“He hurt Tanith.”
“My brother is better off,” Zeus says over us.
Alden doesn’t so much as wince.
With a sharp glare, I shoot daggers at him. “You disgust me. Tanith is better off.”
His hands turn into claws. His fingers elongate before my eyes.
“Am I making you angry?” I taunt. “Good. Be fucking angry. She would be if she saw what a coward you are. You had a chance to save her, and you didn’t. I hope she hates you for it.”
“Leigh, it’s okay. You tried,” Wilder says.
But I can’t look at him. I’ve condemned him to death for a stupid decision to trust someone who never earned it. I knewbetter than to think Alden could be won over. People cling to their secrets. They don’t change.
“You doomed her,” I say to Alden, my voice low and cruel. The ghosts inside my head scream and kick as the wind whips my hair. “You claim that she’s your mate.” I laugh. “But if she were, you’d fight for her, not for this piece of shit beside you.”
Zeus growls. It is a deep, menacing sound. But I don’t care. He doesn’t scare me. Losing my country, dooming my people—that scares me.
I give Wilder one last look, pouring all my love, my every waking thought, into that fleeting moment. I should have told him the truth in all our intimate moments, expressing how much I care about him. There is no one else for me. He sees all of me—even the ugly parts—and still chooses to find beauty in them.
My longing to kiss him one last time threatens to cripple me. If only we had more time together, we could have grown old side by side, weathering the storms of life until we were both ghosts haunting the halls of Rowan Palace. I want a life with him, but now, our only chance to reunite might be in death.
“I love you, and I’ll find you in the afterlife,” I say before meeting Zeus’s hateful stare, challenging him to do his worst. Beside him, Alden is now snarling in his wolf form.
Zeus raises a hand. “Wolves, prepare to?—”
In one swift, razor-sharp bite, Alden tears his brother’s head clean from his body. I scramble backward as the head rolls down the bridge, stopping where my feet just were. Zeus’s face is frozen with the same hateful sneer he wore seconds ago.
Gianna screams somewhere behind me. I stand speechless.
What the hell just happened?
Alden emits a mournful howl, and several wolves join in lament. The haunting, anguished sound pierces my ears. Is it pain for Tanith? Or Zeus? Or both? But I am still trying tounderstand why he did it. He told Zeus about the cure. He taunted me for it.
“Alden?” I mutter.
Beside me now, Brigid and Isolde lower their weapons. Brigid makes a fist, signaling her father’s Blades not to advance. Pallas gawks at the blood pooling from Zeus’s headless neck.
Alden whimpers and trots forward through his brother’s blood. He rubs his sizable canine body against my legs. “Does this mean we are on the same side?” I trail my hand across his soft, yet bloody, fur.
Alden whines and then transforms back into his human form with the sound of bones snapping. I gag. My hands rest on Alden’s solid stomach. He is naked as the day he was born and speckled in blood.
“Ugh!” I push him away.
Alden catches himself before he falls, laughter rumbling in his chest. “Excuse you, I just saved your life,” he retorts.
“You lied!” I screech. “You told him everything! You made me think I couldn’t trust you!”
“I did,” Alden replies, his tone somber. “But I had to make him think he’d beaten you to keep his guard down. I spoke to Ravi, and he told me everything. He corroborated your story.”
I scream, emotions overwhelming me to the point my entire body trembles. “I was ready to fight!”
“Now, you don’t have to. My brother is dead.”
I pause. Holy shit. Zeus is dead.
Alden stops laughing and peers down at the fallen body. “He deserved worse.”
