I stared at him, bewildered by his behavior. I’d just given him everything he’d wanted. My castle. My title. Why was he still here? I snarled, and he snarled back. “Let him go, Uncle. He is not your enemy, and we are wasting time.”
Reluctantly, I released my hold on Alec. Tyson was right. This was taking up too much time.I needed to find Claire. “If you want to come, come. But if you interfere, I will not hesitate to kill you.Any of you.”
I made for the stables, but Sera grabbed my shoulder, stopping me. “My mother has made a deal with Shayla.”
“What kind of deal?”
Sera swallowed hard. “I don’t know. Mama didn’t share every detail with me. All I know is that she wants the Blood Treaty destroyed. And she knows you are the key.”
I tapped my sword against the ground. “The only thing I heard you say was that she has my wife. Everything else is just details.”
I didn’t care if they followed me or stayed. I had one focus. One need.
As soon as I mounted a horse, I closed my eyes and reached out through our bond. The world narrowed to a single point of heat inside my chest. “Hold on, my love. I’m coming.”
I rode hard through the dark, navigating by my heart alone. For the first time in five hundred years, I was my own man. And the only person I wanted to answer to was my wife.
An overturned carriage appeared on the road ahead of us, lying on its side. Claire’s scent was everywhere. I did not wait for anyone else to dismount. I threw myself from the saddle and tore the crooked door open with my bare hands.
Empty.
The brown wolf padded forward and dropped something at my feet. A length of rope, half-burned through. The white wolf had a strip of fabric in her jaws.
I took them in my hands, knowing my wife had been blindfolded and bound. And yet… she had still escaped.
“You heard what Sera said, Uncle. This is all a trap designed to destabilize the Blood Treaty. If she catches you, she knows you’ll do anything for Claire.”
I let out a hoarse laugh that held no humor. “I’m already on my knees. One day, when you have a mate, you’ll understand.”
The wind carried a sound to me. A voice. I did not remember walking away from Tyson or leaving the carriage. I only knew I was running. Branches tore at my coat as I plunged between the pines and vaulted over streams. Tyson shouted something behind me, but his words meant nothing. I raced faster, legs and arms pumping. Nothing mattered. Nothing else mattered. Except her.
Chapter 39
Soumission
CLAIRE
From my perch in the trees, I held very still. Wind stirred loose straw near the fence posts. A pair of wolves shoved at each other over a scrap of meat. Shayla glanced once around the training yard, eyes skimming the wolves circling the perimeter, then she turned back to Mama.
I blew out a long breath of relief. The shell lay unnoticed in the soft mud. One of the younger wolves who was sniffing around for scraps got closer and closer.
No. No. Keep moving.
He sniffed it, then scrambled back. “Dark magick!” he shouted. “Right there!”
My heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven. His voice hadn’t even dropped. But his fear of that little shell was evident.
Mama and Shayla exchanged a loaded glance, and I knew, I knew, what was coming in the way prey always sensed the hawk before it struck. The wolves parted without being told asMama approached. She crouched down and plucked it from the dirt with two fingers, sneering like it was something vile.
I leaned forward, unable to look away. That shell was supposed to go to Shreesa and her family, to replace the ones Mama had already destroyed.
“Dark magick isn’t just out there, in Chastity’s disgusting underground lair. Where she devours children and tortures innocents for fun. It is everywhere,” she said. “Damien and his demons threaten us at every turn. Even here, on Diana’s sacred ground.”
A few of the weres began to draw back, hackles raised, nostrils flaring.
“And if vampires have their way, they’d have you doing the same.”
From the branches above, I could see the shell in Mama’s hand. I needed to get it back. Without it, Shreesa’s family wouldn’t be able to defend themselves.
