22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Kade

M inutes ticked by. Pine needles crunched. Their hushed breaths became lost to the forest breeze.

Linx’s magik snuffed the sound of their approaching steps. They stalked the chained like a pack of wolves, uniformed and on course.

Upon closer inspection, there were eleven total vampyrs. Two rode war horses, one stationed at the front and the other at the rear. Two vampyrs walked alongside each horse and the rest flanked the chained werewolves.

The crack of a whip broke the ominous air, and a growl rumbled through Kade’s chest. He and his brother locked eyes twenty yards apart. They’d been here before, stalking prey as a team. Bétar spotted Eldrick and Todd behind Kade. The four of them approached, tree to tree, inching closer and closer to the chained werewolves.

Farther behind, a swirl and dance of leaves fluttered on the path as if wind kicked up the debris. When Kade narrowed his eyes, his werewolf sight detected a petite silhouette.

Linx.

Another crack of a whip demanded his attention. Todd cursed behind him .

“I’m going to fucking gut them,” Todd whispered. “Slowly.”

A similar sentiment flushed through Kade, and his heart hammered in anticipation.

Tovi and Yennifer were nowhere to be found amongst the trees, as planned. Tovi had proven to possess a considerable amount of strength that negated her size, allowing her to carry Yennifer, bow and all. If it had been any other instance and not moments before a fight, Kade would’ve roared with laughter at Yennifer’s scowl as Tovi carried her farther up the forest, out of sight and undetected. He’d give money to see that disgruntled look on his archer’s face again.

Bétar had managed a chuckle, but his second’s downturned brows and narrowed eyes were full of concentration now. Flush against a pine tree, the brawny werewolf stalked with the grace and poise of a real beast.

In formation with his team, sword in hand, a rightness settled over Kade. A purpose. A target. Perhaps journeying day after day had felt like little progress, Evelyn out of reach no matter the miles or days that passed. But did freeing his people veer him too off course?

He and his wolf both itched for a fight. The restless energy pushing in his chest festered under his skin, threatening to unleash. Kade tried to rally it in, tugging and pulling his last shred of calm dangling at the end of a rope. The rope groaned, ready to snap. This energy, this feeling, built within him at an alarming rate

One foot in front of the other.

He peered around the trunk of the tree and through the crossing branches. Twenty-five yards ahead, chained werewolves continued on. He flicked his fingers forward twice, Eldrick nodded, and they began their approach. They ran, crouched, from tree to tree, weapons at the ready.

Unlike the Vadon Mountains, no songbirds chirped, no squirrels rustled in leaves, and no deer scraped against bark. The trickle of a stream didn’t even sound in the distance. Silent and still, the forest raised an eerie chill on Kade’s arms.

Above, the low blanketing clouds stuck tendrils of mist into the canopy of trees like the outreach of a ghost’s hands, waiting to grab them from above. Fog that fell in dollops moved like slithering shadows, seemingly sniffing out the team and inspecting their presence.

A whistling sound broke the silence, and the pop of a shattering breastbone followed. The vampyr leading the convoy slumped on his saddle, an arrow protruding from his dead heart. The other vampyr reared his horse, shouting to the others. The werewolves’ chains rattled as they drew closer together.

Chaos ensued.

Kade and his team rushed from the tree line. Eldrick ran with his axe at the ready, his war cry bellowing with Bétar’s. Todd threw his daggers, silver dashing through the air. One embedded in the center of a vampyr’s forehead with a deafening thud. With wide eyes, the vampyr sank to his knees as his flesh festered black. The other dagger grazed the arm of a vampyr flanking the back of the line of captive werewolves. He screeched in pain, flaring out his taloned hands.

He charged, but Kade swiped up and across his chest. His blade made contact, slicing through the vampyr’s armor and pale skin. The vampyr turned black as stone before he hit the ground.

Three down. Eight to go.

The vampyrs weren’t scáths—no black veins rimmed their eyes, and their movements were calculated, trained. Not hungry beasts out for blood but warriors, ready for a fight.

That pulse deep within Kade traveled upward. Energy compressed and expanded within him. His breathing quickened, but Kade swung his sword left then right, slaying the next vampyr that charged.

Moons.

Exertion, fighting, release. Kade relished the ability to fight away his worry .

To his left, Todd shifted into his black werewolf form, towering over two screeching vampyrs. To Kade’s right, Linx appeared out of the flurry of upturned pine needles.

“The werewolves, Linx!” Kade cried. He clashed with a vampyr, offering Linx a clear path.

“On it!” she said.

Sparks sprayed from Kade’s sword as it clanged against vampyr’s sharp talons. They were black like a scáth’s, the talons dipped in ink, but the black didn’t travel up his arm. For a breath, the shift reminded Kade of a werewolf. But a different magic, that familiar ooziness, fizzed in the air. His opponent wasn’t a caillte . It had not yet given in entirely to darkness, as Tovi had warned him of. But it had leaned into darkness, and the black of its nails, that oozy magic, hinted at the horrible monster that would leap into life when the vampyr finally lost himself.

Had Evelyn faced the horrors of these talons or fangs?

Kade lost focus and sidestepped too late. The vampyr sliced one shoulder with his blade and the other his talons. Kade roared. Pain blinded him, and his inner wolf howled. Kade unleashed weeks of buried wrath.

Left, right. Defend, counter, attack. With each step and slice of his blade, Kade advanced.

A simple overstep, and the vampyr stepped into Kade’s attack. His blade sliced his taloned hand clean off. The appendage dropped with a thud and bounded over Kade’s boots. As the vampyr screeched to the misty sky, he left his middle exposed. Kade swiped thigh to neck. Split open, the rest of the vampyr’s flesh blossomed black, and his dead body dropped.

Kade flicked blood off his blade and took in the rest of the fight. A second arrow fell from the sky, killing the one vampyr left atop a war horse. Eldrick struck one axe into the shoulder of a vampyr, and then struck again to the throat. Bone and blood crunched under the blade .

Ahead, Todd fought in his werewolf form, dark fur matted with sweat and blood. His claws dug into his opponent’s shoulder, and he thrust them into a pine tree. Bones snapped, the tree shuddered, and the vampyr didn’t rise to attack again.

Seven down. Four to go.

Beastly pride flushed through Kade.

Out of the fray of fighting, Linx had gathered the werewolves farther back. Chains and shackles littered the forest floor. Those freed had joined the fight, assisting Bétar with a vampyr wielding two swords.

They were winning—

“Ah!” Kade growled. He dropped to the ground, pain lancing through his ankle.

A female vampyr, disembodied from the waist down, crawled across the forest floor with her talons. A trail of crimson streaked behind her severed torso, and she swiped at the back of his knees despite her grave injuries. She wailed, fangs glinting like daggers.

“Son of the God,” the female vampyr hissed.

Kade flipped onto his back and pushed away from the vampyr. His wolf wrestled to be released, his skin rippling with the urge to shift. He scurried away on his elbows, kicking his boot’s heel into the female vampyr’s chin. She laughed and crawled faster.

“Are you as fun as your witch? Will you scream like she did?”

Kade went cold.

Silence rang in the forest. His icy fear sucked the noise of the chaos around him, and—

Kade shifted.

His wrath, worry, fear, and strength took over and forced him into the beastly warrior he was. He roared in his werewolf form, claws elongated, muscles rippling.

Stronger. Faster. Angrier .

Kade’s inner beast and power met, collided into a newness he gladly embraced.

No one threatened his mate. No one harmed her. No one said an ill word about her.

And lived.

The vampyr’s earlier glee faded. Her eyes widened in terror.

Kade grabbed something—he wasn’t sure, maybe an arm or her neck. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. He pulled, enough the vampyr met her end in more pieces than she’d been in, this time, dead.

Kade roared. Moons , he wished Evelyn heard his battle cry. Felt it down the bond.

A crunch snapped him back to the present. His brother’s axe stuck from a vampyr’s skull, blood seeping over the wedged blade.

“Two to go,” his brother said.

Kade shifted from his werewolf form. His hands flexed at his sides, sticky with the stain and crust of blood. He joined Eldrick, scouring the fight for the last two vampyrs.

“You’re our Princess!” one cried.

In a cluster of trees farther up, Tovi held a dagger to her kin’s throat, fangs bared. Her hands had transformed to talons, fangs elongated into an animalistic snarl.

“We are your people,” the vampyr said. Pleaded. His eyes begged for mercy.

Tovi hesitated for a fraction of a moment. A flicker in her scrunched brows, but then she lowered herself eye to eye with the vampyr.

“No subject of mine chains innocents.”

A single, deliberate swipe against the vampyr’s throat and red droplets scattered across the princess’s face, along with pain. She shut her eyes, hurt evident in her usually poised posture. Princess Tovi Verena had killed the vampyr, but she hadn’t wanted to .

Eldrick stiffened, and he lowered his axe. Dirt and grime covered every inch of his brother, even in his knitted brows.

“She meant those words.” Eldrick blinked and shook his head, as if he hadn’t intended to speak out loud.

Kade, too, heard the truth in her voice. He’d heard it for weeks now, and his anger for Tovi’s betrayal had simmered to frustration. But would his brother ever look past her being a vampyr? The glimmering of his eldest brother’s eyes held a twinkle of promise, but Kade didn’t linger on it. Later. When they had a moment alone, he’d finally talk to his brother.

Ten down. One more to go.

Kade scanned for the last vampyr, accounting for his team. Bétar and Yennifer reunited, forehead to forehead as they leaned against each other. Linx attended to the wounds left on the once chained werewolves. Kade half expected to see Todd wrestling with the remaining vampyr, but Todd had shifted back, bare torso and feet dirtier than Eldrick. Confusion speared through Kade. Where—

A horse galloped past, a pale rider atop of it.

No. No. No.

Kade cursed and whistled. Bleu galloped by at full speed, and he swung atop his gray steed and urged him forward.

“Faster!”

Bleu obeyed, hooves thunderous under his ferocious gallop. Voices cried behind him, but Kade ignored them, his target the vampyr ahead. Twenty-five yards away.

To the music of the horses’ pounding hooves, Kade’s energy twisted and turned with a drumming fear. He thought of Evelyn, the vampyr’s earlier words ricocheting in his worried mind.

“Will you scream like she did?”

Stars above. He wasn’t with Evelyn, protecting her. Kade knew there was chance the vampyr had lied, but it didn’t matter. Kade didn’t know what Evelyn endured. The unknowns ate away at him, as did his inability to be there at her side through whatever she faced.

Her silvery-gray eyes. Her soft smile. The way her brow furrowed while she thought. Kade tried to ground himself with thoughts of her, thoughts of who he was fighting for.

Bleu caught up the other horse. He bumped into it, shoving the vampyr off his saddle. Kade dismounted Bleu in one fluid motion and blocked the vampyr’s oncoming attack. Talons hit steel. Black battled silver. Hit after hit, step after step, push and pull as Kade and the vampyr fought, the energy in his core rising to the surface.

“Kade!”

Whoever called his name, his brother, a team member, whoever it was, they were too late.

Kade exploded.

A wave of energy, his energy, of uncontrolled power sucked the sounds of reality to a deafening silence and then released into an invisible wave.

Magic. Power. Strength.

All of it emitted from him. It collided into the vampyr, sending it through the air as pale flesh flayed away until it was nothing but naked bone.

Kade fell to his knees, spent. He dug his hand into the earth, trying to ground himself and regain his breath. The vampyr wouldn’t make it to Riven. The werewolves had been freed. He’d continue to Evelyn—

“Kade!”

Eldrick appeared in front of Kade. His eldest brother’s eyes were wide, roaming over him. He placed his hands over Kade’s shaking shoulders, steadying them as the other members of the Gray Fenris surrounded him. Linx pushed Eldrick aside, grabbing Kade’s face and peeling his eyes wider as she inspected his pupils.

“Moons, Kade, what in the stars above was that?” she asked .

Kade tried to stand, but his legs buckled. His new power had exhausted him. Eldrick grabbed his shoulder before he fell completely to the ground.

“I think you need to be still for a moment. That… power or magic or whatever it was, Kade…” His brother shook his head. “It was immense.”

Ahead, only the husk of the vampyr was left, steam rising from its scorched body. Kade blinked. He had done that. His power had done that.

Kade tried to move again, blinking past the heaviness and jarring sensation behind his eyelids. His fractured reflection, tired and worn amber eyes, stared back at him in the crumbled pieces of his sword. His torment was as sharp as the shards.

“Fuck,” he cursed. He peered up at his team. “I don’t really remember what happened or how I did it. Something… exploded.”

“ You exploded,” Bétar said with a shake of his head.

Kade blinked, looking to the others for more of an explanation.

“It was like a bluish moonlight,” Yennifer said. “As if you were wielding it like some sort of magic.”

Kade swallowed, a stone of worry dropping to the pit of his stomach. “Like a witch’s magic? A brotannas.”

Linx shook her head. “Not like one I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t wind, earth, fire, or water. It didn’t even look like flame.”

Kade’s body wavered, unbalanced and pulsing.

“That was worse than in Callum,” Tovi said.

Worse. As if he were some liability.

Questions gripped Kade, but he had to keep pushing forward, to remember his mission. He was the protector, the leader. He set the example, was the glue that kept everyone together. He didn’t have the time to face this, not when it begged the question of whether he was capable of getting Evelyn back in the first place.

“I’m fine.” He rose on shaky legs, fighting his exhaustion .

“You’re not fine,” Eldrick said. “Whatever this new power is, you can’t control it.”

Kade gritted his teeth. “We aren’t going to find answers in this forest. We rest for the evening and tend to the werewolves. At daybreak, we continue our journey north.”

No one objected, no one questioned, but Kade didn’t miss the hesitancy in everyone’s movements or the quick glances the rest of the evening.

As if he might explode again.