When Vala prowled towards me, I stiffened, but she only leaned closer. Her breath was hot against my ear, as her fingers played up and down my arm.
“Yeah, I’m not feeling your heartfelt speech, Wolf Witch,” she whispered, before continuing like a mantra or prayer, “By the light of the moon, I am the dead, we are the dead, and shall remain now and always dead.” When I flinched away, her fingers suddenly tightened around my elbow. “We Gods honor our fallen by becoming them and never forgetting. Let me help with our Forever Memory Cave.”
Aquilo leapt up, blocking Vala. “Don’t do this. The Charmer has risked everything she has to save your prince and her other Charms. That’s what I’ve witnessed, lowly mage as I may be.”
Vala growled, sinking her claws into Aquilo’s shoulder and dragging him aside. By her standards, that was being gentle.
When a miniature whirlwind surged on Aquilo’s palm, I shook my head at him, even if it bathed me in warmth that he desired to protect me.
I wasn’t in this kingdom to fight with the wolves but to try and find a new home with them as weird as that idea was. I didn’t know if they’d ever accept me, and it was looking even less likely every second. But until my pack were safe, I’d play along, which didn’t mean that I wouldn’t remember every time that Vala had made the guys that I loved hurt.
Vala shoved me in front of a low arch; the cave beyond lay in gloom. Then gleaming letters burst above my head:
REMEMBER ALWAYS.
Yep, this was going to suck.
When Vala pressed her body against mine; I could feel the rapid thudding of her heart. Her narrowed gaze burned me.
“If there’s a light side of the moon, then there’s also a dark,” she murmured, tucking one of my curls behind my ear. “You’re that dark.”
Then she hurled me through into the Forever Memory Cave on my knees. A stone slab slammed across the entranceway, trapping me inside with a bang.
I was alone in the earthy damp of the cave, and my stomach took that moment to growl.
Son of a leaky cauldron, could this day get any worse?
My eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, and I crawled forwards, feeling around the edges of the cave. The sides were gouged with deep claw marks like someone…or a lot of someones…had been tunneling to get out. Except, it wasn’t a neat tunnel, more like one dug in chaotic panic. Plus, whoever these wolves had been who’d been shut in here like me, they hadn’t succeeded in their escape because the shallow tunnels stopped.
I felt all around the cave, before glancing upward. Then I gasped in shock: the claw marks continued all the way almost to the cave’s ceiling.
Yep, this day could get worse.
I swallowed bile. How was this my great-grandmother’s legacy? What had happened in here to make the wolves so desperate that they’d clawed the walls?
My eyes pricked with tears at the thought of the shifters’ fear. As a kid, I’d hidden in the dark of the wardrobe and panted with terror of the monsters prowling outside, during my parents’ murder, and I’d dreamed of that night ever since. Then I remembered how my Charms and Moth had been raised knowing that they’d be sacrificed to me as Tribute, yet that they’d also been taught I was a monster.
I fell back on my ass, allowing the tears to fall down my cheeks because hey, there was no one to see me.
Moon had tried to tell me when I’d first chosen him, but I hadn’t understood then.
But I did now.
My princes had known that theirs was a noble sacrifice to save their kingdoms, whilst I was the dragon.
I’d been sketchy on even the basics when I’d become the Wolf Charmer, stumbling into centuries of hatred and war between the supernaturals. Each of my Charms, on the other hand, had lived for decades with the aftermath of the war and the knowledge of their kingdoms’ expectation: that they’d be Claimed by the great-granddaughter of the Crimson Terror.
I shuddered because it freaked even me out.
Yet if they’d had decades knowing that they’d be sacrificed, then did that also mean they’d had the same length of time to plan and scheme?
I’d caught glances between my Charms that I didn’t understand. I knew they wished to free the Omegas, but what else did they want? Both Stella and Zetta had warned that my Charms were controlling me and attempting to change me to become theirs.
Yet I was theirs, and if they had any schemes or plots, then I simply wanted in on them. There were monsters in both the witch and wolf worlds but they weren’t me. I longed to help my pack free their kingdoms.
Suddenly, a hologram flooded the chamber with light. I blinked, but then yelped, pressing my back to the wall. The hologram wolves were all around me…hundreds of them packed into the cave. Their howls shook me; I pressed my hands over my ears.
The wolves were naked, and boy, were they thin; their ribs showed through, whilst I thought that their legs would snap if I even looked at them the wrong way. They scrambled on top of each other, scratching at the walls with their filthy claws — okay, so that explained the marks — in futile attempts to tunnel out. They clambered on top of their fallen friends to scratch at the higher earth.
I shrieked, as a hologram Omega swiped its claw through me at the wall behind.
How long had they been shut in here?
My stomach clenched, as dizziness rushed through me. Lightheaded, I wrenched at my hair like pulling out the curly strands would stop the truth whirling through my head.
She wouldn’t…even my great-grandmother couldn’t…the asshole, dickhead, son of a bitch…
When an Omega started to howl, the other wolves joined in. It was eerie, beautiful, and freaking wrecked me…because it was the howling of the dead.
Zetta had shown me back in the House of Silver how the Omegas had been made to kneel by the river Thames. Then how my great-grandmother had chosen her harem in the first Claiming from the kneeling and frightened Omegas.
Yet I hadn’t thought about what had happened to the Omegas and Betas who she hadn’t Chosen.
A small number must’ve been allowed to return to their kingdoms. But the rest…
I clenched my teeth to stop their chattering as I forced myself to watch the wolves who’d died down here in the dark, frantically clawing to escape and starving without moonlight, just like Moon had in his REJECT cell.
My great-grandmother had done that, and mom had known about it. No wonder my uncle had hated seeing my powers and had raised me as non-magical.
Yet my shadows wept within me as equally distressed by the wolves’ pain as me; they were mine and as innocent of these killings, as I was.
I knew now why Aquilo had puked when he’d been faced with the bones and stuffed wolves in the Museum of Death, which were a memorial to those who’d died inside this cave.
My crimson shadows wouldn’t be The Terror. It wasn’t like I’d be a hero in any war either, since I sucked at even my martial arts. But I would make this cycle of death stop.
I’d already exorcised the ghosts that haunted my own past, now I had to find a way to help the Gods exorcise their own. By living on the ground where their families had died, they’d become the dead themselves. And that wasn’t healthy, right? It wasn’t like I thought that they should forget, but the problem was that they couldn’t forgive, whilst they were still suffering and dying. It had to be their own choice. But until they were free of the collars, Tributes, and centers — the whole Treaty that had followed the Wolf War and oppressed them — how could they forgive or build a fresh future?
Honestly, Vala and Banan’s grief and rage combined was more dangerous than I’d even realized because it wasn’t based on the loss of a single son but on hundreds. Jesus, maybe thousands.
Who could say it wasn’t righteous?
I was the Wolf Witch, however, and it was time that everybody stopped living in the past.
Righteous didn’t make something right.
I forced myself to my feet, billowing out my shadows. The wolves’ howle
d louder, before falling on top of me to scrabble at the walls. I screamed as I was buried beneath the dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I scratched my nails until they bled against the stone slab of the Forever Memory Cave, desperate to escape the howling holograms, like I’d rubbed my wrists raw in the Beta Apprentices’ tent in the Wilds. Except, when I’d first been thrown to the wolves, my Beta guards had been a sinfully hot harem with Amadeus as their wicked but pampered prince.
They’d danced, screwed, and laughed…wildly alive…whereas the wolves all around me reeked with death.
Only Pretty Betas, the painted sign had promised.
I shivered because what if the sign was both simply the truth but also a warning that only the pretty Betas had survived…and would survive…?
What sort of messed-up world had my great-grandmother created in this Wolf Kingdom, where the lesson that she’d taught had been that Only Perfect Omegas and Only Pretty Betas would be tolerated?
I’d already had a taste of the Omega and Re-education Centers that trained (which is asshole speak for brainwashed), Omegas into being perfect.
When I’d first chosen Moon and brought him back to the House of Silver, he’d been resigned to me starving him, simply because I hadn’t known that he fed on moonlight.
And now I knew why.
Amadeus had been chosen by Queen Banan to be Claimed by me because he was the prettiest Beta in his kingdom. But I already knew that his image of pampered prince was a lie: I’d traced the silvered scars webbing his back.
What would happen if he revealed that he was far more than simply pretty?
Around me, the Omegas and Betas from a hundred years before died. Yet my pulse pounded too loudly in my ears because I was certain that Vala hadn’t shown me these visions merely to punish me.
I’d learned the lesson well with the Oxford covens that everything was a pretext, and I had the serious suspicion that this was Vala’s justification for a second war, which would slaughter both witches and the new generation of perfect, pretty, innocent, and beautifully alive wolves.
I slammed my fist against the door again; my throat ached from screaming. My shadows flooded out in crashing waves, drowning the caves and its ghost wolves in crimson.
Suddenly, the slab slid open, and Amadeus slipped inside along with a low hum of music. I stumbled backwards, as he hushed me, clasping his gloved hand in mine and glancing anxiously through the gap back into the Museum of Death outside.
He held me back like he was watching for something.
I clung onto his hand, as if his touch would save me or could freaking absolve me. When my tremors shook through him, he raised his surprised gaze to mine. Then his expression became soft with concern, and he squeezed my fingers.
Holy hell, these were the times that Okami would’ve wound around me, but he was with Moon, and I didn’t even know where either of them were. I needed his touch and to feel something blossoming inside me, instead of the numbing guilt.
“Kiss me,” I commanded.
Amadeus’ eyes lit up, hungrily. Then he caged me against the slab, slamming my hands above my head.
Woah, he was more powerful than he looked.
When Amadeus pushed his thigh between mine, his dick hardened against my leg. My red twitched, before it wove around him, caressing his sides. Then his lips were on mine, insistent and savage, as if he could sense my need and was responding to it. Yet the way that his hard-on tented in his tights, he needed it in just the same way. When his tongue darted to swipe at mine, it tasted of sweet chocolate.
I lost myself then: in Amadeus’ kiss. His body, touch, and taste banished the death, death, death all around us. I kissed him hard enough to bring myself to life again because I felt like I’d spent a decade shrouded in death, just like the ghostly wolves that scrabbled at the walls all around us and the entire Kingdom of the Gods had spent a hundred years…and something had to free us all.
It hit me like a hex: my Charms were my life now, and I’d do anything to save the wolves. Maybe being a Wolf Witch meant sacrificing for the shifters just as Mischief had.
I’d die for them, and wasn’t that the ultimate rebellion against witch tradition…?
Amadeus moaned, as I bit at his lower lip. Who knew that the stroke of Amadeus’ tongue, which I caught between my own and sucked, would be what brought me fully to life?
Amadeus would be a smug…but sinfully hot…asshole now. And I couldn’t help the way that I imagined Moon kissing me just like this.
Please…please…let Moon kiss me soon…
When I panted, Amadeus whined. His gasps were swallowed by our kiss. My shadows coiled around him, driving his pleasure higher. I bunched my hands in his top, reveling in his captivating beauty and the desire that glittered in his ruby eyes.
When his incubus side was fed, he looked deadly.
Finally, I reluctantly pulled back, and he cupped my cheek. I was surprised to see the wetness on the tip of his gloved thumb, when he wiped underneath my eye.
Wait, I was crying…?
I pressed a quick kiss to his thumb in thanks, because sexy times was one thing, but tenderness he hadn’t been trained for: that was all him.
My heart clenched at the love in his gaze, which I knew was reflected in my own. This wasn’t all about seduction and simply pleasing me because of his nature and role, right?
Hadn’t Vala been furious that he’d broken his mission with me by falling in love?
I examined the open fragility and wonder in his look. “How don’t you hate me?” I murmured. “I’m the freaking Wolf Charmer.”
“I have WCH branded on my sexy behind, see. As your property, it’s a not like I can forget who you are.”
I caught Amadeus’ hand, before he could pull down his pants to show off the brand.
Why had those words hurt so much since they were true? After all, I imagined that it’d hurt way more when I’d scorched my name onto his ass.
“If you could stop feeling yourself up for one second…” When Amadeus caught a snicker in his palm, I stroked through his hair, “…I meant—”
“I’m not daft because I’m pretty; I know what you meant.” Amadeus’ eyes were as sharp in the dark, as his voice was steely. “You’re not some ancient Wolf Charmer. You’re Crimson. I’m yours, and you’re mine. That’s all that matters.”
Amadeus might not have the chin tilt mastered yet like Moon but he was just as much a rebel. As a half incubus and under the possessive eye of his adopted sister, how dangerous would that be for him?
His sister…
My eyes widened, and I blanched. What had the princess been doing to Aquilo, whilst I’d been trapped in the cave? My crimson drew back inside, seething at the threat to my fiancé.
“Dude, we need to get Aquilo away from your asshole sister,” I demanded.
Amadeus wouldn’t meet my gaze. “He’s safe.”
I swallowed and nodded.
Amadeus pulled me back to the gap in the slab, peering out. Then he dropped to all-fours, nodding at me to do the same.
I rolled my eyes because I’d already been tied up and trapped and crawling didn’t do it for me, unless in kinky play and on floors that didn’t graze my knees.
Amadeus gave a slinky wriggle of his hips (yep, I was checking out his ass and he knew it), before crawling silently out of the Forever Memory Cave. I took a steadying breath, before I followed him.
I winced, as the bones in the museum dug into my palms and knees, flinching at each crunch. Yet the sound was muffled by the mesmerizing sultriness of Lana del Rey’s “Gods and Monsters”, which sang from speakers in the ghostly lit ceiling.
So, still with the irony.
Yet I hesitated because boy, was the filthy mouthed eroticism of the song not appropriate in a room built out of skulls, especially after I’d just been forced to relive the nightmares in the cave beyond.
What frog kissing freakiness was going on?
When Amadeus s
ensed that I wasn’t still crawling after him towards the door, he peered over his shoulder, and I caught the flash of guilt in his eyes.
Aquilo was safe, my witchy ass.
I edged closer to a stuffed wolf, peering through its legs.
Don’t let its fur touch me…not after knowing that it’d once died here.
I could only catch a glimpse of Aquilo’s black jeans and Vala’s shimmering dress. Frustrated, I forced myself to crawl on my elbows underneath the wolf, shuddering as its belly rubbed against my head. Amadeus’ huffed breath was hot against my ear, as he wriggled in next to me.
Then I clasped the bones beneath me in order to bite them into my palms and hold back the gasp.
Son of a thrice hexed witch…
Vala pinned Aquilo to the wall with her thigh hitched up in full femme fatale mode. Trust me, if there’d been a pole in the museum, she’d have been dancing around it. There was nothing petals-on-silk sheets about the way that she seduced Aquilo through the music. Instead, she swayed aggressively with her arms linked around his neck, bumping her hips against his. Except, I’d have bet anything that his dick wasn’t hard, unlike the way Amadeus’ had been. He looked more terrified than turned-on.
I still couldn’t help the cold churning my guts and the furious raging of my shadows at seeing him dirty dance with someone else. As a kid, I’d have washed my own mouth out for even suggesting that I’d have cared what my elitist bully did. But now, I shook with the thought of the princess’ hands touching his smooth skin, when all I wanted was to be the one who wrapped my arms around him and…okay, so dancing sexily to this music without standing on his toes was pushing it, but in my fantasy, he wouldn’t even care because it was me holding him.
I glared at Amadeus. “Son of a bitch… Safe…?”
Amadeus’ lips thinned. “By my hide, don’t you trust him? How do you think I could sneak in to you? I’ve never been naughty…except in play…before you, Charmer. You should trust the mage more because he’s bright, see. He’s the one who chose to distract my sister…like that.”
Only Pretty Betas: A Shifter Paranormal Romance Series (Rebel Werewolves Book 2) Page 24