62. Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Two

Tovi

T he great hall of Lār brimmed with wolfish energy. Arguments and whispers laced with frustration boomed against the stone walls. The council had begun early that morning, and yet as the noon sun reached through the tall window behind Eldrick and his father, so many questions and accusations continued.

Tovi stared, silent and observant.

Yennifer sat to her right, Bétar beside her. Todd still recovered from his injuries, and Linx had chosen to stay with him. Lou, without a bloodstone, remained at the Shield-maiden with Lucy, staying clear of the sun. Belle, on the other hand, had offered her accounts of Drystan to negate any naysayers. Tovi appreciated her efforts and had been impressed by the young witch’s ability to face burly, indignant werewolves when they’d challenged her stories. Belle hadn’t balked once.

With the ease and calm of a true leader, Eldrick had updated the alphas on the missing werewolves and the Lone Wolf. Sitting beside him, his father had supported his claims. Murmurs amongst the other alphas had worsened when he shed light on the vampyr curse. Once he spoke of the full prophecy, the energy shifted. Murmurs rippled across the room, rising higher and higher until an insult hit Eldrick like an arrow.

“Blasphemy!”

“Heretic!”

Tovi could not tell who flung the accusations. She gripped the arm of her chair, wood groaning. But Eldrick wasn’t fazed. He wore finer clothes than he had during their travels—an all-black ensemble with black leather buckles lining the center of his quilted vest, fastening it tight across his lean frame. A sewn insignia over his heart was the only symbol of Drengr blue. A tight black tunic lined the curve of his arm’s muscles as he clasped his hands behind his back, and his boots clanged against the stone as he entered the center of the hall. Tovi’s heart skipped at the sight, and his gem eyes flicked over her.

“I understand the news you’ve learned today is difficult to accept, but place your doubts aside. We must prepare for the conflict to come.”

“If this supposed Blood Moon has passed, what more do we have to fear from Prince Riven?” an alpha yelled.

“He will not stop,” Tovi said. “The Blood Goddess is pulling his strings like a puppet. She is the true threat, and therefore we must be prepared for Riven to strike sooner or later.”

“ We ? It’s an absolute disgrace you sit in this hall, vampyr.” He spat on the stone, and other alphas nodded their agreement.

Eldrick’s jaw ticked. He stalked down the hall’s center, stopping yards away from where the alpha sat.

“Alpha Johannes, you will regard Princess Tovi with respect.”

The werewolf rose out of his seat. “I’ll do no such—”

A younger werewolf, one Tovi recognized, stood up and grabbed the alpha’s arm.

“Father, if it were not for her, I would not be home.”

Sam Johannes .

He was one of the werewolves they’d set free and sent through the underground with Flynn. Relief washed through her to see him safe. She searched the rest of the werewolves gathered and found another standing. Beside her, a female alpha stared with pride in her eyes.

Siv Drabek.

“Sam is right. Tovi secured our passage home. We owe her our lives.”

Those of the Drabek pack all nodded towards Tovi. Her shoulders straightened, and she nodded in return. For once, in a hall with so many others, respect vibrated through Tovi. More werewolves stood, others she didn’t recognize, but those who must’ve been set free from the fighting rings. Murmurs of gratitude and hope filtered through the hall.

The air shifted. Eldrick’s gaze found hers. The two stared at the other, like so many times before, finding a constant in the chaos.

The hall’s doors groaned open, fracturing the peace the gathering had found.

Claus strode in, blood and sweat splattered across his face. He dragged a man behind him—someone else Tovi recognized. The human mercenary they’d let go in Drystan. The Gray Fenris erupted from their seats, and Tovi stepped from hers. This man had tried to kill Eldrick, and her hackles rose.

“How in the stars did Claus find him?” Yennifer whispered, joining her side.

Tovi shared a similar question. Unease swam in her gut.

Eldrick met his uncle halfway, rushing to meet him. Claus threw the bound mercenary at his feet while the rest of his uncle’s team funneled from the door, stationing themselves throughout the hall. For the second time, the air shifted, and Tovi’s animal side detected a threat, her spine itched, like a predator stalked from behind, and yet, her focus only settled on the mercenary heaving in the center of the hall.

“Claus, what is the meaning of this?” Eldrick asked.

His uncle paced, locking eyes with each of the alphas. “My nephew has at this point told you about the Lone Wolf, yes?”

Agreement hummed amongst the werewolves .

“It may seem an enemy is in our mist, but after Eldrick told me all he learned, I refused to believe a werewolf would do such a thing. We’ve been at peace for centuries, have we not?”

Werewolves howled and thumped their hands against the chairs.

Claus held up his hand, silencing them all. He looked to Eldrick.

“My team and I found this man gambling the money he received, bragging he hadn’t even needed to kill you to keep the coin.”

Eldrick remained calm, but Tovi caught the twitch in his jaw. She peered at Yennifer and Bétar, the two shared a worrisome glance with her.

“I don’t like this,” Belle whispered beside her, and Tovi agreed.

“But I found something far better,” Claus said. “An actual name. Not a code, but the one who has been taking our werewolves and who wanted the next Drengr Alpha dead.”

The werewolves began to whisper, and Tovi’s heart raced with anticipation.

“Who?” Aramis had stood out of his chair.

Tovi snapped her attention back to Claus.

Who stared directly at her. He gripped the hair of the mercenary and yanked him back. “Tell them! Who hired you?”

With a shaky hand, the man pointed straight at Tovi. “It was her! She hired us!”

The hall exploded into growls. The sound of dozens of werewolves rumbled through it.

“What?” Tovi hissed, stepping back as if the accusation hit her physically. “That is a lie!”

“He’s wrong!” Yennifer shouted, shielding Tovi.

Tovi tried to make her way towards Eldrick, but hands grabbed her arms from behind. She struggled, but it was too late. Claus’s men had surrounded her. Belle fought to get to her, rushing water at her assailants, but two werewolves tackled the witch to the ground.

“Stop!” Tovi cried .

Those holding her had an unrelenting grip, and they dragged her to the head of the hall, steps away from Aramis and the Drengr Alpha’s seats. His expression was stone, eyes wide as he watched her with distrust.

“Unhand me!” she shouted.

“Claus,” Eldrick said. Evenly, stoic. It was impossible to read his tone, and as she pushed against those that held her firm, she couldn’t make him out in the frenzy of werewolves.

“Stop!” Bétar roared, hand going to the hilt of his sword.

Other werewolves reached for theirs, growling at the Gray Fenris’s new commander. Yennifer joined his side, approaching Tovi. But Yen and Bétar were intercepted by werewolves who’d chosen Claus’s side. They pushed them back near their seats. Yennifer’s eyes met Tovi’s, wide and blue and frightened.

Tovi cried out as someone kicked the back of her knees and they hit the stone floor. Anger rippled through her, and she didn’t stop pulling and tugging against those who held her firmly to the ground. She hissed, baring her fangs.

Werewolves growled again, swords ringing as they were unsheathed.

“Don’t you see. There isn’t an enemy amongst us. It is a plot, a ploy to deter us from the real enemy. Her. ” Claus jabbed a finger in her direction.

“You’re a liar!” Tovi cried. “It is not true! Eldrick, you know this!”

For the first time since the chaos happened, their gazes connected.

And Tovi’s heart sank.

Wrath encompassed him. Every last muscle of his lean frame twitched with it. Hatred, loathing, malice. All of it warred in his beautiful gaze.

All for her.

“Are you certain?” he said, calm and deadly.

“Eldrick.” Tovi’s eyes stung. A tear fell down her cheek. Did he really believe his uncle? After everything?

Claus grunted at the mercenary.

“Tell him. ”

“During the night of the attack, she met me and my team at an establishment with dancers. She told us where you and your team were staying and to follow once you all left Drystan.”

The words were a lie, but they were damning all the same—Tovi had never shared with Eldrick exactly where she’d gone that night or what came of finding her brother. For all he knew, it had all been a ruse, a ploy to get away from him.

“It’s not true.” The words slipped from Tovi like her last breath. “It’s not true!”

She tried with all her might to escape the hold of those who held her down, but she couldn’t. They’d added a fourth werewolf, two seizing her on each side. Eldrick wouldn’t look at her, his gem eyes darkened, staring at the stone floor.

She peered over to Yennifer and Bétar. “It’s not true.”

Yennifer gave her a curt not, and Bétar mouthed, “We know.” They believed her. She felt it in their stares, but her heart broke as the one man she needed to trust her wouldn’t even look at her.

“I see,” Eldrick finally said.

His words were absolute, a deafening gavel resounding of her fate.

Something in Tovi snapped. Her tears ceased. Her heartbeat evened out. Her shoulders snapped back.

A hundred eyes stared at her, and she didn’t feel a goddamn one. For the first time in Tovi’s life, she didn’t give a fuck what they saw, thought, or judged. These were lies. She wasn’t the Lone Wolf. Yet, she was so, so, so tired of trying to make the rest of the world see who she’d become. She’d changed. She knew she had. All these years. The secrets. The allies. The plots. The betrayals. Bloody hel , she’d cared so deeply for her people. She cared for this continent and its well-being. She cared so fiercely it thrummed like war drums in her veins.

Perhaps it didn’t matter if the world or Eldrick saw it.

“She must pay for her crimes!” an alpha shouted.

Eldrick retrieved his axe and started prowling towards her. The resolve to make him see vanished. It didn’t matter anymore .

All that mattered was that Tovi knew. She believed she’d changed, and as she took her last shaky breath, she appreciated the mistakes of her past. She didn’t loathe them. She loved who she’d become through it all and without them, she wouldn’t be who she was.

Who gave a bloody hel what anyone saw or judged her for?

Eldrick stopped, a few yards between them left, the edge of his axe glinting in the sunlight escaping into the hall.

With her head held high, Tovi accepted her fate. She met Eldrick’s stare head-on.

Kill me, I dare you.

Tovi didn’t stand proud for anyone else. It wasn’t armor, it wasn’t a defense. It was her, purely, infinitely, wildly her.

Strong, fierce, and loyal.