Chapter 146: Chapter 146
"You look and smell like ass."
His lips are blue from the cold, frost taking home on his golden skin and making him look like the miniature version of a snow god. His dark eyes are bloodshot and his clothes are ripped in quite a lot of places, like he’d suffered an attack from a wild animal in the woods.
He sways slightly, blinking around at our surroundings like he doesn’t quite know how he arrived here. His entourage is gone. He looks dazed. The soles of his boots are torn up in a way that makes me wonder if he had walked the entire way here. Though, that’d be impossible in this weather. And for once, he doesn’t look inclined to murder me. He just looks lost. "Rea--" He shakes his head. "Astrea?"
My brow arches as I rub the behind of the horse. "You didn’t seem like you cared when you nearly cleaved her in half."
"Siblings fight all the time," he says, voice trembling. He looks like he’s a step away from dying. That makes me very pleased.
"Sure, and they fight for each other, too." I cock my head to the side, fingers closing around the reins. "I’d give an entire fortune to know what you were up to when that sick fuck nearly killed her. Polishing his boots? Sucking his dick?"
He remembers himself enough to bare his teeth in my face. "Watch your tongue--"
"Or what?" I make a gesture towards the tavern behind me and at the general land. "You must not realize where you are, mutt. You are within Lycan territory, and I am royal. You touch me and if I do not kill you first, those men in there will tear you to pieces." I lick my lips as they kick up into a little smile. "Oh. I know what it is. You were on your hands and knees and he was behind you--"
He grabs me by my shirt and lifts me off the ground, his cold nose touching mine. Fury lights his eyes from black to gold. "Finish that sentence."
I smile. "You were his little bitch."
He raises his fist to punch me, and I didn’t think even the sound of swords being drawn would have stopped him from pummelling me. But for some reason, he stopped his fist before it ever reaches my eye. "Shut the fuck up."
I don’t. Lucien always did say my greatest strength was my ability to antagonize people. "He hit her. He beat her. He tortured her. He gave the order to have her killed. And you stood for it. Defended him. You are a useless cunt who only knows how to swing dicks when there are no men involved. Good thing mine is bigger than yours."
His mouth curls into a sneer. There’s a small scar right there on the curve of it. He drops me and I wobble, catching myself before I tip over. "Where is she?"
He makes a noncommittal sound. "She does that often." He sucks in a deep breath after a moment. "Very well, then. I shall come with you."
My hands still on the horse’s reins. I turn my gaze to him. "Are you mad?"
"Do you know where I’m headed? You will be shot down on sight, which to be fair, I don’t give a fuck about. But I’d rather not have your carcass on my horse’s behind or be questioned on why I had your carcass in the first place." I jerk my head like he’s a petulant, annoying child. "Return to Silvermoor. Or just die somewhere in the corner. I don’t care. Just lay the hell off my back."
"I cannot." His voice sounds both angry, frustrated and hateful. "I nearly froze to death where you left me. Couldn’t feel my limbs anymore. I thought I might have died when I couldn’t breathe. But the men found me. I’d lost. I was going to Silvermoor. My feet were moving *to* Silvermoor. But my body jerked itself back. And I walked and ran here. I thought I might lose my mind if I didn’t come to you. Because of this devilish bond between us. You either find a way to break your witchcraft on me, or you will have me tied to your hide every where you go."
My lips part and close, words completely eluding me. And for a second, I let his words sink in. Then I reach for my waist, pull out a dagger and stab him in his sternum.
He catches the blade before it can inflict any fatal injuries and twists my wrist until I drop the blade on instinct. But I swerve, bringing my elbow to his windpipe with a blow that sends him stumbling back and wheezing, clutching his neck as if to ensure it is still intact. "Are you always uncontrollable, frothing at the mouth like a damned dog?"
"You said you wanted to be free of the bond." My heart races slightly. What was it? The thrill of finding prey? Or the excitement that came with craving the sight of his blood spilled all over the snow? "Death is the only way."
As if sensing the danger, he raises his hands high, as if in surrender. "I’m not as easily to kill as you think, and I quite love my head where it is." His hands fall. "I am a soldier. I fight. I do not know how to be anything else. I live to be used and commanded. I was taught that my life was less important than Rafael’s and if he was ever in the line of fire, I would take that arrow for him. Maybe I was his little bitch. Maybe I still am. Maybe I am scum. I don’t regret any of my decisions so far, because they are all I believe in. They are all I know. I only ask that you take me along with. And use me."
"Silvermoor is under the command of your King through Silverthorn. Silverthorn will kill me on sight. I cannot live in hiding amongst civilians. I am an Alpha. I will be discovered and put out eventually while the kingdom is being curbed of traitors. Voss will be worse. The King will have figured by now that we killed his father. I could try fleeing across the seas, but my body will not let me leave you. Why the fuck do you think I’ve been around you, doing every bat-shit crazy thing in and out of book to linger?" His gaze is hateful again. "Because my mind is yet again, no longer my own."
"You were going to sell me," I say.
"Was I?" he fires back.
"You were going to take me to Silvermoor and keep me in those dungeons to be used and experimented on." My nostrils flare. "The more you speak, the more I want you to experience an intimate moment with my dagger buried deep up your ass." ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel·fire.net
He says nothing in his defense. Just that cruel, stubborn look.
I make a decision. "Come closer."
He does. His legs move before he even realizes it. How curious. He really did like being told what to do. He catches himself just a few feet away from me and his eyes narrow. "Grab the supplies by fort. We’re a couple of days away from the capital."
His mouth twitches in response to the command, but he turns around anyway.
With more speed than he can respond to, I grab the axe embedded in the wood being broken for the fire, and I could’ve told you that I swung in a haze of rage. That it wasn’t a calculated effort to kill him.
And it’d have been a delicious lie.
I wanted to kill him. I didn’t care what Astrea thought she saw in him. All I saw when I looked in his face where those men. And the blood that had been running down my thighs and how they jeered when they told me to run as they shot down the arrows at my back, forcing me to hide away like a coward in a hold I’d dug in the snow. All I remember is what despair tasted like. All I remember is what they smelled like.
What he smells like. Wolf.
Maybe Astrea’s right. Maybe reinvention really is just another form of avoidance.
But Sebastian’s Goddess must have loved him.
Because the blow that should have decapitated him was defected. And I realize with no small amount of disappointment as he toppled over into horseshit, merely unconscious, that the impact has been dulled because miraculously, it had been the blunt edge of the axe that met his skull.
It was an odd coincidence. And I have never believed in coincidences.
I consider bringing the sharp edge down on his neck and taking his head home, just to piss on it. But I let go of the axe and fall into a squat, pushing my fingers against his neck.
His head bleeds but the wound has already begun to clot. His pulse is strong as ever. I sigh and look over at the wide-eyed stable boy. "Bring me a rope. Or four."