I inhale deeply, at which my blood stirs in a way I never expected.
I can’t keep the intrigue from my voice or stop myself from leaning in their direction. “What is that scent?”
My heart is suddenly pounding and an intense need to run to the wolves is overpowering me?—
Diavolo’s arms swing around me and that’s when I realize that I was already rising to my feet.
“Stop, Veda,” he says, pulling me close, my shoulder pressed to his chest as I struggle to close the gap between me and the wolves.
“But—”
“No.” His harsh order draws my focus back to him.
I narrow my eyes, ready to snap at him, but he says, “Your pupils are dilated.”
I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything, and nor do I particularly care. My arms are free to move, even if Diavolo is keeping the rest of me anchored to the spot and I stretch themout like the little girl reaching for the butterflies. “Okay, but what about that scent?”
It’s intoxicating. Magnetic. Irresistible.
“It’s calling to me,” I say.
“Blood and war,” he snarls at my ear. “The power of old wolves.”
Still holding me tightly, he lifts me off my feet and hoists me up into his arms before he rushes toward Lucian.
I gasp with surprise and indignation, but before I can utter a stern rebuke, he snarls, “It’s time to go before you either fight those wolves or join them.”
Weirdly, I’m not sure exactly which I’d prefer to do.
Fighting wolves so powerful and so unexpectedly dark as these would be a glorious way to die…
Across the distance, the wolves’ ears have pricked up and I’m fully aware that they must be listening to every word we say.
I wonder, for a moment, what they would think if I didn’t fight them and joined them instead.
I need powerful beings at my side if I’m going to have a hope of seeking justice for what my father has done.
At the exact moment I consider that possibility, the mother wolf gives ayip, and for the briefest heartbeat, I think she’s going to run toward me?—
Instead, she turns and races away. The other two immediately follow and within seconds, they’re gone.
The scent of blood and war recedes with them and it’s like the life drains from the air around me.
My heart slowly sinks.
I don’t know why, but the fact that they turned away from me feels like some sort of rejection.
Maybe it’s simply because they’re the first wolf pack I’ve encountered since I freed myself. It’s the first time I’vewitnessed a wolf pack in action. The first time I’ve had a glimpse of what it would be like to grow up in a pack like that.
The first time I could see the family I never got to have.
Diavolo has reached Lucian’s location and he’s still speaking, but his voice washes over me and through me, as if I’m suddenly an empty vial.
“Your heart is hurting.” His tone is strained. I imagine he’d press his hand to his aching chest if he wasn’t holding me with both arms. “We’re going home.”
Home. It’s what I called the little apartment that became our base over the last few days.
I barely have time to give him a nod, an acknowledgment that I accept his actions before mist forms around us.
