One
Ilook out against the snowy mountaintops as the ice sticks to everything from the trees to the leaves, to the damp ground under my paws. The world slips into a winter wonderland and carries on like my heart isn’t destroyed. How can the world dare to be like this, so pure and pretty, when I feel so treacherous having so many die at my hand? It’s cold enough that if I did cry anymore, the tears would disappear into the snow in an instant. Snowdonia, deep in Wales, is as good a place to disappear as any other. At least there is a lake of vibrant blue water to stare at and endless snowy mountains that almost make me feel alone in the world.
I rest for a moment after a morning of running, glancing at the mountaintops where tourists very rarely come because it’s too steep here. Even if they saw me, I’d be nothing but a story of a big grey wolf to tell their friends. The sun beats through the clouds occasionally, but it’s gloomy even in the middle of the day, and I like it that way. It matches the way I feel.
No running helps me escape the feeling. The truth of what I did and who betrayed me.
It’s been two days since I shifted back from my wolf form. It’s been three long weeks since—well, the unthinkable happened.The only way I can process Starlight City has been like this, shifted in my wolf form, running up a mountain away from Finn’s caring, pitying eyes. Away from his family trying to do everything for me, away from the feeling deep down in my chest of how angry I am, how betrayed I feel. I grew up being trained never to trust anyone, that everyone has secrets, but I never saw it coming. I let myself be used. I let this happen.
My Nexus came back into my mind after a week, all fury and anger at being drugged by Rhodes. The pain she feels only matches my own. Rhodes might as well have stabbed me in the back. Actually, that would’ve been better if it meant I didn’t destroy an entire city. But the mate we trusted the most betrayed me, betrayed me in a way that was unthinkable, unfathomable, really.
Not only Rhodes, but I have a sister who is more of a bitch than even I can claim to be. A twin sister…that my parents gave away. Why would they do that? If she had grown up with us, maybe she would…maybe things would have been better. But then I think of my childhood and wonder if it would have only turned her into this in the end, anyway. Perhaps Georgina actually got off on the light end of it. Though I don’t know what she went through, I will never, ever forgive her for what she did that day.
I killed hundreds of thousands of Nexus. My people. My city. In the blink of an eye, I felt it. I felt myself, my magic ripping into their souls one by one, and I still hear the echoes of it, still feel it, still see it every time I close my eyes and try to sleep. My wolf lifts her head and howls loudly to the sky—a howl of pain. Death has never been a stranger—but this time, it has taken over my home. I am death now, and the world will never see me as anything else. In a thousand years, what will they write of me? The monster? The destroyer? The one who made it possible for the Vian to win the war?
I will be labelled all these things, and no one will see me. I guess it was my worst fear, and it came true. Now what do I have to fear? The answer comes to me right away: losing the people I love. My mates are all missing except for Finnegan. Annie is still missing, and any reports of Starlight City survivors we get have not named her.
I groan, looking at the endless white expanse. I know Finn isn’t far from me; he never is, and I can feel him in my soul. He shifts, and he watches me in case I need him, and I love him for it. Finn follows me back to the cabin and gets there first to pretend that he wasn’t following me around. It’s sweet, but all I can think of, all I can remember right now is that pain, that echoing, endless pain of a mate betraying me.
“Nexus,” I whisper in my mind, and I push myself into that place that the tutor taught me, where I can face her directly. I don’t see her much in the mist now when I open my eyes, just a wolf’s eyes glaring back at me. “I’m done being scared of you. I’m done fearing who I am. You’re keeping secrets from me about who we are, aren’t you?”
She blinks once. “Yes. You were not ready, but now you are. Now you must face us.”
“It’s always been just you and me. You know, I think I’ve spent so much time being fearful of you that I didn’t realise the entire time, you were on my side and that I really only should have been fearful of them. The Vian king, my twin sister, Rhodes.”
My heart cracks in my chest, and it hurts. Gods above, it hurts to even think his name, like physically stabbing me in the chest. Nearly every conversation we’ve ever had, how he was never scared of me from the beginning—it’s because he knew. He knew. The lying bastard knew.
“I don’t know about you, Nexus, but I am angry with the world. I’m angrier than I’ve ever been. I am angry enough toburn this entire world down and allow only the good to survive. I want to hunt Rhodes. I want to hunt him and make him pay for it all. I want to hunt the Vian king and make him pay for using us too. I feel like I’m broken, and I feel like you are too, and perhaps if we’re together, we’re at least functioning enough to do this. I can do it, but I need you. Because the funny thing was, when I found out I had a twin sister, I realised I always did have one—it was you, my Nexus. You are my family. Isn’t it time that we went hunting together? It would be a real bonding exercise when we rip the Vian king’s head straight off his shoulders. Then we go after the commanders next. Starlight City is probably gone, the only place we ever thought of as home, and avenging it—I feel like that is something we can do. Revenge.”
“Revenge,” she snarls back at me. “No weakness. Only power.”
I think of Finn. I think of Onyx. Of Alek. They never betrayed me. I think of Severi, and I’m so confused by him, what he omitted telling me. Everything is so confusing now. I know my Nexus can see my mind, yet she still offers me that trust. “Tell me the truth of who you are. I want to know everything, and then we will begin.”
What feels like hours later,I hear her disappear back into the mist, and let her shift into control. I can’t process what she told me, but it makes sense. It all does. There is only one path forward for us now, and it lies in death. Death for anyone that stands in our way.
The cabin almost looks like it’s not there when we run up through the muddy ground. It’s one of those peculiar cabins built into the rock side that is hidden well. The rock wall curvesright over the front of it, and warm orange light pours out of an open doorway and small circular windows, shining onto the wooden porch. I walk down the long path full of old Christmas-looking trees on either side, feeling the nearness of my mate. Finn’s sitting on the steps, waiting for me.
There isn’t a moment he doesn’t take my breath away. Finnegan looks like a God himself, his knees parted as he leans back on his elbows and watches me with his hauntingly pure blue eyes that remind me of the lake here. His dark brown hair is tousled, his locks longer now, brushing his eyebrows. Finnegan fits in with the forest as that something dangerous and seductive calling you in. His tight black top clings to his muscular arms, and a light sheen of sweat across his skin tells me he ran faster than my Nexus to get back here first.
“Thank you,” I gently say to her before I shift back. The leggings and crop top feel strange against my skin after two days of fur, but I roll my shoulders as I walk towards him. He doesn’t move, simply waits, watching me cautiously—not because he’s scared, but because he doesn’t want me to break again. When he woke up unconscious, I couldn’t even tell him what happened. All I did was sob in his arms, cry and cry for hours as they drove. I don’t cry in front of anyone, but Finnegan held me as my world shattered, and he never let go. He didn’t try to fix me, he just waited for me to be ready to speak to him about it. Not once has he looked at me in fear. When eventually I could explain everything, he was so angry, shaking with fury but not scared of me. Finnegan loves me despite what the worst part of me did.
“Hello, stranger.”
“Hello, my Sun,” he murmurs, his deep voice sending shivers down my spine.
Sometimes I wonder if I should call him my moon. He is my constant, always there in the dead of the night when my world has collapsed. I lift my chin. “I’m back. No more running in theforest. I’m ready now, and so is my Nexus.” Finnegan nods once, but his eyes are unsure. I’m not ready to speak to him about anything else yet. “Have you heard anything from Alek or Onyx yet?”
I can feel they are alive in my soul. My Nexus has confirmed it, but they could have been captured by the Vian for all I know. Something tells me they aren’t. “No. But the only reason they wouldn’t have reached out to this place is because they don’t know of it. There are five safe havens in Snowdonia that we could have gone to. This is the only one I am confident that Rhodes and Hollis would not have known about. It belonged to an old aunt of mine. No one’s been here in years. I don’t think Onyx or Alek will know about it either, so that’s a problem. We need a phone that can’t be tracked, but any plan, any avenue I would suggest is compromised by those bastard half-breeds.”
The world seems to shake with the hate in his voice. It wasn’t just me who was betrayed—it was him too. Rhodes and Hollis were like brothers to him.
I step up to his knees, pressing mine into them, his warmth seeping through my clothes. Even that simple touch sends heat skipping down my spine. “Then we go to things that I know that Rhodes and Hollis do not know about. The way I kept myself hidden. If they knew of them, they would have found me. We’re going to need weapons and money…and help. I want to get help from someone that I’d rather not meet again, but unfortunately we’re put in this position, so reluctantly we are going. I need you to trust me.”
He reaches out, running his fingertips up my thighs and cupping my ass to pull me onto his lap. I let him, needing this contact with him too. Even if my heart is shattered, the piece of it that belongs to Finn will always stay firm and true. The same stands for Alek and Onyx. He sinks his hand into my hair. “I trust you with my life, Gwenieve Patience Autumn. I know youmust feel like trusting anyone is hard right now, but I will stand true to you until we die. Even beyond death. Even beyond the moment when we exist as nothing but stories in dusty books.”
I kiss him like I’m trying to fix every inch of us. He grumbles, pulling me harder against him so I can feel him under my ass. I moan as I swirl my hips. Finnegan’s eyes are dark when he grips my chin. “Want to go for a walk in the forest so I can bend you over a rock or tree stump?”
Like we’ve done a dozen times…but this time, it feels like we are using sex to run from our problems. “Finn…”
