Chapter 69: Chapter 69

Lily

Morvand’s cold, bony fingers locked around Lily’s arm. He yanked her down the path to the cells without a word, his brows pinched and his mind lost in thought. Lily took it as a small blessing; his words were either condescending or cruel, and she had no time for either such conversations.

Her own brain was spinning with half-baked plots and plans to free not only herself, but Eryne as well. She was a victim of Red Ripper just as she was, and Lily had no intention of leaving her, quite literally, to the wolves. If she wouldn’t allow her to staunch her bleeding or check her injuries, then Lily would set to work creating a plan to rip her from Red Ripper’s greedy grip.

Lily was so distracted that she almost didn’t feel the way her heart started to beat faster. She was so distracted that she almost missed the blooming sensation in her chest, the second heartbeat echoing hers ricocheting against her ribs. A storm brewed within her, the mate bond, which was so often quiet that Lily barely thought of it anymore, going wild as she neared her cell.

She frowned, looking up from her worn boots. There was nothing out of the ordinary in her line of sight – just the wooden cabins that followed the pathways out from the central pack house, the veins stretching out from Red Ripper’s heart.

A flicker of movement up ahead snagged her gaze. Morvand tugged her along, tutting something rude under his breath. She nearly missed the flash of cloak that whipped behind a building up ahead, but her eyes narrowed on it, locking in place to search out any further motion.

A few days ago, she would have let it slide. A few days ago, she would have dismissed it as nothing. But now, Lily’s heart was back in her chest. Every missing piece of her was, slowly but surely, settling back into place. She had a purpose, had a reason to keep her chin high and blood pumping through her veins. Fate had cast its heavy hand upon her once more and, for the third time in her life, Lily was drawn to the precise place she needed to be.

Her lips parted on a gasp. The racing of her heart made it nearly impossible to hear anything; she felt dizzy, weak-kneed, as her eyes found his. He had not abandoned her. He knew she had not left him of her own accord. He had not given up on her; he had come for her.

Dark brown hair, carefully tousled to hide his pointed ears, framed a handsome, scarred face that had been burned into Lily’s brain. Grey eyes lightened as they met hers, the tightness of his stress melting away. His lips twitched, a tiny smile tugging at them. “Lily,” he mouthed, and even without sound her name felt like a caress upon his lips.

“Elijah,” she mouthed in return, a smile of her own pushing at her cheeks. A flush shuddered up her neck, painting her face red. The wind lifted, pressing his lime and citrus and woodsmoke scent to her. It wound around her body, an empty embrace; it took everything in her not to run to him, to throw her arms around his neck and press kisses to his strong jaw, to his soft, full lips…

His face hardened as he nodded at Morvand. Then he jerked his head to the side. Lily knew what he meant without words, and imagined she would have known what he meant without sight. Elijah raised a hand and clicked his fingers, worry making his expression turn taut. No sound arose, but a tiny flame licked up his fingers before he extinguished it.

Lily stared back at him, her eyes bound to his until he ducked away behind another building. Every feeling she’d had that night slammed into her in an instant: the terror rising in her chest as surely as the smoke filled her lungs, each step laden with fear over what she might find at the source of the fire. And then cold realisation, a blow of ice to the heart that cut through the heat of the ravenous flames. Elijah’s face when she’d turned her back on him, hopeless and lost and empty in a way she had never seen it before. She swallowed, focusing on the pressure of Morvand’s fingers digging into her arm to guide her back to the present.

As they neared the cells a man that Lily thought was called Thostle strolled over to them, a hand scrubbing through his curly blonde hair. He’d kicked Lily a few times and shoved her face into a bucket of cold, dirty water once, but compared to what she’d taken from Apollo and Morvand it was nothing – which was exactly what she felt towards him. Her heart was too full of Elijah to care that he was coming towards them.

“Morvand,” he snapped, “you need to come to the pack house.”

Morvand waved a hand at him like he was nothing. Lily logged the interaction, desperate to pick out weaknesses amongst them. For all their bragging about being a pack of equals, a pack without hierarchy, it often didn’t seem to serve them well. If they were a pack built on morals, Lily thought it would have worked and it could even have worked well. But gathering power-hungry wolves with the promise of power, only to end up having Apollo and Morvand stamping them back down to the bottom of the pack, didn’t seem to be going too well for Red Ripper.

Unfortunately, it was a slim hope that they would eventually spiral apart and the mess would clean itself up. But if Lily and Efaffion could press the right buttons, they hoped to create unrest – splitting the pack into groups and digging trenches between them to keep them apart. If they were fighting each other, they couldn’t focus on the packs beyond their otherworldly territory.

“Morvand,” said Thostle again, a low growl building in the back of his throat. “You have to come.”

Morvand turned to him, his large nose wrinkling. “I don’t have to do anything.”

“You don’t understand–”

“Don’t waste your breath trying to enlighten me.”

It took everything in Lily to avoid sharing a look with Elijah. The mate bond was pulling her to him; fighting it hurt her heart. She had to hope that Morvand would leave soon – and that Elijah had a plan of his own.

“I must insist.” Thostle crossed his arms over his chest, the muscles straining against his shirt. At Morvand’s disdainful look he lost the last hold on his temper. “Look around you! Have you not seen what’s been going on while you’ve been dragging your little pet around?”

Lily bristled at that but kept silent. She’d been too lost to respond lately and she didn’t want them to realise that she’d got her fire back – in more ways than one. Her eyes drifted to where she knew Elijah was, even though she could no longer see him. She imagined the feel of his arms around her, the heat of him, his heady scent as she tucked her head beneath his chin, as she dug her nails into his strong back muscles…

“No.” Morvand smirked.

“Can you not smell the blood in the air?” Thostle threw his hands up. “You need to come to the pack house. Now.” He turned on his heel and left, leaving no room for argument.

Morvand huffed out a long-suffering sigh. “Come on, little pet,” he purred. “Let’s get you locked up so I can go and see what all the fuss is about.”

Lily swallowed back bile. Elijah’s anger scorched the bond; she took comfort from the fact that he was near enough to overhear. He’d come for her. She still couldn’t quite believe it, even though a part of her heart had never doubted him. And so she let Morvand pull her back to the cell, feeling Elijah’s presence nearby with every step she took.

He shoved her into the cell and kicked her squarely on the back for good measure. She stumbled inside, her hands clenching into fists as she smacked into the cold wall. Behind her, the door slammed shut. Panic flared; how would she get to Elijah now the magical veil was between them?

She ignored Efaffion, turning straight back to the purple veil and sticking her hands through it. It was cool, like stepping into a river on a summer’s day, but it brought her no relief from the burning heat sizzling up her spine.

There was nothing to do but wait.

* * *

Lily had explained what she’d seen to Efaffion, whose ruby eyes had glittered at the prospect of getting out.

“We can’t leave without the witch,” she’d hissed at him, jutting her chin out defiantly.

“The witch? She needs to die.”

“She’s their victim just as much as we are. More than you are.” She’d raised an eyebrow at him and he’d flicked a lock of autumn-red hair over his shoulder.

“She is the key to their power.”

“So getting her away from them seems as good a plan as any.”

“Not as good as taking her off the board completely.”

They’d drifted back into silence, neither one enjoying the other’s company enough to make small talk. They were allies in this and this alone.

And then flames burst through the cell door.

Lily grabbed Efaffion’s arm, yanking him back from the fire. It hit her then, hard as steel: the reason she’d run from Elijah. As much as she’d changed in her time with Red Ripper, with the same eleve that had once tried to kill her, there was something about the kitchen fire that felt scarier than anything else she’d seen.

It was too close to her heart. It slithered beneath her walls, writhing like the whiskers on Efaffion’s upper lip. She couldn’t lock it out because it had taken place in her home, a deed done by the man she loved.

But he had kept it from her for a reason, just the same as she had kept her hatred of shifting from him. They were both cursed by their natures, her by moonlight and him by fire.

His fire had broken them, and now it would set her free.