The Longing of Lone Wolves

by Lana Pecherczyk

  His sidekick helped him stumble away, wasted.

  Chapter Forty

  Drowning in agony, Rush could do nothing but lie on the dirt and watch as a bullet tore into his sister, and then they injected liquid metal into her system. Some blend of iron he could scent. Then that filthy rotten scum stole and drank her mana.

  It was a violation of the highest order and they wouldn’t get away with it. None of them. He would hunt them down and rip their innards out first. His inner wolf battered at Rush’s restraint, wanting out. It wanted revenge. And he would give it to him.

  The pain crippled him, but it gave him time to formulate a plan. He saw in perfect clarity how he would pick up Starcleaver and run them through. They wouldn’t even know he was coming. Many long minutes later, Rush pushed onto his trembling hands and knees to breathe through the last remnants of pain. As his senses cleared, he zeroed in on the conversation.

  “Until then,” the human said. “I promised Thaddeus here that he could play with you.” A pause. “A psychic needs to keep use of her mouth, otherwise she can’t speak the future. So just… you know, stay away from that area. Understood?

  Rush’s head snapped up, and he locked eyes on Clarke in the cage. That’s why the scum wanted her. For her gift. Control the future, control the world. A world he created. Wide-eyed and full of defiance, she ground her teeth and stared at the man in the black suit as though she could kill him with a look.

  But he was too far gone on the mana he’d ingested. He swayed and then said to Thaddeus, “Good. And when you’re done, collect the last remaining mana from the she-wolf. She was tasty. There will be more people Clarke loves coming soon. More we can torture.”

  A snarl ripped from Rush’s lips. But he wasn’t ready to attack. Not recovered. He had to be error free as he ran his enemies through. Any wrong movement and they’d touch him. He looked down at the bright blue lights twinkling over his hands and reflecting off Starcleaver’s blade as it lay between. The weight of understanding settled in his heart. This was it. His last battle. He would make it count.

  He lifted his gaze, but the humans were gone, and Thaddeus whispered animosity to Clarke.

  “No.” Rush pushed to his feet, every muscle and bone aching with each breath. “Stay away from her.”

  The pain forced him to rest his palms on his knees and catch his breath. But despite his weary body, the wolf inside was ready to go. It howled with indignation. It scratched at its cage. It filled Rush with adrenaline.

  Where were the Guardians?

  Leaf had to find them soon. He had been right there when the portal was opened. Rush just needed to keep Thaddeus at bay for long enough until the Guardians tracked the portal remnants and arrived. But when Thaddeus gave a shrill whistle, and two others from his hunting party returned to the camp, Rush’s hope squashed. Three of them. How could he stop three? Kyra still lay on the floor, half shifted, but not dead. If he could get that bullet out of her shoulder, then finishing the shift might be enough to purge the remaining iron from her blood. Hopefully.

  “Clarke,” he croaked. “The cage isn’t strong enough to keep all your power at bay.”

  Clarke’s eyes darted to him, but then shifted back to an indeterminate spot. She didn’t want to give him away. But she heard him. “Remember I said the metal cage couldn’t hold me? That’s why they used a curse?”

  She gave a minute nod.

  “So reach for your power. All I need is for you to feel enough to get Kyra to see me. Just her. Can you do that?”

  Another quick nod, and then her brows drew together in concentration. Rush checked Thaddeus’s status. He barked orders at his hunters. They would turn on Clarke and Kyra any second.

  Come on Clarke.

  He couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Kyra,” he croaked.

  She moaned but didn’t respond.

  Gulping air, he tried again. “Kyra.”

  Rolling to the side, her searching eyes landed on him. If she could get through this, he could too. “Get the bullet out,” he said. “Dig into your wound with your claw and scoop it out. Do you understand?” He caught his breath. “It will allow you to shift and heal.”

  Shift and heal. The words stuck in his mind. If he shifted too, the last of the sickness would wash away… but it would also use the very last drop of his mana. Nothing would be left to hold the curse at bay. He’d age.

  It might be enough.

  “I think this will work better with you out of the cage,” Thaddeus said to Clarke. “But we don’t want you to cause any trouble.”

  “I will be nothing but trouble, asshole.”

  “Very well.” Thaddeus paused with the key in the padlock and scanned the camp. “We need something metal to stick into her. It will prevent her from using magic. Bring me something.”

  The bastards discussed her torture as though ordering something from the butcher at the markets. They disgusted him. Rush went to pick up his sword—

  “Hey, Faddeus,” the ram said, coming from the right. He picked up Starcleaver. “What’s this?”

  Shit.

  Thaddeus glared at the ram, but when his eyes hit the sword, he froze. “That’s my nephew’s sword. He’s here.”

  Like a switch being flipped, Rush burst into action. Willing strength into his legs, he launched at the ram. He covered the ram’s hands on the hilt, twisted the sword tip to face the ram and then ran him through. To anyone else, it looked like the ram had stabbed himself. He went down to one knee, eyes wide in confusion, blood bubbling at his stomach. He wouldn’t have known it was Rush.

  “You idiot,” Thaddeus snapped. “Find him!”

  But the contact sickness doubled. Rush had touched the ram’s hands. There had been no other way to control the sword. He collapsed on the ground while the other fae started looking around, stupid enough to check behind tents and chairs. Thaddeus went for the ram. He tugged the blade out of his stomach.

  “I have to do everything myself.” Thaddeus stood still and searched the clearing, but he didn’t have to search far. His eyes landed on Rush and he laughed. “Oh, if you could see you now. All lit up like blue fireworks and crawling like a coward toward your mate.”

  He can see me?

  But of course he could. Rush’s mana was depleted. That last touch to the ram had tipped him over the edge. The curse was ending. Death waited for him on the other side of the veil. The wolf inside him howled—in fury, in pain, in longing. They could see Clarke. Just out of their reach but the weariness of time dragged him down, and he could barely breathe.

  He was starting to age. But with the weakening curse, came access to the Well. He could feel the life of the planet in the ground beneath his touch. The connection wasn’t as strong as a sacred place, but it was there. He just didn’t have days to replenish his mana stores.

  He had to get to Clarke. Whatever he gleaned from the source beneath his fingers, he’d give it to her. She’d broken through the metal cages restrictions enough to make him visible to Kyra. Maybe he could boost her somehow. At the very least, his mana would show her his memories, his feelings, his love. All the things he’d failed to say.

  Clarke leaned back in the cage and kicked at the door, trying to get out. “Rush!”

  “You’re pathetic. Just like your father.” Thaddeus stood between Clarke and Rush, a smile splitting his face as he watched Rush crawl to his mate. “You know he crawled too… at the end.”

  Rush choked and coughed. The blue glyphs moved on his skin as though they, too, heard the horrific confession. Fuck him. Rush wouldn’t give Thaddeus his last moments. Pushing to his hands and knees, he tried once more to get to Clarke. The air moved in his raw lungs. His throat was sandpaper. His eyes were fire. He’d thought he could do this without her, to end Thaddeus and bring something right back to Crescent Hollow. To build a legacy. But now that he was here, in this moment, all he cared was that he couldn’t leave this existence with things not right between them. She was everything. />
  His entire life had been one long winding path with her at the end.

  “Clarke,” he croaked. He was almost there.

  Thaddeus booted him across the middle, sending him sprawling to the ground. He coughed into the dirt. He didn’t have the energy to talk back.

  “You didn’t hear me.” Thaddeus pointed the tip of the blade into Rush’s arm and pushed.

  White-hot agony lanced down his arm, and he roared in pain.

  “I killed your father,” Thaddeus clarified. “It wasn’t you and your quest to join the Guardians. It was me and my men. I still can’t believe how easy you were to fool.”

  Shock blanched Rush’s face, draining the blood.

  “Oh yes.” Thaddeus grinned. The scar under his eye puckered. “Now you’re listening. Well, let me tell you more secrets…. Your mother? I was in her ear every night, telling her to end it. Your lover? The mother of your child? Who do you think paid her to lie with you? Who do you think told her to keep the pregnancy a secret? And that magical monster that needed extermination on the exact day of her execution?” Thaddeus whispered into Rush’s ear, “Who do you think asked the Order for you to do your Guardian duty?”

  Fury burned and churned in Rush. He’d thought it was all the Prime… but Thaddeus had orchestrated the worst parts of his life. His uncle. Rush couldn’t see straight from the vitriolic rage coursing through his veins. The wolf crashed to the surface. Rush could feel his teeth elongating. He growled through fangs, catching Thaddeus in his sight, and he forced his claws to drag his useless, semi-shifting body. Closer. Closer. He pushed Thaddeus back to the cage.

  The struggle to keep the wolf in check pushed Rush’s control to the limit.

  The pleased look on his uncle’s face said it all. He thought he’d gotten away with it.

  And then Clarke’s pale hands poked between the bars of the cage. She swung her favorite strip of torn cloth around Thaddeus’s neck, caught it in the other hand, and then yanked hard. It pulled tight across his neck, choking. She put her feet against the bars for purchase and pulled with her weight to garrote.

  Seeing her like this, fighting for his honor, for their lives, it gave him the strength to push to his feet.

  Taking a life left a stain on one’s heart. He wouldn’t let Clarke tarnish herself for this. So he did the only thing he could think of. He let the wolf out.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The grip Clarke had around the garrote slipped. She cried out. No no no. She had to hold on. Even though the pain in her palms felt like she was slicing right through her hands. She would not go down without a fight. This fae was the reason for all the pain in Rush’s life.

  This evil fae.

  White hair pushed through the cage and she bit down, capturing a chunk in her mouth and pulling to keep his head against the bars. It was dirty street tactics. It was disgusting. But she was desperate. It took so much effort to will Kyra to see Rush, and that had been a part of her power she was more confident with. The fire and wind, less so. Nothing was easy behind the metal bars.

  And then an unearthly howl pierced her ears. A flash of blue light.

  She spat out the hair and looked around Thaddeus’s head. What she found wasn’t possible. Rush. Not Rush. His wolf. Beautiful. White. Large. Its head came up to Thaddeus’s armpits. The wolf’s golden eyes met Clarke’s. She didn’t know how, but she sensed his intention. His plan. As though deep underwater, a calm settled over her. Her breath bloomed. And then she let go.

  Thaddeus threw up his hands. He faced Clarke, as though she could somehow help him.

  “Please…” he rasped.

  Clarke looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Oh yes, you’ll beg. You’ll beg right up until the end. Cowards always do.”

  And then the wolf attacked. She shut her eyes so she didn’t have to watch. She blocked her ears so she didn’t have to hear. And when she thought it was safe, she looked again.

  Thaddeus was hidden from view, somewhere beneath the cage. And Rush… he was still in wolf form, head on the ground, tongue hanging out of his bloody jaws, panting.

  “Rush,” she cried and wrapped her fingers around the bars.

  Somewhere behind them, another fight was happening. Kyra had managed a full shift. She was in the corner eating something… or someone.

  “Hold on, Rush.” She spotted Thaddeus’s key, still in the lock. “I’m coming. Just hold on.”

  Tears burned her eyes as she fumbled with the key. And when it dropped, the tears flowed over. She reached out, grasped air, but caught nothing. The key bounced on the dirt. Collapsing to the base of the cage, she dangled an arm through the bars, just like she remembered the pixie doing. The other hand, she placed over her womb.

  “Rush…”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. This couldn’t be it. No. Please no.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  Now the tears were big, wracking sobs. Goddamn this world. Goddamn it for giving her everything and then taking it away. She wanted to scream. To hurl curses at the wind. But then a wet, warm pressure pushed into her palm. She looked down. It was the wolf’s nose. He lifted his head, got to his paws, and touched her. One last time.

  “I love you, you stupid fae.” She cupped his muzzle. “You’re so beautiful.”

  He whined.

  A spark zipped from his body to hers. Power. Light. Life. Mana. It ripped into her body, wrapped around her heart, swirled around the life they’d created, and settled bone deep. Suddenly, she could feel him as though he were a part of her. She could sense his emotions. Knew he was there. A burning sensation itched along the part of her arm dangling out. It started small, like a tickle, and then built to an inferno in a way she’d never felt before. Blue light leaked from her pores in ripples of light. It enveloped the wolf. Sparked in his eyes. And then wrapped around both of them at once.

  A bond snapped into place.

  And through that bond, Clarke felt Rush’s emptiness. He’d drained his mana stores, so she filled it up. She gave him energy. It wasn’t much. The cage weakened her, but with her arm outside of the barrier and free, she sensed a sliver of the cosmic energy holding their planet together. The Well.

  Rush had been right.

  It wasn’t something she could find. It had to find her. To find them. And it had been waiting.

  Slowly Rush’s wolf strengthened its touch at her hand. Tears spilling from Clarke’s eyes turned joyful because the blue light that had leaked from her pores turned into a pattern along her forearm and hand. It reminded her of contour lines on a geographical map. The evidence was right there—the marking of a Well-blessed union.

  The air around Rush shimmered, blistered, and then he shifted into his fae form. Naked as the day he was born, and with his own Well-blessed marking, he reached through the cage and pulled her lips to the gap. Mashed together between the bars, they kissed. Embarrassing sounds came out of Clarke as she cried and whimpered. He was okay. There were no curse marks on his body. He was young. Alive. This was it.

  “I don’t know if you heard me as a wolf, but I love you, Rush.”

  “I think I’ve loved you since the first time I carried you in my arms,” he whispered, forehead on the bars.

  “But that was so long ago.”

  “The heart wants what it wants.”

  She brushed his beard with her knuckles. “How? I mean, you said a Well-blessed union was instantaneous.”

  “I don’t know. I think… I think because the curse cut me from the eternal Well, it couldn’t approve of our union. It had to wait until the last of my mana was spent, and the end of the curse triggered. With nothing blocking that connection anymore, the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place when you said you loved me.”

  “The Prime. She knew. It’s why she—”

  Rush kissed her. “Doesn’t matter. I used to think her manipulations mattered.” His eyes softened, taking her in. “I don’t need a blessed union to tell me I love you. I did that on my own
.”

  “As did I.”

  He pulled away and picked up the fallen key. Two seconds later she was out and in his arms. They only had time for a small reunion, and then a portal ripped into being at the center of the camp. Bright light flashed, blinding them all. When it all came into perspective, the Guardians were there.

  A white wolf. Three avenging winged fae. And a furious looking elf.

  “You’re late,” Rush said.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  From the moment Thorne stepped through the portal and found the bloody destruction waiting, he knew the battle wasn’t over. The scent of fresh blood burned his sensitive wolf nose. Three bodies, two beyond comprehension. One still writhing from a sword wound in the shoulder. But the most arresting thing of all was seeing his father, curse free, and in a passionate embrace with his mate—no, Well-blessed mate.

  It had been Clarke all along. A human.

  The matching blue contours rippling up their arms proved it.

  Seeing his father happy tied Thorne into all sorts of knots. A part of him saw how they loved each other, how the Well had approved, and something twisted inside. It wasn’t hate. It wasn’t jealousy. It was… an emptiness waiting to be named.

  After arriving, the Guardians had spent the following hour canvasing the area, looking for further threats. Rush had mentioned there were humans who’d worked with Thaddeus. And the secrets he’d revealed were disturbing. Thorne had listened to it all from within the confines of his wolf form. Somehow, being on four paws made the truth easier to handle.

  He couldn’t see the Order staying out of it now. Not when the threat to the integrity of the Well was so glaringly obvious.

  This was war.

  And other secrets were revealed. About Thorne’s mother. How she’d been paid by Thaddeus. It wasn’t as though he’d thought his parents loved each other, but the truth had cast the situation into new light. How could he be angry at Rush for the part he played?