“Fuck, that scared me.” Taniya drops her head into her hands. “This fucking mist.” She looks up at me. “This whole fucking place.”
I fall to my knees in front of her, meeting her teal-blue eyes. Ever since the fight in the arena, her harpy has remained close to the surface, and I sense its volatility. Its rage. I may be the wolf-demon of the pack, but Taniya’s nature is as wild as Ace’s.
“I will get us out of here,” I promise, keeping my voice low.
Taking her hands and urging her to her feet, I wait a beat for Malia to reach out with her calming power and subdue the rising anger and frustration within us.
My jaw clenches when I realize that we’re much closer to Esta than I wanted to be.
Her body has reformed already and now she lies with her knees bent awkwardly, her arms sprawled out at her sides, and her eyes closed. She’s completely still, as pale as the dead, but she will revive. We can strike her again and again and she will recover.
Her golden hair spreads across the crystal bridge, the pool of blood that had gathered around her neck spreading through the strands.
I stand over her, my chest heaving, my heart aching.
I mourned her when I thought Arga had killed her. She was the one royal sibling I thought I might be able to trust.
And now she’s trying to break me.
A growl rises to my throat.
Shewon’tbreak me.
Or my family.
CHAPTERSEVEN
Imeet Taniya’s determined, tear-filled eyes across the distance before I seek Malia beside her. And Roman. Who is part of our pack now, even if he keeps himself on the outer.
Temple and Luca pad up behind him as Roman reaches my side.
“She won’t stay dead for long,” he says. “We have to move.”
“Where?” I ask, my voice carrying all of my rage, but within it is a deep, dark fear. “Where can we go that she won’t follow? Even if we go back to the Wilds, she’ll track us there, and we’ll endanger all of the creatures that live there.”
My voice breaks as I think of all the wildlife that Roman is protecting within his home—the healing animals—as well as the ones who live beyond his home in the Forbidden Lands. Like Ingrid, the little bat who stole my heart, and Wild Girl, the pearlescent horse with power like mine. And Reaper, the mother of my demon wolves, who bonded with me.
Esta proved she could kill Reaper’s conjured form in the trials. Whether that conjuring had Reaper’s real strength is a question I don’t know the answer to, but the display of Esta’s power is enough to worry me.
Malia is ashen and pale as she suggests, “What about the prison? Nobody dares to go there. Not even Crone.”
I wish it were an option, but I shake my head. “It’s too dangerous. We barely made it out last time. The next time we go near the prison, we have to have my father with us. We should only approach it to reunite him with his soul.” The prison is designed to contain the most powerful beings. I was more than lucky to visit it three times and leave it each time. The final time, we only escaped because of the power of my father’s soul, which is trapped there.
Koda shifts at the edge of my vision. “I know a place,” he says quietly. “But you’ll have to trust me.”
“Trust you?” Taniya’s snarl cuts through the space between them as she advances on Koda. Despite Malia’s calming touch, Taniya’s harpy is once more in control. “You hurt Momma M. Tried to destroy our home. Forced us to come to this world.”
Her talons extend threateningly from her fingertips. “Trusting you is the last thing we’ll do.”
Taniya advances on Koda, her wolf’s teeth showing.
I catch her hand before she can move past me. “We might not have another choice.”
She falters. Stares at me. “But—”
“I’m not asking you to trust Koda. Only to hear him out,” I say.
Taniya’s brow furrows and I sense her inner war. Of all of us, she is the one who struggles the most to trust others. Her harpy’s volatile nature, combined with her wolf’s pain at being abandoned when she was a girl, have left permanent scars that she battles every day. Dastian was the first stranger she ever trusted. As for Koda, he irrevocably damaged any relationship he might have formed with my sisters when he attacked us Earthside and cursed them to come here with me.
