Page 27 of Throne of the Wolf Queen

​— ​ARABELLA HAWKINS, PROF. OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF TRESPIA

Air flooded my lungs. I rolled onto my back. Half-coughing, half-gasping, blinking up at the blotched ceiling. The hazy forms of the white-washed wooden beams swam violently as my throat burned with a ferocity putting the flames of Vyrus to shame. My chained hands slammed against my heaving chest. Beyond were screams, shouts… snarls.

My head twisted to the side. Damn my sight. A grey lump, ready to lurch, growled as I rolled over.

Pablo.

His name died as a cracked whisper on my lips, my throat constricted, my body convulsed as I coughed again. Light flooded the mausoleum, but my mix of blotches, watery eyes and muddled thoughts meant it was a struggle to make sense of what was happening.

A figure, broad, male, stood with one arm raised. Following the line of his hand, my eyes widened as another figure twisted high in the air. My breaths evened out and although my body was bruised, I twisted onto my front. Pushing myself up, I called the wolf again. The scene blurred into a hazy focus. Squinting, I gasped as the Anomaly who’d crushed my lungs spun, Hawk twisting his hands in time to his rotations.

I rose higher, eager to witness the Anomaly turn blue as their chokes echoed around the mausoleum. My pulse skittered. Hawk was a Deviant, and a powerful one. Why on Eusis would he keep a gift like that secret? I snorted and Pablo stopped snarling, racing over as I buried myself in his musky fur.

‘I can see why you like this so much,’ Hawk said, the Anomaly spinning upside down as the mariner’s arm looped in a circle. ‘Watching their lungs empty, those eyes bulging, while they desperately claw for a fraction more life? Exhilarating.’

The Anomaly uttered a feeble choke.

‘What’s that?’ Hawk continued, righting the Anomaly and placing their feet down on the floor, chuckling. ‘Stupid me. Can’t speak, can you?’

The Anomaly slumped to the floor, gasping, his legs kicking out. A feral grin spread across my face. Pablo licked my cheek as I tried, and failed, to rise. Hawk strode towards the Anomaly, stopping in front of him and crouching down. After our argument, he’d still come to my aid.

Why?

He shoved the groaning Anomaly. ‘I’ve despised your type since the first star burnt.’

Hawk stood and my head drooped as he stepped back from the Anomaly. Pablo licked my face again and I swallowed against the pain, tugging the wolf close. Hawk held his hand out, and a shiver tore through me. The mausoleum, already frigid in the early autumn light, had turned to ice. I squinted as he spread his fingers out, the Anomaly rolling before him.

‘Send Evella my love, won’t you?’ he said. His fingers snapped shut, and with it, the Anomaly’s head exploded in a mass of striking blood and dark meat. A dry scream stung my throat as shattered chunks of skull and trembling flesh slapped the ceiling with sickening thuds. Blood, crimson and steaming, gleamed in the fragile light of morning.

Scrambling back, I held my hand over my mouth. This was no average Deviant. This was a man with intense power; a power he’d meant to keep a secret. I’d just witnessed the dark extent of his abilities. I was chained. Trapped. Vulnerable. Pablo whined, tucking his head into the crook of my neck as Hawk turned to where I sat. Bile swamped my throat, my back slamming into the sarcophagus. Hawk stepped forward. I tugged on the chains. If I could just get them off…

He crossed his arms, nostrils flared.

‘Sorry, sweetheart.’ He crouched down, and through the swirls I noted the furrowing of his already lined brow, the wry grin on his face. ‘Thought you were still out for the count.’

‘You’re…’ Gods, my raw voice cracked as I tried to raise my chin. ‘You’re a Deviant… You’re⁠—’

The smile slid from his face and I cursed my words. He reached forward, grabbing the cuffs on my wrists, tugging me towards him. ‘What makes you say that, then?’

I barked out a dry laugh, wincing at the sting. ‘You crushed his head.’ I nodded my chin in the direction of the Anomaly behind him.

‘Whose head?’ He narrowed his gaze at the cuffs, testing them as though he could simply slide them from my shaking wrists.

‘Him.’ I swallowed against the pain. ‘The air-stealing Anomaly.’

‘Oh, him,’ Hawk slipped one of the cuffs from my wrist, over my knuckles.

‘What? How?’ I stared at my wrists, at the marks where I’d tried in desperation to remove them. He slipped the second over my knuckles, relief flooding me, before gripping my hand and squeezing. My violet gift swirled, as though they’d lain in wait for the myriad of corpses surrounding them. I clamped them down. I’d no desire to return to the palace with centuries-old monarchs on my heels. ‘How did you…’

My hands flew to my throat. The burning? Gone. Hawk smiled, offering me his hand as though he hadn’t just healed me. Accepting, we stood and I braced myself for the gore beyond him.

Then my heart stopped as I stared at the floor, where only moments before, the decapitated Anomaly’s body had spewed blood. ‘He was no problem. Pablo scared him off.’

Words failed me. Pablo took his place under my fingers as I scoured the space for any sign of the dead Anomaly. I knew my sight was rapidly fading, but the blood, the flesh, the actual fucking body?

There was nothing.

Hawk peered into my face, a glint lighting up his eyes.