Persephone's Wolves, page 55
My hand smacks into his face, knocking his head to the side and causing a drop of blood to pool from his lip. He spits it on the ground and looks at me in sheer shock. “Don’t you ever speak of them like that and judge what you do not understand. I may love each of them and even you, but my relationship is private. Valentine is not a drunk, Henderson is noble, but that is not a bad thing, and Silas has been forced to fight; he hasn’t been given a chance to choose his own fate.”
I pause, my heart hurting deeply. “Ragnar, I don’t know what has changed since we got here, but you have never been cruel.”
“The truth is, you couldn’t remember even if I was,” he slowly replies, almost threatening as he walks to me. Low, that was a low blow. I know he won’t hurt me, and I regret hitting him. This isn’t who we are, we always were. I feel nothing but confusion settling in my chest as I look at Ragnar, tracing my eyes over his handsome features, the stern lines that weren’t there before and now are. Like he has frowned one too many times. His eyes meet mine, shining like dark lapis lazuli crystals. “You can’t remember that your first kiss was with me, so many years ago. I loved you and you loved my darkness, this side to me...only you did. But only for a fleeting moment, then you changed. You told me the gods above didn’t want this, us, and you ran into the arms of them. That’s why I—”
He pauses as a carriage neither one of us heard pulls up next to us. We don’t stop staring at each other, and the conflicting stories he is telling me are confusing me. I kissed him first? As a child? Why would I say the gods didn’t want us?
“This city has changed you,” I say as the driver of the carriage jumps down and pulls the door open. “But I love you, Ragnar. Come back to me, the kind and brave wolf I know.”
Something changes in Ragnar’s expression. “I love you too.”
I softly smile, even if deep down something still doesn’t feel right, and I don’t know why, but I don’t trust him. I can’t trust a wolf I’m in love with.
“There you are, Mairin. Come,” Alpha Reine says, leaning out of the carriage and looking at Ragnar. “I asked you to find Mairin and bring her to me, not keep her for yourself, son.”
“I keep what is mine,” he replies with a grin. That almost reminds me of Ragnar when we met...it’s just darker. Different. I’m not sure what to make of it. I turn to Alpha Reine, and Ragnar is already walking away.
“Where are we going?”
“Get in and you will see,” she replies before sitting back down in the carriage. I climb in, and the driver closes the door. Her scent, winter river and frost and snow, fills the space as she watches me. I wait, leaning back. It’s been a week since the second test of the rite, and I haven’t seen Alpha Reine at all. My alphas told me she is in meetings all week with Alpha Soren when I asked, and they themselves have been gone in a lot of these meetings too, along with Callahan, who is offering useful information. Phim is still watching Adira, after she made off out of the second test, along with Tualla. I knew without having to be told by anyone that the other female didn’t make it. The sound of her being ripped apart will be something I won’t be able to forget in a hurry.
“Congratulations on your success in the tests,” Alpha Reine comments, her eyes watching out of a small window. “Have you been preparing for the final test?”
“As much as is possible,” I reply, remembering the haunting words of the oath I took to take the rite and walk into The Rite Forest. Hallowed lands where unnamed gods died, and their blood made the trees. Made the forest from nothing but sand. It’s a damned place. Mortals and wolves be damned. I’ve read two books in the library about the forest, and there isn’t much about it other than stories of wolves and, eons ago, humans who wandered into the forest and never came out again. It’s a massive forest, thousands of miles long, and even the king of the angels would never step foot in it. It’s about two miles out of the city, the entrance hidden in a crystal cave full of black diamonds.
“Soren once told me Dot was said to be from the forest,” Alpha Reine says, capturing my full attention. “He said his great-great-grandfather made friends with Dot, and on his deathbed, she told him a small secret, one she could part with for him, her dear friend. That she was from The Rite Forest and may never return, for all our sakes.”
“Sounds like a threat.”
“To us? Our world? To her, whatever it is she may be,” she replies, turning to look at me this time, her eyes clear. “What is your opinion of Dot?”
“That she is powerful and dangerous, but not to us,” I reply as sure as I can be. “I’m not a good judge of character—it’s a bad flaw of mine—but I never got the sense she would hurt me.”
Alpha Reine nods, watching me so closely like she has since we met once more. “I caught your maid, Erin, talking with a low-born female wolf in the city. Are you planning on going to The Wolves of Mnemosyne?”
Her question surprises me into a stunned silence, and she carries on, my answer written across my face. “It seems you are not a good keeper of secrets either. Both traits you will need to work on in order to be a good alpha female.”
“I need my past back,” I state.
“I never once said I am going to stop you or suggest you do not go. You know the price you are going to pay,” she replies. “You are a grown female with a broken and scarred past. The Ravensword Pack, they turned you into this. The past will not alter who you are, Mairin. Nothing and no one but you can do that.”
“Thank you for not stopping me,” I reply.
Her eyes watch me. “Alphas are protective and domineering mates, who will never place their alpha female in danger in any sense, even if it’s the right thing to do. Their instincts override their minds, their wolf controlling so much of them. We, as alpha females, do what is best no matter the dear cost.”
“Have you paid a lot of costs over the years?”
“Yes,” she replies without pause. “Millions of wolves look up to me and my mate for guidance, for protection and to keep the laws we have in place. Sometimes I’ve had to judge quick and regretted it, sometimes I’ve lost dear friends to save others’ lives. We live in a dying world, Mairin, and I believe this pack is the last hope. If we fall, then no one will rise in our ashes other than a cruel king who will burn everything.”
“I am going to kill him,” I firmly state. “The alphas, they can’t. I know they can’t do it, and maybe if I have my memories back, I will struggle too. But I’ve been the female in a broken world, stepped on, treated like a slave, raped and beaten and rejected. That’s what the world is for mortals and what it will become like here if he lives and when, not if, he finds us. There are many I plan to destroy as I get revenge, and I will not stop. I will fight.”
It feels good to admit what happened to me, to say it out loud and demand my revenge. To promise it to myself and to the gods above and below.
I look out at the city as we pass it. “I vow to every god above that if I have the chance, he will die.”
“And the Ravensword alpha?” she asks softly. Softer than I’ve heard her speak.
I smile, feeling my power locked in my chest, my wolf at my back. “He is going to regret ever touching me. His pack is mine.”
For the first time since we met, her eyes glow bright, and she smiles. “Good.”
The carriage comes to a stop outside a row of orange brick townhouses with yellow trimmed windows and a garden of yellow roses, poppies, and daisies in front. The driver opens the door, letting Alpha Reine climb out first, and I follow. The front door, white with a gold knocker, swings open. A woman, older than I am, rushes out and bows her head low for Alpha Reine before looking up and locking eyes with me.
“By all the wolf gods, it’s like looking at Baia once more,” the female whispers, brushing her curly autumn orange hair behind her ear. She is pale with a bunch of light freckles, and her black cloak covering her shoulders hides that her right arm is missing. Little scars litter her neck and right cheek up to her forehead as she stares at me.
“You knew my mother?”
“Y-yes.” She pauses, looking at Alpha Reine. “Young Mai doesn’t truly remember?”
Alpha Reine shakes her head, stepping aside and looking at me. “This is Chastity Fall, and she was one of the few wolves who escaped the attack.”
Chastity walks to me, her eyes so wide. “I grew up with Baia. Our huts were right next door to each other. She was my maid on my mating day. She drew the ancient marks on my skin and braided my hair, which is a high honour. I loved her a monumental amount, and I’m so sorry, Mairin. I really am. My daughter was born two days after you...but she didn’t—”
She stops, the words not needed to be said. “It’s nice to meet you, and I wish I could remember, but I cannot. I’m sorry for your daughter.”
Her eyes flash red for a moment. “Revenge will be here soon. We have all trained for the day the alpha heirs declare war.”
The word war does nothing but strike fear into my chest, the knowledge that a fight like that could take my alphas’ lives, the lives of so many in this pack, and risk everything. We need a war to begin again, to save everything good left, but it’s never something I will pray for.
Death marks the word war.
The two are the same.
“Come in, come in,” she says, waving to the door. “I was so excited to hear you were both coming, and I’ve made a dozen small foods for us to enjoy.”
I nod and follow her inside, Alpha Reine trailing after us. The house is sweet, decorated with soft pinks and creams, flowers and paintings dotted around soft furnishings. We head into the living area where there is a small, cosy table with four chairs scattered around. That isn’t what makes me pause in my tracks.
On the mantel is a photo in a frame. The photo is faded, old, and cracked in places, but even if I can’t remember who the female is in the middle, in my soul, I know her. Reine and Chastity are on either side of a female with long, almost pale blonde hair, sharp features, and soft, kind eyes the same colour as mine, but brighter, not an inch of darkness to them that I often see in mine. She is wearing a white summer dress, tied at the waist, and sandals, and a beach is behind them, the waves frozen in the photo.
My mother. Baia Fall.
Tears fall down my cheeks as I realise why Alpha Reine brought me here. This is a gift for winning the tests.
Chastity comes to my side, picking the photo frame up and handing it to me. “You should keep it. When we were attacked, I grabbed my bag, and this was in there, the only photo I think ever left our old pack with us, by pure luck.”
“I can’t—”
“You will,” Chastity firmly states, pushing it into my arms. “I imagine losing your memories is a far worse injury than any I could imagine.”
My eyes betray me by looking at the space where her arm should be, and of course, Chastity follows my gaze. “Torn off by an angel in the fight, and I was left for dead.”
“I pulled her out of the pack lands,” Reine fills in.
“And saved me,” Chastity adds. “I was very lucky.”
“I will treasure this,” I tell her.
She smiles and places her hand on my back and leads me to the table. I sit down and enjoy some of the pastries, mini cupcakes and devils chocolate cake slices that Chastity made on her own, apparently using a recipe book from the humans. It’s all delicious, and I find myself eating seconds as Reine and Chastity talk, more like gossip, about the high ladies of the Fall Mountain Pack.
“I wouldn’t have guessed they were sleeping together,” Chastity states. “Not with her proposed mating to Beta Lewis.”
“I saw it myself,” Reine adds in. “Well, scented from the other room. The pair of them are going to start a fight my mate will have to end.”
“Maybe they are true mates,” I suggest.
They both look at me, a little pity flashing in Reine’s eyes. “Their scents would mix into one after the first time they had intercourse.”
“Oh...” I say, my cheeks burning red.
Chastity giggles. “She likely knows this already, the way your sons have been reported to be in love with her.”
“I don’t,” I quickly add, feeling the need to clarify. Alpha Reine looks surprised, and she doesn’t try to hide it.
“They could be your true mates, then. It’s more than common for shifters to share male mates, more so with the female birth rate declining,” Chastity says, breathing out the words in equal shock.
“I have no idea,” I admit. “But I’m drawn to them constantly, and it’s deeper than just sex.”
Alpha Reine and Chastity look at each other before both turning to me. Chastity reaches over and squeezes my hand on the table. “Mate bonds are rare and pure, the last true magic left from the gods before they left the mortal world. Well, at least, until you seven were born. I hope you are right.”
“As do I,” Alpha Reine agrees, her eyes on me a touch longer before she changes the subject to one of another scandal in the pack. I look at the photo on the table and smile at my beautiful mother.
Sixty-Nine
“Thank you, Dot,” I say as a book slams onto the table in front of me out of thin air. Breelyn frowns, looking around us as I open the book on legendary weaponry and find the page I want on the seven weapons made in the river of souls. Breelyn looks with me as I find a page dedicated to Morganis, the dagger clipped into a holder on my upper thigh. I turn the pages, finding several have been ripped out and there is only half a page left, showing the top of a blue axe. All the writing about the weapons was ripped out.
“Well, if this is the best the library has, we aren’t finding much more out about the weapons,” Breelyn says with a sigh. “This is why I don’t like—”
Another book slams on the table, but it’s in front of Breelyn instead, and it looks like a children’s book, bound in black leather with red textured font. I lean over and read the title out loud, “How to Be Kind.”
Breelyn growls, the growl echoing around in the air, and a slight giggle echoes back.
“I hate this place,” Breelyn states as I try to stop laughing. “Can we leave?”
I shake my head and look up at the shelves of books. “Do you have anything on the myth of The Wolven Crown?”
The alphas’ warning about The Wolven Crown comes back to me, a crown made from god blood. A crown of immense power.
I only get a giggle in response.
I sigh, knowing it wouldn’t have been that easy. As the weeks, almost a month, have passed since I came into this city, I feel the clock ticking down on the promise I made to Persephone. I climb out of my seat and leave the library, Breelyn walking by my side. I walk to the balcony and overlook the waterfall, noticing the dead leaves falling in the water, the chill in the air marking the change in season.
“It’s getting cold,” Breelyn voices what I was thinking as my bare arms are littered with goose bumps. “What happens if you don’t find this Wolven Crown?”
Something dark settles into my gut. “Then I will make a goddess of death extremely angry. We are soul-linked; there is a chance she could kill me. Or worse.”
“Then we will find it,” Breelyn announces, placing her hand on my arm.
I cover her hand and smile back. “We will, friend.”
“Omega soon.” She winks, and I chuckle, agreeing. I turn as I hear two pairs of footsteps coming towards us. Erin and Phim walk to us, Erin bowing her head.
“You don’t have to bow,” I tell her. “We are friends.”
Erin searches my eyes and then blinks. “Everyone bows for the alpha female, even the alphas.”
“We are leaving for The Wolves of Mnemosyne,” Phim cuts in, and now I realise why she has twice the amount of weapons on her than usual. “I have paid the guards to leave you alone and poisoned the others. They won’t be getting off the toilet anytime soon, but they will live.”
“There is a carriage in the courtyard. It will take you to the edge of the city where a male will be waiting. He will guide you outside the border of the pack,” Erin whispers, even when the roar of the waterfall would mask her voice for anyone nearby. “This castle is big enough that if anyone asks where you three are, I can cover for you.”
“Thank you,” I tell her and turn to my friend and my sister. Truthfully, they are both sisters to me, one in blood and one in loyalty. They would follow me anywhere, protect me at any cost, and I know I would do the same for them.
“We are ready,” Phim tells me before I can ask. Breelyn nods as Phim hands her two daggers and a bow with arrows. My own daggers are all I need with my magic to be backed up if I need it. Phim turns to Erin. “You did good.”
She blushes with a big smile. “I happily serve this castle and our pack.”
Phim nods at her before we walk off down the corridors to the courtyard. The sun is setting over the crater, casting a mixture of pink, orange and yellow light dancing around us like embers of a fire as we climb into the plain black carriage. I don’t know why we are travelling at night, when the danger of the Levi is higher, but I’m not judging quite yet. My heart feels stuck in my chest as I watch the courtyard and the castle below disappear in the distance. My alphas are going to be livid with me, but this is my choice, something I have chosen to do for myself. They wouldn’t, couldn’t, let me do this, but if I’m to become their mate, bound to them forever, I want to know who I was. It won’t change who I am now. It might change nothing, but this is the only chance I’m going to get.
“If they ask for something that is too much,” Breelyn starts, and I turn to her, the carriage bouncing across the road under us, “leave the past. Leave the memories if they risk your future or present.”
I breathe out. “There are answers in the past, answers I need, Breelyn. I want...I need to hear my mother’s voice. I need to know who saved me and left me in the Ravensword Pack. I need...”
“The past,” Phim says, pity in her eyes. “I would like to know who took you to the Ravensword Pack too.”
