Ten men step forward through the smoke, all of them with teeth bared and sharp, their irises shifting, unmistakably wolf shifters.
“Your father brought this on you, boy,” the first wolf shifter snarls, his claws descending. “For too long, we’ve tolerated your existence. Your father may have been our alpha, but we, the iron wolves, will not accept your existence any longer.”
Roman’s voice is clear and decisive, the cold within him growing until his breath frosts in the air, swirling with the smoke. “My family was everything to me. You’ve killed my wolf. You’ve killed my parents.” He strikes his wrist and a rune glows around him, lighting up the bloody floor and the splattered walls. “But I will take your lives.”
With a scream, I wrench away from the vision, pulling my fingers away from Roman’s neck. I can’t see his memories any longer, but the deep grief he felt remains with me.
I can hardly speak. I’m trembling because parts of the memory I understand, while others I don’t.
“Whatwasthat?” I raise my eyes to his. “Who are you?”
“I’m the last of the iron wolves,” Roman says. “Just like I said.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
My eyes widen. “How is this possible?”
His arms tighten around me. “My father was the alpha of the iron wolves. He was the strongest, his bloodline pure. But he fell in love with my mother—a demon.” Roman takes a deep breath. “Their love was unbreakable.”
My lips part with my quickly indrawn breath. When we sought help from the eagles, Athella suggested that my mother had bonded with my father. I insisted that a bond between a wolf shifter and a demon was impossible, but Roman said he’d heard of a demon bonding with a wolf shifter once.
He hadn’t only heard of it… He was the child of it.
“Your parents bonded,” I whisper.
Roman’s fingers tangle in my hair, brushing my cheek. “I didn’t lie to you about my mother. And I didn’t lie to you about the iron wolves.”
“You were born a hybrid, like me,” I breathe. “You really are a hybrid.”
“Was,” he says. “Iwasa hybrid.”
“What happened?” I can’t keep the pain from my voice. “To your family and your wolf?”
“The iron wolves tolerated my mother until I was born,” he says, his voice flat, his eyes darkening. “Then my existence threatened the purity of their bloodlines. They started a series of challenges against my father. He always held them off, defended us, and it seemed that he always would. He taught me all of the rune knowledge that he had accumulated, but it was my demon power that really allowed me to access it. I thought I could defend my family, too, but I wasn’t prepared for the lengths that my father’s challengers would go to.
“They turned to sorcery. Somehow, they found a way to rip my father’s wolf from his body. The shock of the separation killed him instantly. They killed my wolf, too.”
“What kind of sorcerer could do this?” I ask.
“I didn’t see who it was. I searched for them after, but I never found the one who did it.”
I press my lips together, fighting the sadness. “Without your wolf… how did you survive?”
“The demon power that my mother had passed on to me kept me alive. But it also fed on my pain and rage.”
“You killed the iron wolves,” I whisper. “Just like the story.”
“They were my people and I tore them apart, one by one for what they did to my family,” he says, his voice cold and hard. “Until I painted the earth with their blood. And by then… I was all demon.” He takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t diminish the rage in his voice. “A few of the oldest iron wolves got the children out; all of them ran and hid. They sought the angels’ help to create the weapon to send me here to the Underworld, where they thought I belonged.”
A storm is swirling within my mind. Knowing that, fundamentally, Roman never lied to me about who he is makes a world of difference to me. But the knowledge that he lost his family like this… That he had a wolf, who was ripped from him…
I gasp against the pain in my chest and the burn of tears behind my eyes.
He grips my shoulders, piercing me with his black, pure-demon gaze. “What is my greatest fear, Nova?”
I face it fully. The pain and the loss. “Losing your family. The same fear I hold.”
He gives me a cold smile. “Which must mean I’m now fearless, yes? Because my family died already.”
