asked. “Perhaps she’s not to your liking, perhaps something younger? Children have such tender flesh.”
I didn’t answer him. I merely stood my ground between him and Svana. He surveyed my response before erasing the space between us.
“Did you not smell her sweet blood? Her nectar?”
Still I didn’t respond to his crass questions. He leapt across the room to Svana, and she was trapped in his rough hands; he dragged her back to me. “Will you not enjoy her flesh?” he asked, forcing her body toward me. Her scent swarmed around me once again. Svana screamed.
I stared up into his angry face with contempt.
My lack of response was filling him with rage. Before I could conjure an answer, he grabbed her and bit her throat, ripping the flesh from her body. The cracking and popping sickened me. Her blood was smeared across his angular face, and her lifeless body fell to the ground at my feet. Her warm blood poured from the wound, soaking into my dress. I dropped to my knees, putting my hands over the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but it flowed freely past my fingers—her soul was already gone.
“You soulless bastard!”
He wrapped his bloody hand around my neck, forcing my face down to Svana’s dead body, smearing my face in her blood. “Does it not call to your soul? Just submit to the beast within, and we can be one.”
I was torn between the animal that did desire her flesh and my love for her human soul. I forced myself to turn away from her open wound. He lifted me up and suspended me above the floor. My feet dangled in his murderous grip. Her warm blood dripped from his lower lip as I gagged for air.
“I own you!”
“The hell you do,” I croaked, barely a whisper as he closed my airway.
My eyes fluttered from the lack of oxygen, making his face seem like a strobe. His menacing expression started to fade until I could no longer see. I smelled Eamon before I heard the crack and splinter of my body colliding with the glass window and felt my body sliding down on the broken glass, lifelessly to the floor.
23
Wild
Tears spilled over my cheeks as oxygen flooded my lungs. The marble floor shined like black glitter. I ran my fingers through the cold liquid and lifted my hand to inspect the beautiful blood that coated my skin. It dripped down my hands—it was all around me. It was the scene from my dreams, and the smell made me want to vomit.
My hate for Adomnan writhed like worms under my skin. He stole Svana’s life as if it were nothing. This wasn’t the way of our kind, the way of Old Mother. All life and death was part of the earth and was to be respected and protected.
My shoulder oozed blood. I couldn’t focus on the wound, I kept seeing double as the blood poured out of my arm. I pulled a piece of glass from my flesh and wrapped my fingers over it, squeezing it shut as best I could. Sound finally started to return to my throbbing ears. I couldn’t make out what Adomnan and Eamon were saying over the high-pitched ringing, but I knew they were fighting. I could only guess Eamon was fighting for me.
Adomnan walked past Eamon toward me, his footsteps echoing off the walls like thunder. Nothing he could do would ever be as bad as losing Grey. I tried to center my mind on Grey, to shut out this nightmare, but Adomnan stood over my broken body, laughing, delighting in my pain.
Eamon pulled Adomnan away from me, throwing him into the doorway as Bento stood to the side, away from allegiances. Eamon stood alone between Adomnan’s fury and my broken
body. I needed to shift before I lost consciousness; I needed to heal these wounds. I tried to shift, and my body began to vibrate. I could nearly feel my blood warm, but as quickly as it began, it ended, and I was still human. I was losing too much blood, and the silver poison still lingered inside me. I felt desperate and scared.
“What are you doing, Adomnan?” Eamon said.
“Get out of my way. I killed Father and won’t question doing the same to you.”
Eamon growled.
It was clear on Adomnan’s face that he was fully willing to rip the life from his younger brother’s body without any concern. Bento jumped between the two.
“We have her, why would you kill her, Adomnan?” Bento yelled. “You already have the power over all the packs.”
“I’m not going to kill her.”
“Than what are you doing?” Bento asked.
Adomnan grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet. My head throbbed and I was dizzy. He rubbed my shoulder under the strap of my dress. I squirmed from his touch, but his fingers dug into my skin, holding me in place.
Adomnan laughed. “I will break her. She will be mine.”
“This isn’t right, Adomnan,” Eamon said, “you know this isn’t right.”
“She’s of the Boru line. Royalty. You can’t take what isn’t rightfully given,” Bento said.
“She’s unmarked. Ripe for the taking,” Adomnan said as he pulled my dress down, exposing my naked body. I tried to cover myself from their stares, but he held my wrists. I felt violated and terrified. “My lovely queen,” he said.
I finally understood what he wanted. He intended to consume all of me, claiming my body and soul for his, and his alone. To stand as his queen. If he raped me, I would belong to him by all our laws. I would belong to him. No one could take me from him, and I couldn’t be saved. Our laws were clear and absolute. An unmarked female wasn’t her father’s property. Once Adomnan mated with me and his scent filled me, I would belong to him. By not branding me, my father had thought he was protecting me, but instead he gave Adomnan my life.