The Wolven Mark

by Megan Linski

  I went to trip him up, so I could end the fight with a knockout to the head. But Lucien saw it coming. He ducked, then, before I knew what was happening, he shoved me to the floor and kicked me in the head. I saw stars.

  As I struggled back onto my feet, the blurry image of Lucien cutting the ropes of the cultist came into view. The cultist staggered past me and up the stairs— Lucien stood stiffly by the puddle of blood on the stone.

  “What did you do?” I roared in fury. All I saw was red. The unbound anger of a wolf coursed through my veins. Lucien was evil for setting a filthy cultist free.

  “Whatever you are, Phantom, this is not who you are. I won’t have his blood be on your hands,” Lucien boomed. “No matter what you were planning, you would’ve never forgiven yourself.”

  An angry noise erupted from my chest. I left Lucien, fool that he was, and darted up the stairs after the cultist.

  Lucien didn’t follow.

  The cultist had gotten a head start, but he’d left a blood trail on the carpet. I dashed through the dark halls of Arcanea University, using my wolven scent to track the cultist’s escape route.

  I caught up to him somewhere near the cafeteria. He was limping, but still, he was moving fast. He burst out of the palace and against the wintery Malovian night, into the gardens. I steeled my will, pushed myself to go faster, and followed him into the blustery storm.

  The snow whipped hard and cold past my mask as I gave chase. The snowfall from earlier had turned into a full-on blizzard. Piles of snow, already three feet high, coated the pathways on school grounds. The cultist looked behind him and gave a screech as he saw me catching up, increasing his pace to get away.

  I felt a throbbing soreness radiate from my hip all the way down to the top of my thigh. I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out. My damn leg. It was slowing me down. The prosthetic dug into my skin— probably on account of me being in a hurry as I’d put it on tonight— and the sharp pain slowed me up. With my ill-fitted prosthetic dragging me down, the cultist was getting away.

  The cultist looked back, and his eyes widened. He saw that he’d put quite a distance between us. He had a chance.

  The cultist ahead exploded into a griffin. Feathers went everywhere, and his wings spread wide. I gave a cry of frustration, but already, the griffin had taken off. The shifter batted his wings against the cold and tried to stay upright as he flew over university grounds. The blizzard almost knocked him out of the sky, until he turned and flew with the wind instead of against it. I tried to go faster, but my lungs burned, and no man alive could keep up on two legs against a soaring griffin.

  I finally came to a stop. I watched the griffin become a dot in the sky before he vanished into the storm completely.

  It was hopeless. I didn’t have my wings, and I couldn’t give chase without them, not to mention the blizzard was too thick to follow his trail. Cursing the Seven Gods and all who belonged to them, I turned my back on the cultist and allowed him to escape.

  Damn Lucien. Damn his sense of morality. Now that sick, twisted individual was allowed to run recklessly on Dolinska’s streets. Who knew what he’d do now that he was loose? What was more, he’d tell his friends I was looking for them. All because Lucien didn’t understand.

  What was done was done. There was no reversing the situation. Patrolling Dolinska in this storm would be useless, and if I remained outside too much longer, I’d probably freeze… even as a shifter. We had a high tolerance against the cold, but the temperature was dropping to an insane level— Malovia’s winters were famous for being brutal, yet even I had never seen such weather.

  The winters in Malovia had been getting worse and worse every year. This was the harshest yet. Such raw temperatures and vicious storms shouldn’t be possible… it was almost as if the land was under some sort of magic.

  Or curse.

  The cultist had mentioned my mate… but it was a cheap attempt to intimidate me. He was right as far as every shifter had a mate. He assumed the Phantom had to have one, but he didn’t know it was Emma. He couldn’t. He’d have to know I was Prince Ethan, and though we’d declared ourselves to be mates during the King’s Contest last year, I’d never admitted… not even to my love… that we were fated to be together, and that the magical mated bond had tied our souls as one.

  Emma was safe, for now. The Black Claw wanted her blood for other reasons, but if I found their hideout first, and destroyed them, I could kill two birds with one stone. The city would be safe from their wrath, and so would Emma.

  If only Lucien hadn’t stolen my one good chance away.

  Arcanea University remained silent and passionless around me as I fled the sanctity of the school grounds. Dolinska itself didn’t seem welcoming in this biting cold. I was bitter as I climbed over the walls protecting the royal palace and slunk past the guards watching the great gates.

  As I climbed the tower to my room on the topmost floor— something I’d done a hundred times— I considered using my part of the royal treasury to buy my own mansion somewhere else. Somewhere more discreet, so I wouldn’t have to do this anymore. I was getting tired of clinging to the shadows in my own home.

  Elijah and Gabby hadn’t yet moved into the palace, thank the gods. They had to pass their proficiency tests to become king and queen first— something that I was planning on stopping at all costs. For now, the castle was still mine.

  Wouldn’t be for much longer, though. The thought of my smug cousin kicking me out of my own palace…

  I barely suppressed a growl as I pulled myself through the window. Snow flew past me and landed on the bed. I closed the window and removed the mask— I flung it to the side harshly, and it clattered against a wall. I scowled as I watched it lay there.

  Close. So close, again. It was like my life was an endless round of watching the things I desired most be snatched away from me, right when they were about to be in my hands.

  “Temper, temper. Didn’t your mother teach you not to throw your things?”

  I stiffened. As I turned, a monster of a man came into the moonlight. Stefan smirked— he raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms as his eyes roved up and down the cloak, then over the mask. “You didn’t go to a costume party, I take it.”

  I could hardly breathe. Stefan had seen me take off the mask. He knew my secret… was the only person that did. He knew I was the Phantom.

  Yet he didn’t seem surprised by it. Only irritated. How much had he guessed?

  Stefan cracked a sarcastic noise at my silence. “You know, you can break the act. Broody doesn’t work well on you.”

  Anger flickered in my stomach. “What the hell are you doing here?” I snarled under my breath. “These are my chambers. You are not permitted to be here.”

  “Don’t pull that royal bullshit on me. It’s not going to work,” Stefan shot back.

  “By law, the prince’s quarters are—”

  “Shove it up your ass.” Stefan gave a casual snort before he placed a hand on my shoulder and pushed me back. “What are you gonna do, behead me?”

  My eyebrow twitched. “How long have you known?”

  “That you have a weird complex that makes you dress up in tights? Ages,” Stefan replied with a snicker.

  “That’s not an answer,” I growled.

  “Relax.” Stefan rolled his eyes. “You were hardly around last semester. Plus, your dorm was always empty at night. The Phantom didn’t show up until after your dad died. It wasn’t hard to piece two and two together.” He shrugged.

  “Does anyone else know?” The sickening feeling of being exposed pressed in all around me, until I felt like I was being crushed.

  “How should I know? I don’t read the news.”

  “Stefan!”

  “Would you chill out? No one knows you like I do.” Stefan leaned against the wall lazily. “I doubt anyone else has figured this out.”

  I relaxed, but only slightly. “You’re taking this a bit too casually.”

  “This is
hardly a surprise. I always knew you’d do something freaky when we got older,” he commented. “I figured it’d be male stripping, but this is weird, too.”

  I threw a pillow at him. He smacked it away, and it fell to the floor with a flop. “I’m not a male stripper,” I grumbled.

  “With abs like yours? You’d make a killing. I’ve been thinking about a side gig that shows the ladies what I have to offer myself.”

  Stefan flexed his muscles, and I hit him. He made an oof sound and held his gut.

  “This isn’t the time for jokes!” I hissed. “Are you going to keep this a secret?”

  “Naw, I’m gonna run and tell your mom.” Stefan gave me a scathing look. “Do you really think I would blow your identity? I’ve been covering your ass. You aren’t as obscure and discreet as you think you are.”

  I scowled. He was right. I knew I’d been sloppy and made mistakes in the past few months. The King’s Contest had me distracted.

  But that was over now. I wasn’t distracted anymore.

  “You have to be careful. If anyone finds out you know who I am, you’ll be a target,” I said lowly.

  “Like that’s different than any other day of the week. My ass is already a target for being your friend. Good thing I’ve got some firepower to back you up. I’m bringing the heat. In more ways than one.” Stefan blew out a puff of smoke, then wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

  Dragon shifters were insufferable creatures. “Your puns are awful. You should get a better sense of humor.”

  Stefan gave a dramatic groan. “Come on, man. You’ve been a crabby bastard ever since you lost the Contest. Are you really going to act like this when Emma comes back?”

  At the mention of Emma, I froze. It both physically hurt and made me feel better to hear her name. She’d been the reason we’d lost the King’s Contest.

  But she was also my mate. And my very reason for breathing. Existing without her was like no kind of existence at all, and I’d hardly been living since she left to spend Christmas in Krakow with her mother. We’d parted the night of the King’s Contest with tense words, and hadn’t spoken… or seen each other… since.

  Her absence from my life, even for a few short weeks, was the main reason I was losing my mind.

  “We had an agreement not to talk about Emma,” I began.

  “Because you still needed time to cool off. But school starts in a few days. She’ll be back from her vacation with her mom any day now,” Stefan argued. “She doesn’t need a guilt trip from you on how she fucked up. She feels bad enough.”

  I took a deep breath. The last thing I needed was Stefan lecturing me on my love life. “Why don’t you worry about your relationship with Delmare?” Which was nonexistent, by the way, because they weren’t together— though it was obvious Stefan pined for her.

  It was a low blow, but effective. Stefan’s tone became darker. “We’re talking about you right now, not me. I’m not the one wearing a mask and running around like a psycho torturing Black Claw cultists. You’ve got issues, man.”

  “I wasn’t torturing anyone,” I sneered.

  Stefan snorted. “Yeah. That’s why there’s blood all over your cloak. It’s like you think I don’t know you at all.”

  I glanced down at the bloodstains, then glared Stefan’s way. “What I do as the Phantom is my business.”

  “Dude, can’t you see that I’m worried about you?” Stefan came forward and placed his hands on my shoulders. “You haven’t been the same since the Contest ended. It’s like… I don’t know. You’re turning into someone I don’t recognize.”

  I shrugged him away. “Maybe it’s better this way.”

  “Better how? We all agreed to make a plan to take down Gabby and Elijah, together,” Stefan said. “Are you going to turn your back on that now?”

  “No. But you don’t understand. I work better by myself,” I argued.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Stefan said forcefully. “This is too big for you to handle on your own. If you take them and the Black Claw on by yourself as the Phantom, you’re going to get hurt. This is too tough a job for one man. Let us help.”

  I know Stefan had the right intentions. His heart was in the right place. But he didn’t get it. The closer people got to the Phantom, the more danger they were in.

  And after the King’s Contest ended, I didn’t know how to let people in anymore.

  “Just let me do my job.” My voice hardened, to indicate this was a final note. “I need to do this alone.”

  Stefan scoffed. “You’re never alone, Ethan. You’ve got friends. And once you pull your head out of your ass and realize that, come find me.”

  Stefan left. The door snapped shut behind him, echoing the strained intensity between us.

  As I removed the cloak, it crumpled on the floor in a heap. Looking at it now, there was more blood on it than I realized.

  Stefan could be right. I needed help— I knew that. Doing this by myself was impossible. I’d nearly gotten caught how many times… nearly died just as often.

  But I wouldn’t put my friends in the same situation I was in. I couldn’t ask them to risk their lives for me. There was more at stake than just my freedom. I refused to put theirs on the line.

  And I’d been wounded too deeply to let anyone get too close.

  Unravel the secrets by continuing The Dragon Oath!

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  About the Author

  Megan Linski is a disabled author who writes romance, fantasy, and contemporary fiction for young and new adults. When not writing she enjoys ice skating and horse riding. She is a passionate advocate for mental health awareness and suicide prevention, and is an active fighter against common variable immune deficiency disorder.