Chapter 24

Being back in Avleim is a knife to the chest. Serrated, plowing in, nicking bone, and hurting more before you yank it back out. The last time I was here, it was to see the truth of what my father had become: a pet to the blood drinkers, the donor of the blood they laid the curse against our people with.

A snarl curls my upper lip. The outer wall of Avleim gleams pristine white in the late afternoon sun. It's a lie.

There is nothing pristine about this place, the former seat of Starbound power, not anymore. The scent of blood drinker filth pervades even the glade of trees that flanks this part of the wall.

Stupid of them to let the trees creep so close to their walls. So assured of their grip on power, they've ruined their line of sight.

I cannot complain though, seeing as how it's what allows us to approach the side gate. The alpha's shed his human skin, an overgrown wolf taking his place. His ears pin back, his sharp teeth bared at the wooden door.

I share a look with Arietis, who nods once, and Kaus, who slips back into his two-legged form, a bow in his hand and another strung along his shoulder.

We are as ready as we can be.

The side gate's guarded, as we suspected it would be. I can smell them from here.

A roar rocks the castle wall, and the whole thing shakes.

That's the signal.

Ras and Lesath and their mates have engaged the front, and from the way mortar and dust clouds the air, the wall trembling, their putting on quite a show.

A horn sounds from deep inside Avleim, the sound chilling me, raising hair on the back of my neck. The last time I heard that horn was in Inasgow, when the entire village was massacred. The blood drinkers are calling for reinforcements, and anyone non-essential is rushing to the attack at the front gate. Our diversion.

I hope it is enough.

It will have to be enough. Mina is somewhere inside this hell, and she has to be alive.

We will get her out of there.

Arietis grunts, circling towards the back of the glade. Shade dapples the grass here, casting long shadows and giving us cover. Three of us creep close to the wall, on either side of the door.

"Ready?" Arietis asks.

"Ready," I affirm.

"Let's go," says Kaus, grinning.

The wolf growls.

Arietis lowers his head, and takes off at a sprint, picking up speed as he moves. His horns crash into the wall gate, and the wood splinters, the door thrown inward on impact.

Arietis keeps moving, taking out a stunned guard with a slash of a knife to the throat. I'm through next, silencing another guard by snapping his neck. Kaus unleashes hell, taking down four sentries in the blink of an eye, all with shots that pierce straight through their throats.

None let out more than a gurgle before dropping to the ground.

"So much for the famed battle-hardy blood drinkers." Kaus smirks, but his eyes are devoid of humor.

"Come," I say, inhaling deeply, setting off along the narrow path winding along the side of the castle. It's been a century since I last saw inside these walls, and yet, it's as though nothing has changed.

A pang of fear grips me, and I still.

It's not my fear. It's Mina's.

Whatever they're doing to her, she's terrified. The thin, tenuous mate bond's been silent until now, and I feel strung tight as a bow string.

"Hold on to it," Arietis says, watching me carefully. "Do not warp yet. Wait."

"I know," I grit out.

A blood drinker comes around a corner, looking over some parchment in his hands. His eyes don't even widen with surprise before he falls to the grass, a feathered shaft barely protruding from his neck.

It's a sign of how on edge we all are that Kaus doesn't even make a passing remark about his own marksmanship. We continue on, edging around corners one at a time. The grounds are clear of most blood drinkers, a sign either our diversion is working, or they're inside, fortifying.

"There," Arietis says, jerking his head at the reinforced door. It's camouflaged, built to blend in with the white stone walls, and would be near invisible to anyone unfamiliar to the castle.

But this is our stars damned castle, this is our fucking city.

A low growl rips through me, and the Alpha snarls, clearly thinking the same thing. They never thought we posed enough threat they'd need to refortify.

Brought down by their own hubris.

Arietis gently nudges the stones that trigger the release mechanism, and the door yawns open. The interior's black, dark as night. The blood drinker's do not need light to see, not like Arietis and I do, but Kaus and the wolf have excellent vision. We reach the end of a long corridor, unguarded, and from the musty smell of it, unused.

It splits into two directions, and Arietis and the wolf go down one, Kaus and I down the other. We're already taking a risk by assuming she's held in the dungeons here, but after seeing the blood drinkers haven't changed anything since my last trip here, I'm more and more sure they've brought her here.

It's where they kept my father at the end, after all.

Rage builds in me, and Kaus shoots me a concerned look.

"Stay with me, friend," he mutters.

The stench of the blood drinkers grows stronger, and I inhale deeply, the same I know the wolf will be too, trying to catch a whiff of my mate.

But all I scent is the foul must of these dungeons, of pain and fear, of the copper tang of blood.

Despair claws at me.

Mina, I think, where are you?

I close my eyes, trying to search down the bond, trying to pull that too-thin thread. It's unraveling in my mind's eye, and nausea washes over me, along with pain and exhaustion.

It pulls me under, so strong and desperate I gag on it, until a shimmering sense of pride fills me.

Not my pride. Not my desperation, or exhaustion.

"She's here." I quicken my stride, Kaus hot on my heels. "They have her in the deepest level."

"How?"

"I can feel her."

A sentry looms out of nowhere, hissing in the darkness at us. My hands meet flesh, and I twist. His neck makes a sick pop, and he falls limp.

I frown. Strange.

"I remember them being harder to kill," Kaus says, a grim expression on his face.

"As do I."

We race down a set of dark stairs, lower and lower into the belly of the castle itself, where the most dangerous prisoners of Avleim were once housed.

Where my mate now clings to life.

I will save you, Mina.