Two Months Later
The whip slices through the air, the impact of it against her feeling like it’s attacking my own. Her flesh tears, blood dripping down the sides painting her tanned skin red. I swallow the bile rising in my stomach and hold Drax back from coming out.
I have to do what I must.
I raise the whip again and…
My blade slices through the rogure from jaw to neck, its dark blood leaking from the wound as its mouth drops open, its skin drooping. I bring my blade back up and aim it straight through the top off its head. It pierces its gray flesh, slicing through with ease, mindful of the black foam dripping from its gaping mouth. Not that it can do anything to me. Its black eyes turn clear before it collapses to the ground.
Dead. No essence released from it as it goes to the below.
“Heads up,” Leo shouts as an arrow flies past me to land in between the eyes of another rogure, dropping it dead before it reaches me.
I turn as another comes for me, and I lift my hand toward it. Black tendrils spear out of my palm, aiming directly for the rogure. They fly through the air and attack the rogure in different places before it forms together as one, then wraps itself around its neck. The snap sounds around us, and the head twists at an awkward angle before it drops to the floor like the others.
I spin and assess the situation. We’re in a small farming village just outside of the Nightshade pack. This village was overrun by rogures when we got here, the Highers’ witches notifying us of a power surge when they scryed. We got here too late though.
Dead bodies litter the floor, blood and organs scattered everywhere. Small children’s bodies lie close to half-eaten women, some have their child in their dead arms. Vultures circle the skies above, their squarks calling to others upon spotting the dead below to feast on. There will be none left, they will be burned to ash soon. A body convulses ahead of me, black foam coming out of the mouth as the rogures’s poison has taken hold of them. He can’t be saved, we have no cure for their poison, we have failed each time we have tried to save them. Screams can be heard around us as the rogures continue to claw and bite their way through anything and everything, causing rage to fill me.
What did we do to deserve this punishment of these beasts that only bring death?
An axe spins in the air before it lands in a rogures’s side, Jerrod soon upon it, taking the axe out of its flesh before he brings it down, cleaving it in two. Zaide takes on two rogures, both blades slice them as he dodges their attempt to attack him. Damian puts his blade through another’s legs before slicing its neck, quickly moving onto the next. The rest of my Elites make quick work with others, cutting every one of them down.
I let them deal with the rogures left as the last one drops. I step over to the male convulsing on the floor, my strike quick as I pierce the skin directly above his heart, sinking the blade in. His eyes hold mine for a second, before they go dull, dead, free. His essence starts to float from his body as I turn from him and make my way toward the larger storage building, where some villagers had managed to hide inside.
Banging on the door three times, I check over my shoulder to see no more rogures as the door creaks open. An older man peeks out, his body shaking with fear as he grips the door for dear life.
“They’re dead, you can come out now.” He doesn’t move, and I resist the urge to snarl. “Burn the rogures’s bodies and burn your dead.” I turn and walk away from them and gather with my brothers and some of my Elites.
“It’s strange seeing your Heir powers,” Leo says as he wipes his brow and puts his bow on his back. “Is it still strange for you?” I grunt. It’s not, it feels like the most natural thing in the lands. “Ready to go?”
I look around, knowing I won’t find her, but do it anyway. “Gather the others and go back to Vokheim Keep,” I tell Maverick, one of my higher ranking Elites. He nods before trudging off to do what I have ordered.
“To Wolvorn?” asks Damian, and I nod, rolling my shoulders as pain lances up my back. I welcome it.
Leo eyes me with concern. “Brother…” I ignore him and pull out the port stone, connecting with them all.
My body compresses, the pressure squeezing my chest until it feels like it’s caving in, then we’re standing inside the castle courtyard. We make our way forward toward the castle doors, once again, people steer clear of us. More so than ever now that it has been revealed that I’m an Heir to Cazier.
Something I didn’t truly remember but instinctively knew.
When Rhea had her hands on either side of my head two months ago in the great hall, I saw her. She was inside my mind, standing there, arms open as her power flowed from her into me. Drax held steady, waiting for her floating power to come forward. He was relaxed but eager and I had no idea why. Then he inhaled her power, and it was like a black fog was lifted from my mind.
It was unexpected, but everything became clear. Clearer than anything else in my entire life.
My father wasn’t an Heir, but somehow the role was passed on to me. I remember he was as shocked as I was when I showed signs at sixteen years old. I wasn’t born a pup like Heirs are usually said to be. Then Drax came soon after. My father seemed proud, even though the Heirs were deemed unsafe, he couldn’t believe the gift I had received from Cazier. It was the first time he was warmest toward me. After a month of hiding it under my father’s orders, I was being taken to an office at Wolvorn Castle. We stepped inside to find Aldus going over papers.
I remember sitting in a chair as my father and Aldus briefly spoke about the rogures. Then Aldus pressed a palm to my father’s forehead and his eyes clouded. I got up from the chair, asking him what he had done, when his palm connected with my head. I remember power running through me to my mind, wrapping it up in some sort of bubble, instinctively protecting myself and unknowingly making it so that only one person could clear it.
I don’t know how I knew to do that, I couldn’t control it, but Aldus seemed satisfied when he dropped his hand from my forehead and continued to speak to my father about the rogures. I sat back down in the chair and waited for them to be done so we could go home.
My memories from there are normal. I didn’t know I was an Heir, and it was never mentioned again by me or my father. My mom and my little sister, Isabell, never spoke about me being an Heir again before they died. Why didn’t they? My only answer is that Aldus must have done what he did to my father, and what he tried to do with me.
Now I know everything, and I remember why I hid my own mind, and why Rhea was the only one able to clear it.
It’s also the reason what Rhea said about Kade’s memories not being true is not sitting right with me. I have had time since she and her pack escaped to be at one with my thoughts and go over and over again in my mind with what happened to know I’m missing something.
Rhea hasn’t been seen since. We have been searching Vrohkaria for her, even going back to Eridian, but she wasn’t there. Charles had posters put up around towns and villages, declaring her dangerous, and has asked people to contact their closest authority if they ever caught a glimpse of her. Her picture is everywhere, so how is she still not within my grasp?
Heir of Zahariss. How can an Heir cause so much death and bring the rogures upon us when she is meant to be protector to the lands? It doesn’t make sense, I don’t think any of this makes sense, and I’ve spent the last two months trying to find out the truth, but no one will give me a straight answer. I even asked Charles to see the memory crystal again, just to make sure that what I saw was true, now that I can look at it more clearly and not be blinded by rage.
He refused, and I’m still not sure of anything anymore.
Especially after she mentioned that she was too young to have caused the curse. Those last words to me still haunt me. Taunt me with memories of everything I have done since we collided, and everything that I didn’t do.
I need to find her, I need to get answers.
I growl in frustration, causing my brothers to look at me questionably, which I ignore as we open the castle door and step inside. We head straight to Charles’s office, having been summoned by him earlier in the day.
Opening the door without knocking, Charles’s head turns away from the large window he’s standing in front of. His face breaks out into a scowl as he looks over us. My men stay outside as I close the door.
Covered in blood and rogures’s flesh, I take a seat in front of his desk, not giving a shit about dirtying it up. Charles’s lips curl he himself takes a seat.
“Have the rogures been dealt with?” he asks, his dark eyes looking me over.
“I wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t been,” I reply, eyeing him where he sits.
He nods. “Any sign of Lasandrhea?”
“Nothing.”
“She needs to be found, she’s a danger to my people and she can cure us of this dreadful curse,” he snarls. “She needs to pay for her crimes.”
“She’s disappeared. I have no idea where she could be, no one has seen anyone matching her description.” He knows this, I give him the same answer every time he summons me.
“The people are unhappy. We let a woman, a woman,“ he spits like he tasted something rotten, and I’m the one to scowl now. “Who was sentenced with treason and is the cause of the rogures to escape us.”
“Any idea how they got a port stone?” I ask, flicking dried blood from my leather pants.
“None,” he growls, slamming his hand down on the desk. “I have personally investigated the guards and anyone who entered her and her pack’s cells. None have come forward with any information, nor has anyone admitted to supplying them with a port stone. After many interrogations, they are still all claiming they don’t know anything.”
“We will keep searching Vrohkaria, she can’t stay hidden forever.” Especially not from me, I know her scent. I just need to be close enough. A twinge goes through my back as I adjust in the seat.
“She was hidden away for years inside The Deadlands. Unfortunately, she is good at staying hidden,” Charles growls, anger flashing in his eyes. “She is needed, the people are rebelling even more so after this farce. I have lost many alliances over her disappearance, and the people are losing their faith in me, rapidly. Rebels are gathering to take me out of power and are constantly at the gates making demands for new authority, or begging for supplies that we are running out of.”
He’s acting like he doesn’t have a basement full of stock. I know how much food and materials are stored beneath this castle. He takes crops as tax from each territory, more than necessary, hording them below like a fucking dragon. I didn’t care either way, but that was when the people weren’t suffering and now they are, they have been for years. He has no reason to keep them locked up for himself.
He’s still droning on as I come out of my thoughts. “And then Higher Aiden is missing, he hasn’t been seen for weeks now.” I raise an eyebrow at that. “I also need to invoke stricter laws to get the people under control, show them that even in panic they cannot act so uncivilized when we have more important things to take care of. I’ll be making an announcement that taxes will be increased tomorrow.”
He has to be joking. People are starving as it is because of the fear of coming across any rogures while they hunt or even gather wood.
“Getting rid of the rogures is more important than politics.” I couldn’t give a shit about his alliances with other packs or rebels. Feeding people who need it, however, is a different matter. I need to talk to my men when we get home. “And raising taxes will do you no good.”
“Stay out of Highers business, Darius, unless you have decided to become one.” I grind my back teeth. Charles looks at me, his dark eyes boring into mine as he scoffs. “Have you thought more about you being an Heir of Cazier?”
“Why would I think any more about being an Heir to the mad wolf? It changes nothing.”
It changes everything.
“You are more powerful now,” he grits out, and I can tell this bothers him.
True, but I always was. We both just didn’t know it until now.
“Did you know I was an Heir?” I’ve wondered, but this has been the only time I’ve managed to get him alone to talk with him properly for longer than a few moments. After Rhea and her pack members escaped, I gave orders to my Elites and we searched for her immediately. Charles’s outrage damn-near took the hall down when she escaped, when it was revealed I was an Heir. Apart form now, he’s only barked out orders to me to find the traitor of Vrohkaria, while he does fuck knows what with his time. I’ve been busy searching for Rhea and taking down rogures ever since.
“I did not know, and your father never mentioned it to me. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed that he never told me. You were surprised when your Heir markings appeared, I suspect you didn’t know either?” I stay silent. “How did you forget you were an Heir? Did you know the bitch was one too?”
I hold back a growl. “I did not know she was an Heir, and Father brought me here and took me into an office further down the hall with Aldus in there. I was sixteen.” That was the day I shadowed my own mind with my power.
He tilts his head in thought. “Hmm, sixteen?”
“Yes, Aldus and Father were talking, but I can’t remember what they were talking about. Next thing I know, I remember nothing.”
Charles’s eyes darken, his hands fisting on top of his desk. “I see. I shall speak to Aldus and get his account of that day. It is very strange that you have no memory of it. I will inform you when I have spoken to him to see if he can shed some light on the matter. He has been leaving the castle more often than not, appeasing the people, so he is extremely busy.”
Or I can find Aldus myself, choke him, and ask him why he tried to fuck with my memories. He underestimated the power of an Heir, and he thought it had worked. I need to know why he attempted to do what he did.
“I didn’t know Lasandrhea was an Heir either,” Charles murmurs, hands clasped in front of him. “Though I shouldn’t be surprised really, her mother was also an Heir.”
I sit up straighter. “Her mother was an Heir of Zahariss? Why the fuck was she left alive then?” According to law, his law, all Heirs are killed on sight, like blood witches, but he left her mother alive?
“I had known her for many, many years, she was a dear friend along with her chosen mate. When I found out she was an Heir, I cared too deeply to expose her. The only ones who knew of her being an Heir were her family, along with some Highers and I. We agreed to keep it a secret. She was stable, a kind and loving woman, death took her too soon.” His words do not match his bored tone or the way his dark eyes flare, like he’s remembering a fond memory.
I study him more closely, noticing how his fingers tap along the wooden desk in a slow rhythm, the way he looks off to the side as if he’s stuck in a memory, and the way his lips curve just a little before a mask comes over his face. I bristle.
He’s lying. Why is he lying?
“It makes things more difficult now that you have been revealed to be an Heir. As you know, Heirs are dangerous and said to have taken the mad wolf’s traits. It is why they haven’t been seen in so long, thought to have stopped appearing as the madness was too much for the lands. It made any Heirs unwelcome, their fetus never reaching completion if they were Heir-marked.”
“Heirs don’t come into their powers fully until they reach eighteen, as our history states, so how would anyone know they are Heir-marked in the womb?” How could anything possibly know that?
He shrugs. “You just said you were sixteen when you knew you were an Heir, so I’m not sure, but that is what’s known in our history. Alas, the problem is that now you are an Heir of Cazier, the people are talking and fearful of you now more so than ever. I think you need to consider producing offspring.”
I still. “Why?” I grind out, taking in a measured breath. “The fuck would I consider that?”
“You will need an offspring eventually, to pass on your line. Also, an arranged mating could easily be put forward if you have no desire to find a suitable mate of your own, or consider taking Lasandrea when we find her.” He tilts his head thoughtfully. “Your father is not here so I feel it’s my duty to speak to you about this. Maize could be a good candidate.”
My jaw ticks as I glare at him. “I’m not mating or producing a child, especially with Maize. Just because I am an Heir, it changes nothing about my outlook on this.”
“You need to produce a line and it will be just as powerful as you are.” His eyes gleam, and I clench my hands into fists. “We need stronger wolves if we are to have any chance of defeating the rogures. Who knows when we will find Lasandrhea if you decide to mate with her. For the time being, you can produce some pups with an arrangement and when we capture Lasandrea, you can produce some pups with her also, powerful ones.”
“I don’t give a fuck, I have no intention of having pups, with her or with anyone, end of discussion.” Why does he want this so badly? “Producing more pups is just more mouths to feed, and the people are suffering enough.”
Charles glares at me. “I am Lord Higher of Vrohkaria, this is my one request to you. I can easily invoke the right to put you on the seat of a Higher. You will be stuck in this castle, doing paperwork and sitting in meetings whilst someone else becomes the Alpha of the Elites and is killing the rogures that you swore revenge upon for the death of your family. Don’t make me have to push this matter, or do you want your men to be punished?” His dominance pours out of him and slams straight into me, and I grit my teeth as he stares at me.
My gaze stays locked with his as my own comes to the surface, holding his back from affecting me. “Stop putting this ‘Higher’ bullshit over my head.” I’ve had enough of this shit.
“You are leaving me no choice. You know I can force you to become a Higher.” He leans back in his chair, an air of smugness surrounding him.
My stare is deadly on him, Drax coming to my eyes. Who the fuck does he think he is? “If you try and force me to,” I growl, the sound coming from deep in my chest. “You will regret what happens. I am only here for the promise I made to my father, that is the only reason I accept your requests. I don’t want to be a Higher, so I became useful in other ways to you, so much more useful. But I am done with you holding that shit over my head.“ I feel my Heir markings appear, pulsing with my fury as they crawl up my neck. He eyes them with curiosity and a shine in his eyes. “Do not ever threaten me with this bullshit again. I do not want, or care to be a Higher, there are more important things I need to be doing.”
“You will do as you have been asked!” he roars, losing his calmness, and I just continue to stare unaffected by his outburst. He’s become unhinged since Rhea escaped, more quickly to anger, his obsession with finding her taking over his daily life by bellowing orders to bring her back to Wolvorn. “The situation is dire in Vrohkaria, we have a traitorous Heir on the run, people are rebelling more forcefully, rogures are on a rampage and growing in numbers, killing more of my people. You,” he snarls at me, and I lean further back in the chair. “Being the Heir of Cazier added to these problems, you are to rectify it. Why will you not do a simple task of creating a powerful line that will help ensure the safety of Vrohkaria in the future? Lasandrhea is a pretty girl, it will be no chore lying with her again, no?” I stiffen. Again? How does he know about the first time? “Maize told me she was quite taken with you the times she saw you together, she couldn’t keep her hands to herself.” It was me who couldn’t keep my hands to myself. “It was a good tactic to get her to fall to your charms to pry into her life.”
“Maize has been talkative I see.” She will be lucky if the next time I see her, I don’t snap her neck. “I doubt Rhea will lay with me either way, so it doesn’t matter whether I want to or not.”
“That’s no matter. She will have no choice, she will be captured, and she will be bred. It’s the least she can do for what she has done.” He says it so casually, without doubt in his voice.
I pause and tilt my head before going deathly still. “I will not rape her, no matter what she has done.” Disgust rolls through me at the thought.
He scoffs, looking me dead in the eyes, a crazed look in them flashing. “Nonsense, she would want it anyway. Females like that always do and then cry wolf. Either you produce an Heir with her to help to secure a safe future for Vrohkaria or I will.”
“You would rape her?” I stand slowly, growling low in my chest as Drax bares his teeth within me. He will not fucking touch her.
“I will do what needs to be done for Vrohkaria,” he says, hands clasped on the desk in front of him. “Now, shall I arrange for your men to be punished, or will you do as you are told? I have another meeting shortly with Alpha Christopher that cannot wait.”
I turn violently, wrenching the door open and getting out the room, before I tear his fucking head off and cause a war. I can barely control the rage boiling within me at the very thought of him touching her that way, taking her body like he has a fucking right to do so, be inside of her the same way I have. Snarling, I storm down the hallway in fury as my brothers take in my markings crawling up my neck, pulsing with my anger. I shouldn’t care. I should wish all the pain down on her, even though something about this whole situation doesn’t feel right, but I can’t help the possessiveness I feel building up at the thought of someone touching her.
Someone other than me.
We may be enemies, but we both can’t deny this pull we have to each other either. I felt it and so did she, and It’s been stronger since I recovered my memories. We’re tethered as Heirs, and some instinctual part of me wants to remember that she’s the only other person like me in all of Vrohkaria, to calm my anger toward her. Then I remember my parents and my little sister and that rage boils over, wanting to rip her apart, but still knowing that I couldn’t.
I’ve done enough.
Drax soon reminded me of how I felt for her after I whipped her. After she was dragged away, still bleeding and dripping red. I ported out of there and bellowed my rage to the lands, remembering the look on her face when she realized that I wouldn’t listen to her, that she wouldn’t get through to me. Her eyes turned dead, resignation and sadness in them. And when Charles ordered Danny and Josie to be killed? I felt her grief as my own. I felt like she was inside of me, and I felt everything she was feeling.
I shake myself. I’ll find her and get my answers. She doesn’t deserve any leeway after what she has done with cursing the lands, but I can’t help it. And I won’t stand for her being raped. Not. A. Fucking. Chance. Everything within me rallies against it, and Drax is so close to coming out I can’t barely speak, barely contain him. I will cut off Charles’s hands and bleed him dry and then feed him to the rogures piece by piece.
Leo takes one look at me as do the others. Taking in my rage, they soon become alert. “Vokheim?” he asks, and I grunt. He pulls out a port stone, ready to go home.
“Hey!” a castle guard shouts, rushing over to us. “You can’t use that in—“ I grab him by the throat and slam him against the wall, headbutting him again and again, unable to stop until blood trickles down my face and he slumps to the floor.
“Well shit,” Damian mutters as I move back to them. “We better get going before he has two hundred castle guards on his ass.”
“Would be good exercise,” Jerrod says, resting his hand on Leo’s shoulder.
“Or a death sentence if the Highers intervene,” Zaide mumbles.
“Darius can just use his black tentacles and wipe them out,” Damian wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“They are not fucking tentacles,” I growl at him, staring him down. The fucker just grins. Leo shoves the port stone in my hand.
“Might be useful in the bedroom,” Damian smirks, and just before I’m about to lift my fist, we port out.
