Wolves of the West: The Hunt Book 3

My dress was a whisper behind me as I explored the vast château. It was constructed with rich, dark wood and gold detailing, aging the house in a way that romanticized it.

Each room was outfitted with a fireplace and an expanse of windows offering a breathtaking view of the mountain and valley below.

So far I had glimpsed exquisite gardens and greenrooms, bathrooms larger than my living room at home, and entire spaces dedicated to the display of collectibles and art.

The sweeping bookcases touched the high ceilings, and there was a room outfitted with a marble floor that I was sure was meant to hold dancers and musicians.

The latter room had sat empty for a long time, that much was clear from the layer of dust on the music stands and the dullness of the elaborate floor.

It was silent, eerily so in a space that was created for sound and joy.

I walked through the halls once again, wondering how large the estate was and beginning to doubt more and more that it ever came to an end at all.

I eyed each and every door, trying to guess what lay behind it.

I pushed open a heavy door and breezed into the large room, empty save for a piano that sat in the sunlight.

I caressed the instrument, remembering the old keyboard my mother played for years when I was a child. She would’ve loved a piano as grand as this one.

The bench was hard underneath me as I sat and lifted the cover from the keys. I eyed the instrument, suddenly finding it daunting as I sat before it.

I lifted my finger and struck one note, enjoying how it bounced off the walls and became richer the longer the air held it.

“Can you play?”

I jumped, nearly slamming the cover on my fingers as I brought it over the keys. “Sorry,” I said to Felix, “I didn’t mean to intrude or—”

He waved me off, taking a few steps into the grand room. “It’s fine,” he said with a clipped smile. “It has been a long time since this room had an occupant.”

“It seems like it’s been a long time since you’ve been here,” I said. “Half the rooms are covered in dust.”

His dark eyes glowed as he stood at the piano, a hand resting on it. “You’ve been exploring?”

I blushed. “I find it difficult to leave doors closed.”

Felix swept his hand over the piano as I had. “I’ve spent the better part of the last century Under the Wheel,” he confessed. “I felt unable to leave as Mayme began to abuse her power more and more.

“I wasn’t sure I could trust the other Council members to rein her in if I were absent.” He took a deep breath, eyes simmering in the late afternoon sun. “I forgot how much I love it here.”

I had never heard him speak like this, of things he loved or wanted or missed. It only made me realize that I knew nothing of the ruler, nothing of his character besides what I had decided for myself.

“We’ll change that,” I promised.

His smile was fleeting as he sat beside me on the bench, his shoulder just grazing mine.

He lifted the cover on the keys and rested his fingers on the instrument, introducing a mournful melody slowly and methodically.

“Morda,” he murmured, “reminds me of the Italian morta. Did your mother mean to name you after death?”

I frowned as he started to play in earnest, weaving a song of sadness and grief. “I never asked,” I told him.

Felix smiled, his fangs slipping past his lips. “I wasn’t always this way,” he murmured.

“I was once young and full of life. I was human and hopeful before I was bitten. Before I died and was unable to feel the sun’s light, unable to feel life.”

“Do you wish you had never become a vampire?”

He shivered as the word left my lips. “I wish for many things,” he said, eyes lingering on my face. “Many things that I cannot have.”

My lips parted. “Felix…”

“I won’t lie to you, Morda,” he rumbled, eyes drifting to the keys once more. “I desire you. I feel a kinship in you, a call in your blood, which runs as hot as fire.

“I know you would make an excellent partner, an excellent vampire if you ever wish to escape the confines of your life as it is.”

I was stunned. “F-Felix, I—”

“Have the wolves,” he murmured, a tiny smile lifting his mouth. The song switched keys, became lower. “I know.”

I recalled now how the Vampire King had looked at me when I entered the ball, adorned in his color of choice. I remember his simmering gaze, the playful wink, the smile that had sent chills down my spine.

At the time, I thought it had been the look shared between two people in conspiracy; now I knew better.

I slipped into the memory.

His nose skimmed the column of my throat as he pulled me back up slowly. When I opened my eyes, my heart was thrumming, and Felix was dangerously close.

“You would have made a lovely vampire,” he mused, “your blood—it burns.”

~“Red suits you.” That’s what he had whispered in my ear.

“I am thankful for your aid,” I said carefully, now aware of how close we were. “But I have Grant and Ben—I have my mate. I’m sure life with you—” I drew in a breath.

“I’m sure I would want for nothing, but I cannot be yours when I belong with someone else.”

Felix smiled, a tiny spark of pain in his eyes. “I knew this.”

“I’m flattered,” I blurted.

Felix chuckled lightly, his fingers still ghosting over the keys. “Oh, Morda,” he purred, “if only you realized how very desirable you are, you would not be so shocked when a man made you an offer.”

I kissed his cheek as he ended his song. “Thank you, Felix, for everything you’ve given me so far and for the future we will create together.”

His answering smile was a wince. “You are welcome, Morda.”

“What will you do about the vampires who are still Under the Wheel?” I asked him, touching a few of the keys and smiling at their resounding notes.

Felix frowned. “Dellare and I discussed this last night. We need to strike a bargain with Mayme until the challenge—we cannot have our people hurt in this mess.

“When the King of Wolves meets with the High Matron, we will attend and try to come to a resolution.”

“What if she won’t accept peace?”

“If no such resolution is possible, then we will offer sanctuary to our people here—I will fight for their freedom.”

I nodded gravely, noting his dedication to his people. It was what would soon be expected of me. “Play another.” He obliged.

The Vampire King escorted me through his grand estate, offering tiny pieces of history as we explored. It was clear as we went through the tour that Felix was passionate about his home.

He told me stories of the lords and ladies he had entertained, the parties he’d thrown, the emissaries he’d slain.

It was this passion that reassured me I had chosen the right ally. It was his attention to detail and sharpness that convinced me we would win, and we would rewrite the rules to be more fair, more just.

It was his unbridled honesty that told me I could trust him.

“This is the next door you should enter,” Felix said quietly, coming to a halt.

I raised an eyebrow. “What’s here?” I asked. “An aquarium? The kitchens? Your coffin?”

Felix didn’t smile. “It’s a guest room,” he informed me. “The one Benjamin is occupying.”

My stomach dropped as I looked to the door. “I’d rather the coffin.”

“Good luck,” Felix said before he dipped his head and disappeared.

I turned to the door, suddenly not able to gather enough air into my lungs in the snug corset. I lifted my fist to the door and rapped quickly before I lost my nerve.

“Ben?” I called. There was no answer, so I placed my hand on the knob and twisted, laying my other hand on the door as I entered slowly.

His room was in a state of chaos. The bed was disheveled, blankets and pillows strewn everywhere. Platters of food were left untouched on the ground, and clothes had been shredded and thrown.

He had even smashed a vase of flowers and left the glass shards untouched on the carpet.

“Ben?” I called, searching the room for him.

He was slumped in a far corner, his shoulders rotated inward as he cradled his hands to his chest, his back to me.

I approached slowly, taking in the state of his dark hair and the writhing muscles visible in his bare back.

Ben grunted in pain as he doubled over. “Get out.”

“Ben?” I sucked in a breath at the smell that hit me next. “What’s wrong?”

He turned his head a fraction, enough for me to glimpse a golden eye and the sweat that beaded across his forehead. There was something seriously wrong with him. He flinched away when I came closer.

“Leave,” he commanded through clenched teeth.

“Let me help,” I begged, coming to my knees behind him.

“Get the fuck out,” he yelled shrilly, panting afterward as a wave of exhaustion hit him.

I recoiled faster than if he had burned me. “Ben…”

He snarled, turning his face again to fix me with a glare. “What the hell do you want, Morda?” he snapped.

“What do you want from me now? Have you come to rip the rest of my heart out? Will you not stop until it stops beating in your hands?”

Any defense turned to ash in my mouth. I had left him, I had let him be taken from me at the ball, and I hadn’t seen him again until I dreamed of Ditra torturing him.

I had done nothing to intervene, nothing until I retrieved him from that awful cell.

“Ben, I don’t—” My voice broke, and I paused. “I want to help you.”

“I know what you think of me,” he said bitterly, sweat flattening his hair to his head. “I know that I disgust you.” His voice was guttural and savage as though he had gargled with coal. “Don’t pretend.”

I was jarred. “You don’t disgust me. Where did you—why would you think that?”

He turned a little more, and I noticed the blood that streaked down his bare chest. His teeth slammed together as a ripple coursed through his body, prodding each muscle into a fury of twitches.

A growl slipped past those clenched teeth.

I remembered what he had said before, about needing to travel urgently.

“Ben, are you changing?”

He shook his head furiously. “Get away from me,” he ordered. “I can’t stand the sight of you.”

Guilt rolled through me as I remembered this morning, remembered kissing Grant and the pain that had cut through Ben’s mark. I had added to his suffering.

“Ben,” I said firmly, placing my hand on his shoulder, “let me—”

He jumped so violently that his entire body shook, turning without his consent.

I saw it then, saw his mangled hands. They were stuck somewhere between human and wolf, bones sticking out of his skin, which was coated with congealed blood and a fine layer of fur.

Ben yelped and cried, his entire body covered in sweat as he cradled his horrific hands to his chest. I watched as nails started to push out of the ruined skin for them to suddenly retract.

The tang of vomit filled the air as Ben doubled over and heaved.

“Fuck,” I cursed, my own stomach roiling.

“I repulse you,” he murmured, spit falling from his mouth as he shook with pain. I wanted to wipe it for him, wanted to cradle him in my arms if he’d let me.

Tears welled up in his eyes and poured over. “I’m a monster.”

I steeled myself, guarded my stomach. “Let me help,” I ordered quietly. Those tawny eyes met mine, and I could only see the scared animal, the wounded predator wary of any kind hand.

“You hate me,” he whispered, holding out his contorted hands. “You hate me.”

I took his hands gently in my own, my skin crawling as I looked at them, at the flashes of white bone beneath the frayed skin and gore. “I love you,” I told him. “You do not disgust me.”

He shook his head. “I know you hate me,” he said with a cough. “No one could love me; no one could love this.”

I understood then, understood what had been done to him at the hands of Ditra.

When he had not betrayed me, she had convinced him that I didn’t love him, convinced him that he had imagined the love between us. But still, he had not betrayed me—even when he was sure I hated him.

My own eyes filled with tears. “She was lying,” I told him, watching his hands squirm as the muscles tensed and wriggled.

Ben snarled, spit flying from his mouth as he endured the pain. “I tasted your hate,” he growled. “I was suffocated by it.”

“No—Ben—”

He looked me dead in the eye. “You’re heartless.”

He was right. I was heartless. I gave him my love when it belonged to someone else. I berated my mother for her love and support.

I had let those I cared about endure unimaginable suffering because it had been my most convenient option. I had condemned my father to a life in a dark prison. I had failed my mother.

“Shh,” I hushed him, my throat swollen. “Rest.”

A whimper and a growl.

Ben suddenly withdrew his hands and slumped back to his original position, shuddering against the wall as his growls became deeper, the vibrato on them more animalistic.

I realized with a terrible jolt that it was his face that was changing.

He screamed—a haunting mixture of human and animal suffering.

“I can help,” I repeated feebly, knowing I couldn’t. “Let me—”

“Get out!” he bellowed, his cheekbones pushing forward and his teeth elongating.

I felt hands on my shoulders and jumped as Grant grabbed me and hauled me up and backward. I spun to face him, my eyes wide with panic and horror as he held on to me.

Grant placed me behind him and approached Ben, his eyes widening when he glimpsed his face.

Ben snarled and lunged, his mangled hands reaching for Grant. “Get out of here,” he ordered, his voice full of gravel. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

Grant turned to face me, shaking his head slightly. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth. “Okay,” I said shakily, “we’ll leave.”

Ben’s shoulders shuddered in relief as Grant and I withdrew, Grant taking my hand as he shut the door behind us.

Grant hurried us down the hall, his arm encircling my shoulders as he directed us to the safety of our room.

I collapsed against him once inside, my body shaking with the horror of what I had just encountered.

It struck me to see Ben suffer—to hear those words come from his mouth and to see them reaffirmed in his eyes.

“I’ve never…” Grant shut his eyes and dragged his hands through his hair. “Damn.”

“She made him hate me,” I blubbered. “You should have heard what he said to me.”

“I did,” he admitted, “parts.”

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “I’m going to kill her, strangle her with my bare fucking hands—”

Grant held my wrists and kissed my forehead. “I’d like to volunteer my assistance in that particular task.”

“I was so fucking stupid for thinking I wasn’t hurting him,” I said, anger coming to a boil in my veins.

“I was so dumb for thinking it would hurt him less if I loved him for a while—gave him a tiny piece of time before I ripped it all away. It only hurts more.”

“You were trying to spare his heart,” Grant murmured, caressing my hair. “You were trying to protect him, give him love he never thought he’d feel.”

“It’s not fair,” I seethed, growing frustrated as tears blurred my eyes.

I was so fucking sick of crying—so tired of feeling bested at every turn. So tired of making mistakes and hurting people and causing suffering.

Tired enough that exile seemed preferable.

“It’s okay,” Grant reassured me calmly, rubbing the tops of my arms.

I pulled away from him and shivered. The tears receded, and I was left feeling hollow and worn out, my emotions stretched too thin over the last few days.

I went to the bathroom and sat on the floor for a long while before I mustered the strength to draw a bath and strip from my elaborate dress.

I didn’t look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t want to see the mess I’d let myself become.

I gripped the sides of the marble tub as I lowered myself into the scalding water slowly, my pale skin flushed red.

A hiss cut through my teeth as I submerged my shoulders, my hair floating on the surface of the water in every direction.

Memories rose from the water, exposing themselves as the water sprites had that day I almost drowned in the flaming river, the day Ben had saved my life.

I pushed them away, except for the memory of Ditra using her power to almost drown me in a tub that was much the same.

I floated on the surface of the water, closing my eyes and letting water fill in their sockets. I took quick breaths through my nose, letting the hot water nip into my skin and soak my heavy hair.

I scrubbed next, working on each part of my body until my skin was flaring red and singing. The rough cloth felt good against my skin, the rising suds satisfying as I made sure I was clean.

I pushed past the sting in my skin as a sort of punishment.

I scrubbed harder as I remembered the blood that fell from the sky, coated my skin, and soaked my hair.

I scrubbed harder as I thought of the flaming Daemon Hunters, of the look on Mayme’s face when I challenged her for High Matron.

I scrubbed harder when I thought of Dane, felt the weight of his body on mine as he attempted to take what wasn’t his, attempted to violate what I held sacred.

I scrubbed and scrubbed when I thought of his breath on my neck, his hands on my bare skin.

I scrubbed when I thought of Janus—the two-sided creature who could see both past and present. Scrubbed when I thought of the bargain we had made, exchanging Grant’s life for my father’s.

My skin broke as I scrubbed, thinking of my mother lying dead on her bed, surrounded by a mournful clan that now belonged to me.

Tiny bubbles of blood burst as I gritted my teeth, remembering her unyielding chest as I tried to beat life back into her body.

“Morda,” Grant called softly, grabbing my hand and extracting the bloody cloth from my clenched fingers.

He turned around and grabbed a towel, his face carved into a mask of sorrow as he helped me from the tub, holding tighter when he saw the shake in my knees.

He wrapped my dripping body in the towel and held me to him while he pulled the water from my hair and kissed my head. I stared past him at my own eyes reflected in the large mirror.

I didn’t know that woman, had never seen her before.

“Come,” he beckoned quietly, guiding me out of the steam-filled bathroom to the couch where he had lit a fire.

He hesitated by the couch, looking toward the closet across the room where it loomed in darkness, the fire’s light too far to reach it.

I watched the muscle in his jaw jump before he squeezed his hands into fists and forced himself forward.

Grant returned in an instant, holding a nightgown in his hand.

He helped me dress, nothing but care and love in his touch as he took care with the skin I had scrubbed raw, helping me find my balance as I swayed and shook.

His hands caught in my wet, tangled hair as he pushed it away from my face, letting it hang down my back. I closed my eyes as I faced the fire, letting it warm my face and dry my hair.

A blanket was thrown over me as Grant sat down, his pale eyes watching me worriedly.

I wanted to say something to reassure him, to convince him that I was okay, but I didn’t have it in me to lie anymore. He’d know anyway.

“I lived a lot of my early life as an omega,” he whispered to me, one arm draped around me as he gazed into the fire. “Sometimes when wolves are abandoned, older ones will take them in.

“No one did that for me. I was raised communally by the pack, which means I was barely raised at all. I was an orphaned pup, and I was punished for it.”

I could see it as I looked into the fire, see Grant as a young boy in the flames. I saw him get turned down by every adult when he searched for love, for acceptance. I saw his pain.

“Until I shifted,” he mused, “then things changed. I was no longer an omega, no longer unwanted.

“Suddenly, every wolf wanted to lay claim to me, wanted to pretend that they were my caretaker, that they were responsible for me. I showed them the same kindness they showed me.”

He sucked in a long breath.

“I went off to find the White Wolves, hoping that they would be the pack I belonged to—that they would show me the love I’d been searching for my entire life. They were not.

“I clashed with the alpha, endured teasing from the elder members. Turns out, I didn’t even fit in with the Pura Lupus despite there only being a handful of us in existence.”

Grant cleared his throat.

“I thought I would belong with Dane and his pack of bounty hunters,” he mused, making me stiffen.

“I thought I belonged among the most brutal of our kind—the most unforgiving. I was wrong—I didn’t belong with them either.”

His arm tightened around me.

“Who knew that I would fit in with someone who wasn’t like me at all? That I would find home in a woman who was neither a wolf nor a Pura Lupus but a witch.

“Who knew that everything I had been yearning for my entire life would be in one person?”

My stomach tightened.

“I love you, Morda, every part of you. The part of you that makes me smile and laugh, the part of you that makes me rage and rant, the part of you that does this to your skin…

“The part that thinks you are unworthy of kindness and love.” I watched him run his fingers over the broken skin on my arm.

“I love the part of you that loves him, and I will love you while you mourn for him, will love you while you wonder if it is him you should have chosen.

“I will love you while you heal, Morda, while you hurt, and while you feel as though you don’t love me.” He kissed my hand.

“I will love you until my very last breath, witch, until no one remembers me and it is as if I never existed at all.”

I fell asleep, soothed by that love and the roar of the fire, and he remained at my side, steadfast as my protector—as my mate—until dawn broke and the sun chased all the shadows from the room.

We packed and ate in silence, breakfast coming to our door along with a note from Felix that Ben was ready to travel.

We packed as lightly as we could. Felix had sent a servant out to buy me clothes that would pass in this century.

I looked to Grant, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, and offered him a tiny smile and my outstretched hand.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and returned my smile while grasping my hand in his own, giving it a quick squeeze.

“Let’s go find your great-grandmother.”