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Ezra and Bonnie’s blood-stained bodies will haunt me until the day I die.
Even staring at the graves Merrick and Peter dug for them, the soft mounds of dirt freshly disturbed, all I can see are their headless corpses lying on the green grass at my feet. My eyes are dry, anger overwhelming my grief. When I finally have my vengeance, there’s no telling how long I’ll be broken.
But as of right now, the king’s message will not be ignored. Only, the response he’s hoping for is not the one he will get. He wants me to cower at his feet. To offer up my firstborn and obey every one of his orders.
I’ll die before I let that bastard have anything he wants.
“Here.” Lea sniffles and lays a bundle of lavender on the top of each grave. Then, she turns to me and rushes over, carefully wrapping both arms around my body. “I am so sorry, Kiya.”
“Thanks.” I wince, the lashings I received from the king still fresh on my back. Lashings I received less than a day before he delivered the bodies of my only remaining family to my home.
After my mother died and I was taken to the castle at fourteen, Bonnie and Ezra were the only ones who were kind to me. They treated me like the child they were unable to have. Honestly, they are likely the only reason I survived in that hellish life the king set out for me when he plucked me from the streets.
They were the only people who treated me like a human being rather than a pawn to be used if it meant winning the game.
I ball my hands into fists and close my eyes, trying my best to reign in my anger. Fury burns hot in my veins. It mixes with my grief until all I can think of is driving a blade through the king’s cold, black heart.
I’d wanted to overthrow him to protect these lands and myself.
But now? Now I just want to fucking kill him. Even if it means I die too.
“Kiya?” A hand goes to my lower back, just below my injuries, so I look up into my husband’s bright golden gaze. His black hair is threaded with white and has been pulled to the nape of his neck, the massive scar over his eye putting his features at war with the soft expression he’s giving me.
“Yes?”
“Are you alright?”
“No,” I reply. “Not even a little bit.”
Ferris, Merrick’s uncle and the man who married us, crosses over and gently squeezes my shoulder. He’d presided over the funeral, saying kind words about two people he’d never met. “I am so very sorry for your loss, Beta,” he offers. “We will do whatever we can to bring you peace.”
“The king’s death is the only thing that will bring me peace now,” I reply.
Ferris’s wife, Faera, takes a step forward to stand beside him. “Then that is what we will get you.”
A massive white wolf—Merrick’s brother, Maynard, in animal form—rubs his snout against my hand. I rub the top of his head as he whimpers. Then, I force a smile, not just for his sake, but for Merrick’s other
brothers, Maverick, Myke, Madox, and Maxwell as well. Even for Lark, who’s kept her distance but watches intensely. “Thank you,” I whisper, knowing Maynard is offering me the support of his family also.
“And thank both of you,” I tell Ferris and Faera. Then, I note the fading sun. I want to remain out here where I can feel somewhat close to the only people in the world who actually cared for me. Even as I know they’re no longer there. Bodies are merely shells for our souls, and with any luck, Ezra and Bonnie’s souls are finally at peace. “We should go inside, get you ready,” I say, tipping my face back up to Merrick.
His expression darkens, concern flitting over his features. He’s worried about me, worried that I might do something irrational like try to run away again. Yet, what he doesn’t seem to realize is that I am firmly rooted here. Where I once feared this place, the Shadow Lands are my home. My peace in the chaos that has become my life. “Yes, I suppose we shall.”
“Thanks again,” I tell everyone then turn toward the house. Each step echoes through my mind despite being near soundless. How am I supposed to move on when this is all over? They were supposed to be here with me. Alive. Bonnie was supposed to hold my children. She was supposed to fuss over them like they were her blood grandchildren.
Tears well in my eyes, so I furiously blink them away.
Ezra was supposed to be here. Supposed to be getting to know my new husband.
Merrick tucks me against his hard body as he guides me toward the house. Behind us, the wolves linger, and I’m more than grateful for the privacy as the first of my tears slip from my eyes. We take the stairs slowly. Then, Merrick closes the door of our bedroom softly and guides me toward the bed. I sit, chest hollow, eyes empty.
He kneels at my feet, and our height difference puts us at eye level. So close I can make out the green flecks within the gold. “I can sense your pain, Beta, and it is killing me.” His large hands cup my cheeks. “I want to bring you his head on a fucking platter. Let me do that for you. Let me kill him tonight.”
My mate is pleading with me, begging me to allow him to enact vengeance. Part of me wants to let him do it. Just get it over with so I can move on and grieve. But even if I believed he could be successful—that going after the king won’t lead to me losing him as well, there’s another part
part of me, pieces that I didn’t even know existed until Merrick woke them, that wants to see the life fade from the king’s eyes when I drive a blade into his chest.
“I want to kill him,” I say. “I want the bastard to look into my eyes as I steal his life, his throne, his future,” I reply. My voice is completely unrecognizable to me, the layer of fury something I am not accustomed to. Never, in my entire life, have I ever felt so murderous.
Merrick studies me. I’m expecting him to tell me that it is not my place. That he will be the one to wield the sword. Instead, he presses his lips to my forehead and nods. “We will get you your vengeance, mate. You have my word.”
“Thank you.”
“I wish I could stay with you.” Still cupping my cheeks, Merrick rests his forehead against mine. “In any attempt at all to bring you some comfort tonight.”
“I do, too.” Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pull him closer and breathe in the familiar scents of leather and lavender. For so long, I lived under the thumb of King Julius, a man whose father stole the crown by slaughtering the previous king in his bed.
Julius abducted me from the streets and forced me to replace the daughter he’d lost, yet treated me as though I were nothing more than a stray animal he brought in from the cold. I was beaten, molested by his nephew, and convinced my only purpose was to marry and forge an alliance for him when the time came.
Little did he know that my new husband would hate him even more than I do.
“We need to tend to your wounds,” Merrick tells me as he gets to his feet and gestures to a bowl of steaming water and clean cloths Lea must have brought up before we came in. I swear that woman must have a magic all her own. “Before the beast makes his return tonight.”
“I suppose having them fester would be the last thing we need right now.” Sniffling, I stand and turn my back to Merrick.
His fingers gently tug at the laces of my dress. Then, he slides the gown over my shoulders and lets it fall to my waist. I fold my arms over my breasts before reaching back and pulling my dark hair away from my shoulders.
“Seeing these makes
it difficult to honor my vow and let you kill the fucker.”
Water trickles from the cloth as Merrick squeezes it out. He presses it against my back, and I bite down on the inside of my cheeks to keep from crying out. There I remain as Merrick continues washing my injuries and then applies a salve Lea makes from flowers grown in their gardens.
“Done.” He pulls the sleeves of my shift back up over my shoulders then turns me to face him. “Are you all right?”
“Physically, yes,” I tell him truthfully.
Merrick cups my face once more and presses his lips to mine. “You are the strongest woman I have ever met.”
“I don’t feel strong,” I whisper as I lose my battle with the grief. Tears stream down my cheeks. I drop my chin, wanting to hide them, but Merrick’s strong fingers grip my chin, and he raises it again.
“Do not turn away from me in your grief, Beta.”
“I’m not ready to cry.”
“We don’t often get to decide that.”
He wraps his arms around me carefully and pulls me against his hard chest. I breathe him in as I cry, shoulders shaking with sobs I’ve managed to keep contained. All the while, he strokes my back, whispering promises of vengeance in my ear.
Promises of violence.
Blood.
Death.
Minutes tick by as we stand this way, wrapped in each other until, finally, I’m able to pull back and wipe my eyes. Throat raw, I look up. Merrick snakes a hand around the back of my neck and pulls me in so he can press a kiss to the top of my head.
“I love you, Beta.”
Love. I look up, eyes still blurry from my tears, and into his bright gaze. “I love you too.”
It’s the first time those three words have been spoken between us, and the realization that this man I’d been determined to keep my heart from so entirely captured it hits home.
Merrick smirks. “I suppose that is a good thing given that you’re stuck with me.”
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
He tilts my face up and captures my lips with his. The kiss starts tender, but my need is far greater than I anticipated. I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck, deepening the kiss. It turns feverish, bruising, a distraction from my broken heart. Thankfully, Merrick does
not pull away. Instead, he threads his fingers through my hair and gives back as much furious passion as I offer him.
He lifts me with ease, lays me back against the mattress, and climbs on top of me, pinning me to it with his massive body. We steal these moments, in the twilight of dusk, before Merrick’s beast takes over and I lose him until morning.
While his beast will slaughter anyone it crosses paths with, it remains protective over me. So beside me, he will remain. Even as I rest the best way I can.
With a final, bruising kiss, he pulls away and presses another to my forehead. “I long for nights where I don’t have to become something else entirely. When I can lie with you pressed against me.”
“I do, too,” I reply. Truth is, having his arms around me is something I could really use right now. Exhaustion settles in my bones, so I pull back and lie down on the mattress, curling in on myself.
Merrick reaches down and pulls up a blanket that’s been folded at the end of the bed. Then, he lies down behind me, settling his body against mine. “Until I begin to change, my love,” he whispers and presses his lips to my neck before lying against the pillow.
His arm drapes over my waist, and I close my eyes.
One day, I will grieve.
Cry.
Scream.
But not until the king is dead.
I’m out of the bed, blade in hand, before the tray even hits the floor.
It crashes the instant my steel dagger presses to the tender throat of the shadow hovering over the bed. Heart hammering, it takes me a moment to completely pull myself out of sleep, something that is rather rare given I haven’t actually slept in over a hundred years—at least, not as a man.
“Merrick!” Kiya shoots up out of bed, her nerves assaulting my senses and adding to my own. “What—”
“Son,” my mother whispers. I barely hear her, though, shock and realization hitting home. I’m still a man. And it’s dark.
“You didn’t change,” she whispers then raises the candle in her hand so it clearly illuminates her face. A human face I have only seen through the eyes of my beast for the last century. The bloodlust is gone, though my resentment for what she’s forced me to become holds strong. “Why didn’t you change?” she questions, eyes wide.
“I do not understand,” I reply.
Behind me, Kiya presses her hand to my back. The feeling sends a calm washing over me, much as it has done since the first moment I felt her skin against mine. The woman is my tether to humanity.
“It’s your mother,” she reminds me.
Realizing I’m still holding a blade to my mother’s throat, I lower it.
“Why are you in here?” Kiya demands, tone annoyed. She despises my mother for what happened to me; that much has been clear from the moment I told her the truth behind my damnation.
“I brought you food,” my mother replies. Tone steady as always, the woman who raised me is far too distracted to be offended by my beloved’s underlying accusations.
“You brought food to me, knowing your son’s beast would be slumbering in the room with me?”
“His beast is calm around you,” she replies as though that answers the question. “We need to go downstairs. Your brothers—”
“Kiya needs me,” I reply even though the desire to see my brothers, to embrace them, is strong.
“Your mother is right,” Kiya says.
I turn to face her, searching her ethereal face for the pain I can feel radiating off of her. She’s heartbroken, grieving. The last thing she needs is to be surrounded by my family in what will surely end up being a happy moment between us.
Guilt crushes down. She’s hurting, and I am overjoyed that, for once in a hundred years, I am not the creature.
“Let’s go see them,” she says again, climbing off the bed to stand beside me and threading her delicate fingers through mine.
“You’re hurting.”
My insistence is met with a forced smile. “Aside from your beast trying to kill them, you haven’t seen your brothers as humans in a hundred years, Merrick. My pain is not going to go away just because you remain here. Truthfully, this distraction will be a welcome one.” Swallowing hard, I remain rooted where I am. My connection to her allows me to feel things that otherwise would have remained private. Through it, ...
