“I wouldn’t hold it against you if you did. The report Elodie gave you was accurate, if incomplete. I was there when Bran and Narcissa fell. They battled mightily, though in different ways. Bran was little more than an animal on two legs. He fell into a feral bloodlust on the battlefield and spared no one and nothing from destruction and debasement. Narcissa was cunning, wielding the stone and its influence with deft skill, working those around her into an unbreakable frenzy. There were none who could stand against Bran, not even me. Narcissa’s power… It fed the worst in him. He wasn’t as evil before she bonded him. He was just the strongest, and after the tortured life she’d led, she wanted an Alpha none could conquer. She bonded him when she was barely sixteen. That doesn’t make it into the histories because the ugly truth is she was a fugitive on the run from her own pack. Her omega nature called to all the wrong kinds of males. She’d been… severely tortured. Assaulted. Barely clinging to life when she crawled into Bran’s territory with bloodied fingernails and revenge in her heart.”
“Good Goddess,” Olivia whispered under her breath, clinging to Lucien’s arm.
“I cannot thank the Goddess for what the poor girl went through. Villains aren’t formed from nice, happy homes. She was used and abused in the worst ways an innocent girl could be while her drunken father sold her childhood. I didn’t blame her for wanting revenge. Hell, I supported her wiping that kind of male off the planet.” Lisanne ran a hand lightly over her arm,lost in the memories. “Narcissa’s problem was that once she had the taste for power, she couldn’t let it go. Wiping her birth pack off the planet wasn’t enough to sate her pain and resentment. She was hungry, so hungry for blood. By then, I couldn’t stop her. And no one could stop Bran. Before her, he was much like you. Consider yourself lucky that your omega didn’t bond you and manifest the power of war. Were her gifts not healing, history might be repeating itself now.”
“I count my blessings every day,” Kane said, dropping a kiss on Brielle’s hair. “But if Bran was so untouchable, how did they get the stone away from Narcissa?”
“Because I betrayed her trust. After all she’d been through, in the end, I betrayed her too.”
Galyna made a choked noise in the back of her throat, and I might have too if my throat wasn’t completely clogged with a lump the size of Texas. To turn on your own charges… It was unthinkable.
But I hadn’t been in Lisanne’s shoes, hadn’t been forced to watch the omega I guarded try to destroy the world. Could I do it? Could I turn on these women, the bonds of friendship I’d forged, if it saved the world?
I looked at Lisanne with new respect. She was fierce of heart too. I could see the lines of pain etched into her cheeks, the way she always pushed harder than anyone else. The way she stayed wiry thin, as if to allow herself more than meager sustenance was a betrayal.
Because she mourned. She mourned the broken girl she’d had to betray. Goddess, was there any part of our history that wasn’t horrible?
“You had to,” Leigh whispered, face pale. “None of us would be here if you hadn’t.”
Lisanne nodded, but the pain in her eyes had held on for centuries; it wasn’t going to be absolved by one kind word.
“I coordinated with a contingent of dwarves. King Cysernaphus’s younger sister led a battalion of women, often overlooked, but fierce warriors and crafters all the same. His sister wielded a special hammer she’d crafted herself. It was made of pure diamond, forged in the heart of their mountain under the light of the full moon. She swung it that day with her last breath. Bran’s sword pierced her heart as the stone shattered under the force. They all fell, and it was over.”
“You ended a war and saved a whole species. You acted with honor.” Valens surprised me by speaking from my side. I hadn’t even noticed him rising from his seat, I’d been so wrapped up in the macabre tale.
“I acted out of desperation, and I carry the weight of my betrayal with me every single day.” She glanced up at Galyna, holding her gaze with real sorrow. “May you never face the same decision to have to choose between your oath and destruction.”
“So, we don’t know how to defeat them again if they’re back?” Reed asked, bringing everyone back to the present. “Destroying the stone this time isn’t an option, especially if it wouldalsotake out Kane and Brielle.”
Lisanne cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. “There were no other bonded alpha-omega pairs at the time. It’s possible Kane will be his equal in battle, and with your greater combined forces… perhaps together you stand a chance we did not back then. But I don’t know.”
“Do the dwarves still have the hammer?” Lucien asked.
“It was entombed with Princess Cicily. They would consider it sacrilege to disturb her resting place, but in times of war… looting does happen.” Lisanne shrugged, as if that was none of her concern.
“Could Narcissa’s power influence other packs? Ones that her mate wasn’t the Alpha of?”
Lisanne grimaced. “Bran became as bloodthirsty as Narcissa under her influence. They challenged dozens of packs to amass their army. He destroyed every Alpha he faced, then added their numbers to his own. You either joined him by choice or by challenge.”
Lucien swore under his breath. “So all our allies are at risk?”
“Yes, if they decide to come after the stone. I believe if this is Narcissa, she will want it back. She would never accept being second, not once she tasted ultimate control.”
“Not all our allies,” Dirge interjected, arms crossed. “We have nonwolf allies he couldn’t subjugate, no matter how much dominance he’s throwing around.”
“Not with us, not by tomorrow night.”
Lucien raked a hand through his hair with agitation. “We need to change that. If there’s even a chance that Narcissa is the other omega the ODL is chasing, we need to come together. The ODL general is reported to be a reasonable man. I’ve met him a few times during reports to the council, and he’s got his head on straight. He’s a psychic, so that helps him cut through a lot of the bullshit. I know the council is turning a blind eye to our persecution, butsurelythey’ll see reason when it comes to us versus them. No one could prefer a return to the way things were before the wars.”
“I wouldn’t say no one.” I couldn’t get the bitterness out of my tone as I thought about the pixie king’s willingness to enslave his own people in a quest for power. How was that any different from what Bran and Narcissa had done? “The pixies might see this as a chance to grab for power of their own. They’re amassing an army, so they might see this as their chance to strike. We know there’s going to be an attack at the blood moon, but do we really knowwhois going to attack us?”
“No, we don’t know for sure, but we still have to try,” Reed argued. “The other species weren’t able to sit out the omegawars. They should know that if Bran regains control of the wolf packs, they’ll be dragged into it either way, and if they wait, it will be without wolf allies.”
“We’ll have to make them see,” Kane agreed, standing. “We don’t have much time. We’ll make a list and start calling. As many as we can get here, as quickly as possible. Fiona foresaw the first attack tomorrow night. France isn’t that far away, although you mentioned Austria too. We need to map out the packs we’re missing, see if we can get a feel for how close they are.”
“On it.” Gael jumped to his feet, yanking a huge map down from the wall and carrying it over to Kane’s desk.
We all huddled around it as Reed confirmed the packs’ home base locations on his list. There was an obvious cluster around Paris, and then a general eastward line toward Romania.
