by Kamryn Hart
The crowd started moving forward, to pay their respects I supposed. I wanted the king to stand here with me… the previous king. I looked back to where he was prostrate in the grass, but he wasn’t there. My heart seized up.
I looked around, wondering where he could have possibly gone. There were werewolves surrounding me on every side, some bowing, some speaking. I ignored them all and sent a direct message to my pack: “Philip disappeared.”
“Looking,” Rodrick replied.
I scanned the crowd, wondering if I should give them the order to search too, wondering if I should tell them to stop crowding me. I could do that now, couldn’t I?
Where is he?
Then I spotted him behind Sorissa. I shouted a warning at the same time he grabbed her from behind and locked her in a practiced chokehold. Her eyes fluttered, and she scratched at his arms, but she couldn’t get enough air. She was going to pass out.
My blood boiled. Intense blue filled my vision.
“Release her!” I roared.
And I didn’t wait. I wouldn’t let him take her away from me. I wouldn’t show mercy to those who would hurt what was mine.
I didn’t hesitate.
I burst through the crowd like a streak of lightning. Everything else moved in slow motion. The king couldn’t snap her neck or do whatever the fuck he was trying to do because I ripped his arm away from her, dislocating it at the shoulder, and I smashed him into the ground. I didn’t hold back. I didn’t calculate. I heard his spine snap. His skull cracked. Blood spurted everywhere.
I blinked away the focused haze. My mouth hung open in disbelief at my father crushed underneath me. He drew a sharp breath, stared at me with the black holes of his dead eyes, and… smiled. “Thank you.”
He stopped breathing.
My hand shook. I could barely control it well enough to let him go, to scramble backward in shock. Sorissa caught me. My moonlight faded away. My father was bloodied and buried in orange-red rubble. And he wasn’t breathing.
My breath came in short and shallow. I was dizzy. I was going to pass out, but Sorissa held me. Phantom Fangs came too, checking on her, checking on me.
“D-did he hurt you?” I asked, turning around to face Sorissa, to hold her face in my hands.
“He didn’t,” she said quietly. “I’m okay.” But there were tears in her eyes. “Oh, Caspian. I’m so sorry.”
She wrapped her arms around me, and my arms fell to my sides. Phantom Fangs knelt with us. Then, row by row, the crowd did the same, bowing on one knee, right hand over their hearts. Even the princes—my brothers—bowed before me. Whatever difficulty they may have had with accepting me as their new king before, there was no denying it now.
I killed the king.
“No,” I said and shook my head. “I’m not your king.” I escaped Sorissa’s hug and stood. “Get up.” The crowd hesitated, but then I said it again with a moonlight flare, with unquestionable dominance. “Get. Up.”
Slowly, everyone rose. I held out my hands. “You want to know where all of this power came from, how I’m able to hold so much moonlight? It came from them. Phantom Fangs and Sorissa. Especially Sorissa. This wouldn’t have been possible without her. If you’re looking for the strongest werewolf to lead you, it’s not me. It’s the Lost Princess of Howling Sky.”
“A werea?” Alexander scoffed.
“What are you doing, Caspian?” Aerre hissed, hand gripping the robes on my shoulder.
I recoiled from his touch and shook my head, trying to stop myself from screaming. I turned to Sorissa. “Show them.”
“What?” she asked timidly.
“Show them!” I said, distraught.
“What are you talking about, Caspian?”
“Show them you’re the one who should rule.”
“Caspian.”
“Show them!” I shouted.
She flinched back, and I cursed myself for it. I grabbed the back of her head, pressed my forehead to hers, and transferred half of what was left of my copious amounts of moonlight to her. I would have given her the amount she deserved, but I knew there was no way she would do what I wanted if I did.
“Show them,” I whispered, pleading. “I don’t want to be king, Sorissa. I never did. You said something about this before, didn’t you? You wanted to leave your woods, find your own pack, become the first werea to ever reach alpha. Well, you deserve it. You’re much more powerful than I am, and you’re beautifully compassionate. You’re not afraid to do what you think is right. You won’t try to emulate any of the previous kings. I want to see what you’ll do. I want you to lead. My place is to support you, to protect you with my life, to follow you. So, show them, Sorissa. Be the first werea to reach alpha.”
“Are you sure, Caspian?” she asked, pressing her fingers into the back of my neck, grounding me.
“Yes.”
“Then prepare yourself. I’m not going to hold back.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re as perfectly matched as we’ll ever be.”
“Don’t the rest of us get a say in this?” Aerre asked.
Rodrick put his hand on Aerre’s shoulder. “It’s fine.”
Todd nodded.
I felt like I was going to shatter. Phantom Fangs was reluctant to back away, but they did, and they brought the crowd back with them. Werewolves were confused, anxious, curious, it was a mixture of everything and for good reason. This was probably the strangest Alpha Challenge in the history of werewolves.
Sorissa’s hands were on her dress, carefully unzipping and untying it. When she let go, it dropped, pooling at her feet like liquid silver. “I like this dress,” she said and went for her underwear. She hadn’t been wearing a bra. She didn’t need to with that dress. It fit her body perfectly, showing off her assets in a tasteful manner. But who was I kidding? I preferred her like this. My mouth burned with the thought of biting her, but it was more of a fleeting thought. My brain was all kinds of fucked up. I couldn’t even focus on how much I wanted her.
“I thought you hated dresses,” I said.
“I don’t. They’re just not practical for fighting. I hate corsets.”
I forced a smile. “Shift. I don’t want the whole world staring at you while you’re naked.”
“Jealous?”
“More like possessive.”
“Because, you know, I only have eyes for Phantom Fangs.” She stepped forward, unhitched my robes, and grabbed my crown. “Fight well, Caspian.”
After adding the robes and crown to a pile with her dress, she proceeded to shift. I followed her lead. We fell to our hands and knees at the same time and changed in perfect synchronization. Our shapes changed first, faces elongating, sprouting tails, pointed ears alert on the tops of our heads. At the same time, fur sprouted all over our bodies. Hers was as black as midnight. We were eye to eye until she stood up tall. We had the same amount of moonlight at the moment, but her wolf was bigger than mine, more powerful. I could smell it wafting off of her coat like a spicy smoke. I could feel her dominance when she looked at me with those ethereal moonlight eyes, shimmering in every shade of blue. The rest of Phantom Fangs backed off, offering no help through our bond. They left this between me and Sorissa.
We were close enough to touch, and I was prepared to give everything I had because Sorissa would accept nothing less, because she deserved nothing less. I fully intended on making the first move. I bared my teeth, but Sorissa called on her moonlight. It engulfed her in towering flames like what I had done, but more. It touched the fucking sky. I tried to meet her, to call on my moonlight as well, but I couldn’t grasp it. I looked too deeply into her eyes, and I was paralyzed, hypnotized by a dangerous predator. Her dominance was crushing. I physically melted onto the floor, my belly flat against the orange-red rocks of the courtyard. Her dominance was so widespread I saw other werewolves bending down into a similar stance. She was radiating wave after wave of it, sending thousands of werewolves down onto their knees without doing har
dly anything at all.
I drew my ears back and whimpered my submission. I couldn’t move. This felt similar to Babaga’s horrible gravity magic, heavy, pressing me down into the earth with an immovable and invisible force. This was a power that knew no limits.
“How are you doing that?” I asked.
“Not sure. I just thought about what I wanted and that I wouldn’t bend. I didn’t want to hurt you, but you wanted me to prove my power, so I did.”
“Beautiful, terrifying werea.”
Sorissa withdrew her moonlight and lowered her head to mine. I tentatively licked her black nose. It was buried instinct, extremely wolf-like in nature. She nuzzled my nose in return. It was a simple gesture, but it soothed the whirlwind raging around inside of my rib cage. I closed my eyes, savoring the calm. Then I heard Sorissa’s bones snapping and reshaping. I opened my eyes to see her naked in front of me, back in her base form. She held out her hand to me, and I shifted as well to accept the gesture.
She pulled me to my feet, but the masses remained bowed, Phantom Fangs at the head. There was no question Sorissa was our new queen. Our new alpha. Her dominance was felt far and wide, calling to buried instincts; I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had reached all the way to the outer regions of the kingdom. It was a new thread attaching all of us to her. It wasn’t the same as the bond she created with Phantom Fangs. It was finer, simpler, but it held real power. Was this something new to Sorissa or was this something that had been lost to werewolves since evolving from a nomadic lifestyle? Was this connection to a pack’s alpha normal? I had never experienced it before.
“Rise,” Sorissa said.
I picked up the royal robes and put them around her. She didn’t care about being naked in front of all these werewolves and a few human servers, but I did. She shook her head and smiled at me as the crowd stood. She held out her hands to Phantom Fangs and they joined us.
“Gods, Sorissa.” Rodrick smirked. “I’m going to have a crick in my neck for months. You made Caspian’s dominance feel like the brush of a pansy’s petals in comparison.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Our new queen,” Dominic said with newfound confidence, with vigor. He was even grinning like he was hyped up on Sorissa’s dominance display. All the werewolves here had a similar look in their eyes. “Queen Sorissa va Lupin, formerly of Howling Sky, now of Wolf Bridge, and her mates.”
I was surprised at that last part. Had Sorissa’s dominance made it clear how she was connected to us? Rodrick and I hadn’t even sealed her yet… but that was the only explanation.
“My mates and knights. They are Phantom Fangs no longer,” Sorissa said. The next part was just for us. “My mates. Sealed or not. I’m the queen now, so I get whatever I want, right? Do you agree with this decision, Caspian? Is it time to put Phantom Fangs to rest?”
“Yes, I think it is,” I murmured.
Rodrick chuckled. “We really have created a monster.”
“I’ll only ever use my power for good,” Sorissa said.
Todd grabbed the crown and placed it on Sorissa’s head. It was a bit too large, but it somehow suited her and stayed in place. The silver complemented her bronze skin in the bluish light of the full moon.
I looked over my shoulder at the king’s body, forgotten in this heady reverie. “Sorissa, do you mind…”
“Go, Caspian.”
“Thank you.”
Aerre tried to catch my eye, but I couldn’t bear it. I avoided him and the rest of my pack. I turned to the crowd, searching for my brothers. For a moment I wondered how to address them. It was going to take me a while to get used to this change. “Alexander, Julius, Dominic, Edward, and Henry, I need you over here.” They listened and came immediately. That would take getting used to as well.
I led the way to our father’s body and stood over him. He was broken and bruised because of me. The ground was soaked with his blood because of me. He was dead because of me. I had killed him after fighting so hard against it. Sorissa was in danger, and I didn’t think. I couldn’t afford to, but that fact didn’t help the regret. It didn’t stop the sick feeling in my stomach, the fracture in my heart, the distance that seemed to be growing between me and the world around me.
I looked at my bloodied hands. The poison I had been carrying around for years writhed underneath my skin as blackened veins, threatening to burst, threatening to finally consume me. I shook my head. I couldn’t afford to lose it. Not now. But what if killing my father was the last straw? What if I could never come back from this? I couldn’t breathe.
Then I saw the soft smile frozen on my father’s lips. I saw it. And I finally understood.
Here was the truth: My father had been dead for years. He died alongside my mother. For him, it wasn’t a physical death, but it may as well have been. His heart was cut and bleeding. It never mended. His core rotted, and he continued to exist as nothing more than an empty shell. Maybe he tried to come back from this. Maybe he tried to live, but he never managed to. Not really.
Maybe, at last, he had found peace.
CHAPTER 33
TODD
SORISSA BECAME QUEEN OF Wolf Bridge an hour ago. She was dressed, presentable, and she already had humans in the courtyard as guests—or extending outside of the courtyard, flooding through the gardens, lined back outside of the castle and everywhere else anyone could fit. The entire kingdom was here to pay their respects to the previous king. I had never felt more claustrophobic in my life. I couldn’t move without touching someone.
Sorissa was doing this for Caspian, for everyone who loved King Philip. She put Caspian in charge of the ceremony. He chose his brothers to help him with most of the work while the rest of us stayed back. They set up the pyre and the bed of white roses where the king lay in the center of the courtyard. Later, Caspian would lead his brothers in lighting the flames, once all who came to offer the king a gift of their own or maybe another white rose had gotten a chance to, werewolf and human alike. It was unheard of and rather fascinating to have humans seeing a werewolf off like this. There were plenty of humans who wanted to. Many even cried. I didn’t know if it was because they had no idea what their future would look like from this point onward or if they truly mourned him.
But maybe they had a good reason to fear the future. They certainly had a good reason to fear change because there would be plenty of that, knowing Sorissa. Having Caspian as their new king would have been a big shock on its own, but Sorissa… was Sorissa. She was amazing and terrifying. Her power rippled through everyone, binding and commanding. I wondered if the humans could feel that a little or if it was lost on them. And I saw tension, the omnipresent tension between werewolves and humans.
Sorissa was these werewolves’ alpha, but that didn’t rewrite a werewolf’s brain. There were plenty of werewolves and humans staying as far apart as possible, separated into their own groups, but nobody openly protested. It would have been an idiotic move after experiencing Sorissa’s power, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be some trouble along the way. I wondered what kind of mess this would turn into. I didn’t know if it was wise of Caspian to challenge Sorissa like that, to demand she take the throne. But, based on the way werewolves were wired, she was the only one who could be alpha, queen. She was the strongest werewolf without question, and she was bound to end up in an alpha position.
I couldn’t chase away the heavy feeling in my stomach, though. I couldn’t explain it or what it meant. It could have been just because I was in the spotlight more than ever now that I was officially proclaimed one of Sorissa’s mates. I didn’t want an entire kingdom staring at me. The thought made my skin crawl. This was another level of responsibility I was not ready for. Tech was one thing, dealing directly with living things was another.
I turned my eyes to the fallen king, lying on his bed of white roses; he was lightly dusted in roses too, to hide the worst of his injuries from vie
w. He had been cleaned up as well as possible and dressed in fine silvery silks that reflected the light of the full moon. Caspian and his brothers stood at the king’s side, solemn with their hands clasped in front of them, as the kingdom’s denizens continued to offer their respects hours into the night. Flowers, trinkets, handwritten notes, there was no limit to the gifts offered, and they overflowed, building on the base of the king’s pyre, mingling with the white roses.
Eventually, the line dwindled. And it finally ended. Caspian and his brothers stepped forward with unlit gas torches. They had a blue powder made from dried blue bell flowers in their other hand which they sprinkled over the torches once they were lit. It changed the chemical makeup of the fire so its color was a bright blue, resembling activated moonlight. They each touched their flames to the base of the pyre. The flames sizzled and raced up along the king’s offerings until they reached his body. They grew taller and taller, reaching up to the moon. I never attended a werewolf’s send off before, but I believed the idea behind this ritual was meant to return a werewolf to moonlight. It was based on some belief that moonlight was what Lureine used to create us.
Some sobs broke out. Others stood with bowed heads. Still, others looked on with the flames dancing in their eyes. I focused on the bond I held with my pack, the tightening pinch of Caspian mourning. It was like my heart was being wound up. The muscle would snap if it was cranked one more time, as if it were nothing more than a fragile music box. It was hard to look at Caspian when he came to stand with us and observe his father as he burned to ashes.
I looked elsewhere and caught sight of Aerre’s sister holding Koren’s hand. A human and a werewolf openly holding hands? That was something I had never seen, and I never would have if Sorissa hadn’t become queen. She hadn’t been queen that long. Things were changing too quickly.
Where will it lead?
Howls broke out. Werewolves tilted their heads back toward the moon, and one voice joined in after another in a growing chorus. I had never howled in my life, not even in my moonlight form, and I wasn’t going to do it now, but the sound sent shivers down my spine, like something in me was reacting to it anyway.