The Darkest Wolves - A.K. Koonce Page 0,9

you.

It’s a calming sentiment.

Too bad Roman doesn’t let it last. He literally cannot promise you that. You’ll be lucky if you make it one day in this hell hole of a kingdom.

I fucking hate you, I whisper like a caress.

I know, he says right back.

With me in tow, he leaps. My heart free-falls as we descend into the warming feel of consuming magic.

And if I could have kicked that fur fucker in the balls just one second earlier, I would have.

When we shakily land in the depths of new darkness, I feel hands wrapped around my lower back. I can’t explain it as I stand on four furry legs, and yet, I’m held intimately against a strong protecting male.

Sorry, someone says within my mind in a gravelly, quiet tone. So quiet that I don’t immediately recognize it as Roman’s voice at all.

He’s awkward in this moment as the hold slips away with lingering fingertips against the skin I no longer see but still completely feel.

It’s—it’s whatever. Not a big deal, I tell him.

If I could cough out an uncomfortable sigh in this moment, I would.

Why is my heart pounding so hard?

Because you’re in hell, maybe? he answers my rambling in that cruel careless way I’d expect from him.

That’s better.

Our wolf shakes out its head, and we gaze around at the shadows. I see nothing, but I sense the two other wolves standing at our side. They’re silent, but in their silence, I feel more at ease from their nearness. Their power feels like my power. Their confidence is my own. And their comradery is something that surges in my heart like pumping blood rushing right through my veins.

This must be what it feels like to truly be a part of a pack.

I’ve never felt it in my entire life, but it feels so damn comforting it burns my eyes with wetness and causes my beast to release a long drawn out whine.

Stopppp. You’re making us look like pussies, Romey scolds.

My snark is right on the tip of my tongue, but the words crawl right back down my throat and hide in fear when a crisp white face snaps into color among the blackness.

What. The. Unholy. Fuck.

“Who’s your friend, boys?” The bone white face asks, her lips the color of ebony and her teeth rotting among the darkness of her tongue.

“Creatchin, I see you’re taking advantage of the wards being down.” Zilo pauses for only a second, and when she doesn’t answer, he continues. “This is Lady Cersia.” Zilo’s proud booming voice echoes loudly in my head, making me flinch immediately.

But the woman seems to hear him.

I don’t know how, but she does.

“Mmm, yes. The beautifully pained woman. Beautifully pained indeed.” With a single step, her willowy figure bursts from the shadows. Spindly arms and long fingers like spider’s legs reach out for my beast as well as myself.

And I have to force my confidence and not back away from her ice-cold touch along my head, my pointed ears, and the long curve of my thick neck.

“She’ll do just fine. He’ll absolutely devour her.” Her big black eyes eat me whole as I simply stare up at her from my low place on the ground. “Make sure you train her. She’s harboring many secrets, that one. We do not have time for another dead bride.” With a turn of her lips and a terrifying smile, she vanishes.

And I’m left gaping at that last line that hangs like a noose in the dark.

Dead bride? I scream the word so loud all three of them, my own wolf included, cower and whine, crawling around the shadows like scattering mice.

There was an…incident last week, Avian answers.

He has the balls to answer but the intelligence to be vague.

An incident that included a dead bride.

And now they want me to be the next in line to fill that vacancy.

Fucking cowards.

All of them.

Enough, Roman roars.

The smoke that shatters around me slices my skin in a strange abrasive way. But worse than that…I’m wet, I’m drenched from head to toe when my bare feet meet the smooth concrete.

My fingers stick to one another, thick goop sliding down my skin in a gagging sensation that makes me do just that.

I turn this way and that before bumping into a hard shoulder that is just so arrogant I know it’s him.

“What—what am I covered in?” I stare up at the space where I imagine those cruel condescending eyes to be.

A huff of a laugh shakes out of him and fans