94. Anna

94

Anna

They almost killed Finn at the coven, but Maeve had ordered him taken alive. Apparently, she wanted the thrill of killing her son herself.

Chained to the wall, I was helpless as Maeve wiped Finn's blood from her hands. If she suspected that I'd just been speaking to Jax, she didn't let on. At least it was nice to see him again before I cracked the mountain open and bled for Maeve's obsession with world domination.

"You've destroyed him, you know," Maeve muttered in a fury. "He was to be my heir, and now he defies his own mother and bleeds for you."

"Maybe if you had actually mothered him instead of sending him as a child to hunt down two adults and his friend, he'd still care for you."

Her hand whipped across my face, and my teeth gashed together. Painfully, I spit out the blood. Since the moment we were taken from the coven, the only pain I'd felt was from their attempts to capture me. Maeve had wanted me as unharmed as possible, but apparently even she had her limits.

"Soon you'll know what it is like to be a mother," she said as she skimmed her knuckles down my belly. "And you'll understand what I'm going through."

"You can stop lying. You and I both know that I'm not going to survive this ritual."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Well of course you will. That is why a ternary is chosen. They are strong enough to survive. I admire you, Anna. I would never want to kill you. Look at all that you have survived. You will survive this."

"No. I won't. Look at the reality, Maeve. I may have a wolf, magic, and Fae talent, but I still bleed. I've nearly died many times, and it's not my magic that saved me. It was others. If you do this ritual, it will rip out everything inside of me. You will be my killer and the killer of my babe."

Her eyes flitted down to my stomach, and her lips thinned. "Then you will die knowing that you served the greater good."

"The greater good?! How is you being in charge the greater good? Look at all the damage you've done just to get here!"

"Look at the damage this mountain has done to each other! By allowing so many rogues to roam free, we are endangering our way of life! Wolves are meant to be under a pack and to have a leader! When the King exiled this mountain, he doomed us."

Goddamn, was this what it was all about? Maeve wanted to be Queen of the wolves? "It doesn't look like doom to me. We are thriving. Those who want to be part of a pack do just that. They're safe. And those who want their solitude are fine. Rogues are dangerous, but you're using them as weapons and an excuse. All you want is power. A crown should be earned and not taken."

"And what do you know?" She hissed. "You're just a child!"

"A child who has seen every facet of this mountain, thanks to you. I've seen the darkness and the light. The hatred and the love. What you're doing is taking the wild out of our animals and collaring them. Eventually, the magic of the ritual will fade, the witches will stop following you, and the serums will wear off, and they will rebel against you. Nobody wants this, Maeve. If they did, you wouldn't have to kill so many wolves and witches to make it happen."

"My pack is behind me, and the witches have been waiting for this day to come. I have their support," she murmured, a manic gleam in her eyes. "We are so close."

I was wasting my breath. Nothing was going to make her stop now, but somehow, I needed her to see the damage that she was inflicting. "Was it easy? Killing Lucy? Killing your own flesh and blood?"

"You think that now, when I'm so close, I'm going to have regrets?" she asked coldly. "I have spent decades planning for this. I have thought of every angle. Every moment. There is nothing that you can say to deter me. This is what is best for the mountain, and I am willing to make any and every sacrifice."

Nearing me, she whipped out a syringe and plunged the needle into my arm. For a second, I thought she was injecting me with something, but she simply withdrew blood. Then, without another word, she left the room and slammed the door.

The chains were coated in iron and salt. They didn't burn, but all my attempts at unlocking them were futile. Alone, I called on my wolf. She rose up inside. The shift was awkward given that I couldn't drop to all fours, but the chains fell off me and I shook. Shifting back to human, I tried the door to the hall, but it was locked, just as I suspected.

The adjoining door was another story, and when I opened the door, I was horrified by what I saw. Finn was slumped over, blood pouring from open wounds. His face was so swollen that his eyes weren't even open.

"Finn," I whispered. His chains were tighter, forcing him to stand, so I knew he wasn't unconscious. "Finn, you have to shift so I can get you out of these chains."

His mouth worked for a few seconds before it finally opened. "Can't. Spelled."

I put my hands on the chains and smiled at him even though he couldn't see it. "Try again."

I could feel the magic of the cuffs draining, and I sat there in silence for several agonizing minutes while Finn found the strength to shift. When the chains slipped off him, his wolf fell to the floor, and I put my hands on him and went to work. Injury by injury, I used my magic to heal him, and finally, his wolf lifted his head, and he stared up at me.

"We were always coming to this moment," I told him as I leaned against the brick wall and stroked the top of his head. "My parents. Evalina. The healer. My mate. Even Emerson. Everyone did whatever they could to keep this moment from happening, but I think the paths were always going to intertwine. We were always coming here."

Swallowing in an attempt to moisturize my dry mouth, I struggled not to cry. "I can feel Jax. He always breaks through every barrier I put up. He made it to the coven, and he's hurting so much right now. All I can think about is that second that I don't feel him anymore. When he's dead because he tried to save me."

Knocking my head back, I gazed up at the ceiling and frowned. Finn's room had a window in it. It was so close to the ceiling that we were probably in some sort of basement area. The window was too small for even my wolf to shimmy out, but I wanted to see what was on the other side.

Unfortunately, now was not the time to see if I could levitate myself with my magic, so I stood and eyed the chains. Finn's wolf moved his head to watch me, and I pointed at the window. There was a small table in the room, but it was bolted to the floor. The chains were mounted about two feet beneath the window. I could climb up and try to reach the window sill to grip myself.

In my weakened state, I wouldn't be able to hold myself up for very long, but it was worth a shot.

Finn started to shift as I gripped the chains and started to climb. My muscles screamed as I braced my feet against the stone wall and used them to propel myself up. By the time I reached the top, Finn had fully shifted, and I was out of breath.

"One way to subvert Maeve would be to fall to your death before she could use you," he said in a weak voice. Clearly I hadn't been able to heal him fully, and I glanced down at him.

"I don't think the fall would kill me, but it is an idea."

Below me, he scowled, and I took a couple more steps and tested my foot hold. I had maybe an inch or two to brace my foot for the jump.

Not great, but it was the best I had. Luckily, the sill was deep. Gritting my teeth, I pushed off and grunted. I couldn't quite get my forearms on the sill, but I did catch the edge with my hands. Quickly, I grabbed on and scrambled my way up until I could pull my elbows up and brace my weight against the wall.

"Fuck," Finn hissed. "Are you all right?"

Panting, I cleared my throat. "Peachy."

The window was caked with dirt. Carefully, I used my hand to clean it. "We are definitely in a basement, and there is a lot of activity outside. It looks like we're sitting on a huge field before the edge of a wooded area. They're…they're building a ritual circle."

Witches. When I focused, I could see their magical auras. There had to be a dozen of them.

Movement on the edge of the woods caught my attention, and I looked over as wolves spilled out from the woods. Dozens and dozens.

In horror, I squeaked and scrambled back, forgetting that I was hovering the air. Immediately, I fell.

"Anna!" Finn's hands circled around my waist, and we both stumbled to the ground. I landed on him and quickly rolled off him.

"Are you all right?"

"I mean, I'm still better than I was ten minutes ago. What did you see?" Grimacing, he sat up and winced in pain.

"Wolves. Mutated wolves," I muttered as the horror washed over me all over again. "Maeve's used the serum on her own pack."