Chapter 65: Chapter 65

Atticus

The two Alphas strode ahead, brambles and branches catching their sides, their clothing, their hair, as they walked, heads held high, towards the veil. Even though Elijah knew the way, Atticus kept pace with him. Unwillingly to look weak, even in this most fragile of ways, he kept his gaze darting from Elijah’s feet to his legs and to his eyes, catching the most subtle of suggestions about which step he would next take so that Atticus could not only copy it, but pre-empt it.

Atticus swore under his breath as yet another thorn twisted into his honeyed hair. Forced to pause, he dug thick fingers into his tangled hair and yanked the thorned vine free.

And Elijah – damned arrogant stupid Elijah – stopped dead in his tracks and waited for Atticus to catch up. That only annoyed him more.

“Thanks,” Atticus said, his voice pitched high and sickly sweet. If Elijah were going to out-honour him, then he would play his own game right back.

Up until the point came to double-cross him, of course. They could only be allies for so long, after all. Now that Elijah’s sword wasn’t at his throat, it was much easier for Atticus to think clearly.

And think clearly he did.

“Of course,” said Elijah. He gave Atticus a tight smile.

Was he planning something, too? It didn’t seem likely – he seemed too righteous to go back on an offer he had made in good faith. Atticus wouldn’t underestimate him, though – this was the man that had stolen Lily from him. He had to have some wiles up his sleeve to have been able to do that.

“Is it much further?” asked Alvaro, from three paces behind.

Atticus half-turned to look at his father. He carried himself with regality, with the look of someone that knew they were above everything happening. His long hair was pulled back, and somehow it didn’t seem to snag on any winding brambles or unruly twigs as he walked. Atticus huffed to himself, and only narrowly missed taking a fern to the chest as he turned back to face forwards.

“No,” said the oldest of Elijah’s companions. Confusion marred his tone.

“It shouldn’t be,” said Elijah, his brow furrowed.

“Well – where is it, then?” asked Atticus.

“Maybe it moves,” said the young woman.

“Let’s hope not,” grumbled Alvaro. “Else you might find yourselves dead before we get there.”

“Father,” said Atticus, halting completely and spinning to face his father with his hands on his hips. “We have agreed to a truce. Best not to threaten our teammates, do you not think?”

As he spoke, Atticus winked at Alvaro. His father frowned at him, clearly startled, before his face shifted into first understanding and then excitement. He gave his son a tiny, barely-there nod, and then opened his hands wide – a non-threatening, friendly gesture – and said, “My apologies. It has not been Blood Moon’s way to forge alliances with unknown packs in the past.”

“Or any packs, really,” added Atticus, nudging Elijah with his elbow.

He would act as their friend. After all, he thought, friend and fiend were only one letter apart.

“I shall not pretend that this is anything more than a terse, short-term agreement in the hopes that we can eliminate a bigger threat,” said Elijah, with a short, almost bark-like sigh. “I do not seek your friendship, only your help in rescuing Lily. As I have said–”

“I know,” Atticus cut in, as gently as he could. “Then she can decide.”

He smiled to himself. She would not get the chance.

“It’s there,” said Elijah, pointing into the woods. Atticus frowned. He couldn’t see anything, save for that which he expected to see: densely packed trees, some evergreen, some not, bound together by bushes and thorns and ivy.

But he didn’t want to say that he couldn’t see it. He was the Alpha of the Blood Moon pack, after all – he should, by rights, have the best vision of them all. Elijah was an Alpha too, but of a lesser known, lesser powerful pack that did little to claim other lands or ensure their prosperity through warfare. He was weak, and yet he could see the veil? It didn’t make sense to Atticus, but he nodded along nonetheless.

“I see it,” he said, and then wondered if saying it had been laying it on too thick. Fortunately, Elijah didn’t seem to notice or care – his sword was out, and he slashed through ropey vines to clear a pathway towards a veil that Atticus hoped really was there.

He clenched his fists at his sides, squeezing out his tension. He needed to focus. They were getting close to Lily, and he had to make it right. He had to make this rescue count.

He needed her, and she needed him. This was his chance. He rolled out the muscles in his neck, cracking his joints as he did so.

He followed Elijah, becoming more and more irked with every heavy step that he was not the one in front with the sword, that he was not the one in front with eye sight good enough to see the veil.

Lily had left him for this man. Anger curled, hot and heady, in his gut. He would make him pay. He would make her pay, for ever leaving him –

He loosed a breath. He couldn’t be angry with her – not now, not yet. She was a being of fire, of passion, and his own spite would only serve to burn him if he unleashed it before he’d won her back.

Atticus would bide his time. She would feel the weight of his wrath, of the pain she’d put him through these past months – but only after he’d claimed her as his own. He could not let Elijah win. Not again.

“It’s just ahead,” said Elijah.

Atticus glared at him, but quickly pasted on a glib smile when he saw Elijah’s weight shift towards him.

He glanced back, a carefully neutral expression on his face, and he said, “How do you want to do this?”

Atticus shrugged. “We go in, we fight, we take her back.”

“Atticus,” sighed his father. “That’s not a plan.”

“Yes, it is.” He knew he sounded petulant, but he did not care. He wouldn’t share his true plan with these half-wits, anyway. “We know nothing about what we’re walking into. We know nothing about where Lily is, or what we’ll have to fight to get to her. So: we go in, teeth bared, and we take her back – no matter what.”

Behind him, the older man from Elijah’s pack hummed his assent. “He has a point, Alpha.”

Elijah sighed, long and heavy. Atticus saw it then, just how much weight he was carrying about his shoulders and in the lines creasing his face. It didn’t mean he felt any sympathy for him, though. “He does.” Elijah shot Atticus a wry glance. “All we know about Red Ripper is what we don’t know.”

“Then we fight,” said Alvaro, his voice deep and booming with authority. “And we do not stop until we have what we came for.”

Atticus did not deem it necessary to share what he and his father knew about Red Ripper. And, if Elijah and his pack mates knew anything, they did not air it either.

Atticus squinted, then his eyes widened, his foot hovering mid-air in shock. He stumbled; it landed heavily and twisted over a rotten log. He winced, but felt it healing as soon as the first flare of pain bit through his ankle. The proximity of the full moon enhanced his abilities, and that only drove the dagger in further that it had taken this long for his advanced eyesight to pick up the shimmering purple veil hovering across the forest ahead of them.

“What is it?” his father asked.

“Some sort of magic. I’m afraid we know little else about it – other than that we believe it acts as a portal to their territory.”

“That’s why it’s nowhere to be found, then,” muttered Atticus. He thought of his own pack, removed from their land, from their home, and his expression soured.

They crossed the last of the distance in silence. As they neared, Atticus marvelled at the light: it was both there and not, an illusion, a trick of the light, and yet as real as the trees reaching for the night sky and the earth beneath their feet.

He stopped just short of it. It was entirely foreign to him, entirely unknown. This was not the magic that he had been raised with, all pretty birds and spells designed to win battles. This was different, colder, and he tried to ignore the little spark of fear that took hold deep down in his chest. Its little flame flickered as he reached out a hand, brushing his thick fingertips over the shimmering purple veil.

“It’s cold,” he said, more to himself than the others.

“Freezing,” Elijah agreed, his voice quiet, contemplative. “But almost nice, don’t you think?”

“Refreshing,” said Atticus. It was the only thing they would ever agree on; of that, at least, he was quite sure.

There was a beat of silence, filled with all the things he wanted to say but could not. There were also questions, which radiated in tumultuous waves from Elijah and his two followers, and a swelling of unknowns that bristled, as there and not as the veil itself was.

Elijah was the one to break it. That annoyed Atticus – it made him look less decisive, less like the leader of their uneasy alliance.

“Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows, his eyes dark but sure, “shall we?”

“Let’s,” replied Atticus, puffing out his chest. He glanced at his father, and received a small, quick nod in return.

Without waiting for Elijah’s consent, he stepped through the veil.

* * *

Atticus had less than ten seconds to prepare.

He spared no moment to look around, save for a quick glance to check that there were no Red Ripper wolves upon him; seeing that there were none, and nothing but empty field in all directions, and that it was day here, not night as it had been on the other side of the veil, he moved swiftly into a solid stance, his left leg in front and his right leg behind.

And then he clenched his hand into a fist.

Elijah was the next one to step through. Before he had come through fully, Atticus’s fist was at his temple. Shockwaves ran up his arm from the force of his swing.

Elijah’s eyes widened. Realisation set in – a half-second too late. Then he fell backwards, knees crumpling, those wide, surprised eyes rolling back in his head.

“Sorry, Alpha,” he cooed, entirely unrepentant, giving Elijah’s unconscious body a kick in the ribs for good measure. He shook out his fingers, flexing them. The swelling was going down as fast as it appeared. “But Lily is mine, and you are in my way.”