31. Asher

ASHER

A fter Phaedra left, I slowly picked myself up and started off toward my pack. An intense loneliness had taken over my insides. I used to hate the way the mark made me think and worry about and yearn for Phaedra, but now my heart had no reason to keep beating. Thinking of her still made it beat faster, but it didn't come with the same compulsion to go see her. I wasn't sure if that was better. Before, my desire for her was an urge, a call to action. Without the compulsion, all that was left was the ache and the emptiness. I knew I would never feel whole again.

As I walked, I felt the urge to shift. I was surprised even as I took on my wolf form and shook out my fur. I never felt the pull of the curse after spending time with Phaedra, but just minutes after Phaedra and I parted ways, the curse was back in full force.

I hadn't planned for that to be an eventuality. I had taken for granted what it was like to be and feel fully like myself around her. But now wasn't the time to dwell on it. I needed to pick up the pace, anyway. My pack had been left in Taig's care for two days, and I could only imagine what state they were in.

I pushed myself to run faster, taking shortcuts where I could, until I reached my territory. Chaos met my arrival. Most of my wolves had already become feral, and some had formed mini groups who growled at me or avoided getting close as I jogged past. There were doors left open, some hanging haphazardly off their hinges. Inside those open homes, I saw broken pottery and shredded clothes.

Our stores of meat were emptied out as well, and two wolves were fighting over the last slab of jerky in the middle of the road. My heart broke at what my people had become. Was it too late? Had all of my efforts come to nothing?

I returned to my human form. "Is anyone still conscious?"

My voice sent the wolves closest to me running away, but I heard an answering call from the center of my pack.

"Gods above, Asher, is that you?" my uncle replied.

I sprinted to meet him. I was relieved to find that he, Taig, and a couple dozen of my pack were gathered in the meeting rooms.

"Where have you been?" Taig asked at the same time that Garrett said, "It's been hell without you."

"I finally got rid of the fated mate mark," I told them. "My bond to Phaedra is broken, but that witch put us in a coma for two days to get it done." I looked around. In the center of the spiral, things weren't any different from the outer rings. Places that should have been teeming with life were abandoned and silent. "What happened here?"

"The day after you left, many of us started losing control," my uncle said. "It started with the children, then the teens and everyone else. I've never seen anything like it."

"We need the Coldcrow," Taig said. "We can't manage this on our own."

"I was planning on heading her way after I stopped here."

"You need to be quick, Asher. The ascension is in three hours. It's already getting dark."

I'd hardly noticed the time, and even just speaking to them like this to find out what happened to my pack was wasting precious minutes.

"I'm going. You two hold things down as long as you can."

"We'll try, but I'm sure you feel the pull to the curse yourself," Taig said. "It's only a matter of time before we join the others."

That was a chilling reminder of what was at stake. I nodded, then shifted before sprinting toward the Coldcrow encampment a few miles west from my territory.

As I ran, I tried to shove my worry and dread about my pack down and think through what I would say to Selene. She was undoubtedly still upset about the way things had ended between us, and I needed to properly apologize if I wanted to get her on our side again.

I'd witnessed what it was like for Phaedra when she was rejected. Granted, her situation was different from mine and Selene's, but while the memory had a hold over Phaedra's mind, I'd looked into her eyes and found them wide with fear and pain. Her cheeks had been so pale and sallow. She had returned to the time when she had been abandoned by everyone.

I had abandoned Selene. That was what Phaedra had been trying to tell me after we claimed each other. It had broken her heart that she had accidentally participated in someone else's trauma. Selene must have felt that she was losing her ability to support her pack, and to someone like her, that must have felt like an even bigger betrayal. By choosing my mate, I'd left the Coldcrow to die in the cold and be pushed back onto the fringes of the island.

So, what did I say to the person I'd hurt? She wouldn't take just an apology. She would want an offer. I was prepared to make one. Just as I'd explained to Taig days ago, we'd combine our packs into one without a mating ceremony. One of her pups would be my successor, and she and the Coldcrow would have the right to half of our pack's territory.

I wish I'd had the ability to think about this when she had been willing to talk things out with me.

When I reached the Coldcrow encampment, I expected to find a pack that was bustling with activity and pup laughter, the way it had always been when I visited before. Instead, Selene's territory was almost as barren and silent as mine. Had they left? Where? Why?

Unlike the spiral formation of my pack, Selene's cabins were arranged in straight lines and occupied a rectangle of land overlooking a cliff that led into Lake Michigan. I found Selene's men and Layla, Selene's right-hand, on the training grounds, running through drills I'd taught them.

I slowed from my run to a trot as I neared the group. Layla saw me as I stopped a few yards away.

"One more drill," she said. "Then you can stop for the night." She came to talk to me as I shifted.

Behind her, I noticed a few of her men were giving me nervous looks. I knew many of them, and they had grown close with my pack. They were obviously aware about the state of things on my territory.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Where are your people?"

She crossed her arms. "It stopped being your business after you broke your agreement with Selene." She was almost as tall as me, and her arms were corded with tight muscle. Her black hair fell over her shoulder in a thick braid, and the right side of her head was shaved down to her scalp.

I ignored the sting of her comment. "Fine. Where is Selene?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

My lips pulled back from my teeth. Inside, my wolf was snapping his jaws. Our pack was in shambles, and Layla was playing games.

"Fine. Then have one of your men tell her that I need to speak to her. Urgently."

She glanced away, over my shoulder at the way I'd come, and her shoulders stiffened. That was when I started to notice this mask of disapproving apathy was just that—a mask.

"Selene is not here," she admitted finally.

"Well, where is she?"

"I don't have to tell you?—"

"And I don't have time for this," I snapped. "Most of my pack is feral already, and I only have hours to make it right. All I want is to apologize and make an offer to renegotiate our agreement before I go."

Layla winced. She would. She knew the people of my pack. It probably didn't sit well with her to know that people she had been friendly with were no longer in their right minds. Just like I'd cringed when I heard how quiet her pack lands were.

I watched Layla debate with herself. Only seconds passed, but it felt like a millennia. I was close to demanding a second time that she tell me, then she sighed.

"She went to speak to Edgar," she said. "She's been gone for an hour already."

"What? But why would she…?" I trailed off, already reaching the answer. She would be trespassing on Wilcox pack lands unless she had information to barter with. The only information that would be useful to Edgar concerned the curse…

Oh no. She was planning on telling him that he had control over our curse, but he was already aware of that. If she went to him with only that piece of information, she would be killed for trespassing without reason. Unless I got there before her and stopped her.

I cursed and shifted. I left a startled Layla in the dust and raced to the alpha manor. She had an hour on me, but if I pushed myself as hard as I could, I could get there in half the time. But what if she was already inside the manor? How would I intercept her then?

I racked my brain for a solution, and then Phaedra's voice came back to me.

There is an old path on the south side of the manor. It'll take you to a wall of stones. A few of them should be loose, and when you pull them free, you'll find a hole big enough for you to slip through.

She had already told me how to get in. I just needed to pray to the goddess that I wasn't too late.

With so many people excited about the ascension, it created enough cover for me to enter Wilcox territory without issue. I was even able to slip past the gates that separated high-wolf society from Den City without causing any stir. I went to the path she'd described and sniffed around until I found the wall of large, flat stones. I stood on my back paws and tested each of them, desperate to find the ones that would come out.

Just when I was about to reach the end of the wall, one of the stones popped free. It hit the cobblestone street, startling me. There it was! My path in.

I pulled apart the stones and wiggled my way inside. It was a tight fit, not much bigger than the inside of the Holo statue's leg had been, but I used my claws to pull me along.

I was panting and exhausted, but adrenaline and the knowledge that I would become feral at any second pushed me to keep going. I'd been consumed with emptiness after losing my connection to Phaedra, I'd been horrified by the sight of my pack, and now that Taig had pointed it out, I felt the urge to panic lingering just at the edge of my consciousness. I could have ignored it for a while, but it was growing stronger.

At the end of the tunnel was a fabric tapestry. As I pushed it aside, I caught the familiar scents of Edgar and Connor. No surprise. This was their family's manor after all. Edgar's scent was stronger and more recent than Connor's. Either Edgar had just walked by, or he was very, very close.

I wiggled through the hole, expecting to find myself in one of the manor's grand halls, but I was in a huge bedroom instead. The vaulted ceilings were ten feet above me. A large bed stood to my right.

I didn't have time to try and catch my bearings as I heard a toilet flush. Moments later, Edgar left the room with an exhausted sigh, wiping his hands on a towel. As he came into the room, I had just enough time to note that he looked drained before he saw me, froze, and dropped the towel. Time seemed to slow as the towel fell.

Just like that, all thoughts of Selene went out of my mind. Edgar was standing right here, and this time, I wasn't going to be paralyzed by surprise. One of us would be dead by the time Connor ascended, and I was going to make damn sure it wasn't me.

Before the towel hit the floor, I gathered up the rest of my strength and lunged at him.