Conri looks back to me. But I don’t have a chance to say anything before his gaze turns to Evander. My heart stops in my chest.
“Kill him,” Conri commands to the knights.
“No,” I gasp, shock softening the word but not the horror.
Yet no one moves. Evander stands a little taller, rolling back his shoulders. As though he is settling into the mantle of king. For a second, I have a glimpse of the fantasy again—of him ruling, of me at his side.
“I saidkill him!” Conri’s voice quivers slightly.
“He is bound with the power of the moon spirit,” Weylyn, one of the first alphas I met on this journey, says. “That means that, at present, his claim to the crown is as legitimate as yours.”
“What?” Conri staggers, aghast.
“We have no king to follow until the matter of succession is handled.” Drena’s words are as begrudging as the nods of the other alphas, but she says them dutifully anyway. This is their custom and their way.
“She”—Conri thrusts a finger at Aurora—“has long been sworn to me. And she”—that accusing finger turns my way—“is an abomination, an affront to nature. Humans aren’t meant to possess the magic of spirits. Their meager manipulations of nature are all they were destined for. You cannot honestly think that…that,that thinggives him any claim to our kingdom.”
Me. I’m the “thing.” It’s oddly refreshing to hear him refer to me as he actually feels, rather than with the forced kindness and underhanded manipulation. I don’t find myself wounded.
Evander, however, is angered enough on my behalf. He seethes, still silenced by the gag. But his breaths are ragged, as if he’s barely keeping himself from screaming. If not for the chains holding him back, I think he’d be halfway to tearing Conri apart with his bare hands.
“There can be only one true king of the alphas. One pack, one king,” Weylyn says.
The alphas lower Evander’s chains, releasing them. Evander’s muscles bulge as he lifts a hand, straining against the weight of the thick shackles, but finding movement where there previously was none.
“Fine. I’ll do it myself.” There’s a murderous intent to Conri’s movements. Everything seems to happen slowly. He steps away from me. I go to stop him. He’s already out of reach.
“I should have slaughtered you like your father.” Conri’s words are forged of steel and dipped in the acid of disgust. His hands are balled into quivering fists. “You should never have been allowed to live this long. Once a traitor to the pack, always a traitor.”
“It’s not his fault!” I shout. Evander might be “free” of the alphas holding him back but he’s not in any position to fight, not weighted as he is. Conri doesn’t stop. But he does answer me.
“The fault no longer matters. The solution is simple. So simple. What I should have done from the start.” Conri’s usually composed demeanor is cracking, splintering into a thousand tiny pieces that will never be put back together. They see him now—the whole pack sees him for the desperate and hateful man he really is. Some look surprised, others disgusted, but some are impressed, even pleased.
“Stay away from him!” I sprint over, physically trying to hold Conri back as my mind whirls around the spirits I might call on to help. But every favor I had has been called. Every bit of power exhausted. And given the magic of the mist that crackles against my cape, I suspect this is the domain of the great wolf now. That no others would be able to intervene.
“Off me, traitorous wench!” Conri throws me from him with the care someone casts off a tattered cloak tangled around their body. I land against the ground, already scrambling up. “I will have you—in soul and body. No one, no one will take what is rightfully mine. I am the wolf king!”
“You sound like a petulant child!” Is this even about Aurora’s power any longer? Or has it transformed into him massaging his ego? Evander has taken something that Conri sees as belongingto him and now Conri wishes to exert the same force as a toddler would following the loss of a favored toy.
Evander is trying to move, trying to match Conri’s steps. But those chains are holding him back and preventing him from changing into his wolf form. There’s no way he’ll be able to fight as he is. The alphas might be letting the contestation play out, but it’s only in show. They clearly do not see Evander as a worthy challenger. I doubt any even want him to be king…except for me.
Without another thought, I begin sprinting. Conri is a blur as I pass him, his shock barely registering. I dash to Weylyn and plow right into him, using the momentum to rattle him—stun him a moment. Lucky for me, lykin men seem to prefer only simple trousers. There are only two pockets and I have two hands shoved into both.
His eyes widen and he lets out a growl as my fingers close around the key that I suspected was there. It was a gamble, but I guessed right. On the way out of the dungeons, Conri brushed past Weylyn. He used that motion to give Weylyn the key to Evander’s shackles. Passing on the responsibility of managing him to a trusted alpha.
Before Weylyn can fully react, I spin away and leave him to grab open air where I just was. I rush to Evander, fumbling with the key in my panic.
“Faelyn, get away!” Evander shouts at me.
Conri takes on his wolf shape at the same time as one shackle falls from Evander’s wrists. The alphas might not appreciate my interference, but they’re not stopping it, either. I move to the other wrist—Conri is bounding forward now on all fours. Behind him is a blur of white.
“Aurora?” I am startled a moment, midway through working on Evander’s second chain.
The distraction costs me precious seconds. Conri is upon us. He leaps and Evander pushes me away, reaching up with his freehand to shove Conri aside by the throat as he dodges. Wildly off-balance, the three of us fall to the ground.
I crawl to Evander as Conri recovers.
“Faelyn—”
