Gather my strength. Then escape.
“All right,” I relent. “I would appreciate your assistance.”
“Good.” Evander leans away with a smug smirk. The man thinks he’s beaten me. He’s probably imagining that I’ll fall right into line. He has another thing coming.
Evander starts for his tent and I am right behind him. Ignoring the pain and keeping my head tall as I willingly walk into the wolf’s den.
CHAPTER 8
The insideof the tent is as sparse as I expected. There’s a bedroll off to one side, a decently sized rucksack settled on some canvas and leathers at its foot. It’s clearly a traveler’s tent, designed for packing light and moving fast.
“Sit.” Evander crouches over the pack and begins to rummage through it.
I oblige him, sitting off to the side by the entrance. I can see, through the flaps, Aurora and Bardulf exchanging some tense words, but I can’t make out what those are from here. The way they’re speaking, though, has my hair standing on end. There’s something about that man that I just don’t trust. Even more so than Evander. I suspect the reason is because Aurora always speaks to Evander with annoyance, agitation, disheartenment…but never with true animosity or hostility. Not with fear. Bardulf is a different story.
“Here.” Evander retrieves a small bottle, following some rummaging around in his bag. He pulls out the stopper and hands it to me. “Drink this.”
“What is it?” I sniff, trying to discern the ingredients in the tonic.
“Not poison. I’m not going to kill you when you have Aurora’s magic within you.” He’s back to rummaging.
“The paragon of kindness, aren’t you? Saving me, healing me, only so that your wolf king can do as he likes with me and Aurora once you deliver us to him.” I give the liquid a swirl, peering into the bottle. It doesn’t seem out of the ordinary, so far as I can tell. “I am nothing more than a prisoner to you.”
“I could show you how we lykin treat our prisoners, if you’d like. Though I will assure you, it is far more unkind than the decency humans usually give.” He shoots me a glare. “At least, this way, you will be of sound mind and body to beg for the wolf king’s mercy.”
“I do not beg.”
“That’s what they all say before they are under his claws.” Evander’s gaze drifts back to the bag, though his hands don’t move. His shoulders hunch slightly and I see the top edges of his scars over one shoulder. Were they given to him by the wolf king himself? The way Evander speaks has me suspecting it.
“What will he do to me when we get to him?” I dare to ask, my voice little more than a soft whisper as I take a small, tentative sip of the concoction he gave me. The medicinal herbs—and possibly anything unsavory—are buried underneath a strong minty taste. Overall, not unpleasant, but I wish I could pick out the individual ingredients. It’d certainly make me feel more reassured.
But my throat doesn’t burn, I don’t grow dizzy. It seems he’s spoken the truth, and I take another drink, deeper this time, and allow a warming sensation to seep into my bones. I feel stronger by the second—a powerful brew, indeed.
Evander settles away from his pack, sitting on his bedroll. A small, wooden canister rests within his slack grasp, yet his focus is elsewhere—on me. In the dimly lit tent, his eyes piercethe shadows that cling to him. They burn with countless, unsaid emotions, too complex for me to decipher.
It has been years since a man—since any soul—has regarded me so intently. Such fervor. Even though it ignites discomfort within me to feel so bored into, I cannot tear my gaze away. There’s an unspoken invitation, a silent plea for understanding. It’s as if he’s waiting, or perhaps anticipating my next move…or waiting for me to come to my own conclusion about my question. I find I can think of little beyond how thick my breath feels.
“A witch of your age should know what the moon spirit means to the lykin,” he says, finally.
“The moon spirit gives the lykin powers, enhancing them, allowing lykin to take their shapes at any point in her cycle, so long as her light is in the sky. That is to say, save for the new moon.” It strikes me that these men, and their wolfish forms that I’ve seen, are currently at their weakest. What will they be capable of when the full moon comes?
“That and more.” Evander bends his legs, his black trousers stretching as he tucks his knees against his elbows. Even though the stance has him pulling in his legs, he somehow seems to take up more space. There’s an ominous aura that surrounds him, filling the tent. “Long ago, our ancestors made a blood pact with the great wolf spirit of the sacred woods of Den. With this power flowing through our veins, we could take on the shapes of his kin. But the transformation was hard on our bodies and could only be done when the moon was full and our magics were at their strongest.
“The alpha of a pack—a man who came to be known to all lykin as Bewulf the Uniter—decided to solve this problem for all our brethren. He went on a great journey and sought out the spirit of the moon to make a pact with her. That was all he’d intended.” Evander’s voice softens and his eyes drift to thenarrow slit between the flaps of the tent’s opening. Aurora and Bardulf are both gone—retreated into their individual abodes, I hope. Evander’s attention focuses on the middle tent of the three, barely visible from where he sits. “Aurora and Bewulf fell in love. Aurora gave everything to be with the man who had won her heart. To live as close to a mortal life as she could with him. She asked the old gods for this boon and they granted it by way of splitting her power, rendering her mortal—more or less. The rest of her power was placed in a ring, one that she presented to her lover. So deep were her affections that she put her life in his hands.”
I stare into the narrow opening of the bottle I still hold, peering into the depths of the reddish liquid within. It’s a small amount of tonic…but it feels deep enough to swallow me whole. To drown in. I hear Aurora’s story, but the visions in my mind’s eye are not of her.
They’re of me, years ago…
I’m sixteen and in my loft. I gather a stretch of red thread I carefully dyed myself, a white and red candle, a few other ritual items. Heart fluttering with excitement and anticipation. Tonight is the night I’m supposed to swear myself to another before the old gods. My feet don’t make a sound, as silent as the door behind me. I am a night lark that soars across the grasses and into the forest, to the great redwood tree.
I had been ready to give myself wholly that night. Everything I had. Everything I would be…for a child’s love. Nothing real, in the grand scheme of things. Probably for the best it didn’t work out. I can see that now. Yet, the pain is real. The pain I felt then and have tried to ignore ever since.
Liam never showing that night is the hardest blessing that I was ever given.
“Aurora lived with the first wolf king until the end of his mortal days,” Evander continues, oblivious to my pain. “Afterhe died, she was going to take the ring and make the journey to return to the old gods that live among the primordial waters of the siren. She’d ask them to restore her power, granting her freedom from her human body to return to her place as a spirit. But she was not allowed to leave.”
“Your people trapped her.” Even though I knew this truth already, it is no easier to hear. Especially given the scale of time of which Evander is speaking. The first wolf king would’ve been thousands of years ago…
