Chapter eleven

The empty quiet of the forest around the castle is harrowing. The surge of magic tingling over my body makes my fur stand on end as we pass through Monique's spell, and her magic clings to every inch of me. The side entrance isn't blocked, the door creaking slightly open for us as we near it, as if by a gust of wind from inside. Gideon nudges it with one paw. It's easy. Accessible. Wrong.

The air inside is cold and dank, reminding me of the dream and all the times I'd tried to get back here with the new spell when training with my wolf, but the halls we're in are different from what I remember. Stone walls surround us, the same white tile as before, but there are no paintings lining the walls, and the darkness isn't nearly as bleak.

Our steps are quiet as we pad down the first hallway, Gideon leading the way. We come to a bend—left or right—and he turns to me. "You should stay here."

"What?" Shock ripples through me. "No, we promised to stay together. We—"

"Please, Adara. Just stay here. I'll come back for you." He steps closer to me, as if to place his snout atop mine again.

"No," I pull back from him, hating that he wants to leave me behind at every chance he gets. "Why won't you believe in me? You talk about how strong I am, how much power I have, and I finally want to fight alongside you. I want to use my strength and my power, and all you can talk about is making me stay behind while you do everything yourself." Shaking my head, I start walking in the opposite direction. "I thought you were going to treat me as your equal, finally see me as your true mate."

"Mia fiamma, I do," he says, and the pain in his voice makes me freeze in my tracks. "I see you as more than I could ever me. Your heart is so big and full of love that you would do anything to save those you care about." Slowly, he inches closer. "How could I think you weak when you hold such power—witch and wolf—and still care so much for others?"

Tears escape my eyes, melting into the fur on my cheeks. "Then, why are you asking me to stay behind?"

He sighs, hesitantly brushing his snout along mine. "Because you would do anything to save them—including laying your own life down—and I can't bear to lose you."

Leaning into his touch, I take a shaky breath. I know that if I stay behind, he'll move toward Aramin without me.

Maybe that isn't the worst idea,my wolf suggests. It could mean searching for Jules while Aramin is distracted.

"Okay, I'll—"

Fog swirls thick around us before I can tell him that I'll stay behind, hating the idea of lying to him, but knowing he won't win against Aramin if he doesn't think I'm safe. But the sudden mist rips him from me, and the panic of wondering if he'll be able to stop worrying about me long enough to fight her—and win—threatens to consume me.

"Gideon!" I turn in circles, searching for him or a hint of his scent, but the mist is so thick around me that I can't see more than a single step in each direction. A sharp pain pierces through my head, and I crumple to the ground, shifting back into my human form. The pain stops almost instantly, but every time I try to connect to my wolf, she's not there, lingering beyond my reach.

Goosebumps scatter over my body, and my heart pounds against my ribs. I turn and take a step but hit a wall. Again and again, the pattern repeats as I reach wall after wall. I can't hear anything, smell anything, see anything. It's almost as if the fog swallows everything, every sense muted, and closed me into a box.

I reach inside for my wolf again, missing her voice in my head, but when I brush against her in my mind, the pain from before lances through me. Being in this fog in wolf form is what caused so much pain I couldn't move or think, and my heart sinks. I can't afford to be so vulnerable again. I have to do this alone.

"Gideon!" I call his name over and over, trying and failing to find a way to move forward without hitting another gods damn wall. I need to warn him about the fog, about shifting into his human form. I need to let him know I'm okay.

"Gideon," a voice comes, mocking me.

I whirl around, searching for where it came from.

"Still so pathetic, relying on him to save you." The fog shifts, and mint swims around me. A shadow plays along the mist, but it blinks out of sight in an instant.

"Aramin? What is this? Where's Gideon?" Turning in a circle, I try to channel my wolf, pulling her as close to the surface as I can bear. The second my claws start to lengthen, I cry out, my hand coming up to touch my head. I pull my claws back in.

"Poor little witch," she spits. "Gideon will be perfectly fine without you. My touch is something he's sought many times before, and after all this time with you, I'm sure he's desperate for a real she-wolf."

Aramin's cackle grates against my ears, and her words make my vision blur, rage clawing at my chest. It takes all my effort to keep my wolf shoved down as I lunge at the next shadow that appears, stumbling forward when there's nothing to break my fall. My foot slips on the tile, the floor suddenly dipping down, and I fall. My hands shoot out to the sides, grappling for something to hold on to, anything to stop my descent.

The hallway is pitch black by the time the floor levels out, and I come to a stop. Chest heaving with each breath, I strain my ears to pick up on any sound around me, but there's nothing. The darkness feels thick with silence. Turning back to the sloped floor, I try to climb back up it, hating the thought of letting Gideon think something happened to me but even more to leave him alone with that mutt, but it's pointless. It's too steep, and there's no guarantee that Gideon is going to stay up there anyway. That mate bond pulses in my chest, and the worry in my heart lessens slightly, knowing he's okay.

Crawling forward, I curse Aramin's name under my breath and use a hand on the wall to feel my way forward. The longer I walk, the more anxious I become until I'm running down the hall as best I can, my legs beginning to ache.

A scream pierces the air, and a chill snakes down my spine as it connects in my head. Jules's scream, the pitch-black hall of endless shadows… It's all the same as the times I'd come here before.

I sprint down the hall, running straight for that scream, but my bare foot catches the edge of a rug. I crash to the floor, landing hard on my hands and knees. Rugburn sears against my skin, but I force myself forward, knowing Jules is closeby. Crawling to the wall, I feel along the stones, the faint light at the end of the left hall coming into view when it curves. Blood red rugs are plush and soft beneath my feet, paintings on the wall blurring as I rush by them.

Another scream pierces the air as I reach the wooden door that should lead into the room where Jules is chained. The door swings in on loose hinges, showing the dim light, the metallic, putrid scent from before wafting through it. Padding forward, I peek inside, seeing Jules hanging from the chains, her sobs echoing around the room as she pulls at the metal. A body lays at her feet. Small. Limp.

I cover my mouth when I realize it's Wren, the door flies the rest of the way open, a force pulling me into the room, and light blazes all around. I squint at the sudden harshness, pulling my wolf to the surface, but all I can get to come out are my claws. Panic and frustration war within me when I realize the fog's effects blocking my wolf weren't only while I was within its mist. Instead, I can't barely sense her within me and her voice is mute in my mind. The only relief I have is that it's no longer painful to use what little essence of her I can grasp—my claws.

"I told you she'd come."

That voice…

The one I've come to recognize from my nightmares sounds from behind me.

Ice snakes down my spine as the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I whirl around, finding two thrones at the opposite end of the room. Monique stares down at me from the dais, a smirk curling her lips. Her blonde hair, normally so well-kept, looks almost disheveled, curls crushed and the shine no longer there. Beside her on the other throne chair sits a man with gray hair smoothed back from his head, dark bags beneath his dark brown eyes.

"I know my own daughter well enough, wouldn't you say, Raymond?" Monique says, tone clipped after he fails to answer her the first time. "I told you she would come for that blonde brat."

He grunts, his thin lips pressed into a hard line as he glares down at me. "So, you're the mongrel that's been causing so much trouble."

"Addy," Jules says, her voice cracking and pulling my attention over my shoulder to her. "Addy, I told you not to come here." Blood is caked to the side of her face, matting her blonde hair to her temple. Bruises of all shades and colors are scattered over every inch of exposed skin my eyes can see, and her clothes are heavily soiled. Another wave of tears rushes down her face, painting a trail through the dirt smeared on her cheeks. "I told you not to come!" she screams, pulling at her chains. "She'll kill you! S-she—" An agonizing wail cuts off her words, her body tensing, then she falls limp against the wall.

"Gods, she's going to give me a headache with all her screaming," Monique says, brushing dust from her cloak after lowering her hand—the torturous spell being cast with merely a finger as if it were nothing. As if Jules weren't raised from birth as her own daughter.

How could someone raise a child from infancy all through their life and bear no affection for them? How could she do this to someone she claimed to love?

I shake my head, clearing the thoughts from my mind. Monique has never loved anyone but herself, and the sooner I learn that, the better.

"What the hell did you do to her?" I snarl, my fists balling at my sides.

She quirks a brow as she glances up at me, then shrugs. "Anything I felt like. Wouldn't have been so hard if she'd just told me what I wanted to know." She taps one finger to her chin, the bright ruby nail polish chipped. "Now, that other one with her, she was the fun one."

"You did all of this for information?" Angling myself, I look back toward Jules without turning my back to the thrones. My eyes snap to Wren's body, still not moving. From this distance and the position she's in, I can hardly tell if her chest is even rising.

"Information is the key to everything, Adara. You would know that if you ever listened to me." She rolls her eyes, huffing. "Know those you keep close, know your enemies even better, but never let anyone know who you really are."

"You never taught me any of that," I say, narrowing my gaze at her.

"Didn't I?" she snaps.

I swallow hard.

Maybe she did teach me that lesson, but it was taught the hard way—in how I never knew anything about her while she seemed to know everything about me, every move I made as I made it. But everything about her from her past to her current plan has been slowly fed to me like a jigsaw puzzle.

I throw my hand out at Wren and Jules. "And what information could be worth all of this?" If I can try to keep her talking, maybe I can figure out what to do to save all four of them.

"You, Adara," she points one long, red fingernail at me. "Information about you." She sneers down at me. "Ever since you were a child, you've been a constant thorn in my side. So powerful I could barely contain your magic without help from other witches, but your wolf was dormant, locked deep inside you, and your wretched grandmother!" Slamming a fist onto the arm of her throne, her face contorts into rage. "Telling you stories of that well, all the while hiding it from me! She knew I wanted its power, and I know she told you where it is."

"The well is worth killing children for?" I looked at Jules and Wren, wishing desperately that Wren would move. I can't imagine the pain Jule will bear if her mate were to die.

"She's not dead," Monique says, amusement clear in her tone and the way her eyes glitter. "Not yet anyway. Or should I say this time?" She grins at the man beside her as he chuckles before turning back to me. "Reviving a corpse is so much more difficult than casting a simple spell to make her appear dead, but…" She shrugs, shaking her head. "I needed her to look dead enough to see if that would get Juliana to start talking."

I take a step forward, my palms heating, claws piercing into my skin. I could tear her to pieces right now, limb from limb, rip that smile straight off her gods damn face, and let her blood pool over these tiles like a liquid version of the rugs from the hall.

She raises a hand, holding up one finger and shaking it back and forth. "Ah, ah, ah, not so fast, darling daughter. One more step, and I'll be forced to do something I don't think you'll like."

With a snap of her fingers, a plume of smoke billows up beside her, and as it clears, my stomach drops. A man with the darkest brown hair stands before me—one hand clutches Kaylus's feet, his body hanging limp, the other fists Jaz's hair.

Tears pour down her face, a whimper shaking from her as she sees me. "A-A-Addy, h-help."

"Shut up," the man growls, shaking her roughly and making Jaz cry out.

"Let them go!" I take another step forward, but Monique holds up her hand, a challenge written over her face—move another inch, and she'll uphold her promise to hurt them.

"Allen, really, control yourself," Monique says, rolling her eyes.

"What do you want?" I ask, my voice hoarse as I fight all my instincts to run to them—any of them. All of them. I have to save them all. Wren is alive, but now it's not just her and Jules that need me, and everyone is at opposite ends of this insufferable room. "What do you want?" I scream when there's no answer, embers flying from my hands.

"Everything," Monique says, her eyes staring hungrily at my hands. "I want everything you have to give me, Adara."