“No one picks her, or they die and…” Orion yaps on with unclear threats, and I yawn, ignoring him. What an angry idiot.
I’m sure most of them are here for ridiculous reasons, just like I was. Did any of them stab a wolf in the foot? I almost laugh. Blackfire glares down at me like he can read my thoughts. My smile drops.
“They will be bound to your life by this mark. When you die, they will die too. If you survive at the end, they will survive and be at your side as your guardian, your protector, as most royals have. We’ll start down the line here.” He waves at the short male wolf with black hair on the other side of the line.
Time seems to tick on as I watch as wolf after wolf goes down and picks the biggest of the men that are there. The somewhat healthy ones go first, and it’s unsurprising. The blond one who I locked eyes with earlier picks a giant man who’s just as big as he is. The two of them clap hands like they’re buddies before going to the priest and having the mark drawn onto their wrists. I don’t see who the one that wanted to kill me earlier picked. I don’t know. It’s all been a haze until Blackfire’s name is called, and I jump.
“Behave, and don’t you dare fucking run and embarrass me. When it is your turn, pick one of the males who looks like they will die quickly,” he whispers quietly, gripping my wrist harder before he stomps forward. I’m half tempted to pointlessly run away just to embarrass him, but I don’t want to be thrown into the wall again right now. I watch as Blackfire goes down the row of prisoners before picking a man. I can barely see much about the man because he’s just a puddle of blood, somewhat dark hair, black circles under his eyes, and he is thin. Blackfire barks at him to hurry up as they go to the priest and get a mark on their wrists.
Eventually, my name is echoed around the room, and all eyes are on me. The priest has to repeat the command as I freeze. “Come forward, Meredith Crone. You have the last pick.” I walk past the ones who have been chosen, who are on their knees ina line in front of the ones standing who have not been picked. There are not many men left, and all of them stare at me, not even a little of the pleading in their eyes that I saw them give everyone else. They don’t want to live if it means being bonded to me, I realize with a gasp. Can they see how much of a broken mess I am? Most of the ones left are females, and they all crawl to get away from me as I pass them. As I pass the only tall male left, he steps forward, chains clanking.
He spits on me, and I wince. “Don’t choose me. I’d rather die!” he snarls in my face.
I shuffle away, wiping the spit off my cheek with disgust.
“Do you want me to kill him?” Tannith hisses to me.
“You’re a drake. How could you possibly kill him? He’s going to die tomorrow, anyway,” I mutter back. I probably look like I’m insane talking to myself. They might not be able to see her through my hair.
I keep going until I get to a woman who’s clearly given up on life.Relatable.She’s lying on the floor, curled up into a ball, chocolate brown hair covering her face. There are tattoos of vines wrapped around her golden wrists up to her arms, and she looks far more beaten than the rest of the prisoners. Something makes me stop, and I gnaw on my bottom lip. Blackfire is going to be pissed at me, but I don’t listen to any male. “I choose this one.” I wave at her.
There’s a roar and a growl, and I look over to see Orion storming towards me, and I yelp. The white-haired, blue-eyed male steps in front of him with two others, blocking his view as he starts screaming and shouting something about a betrayal. Someone really needs to drug that lunatic up or something. He really is a nutter without the butter.
The priest walks over to us, clearly seeing the one I’ve chosen can’t stand up from her injuries. I grimace. Finally, the girl looks up, her eyes pits of green and clouded in black. Why does shelook familiar? “Why did you choose me, you fool?” Her voice is husky, broken, like she’s been screaming. I literally don’t have a reason to tell her other than she was the most broken one of the lot, and I kind of feel like we have something in common there. I shrug my shoulders. She groans. “You’ve just signed me up for a more painful death than the one planned for me tomorrow.”
“At least we’ll get to do it together,” I say weakly.
She glares at me. I completely understand, as I’m not giving her any hope right now. I don’t have a drop of hope for myself let alone anyone else, and now she is bonded to my life. Poor girl.
“You’re so dumb,” I hear Tannith hiss in my ear, and I agree with her too. I nod.
The priest comes over and takes my wrist gently before drawing with a sharp pen-like dagger. The end of it glistens with black ink mixed with my blood as he cuts. He draws swiftly, a swirl with a line through it. Simple, effective. He leans down to draw it on the girl’s wrist and waves me closer. I kneel, and he grabs both our wrists and pushes them together. I feel a jolt, like something swimming through my blood. It tastes like water and magic. I can feel it a second before it’s gone. The girl watches me closely, and I ask, “What’s your name, then?”
“Elizabeth Hallows from the Mother Pack,” she says quietly. “Yours?”
“Meredith Crone!” I barely get to tell her my name before Blackfire grabs me and starts dragging me away. I swear I see the blond man I locked eyes with grabbing the prisoner who spit on me before Blackfire grabs my neck and forces me to look forward.
“Do you know what a fucking mistake you’ve just made? She’s the half-sister of the fucking heir to the Mother Pack, who already had his sights on you,” he snarls at me.
That’s why she looks familiar. I don’t get it, why was it a mistake? “Well, isn’t that a good thing? Won’t he be happy that I just saved his half-sister?”
“No,” he growls as we go through a door, and it shuts behind us. He slams me into a wall, and I grunt in pain. He leans over me, pushing his fists into the wall by my head. I grow dizzy from the shock and the invasion of his scent, which seems to demand that I listen. “That bitch killed the alpha. She killed their father and ripped him apart, left him in pieces for Heir Orion’s mother to find.”
Oh, fuck.I chose a bloodthirsty killer to be bonded to me. I’m not sure if I should be happy or not about that. On the plus side, she might be better at protecting us both and teach me some fun ways to kill males. On the not so plus side, that insane wolf Orion is going to come after us. Blackfire doesn’t wait for my reply before dragging me with him back through the castle, and I know I just made things so much worse.
Chapter Seven
Prince Reed, Heir of the Maiden Pack.
I’ve never thought the goddesses favoured anyone in particular, but I know without a doubt they favour her.Meredith Crone.She is strikingly gorgeous, all curves and golden waves of hair and matching eyes. Fuck me. I can’t stop thinking about her. Even killing this dirty motherfucker who spat on her in the selection hasn’t calmed down my wolf. The wordmineis ringing clear in his deranged thoughts, and I groan. We can’t claim random women we don’t know. My wolf doesn’t know this general life rule, and usually, I can reason with him. But her? Meredith? I don’t want to disagree; if anything, I want to agree and go find her like my wolf is suggesting.
A groan of pain interrupts my perfect—although imaginary—scenario of finding Meredith and her being happy to see mebefore she starts taking her clothes off.Slowly.Torturing me. I look down at the man by my boot. He’s half-alive and still annoyingly groaning as he bleeds out on the floor. I kick him one more time just to make myself feel better. He pleads with the goddesses to help him. Loser. No one’s coming to help him now. He decided he wanted to die when he looked at Meredith. He made sure he’d die a painful death when he spat on her. How fucking dare he disrespect what is mine?
I am surprised he’s still alive, and glad he is too. I still feel a bit of tension in my shoulders, and my wolf is still feeling viciously unpredictable. I lean down, looking at his torn-up face. His one eye is missing, and I’m not sure what I did with it. My bloodstained white hair falls forward over my shoulders. “Do you believe the goddesses are going to help you? They could appear right in front of us, and they still wouldn’t be able to stop me from ending your pathetic life. In your next life, perhaps learn that males should be on their knees for all women.”
He screams like the loser he is, and he tries to crawl away from me. I put my boot on his chest and look around the room as I crack my neck. I can still smell her here, just faintly, but it’s enough to have my cock rock hard. Again. Fuck, she smells delicious. Why does she have to be in the Folkland? If she wasn’t, I’d be outside her door and finding out exactly what my little human likes in a wolf. I intend to find out either way, but first, I will have to find her in the Folkland before anyone touches her.
As I lean down and begin snapping the man’s fingers, I think about the moment this all began. I woke up in the middle of the night to the feel of something different. A calling. The moon was bright and huge outside my balcony, and it called to me far more than the sea ever has done. I felt like I was drawn to walk outside, ignoring the way my wolf protested. We had decided to ignore the Folkland festivities, which were basically a five-day-long fuckfest, until the goddesses chose some idiots.
