by Leia King
They wrestled on the ground, before Damon thrust his boot into Ryan’s chest. The power behind it propelled him several feet back. He rolled when he hit the ground, using the momentum to return to his feet quickly.
He dropped his own claws as Damon rushed him. When he was almost upon him, he swiped them across his chest ruthlessly, shredding so deep that he knew it would leave yet more scars to add to his collection. Damon roared and drove Ryan into a nearby tree. As Ryan’s back jarred painfully against it, he reacted quickly and shoved Damon back. But Damon recovered quickly and plunged his fist into his solar plexus. Ryan’s toned abs absorbed the hit well.
But then the worst happened.
He was assaulted by a coughing fit. Right in the middle of their fight.
Damon took advantage of it, closing both hands around his throat. Ryan gagged, his chest straining with the overwhelming need to release another sickly cough. His lungs burned, as Damon denied him, tightening his grip around his neck.
Ryan pushed against him with both hands, trying to force him away. He didn’t budge. Fuck. Nathanial was right. He was too weak in his current sickly state. Damon was gonna kill him if he didn’t do something immediately.
“Taking me on when you’re sick is fucking arrogant, Ry. Even for you.”
Ryan hissed against the searing pain, as Damon scraped his claws slowly down his torso, drawing out the pain and relishing the sight of his opponent’s blood oozing from the deep wounds he was inflicting.
The act of dominance infuriated Ryan. No one bested him. No one!
“I am the fucking Wolf King!” he gritted out against Damon’s restrictive grip around his throat.
The moment the words left his lips, his body shuddered, as an intense sensation coursed through him. Strength! Somehow, he’d just been gifted with a major power boost.
Growling low in his throat, he ripped Damon’s claws out of his chest. He slammed his arms up and out, breaking the grip around his neck. And then he kicked him back.
Damon lost his footing and crashed to the ground.
Ryan was on him in a second, digging his claws into his shoulders. Then, he hauled him across the forest. He smacked into tree after tree, the power behind the throw causing every tree he hit to come down, ripping completely from its roots.
As Ryan stalked out into the clearing where Nathanial, his son, and Damon’s wolves were, he heard their cries of surprise. He watched Damon stagger to his feet, his eyes wide with shock.
“Too weak for the Dark Realm wolves, am I, Damon? I am the fucking Wolf King! I was made here! This is my home!”
As Ryan spoke the words, he realized it was the first time he’d actually acknowledged any of that on a conscious level. Of course! That was what had unleashed the full force of the strength he was entitled to as king.
He strode towards Damon, who held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “You are the Wolf King.”
The surprises kept on coming. Damon’s wolves dropped to their knees and bowed. “Your majesty,” they spoke in collective reverence.
Ryan looked at Nathanial to find him smiling at him. He’d done it.
He noticed Orion struggling wildly in his arms, clearly disturbed that, only moments prior, his father had been locked in a battle that would normally have gone to the death.
But, as he looked down at Damon, he knew he wasn’t going to kill him. Instead, he held out his hand and helped him to his feet. “There’s already been too much bloodshed over the years,” he explained. “Besides, I could use your strength.”
Damon smiled. “Then you’ve got it.”
“Good. Spread the word to the wolves across the realm. Their King has returned and they must pledge their allegiance.”
Damon nodded.
“I’ll come back in a few days.” He reached for his shirt and jacket and slipped them back on.
“They’ll be ready to greet you and celebrate your return, Ry.”
Ryan turned away and made his way back to Nathanial and Orion. He took Orion from Nathanial and whispered words of comfort to try to calm him down.
“You put up a good fight, Ry!” Damon called after him. “I always liked that about you.”
“The feeling’s mutual.”
As he and Nathanial started to walk away, Ryan said, “You were gonna kill them all if I’d lost, weren’t you?”
“Before you lost.”
Ryan’s gaze snapped to his. Nathanial’s meaning was clear. He’d been ready to step in and protect Ryan from a pack of ravenous Dark Realm wolves. To save his life.
“I’m not your son,” Ryan told him, unable to look at him as he said the words.
“You are beyond my son, Ryan. You are everything he is not. A true king.”
A lump formed in Ryan’s throat and he concentrated on stroking Orion’s soft fur to calm him, as he responded, “Thank you.” As soon as the words had left his mouth, he heard the emotion in them. The break there. Fucking hell. To his credit, Nathanial didn’t say anything about it.
“We need to get you back to the castle and get you cleaned up, before we leave for the White Realm at nightfall.” A great advantage of living in the Dark Realm was that when it was daytime and the sky shone bright, it wasn’t actually sunlight. It was manufactured light crafted with magic. “I am sure your wife would not be happy to see you in such a bloodied state.”
Ryan chuckled. “Perhaps, if she were a vampire.”
“Indeed,” Nathanial agreed. “Also, let me take a look at those veins. They are concerning.”
“I know.” Something was very wrong.
7
“Cora!”
She spun at the sound of the irate voice calling out behind her as she strolled down the palace corridor.
Oh no. It was last person she wanted to see. She was still pissed at him over the Royal Court meeting. Judging by the look on his face, the feeling was mutual. “Father.”
He came to a stop in front of her. “What you did the other day was unacceptable. You do not interrupt meetings of my Royal Court.”
“You were discussing my son.”
“It was business. You need to learn how to separate that from your emotions. It is weakness to be unable to do so.”
“If I hadn’t been holding back my emotions, I never would’ve left that damn room, until you’d agreed to what everyone wanted.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “And what was that?”
“To strike against Oriana, before she can do any more damage. To unite with Nathanial and pool our resources.”
“The situation is beyond your comprehension. There are many intricacies that you are not aware of.”
Cora rolled her eyes. “Don’t patronize me, father. I’m not a child.”
He gripped her arm tightly and pulled her towards him, his gaze boring into hers. “You will not do anything about Oriana. Do you I make myself clear?”
She wrenched her arm from his grip. “Don’t touch me! No one… touches me!”
He looked completely startled by her vehement reaction.
She knew it was crazy, but she just couldn’t take anyone manhandling her. After what David had done to her, she just couldn’t stand being touched. The most she had allowed had been during that dreamscape with Ryan.
“Cora—” he began.
There was no way she was willing to talk about it. So, she cut him off, continuing with their previous subject matter. “I’ll do whatever I need, to protect my son.”
“Then I will be there to stop you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“If it needs to be.”
What the hell? “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”
“She will kill you, if you cross her.”
Cora scoffed. “Her power isn’t as strong as mine.”
“She is more experienced than you. And she wields black magic, alongside her white now.”
Cora started, surprised at the revelation. She hesitated. But, then she thought
about her son and Ryan and it restored her resolve. “If she touches my son, she’ll die.”
Vazra released an exasperated sigh. “Then you will leave me no choice.”
“What does that mean?”
He glared hard at her. “I will bring you to your knees, if you try to go up against her.”
Cora couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
Her father was threatening to fight her with his magic, if she went defended her family against Oriana? The look in his eyes told her that it was anything but a mere threat.
What kind of a man was he? To be able to strike his own daughter?
She swallowed down her hurt and the anxiety that his threat had caused. She met his gaze head on. “Do whatever the hell you have to and I’ll do the same.”
With that, she turned her back on him and continued down the corridor.
8
Ryan sat patiently in one of the sturdy, metal chairs in Nathanial’s lab. It was the place where he practiced his magic, concocted various magical potions, and whatever else. As Ryan scanned the room, he realized he had little idea of what he was actually looking at. The hundreds of jars situated on the various cabinets around the room, the age-old, dusty books, strange symbols and formulas scrawled out on parchment paper and a few scrolls. Was it the sort of thing Cora had been learning? They hadn’t talked much about her training. He’d never admit it out loud, but it made him nervous. It was so foreign to him, magical abilities so beyond his own. He’d thought he was better off not knowing the details. But, seeing now, how little understanding he actually had of the world his wife was delving further and further into, maybe he needed to rethink that stance.
Orion’s tiny growls caught his attention and he looked down at his feet where his son was sprawled out on his back, holding a bottle to his mouth. A few moments ago, Ryan had started to feed him and Orion had snatched it from his grasp and taken over the task himself. He smiled as he watched him growling at the teat as he suckled at it with wild abandon. He was learning and growing so fast already. He truly was something special. Ryan just wished that it didn’t come with a burdening destiny attached to it.
“Take off your shirt and jacket,” Nathanial said, suddenly standing before him with a jeweled dagger in one hand and a small, golden vial in the other.
He’d spent the last fifteen minutes mixing a potion over a massive stone table.
As he stripped to his bare chest, he eyed the dagger. “That better not be silver.”
“Steel,” Nathanial assured him, as he pulled up and chair in front of him and perched on the edge.
“And, why do we need that?”
“To pierce your heart.”
Ryan tensed. “What?”
Nathanial looked pained, as he told him, “I know what is happening to you.”
Why was that upsetting him? “Okay. What is it?”
“It has nothing to do with reacclimatizing to the Dark Realm. Your fever and cough are the extent of that. The veins are something else entirely. If the black magic reaches your heart, you will die.”
What the fuck? “Black magic?”
“Yes. The only thing that has slowed it down is Cora’s blood. The power in possesses has been fighting the infection. An infection that I suspect was actually intended for me, as it contains properties of pure sunlight. If it had seeped into my blood, it would have killed me within a few hours. She obviously assumed that you and I would have completed the coronation ritual by now. If it had not been for our mission earlier, we actually would have.”
Ryan was well aware that the coronation ritual, binding them as joint Kings of the Dark Realm, involved the joining of their blood. “Wait. She?”
“Oriana.”
“What? You think my mother did this to me?”
“It is her way. Underhanded and ruthless. She also had the opportunity, through the direct contact she made with you the other night.”
“You mean that hug?” Ryan asked, incredulous that something so mundane could have caused such damage.
“There is a purpose behind everything she does, Ryan. I was a fool. I should have realized that it was not just an innocent embrace between a mother and a son. She had an agenda.”
Ryan couldn’t manage a response for several minutes. He couldn’t believe what his mother had done. He hadn’t spent much time with her as a child, on account of the secrecy surrounding his origin. He’d spent most of his life with his father. Now, though, he was beginning to realize just what kind of a woman she really was. The malicious bitch she had become. Had she always been that way? Or, had she been driven to it, because of the loss of his father, her true mate?
“I am sorry, Ryan,” Nathanial offered.
“Was she… never mind.” No, he couldn’t ask Nathanial that.
But Nathanial knew his question. “You want to know if she was always this person?”
Ryan nodded.
Nathanial heaved a heavy breath. “Put it this way, Ryan. No one had the power to come between your father and me. Until she entered our lives. Aside from what I did to Cornelius, there is nothing I regret more than marrying her. Her actions almost ripped the realm apart. Today, you saw for yourself that we are still suffering the consequences.”
“She was his true mate.”
“It is not what they did together. It is how they did it. The extent of their betrayal. For one hundred years they kept it from me. If Cornelius had asked my permission, I would have granted his request to take her. The very fact that he did not was her influence. I know that now. But my rage at the time failed to allow me to see that.” He looked away as he murmured, barely above a whisper, “I killed the wrong person and I am truly sorry.”
“I know, you are.”
At the sound of his words, Nathanial raised an eyebrow, disbelief all over his face.
“I forgive you, Nathanial.”
They stared at one another in silence for a long while, both of them acknowledging the weight of the words between them.
After centuries of hatred, they had finally found a way to move forward.
“Thank you,” Nathanial finally choked out, struggling to bite back the emotion that Ryan could see all over his face. He was trying to hide it for the same reason that Ryan always tried to. He couldn’t show weakness. Not in front of anyone. It was his curse as a leader and Ryan got that on every level. He faced the same thing. He had to appear impervious. He was the strength behind his kind. They were looking to him for that.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Ryan said, eyeing the dagger.
Nathanial cleared his throat and shifted his weight. He pressed his palm to Ryan’s chest, exerting enough pressure to hold him steady as he readied the tip of the dagger. “I need you to remain as still as possible. Are you prepared?”
“Do it.”
In one sudden motion, Nathanial plunged the dagger into Ryan’s heart.
Ryan gulped, choking against the spike of pain. “Fuck,” he rasped, his claws biting into the chair beneath him.
He heard Orion start to cry at the sound of his father in pain. The wolf pup tossed his bottle aside and bounded over, nuzzling Ryan’s leg frantically.
“It’s… okay, Orion. Just some… open-heart… surgery.”
As Nathanial reached for the potion he’d left on the floor, Ryan watched him pause to pet Orion. To both their surprise, he purred, momentarily distracted from his fear for his father. “Interesting,” Nathanial commented. “That is the first time I have been treated to a positive response from a wolf.”
“There’s… hope then,” Ryan rasped.
Nathanial smiled and opened the potion bottle. Using his magic, he drew the solution up through the neck of the bottle, forcing out every drop until it floated in the air between them.
“This will hurt. You need to prepare yourself.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I’m used to pain.”
Nathanial shook his head. “You do not understand.”
“I’m su
re I can take it just fine.”
“Have you ever used the antidote to the poisoned claws of Michael’s wolves?”
“Yeah.”
“That is the best way I can describe how this is going to feel. The pain will dissipate after a few seconds, though.”
Son of a bitch. “All right. I get it.”
“Ready?”
“I need you to endure it for this to work, Ryan.”
“Jesus, Nathanial. I’ve fucking got it. Just do it, yeah?”
“As you wish.”
Ryan felt himself tense up as Nathanial guided the potion with his magic to the incision he’d made. A moment later, the potion rushed into the incision.
Holy fucking shit!
It was so much worse than he’d imagined, even with Nathanial’s warnings.
He bellowed in agony.
He thrust his fist into his chair.
It broke under the force of his strength. Before he hit the ground, Nathanial was there in a burst of vampire speed. He held him steady against the wall.
“Just a few more minutes. Hold on.”
“Minutes? Fucking hell,” Ryan hissed, writing in agony against the wall. “You lied. It’s… way worse.”
“If I had told you how bad it was truly going to be, you would not have allowed me to do it.”
As Ryan struggled against the agony ripping through every part of his body, Nathanial tightened his hold on him to keep him steady.
“Sorry about… your chair.”
“Your strength really did reach maturity today during your fight with Damon. That chair was made of material stronger than titanium. The only other being who can break it is me. Today, you finally accessed your full potential as joint King of the Dark Realm.” He eyed him with a wry grin. “It took you long enough.”
Ryan managed a laugh. “Denial is… a powerful… thing.”
He saw Nathanial studying his chest. He followed his line of sight to see that the black tangle of veins had almost dissipated completely.