The Emperor's Wolves (Wolves of Elantra #1) - Michelle Sagara Page 0,38

the streets of Nightshade. He did not sleep.

Jade woke, as she often did, from a nightmare. Her eyes were barely open as she made her way to Elianne’s side and inserted herself between Severn and Elianne. She, too, fell asleep. He looked at the two of them. The peace shattered.

He could hear Elianne screaming, see her face twisted not in fury but in terror and pain. And he knew, as the longest night of his life gave way, almost reluctantly, to dawn, why Nightshade had let him go. Had known before he reached home.

* * *

Elianne went out to the well. In the day, it was less of a risk, although it was unusual to send her alone. She suspected nothing. She suspected nothing because Severn was home. Severn stayed with the girls.

He told them a story. He sat against the wall, and Steffi leaned into him as he spoke. He did not raise his voice. He fed them and wished he had something that would ease them into sleep, something that—But no. That was for people with money.

He had a dagger. Two. He had nothing else to offer them. He could not shake Nightshade’s words, Nightshade’s command, and in the end, he didn’t try. He believed the fieflord.

Steffi died first, because Steffi was less cautious than Jade; she had been with them for longer. She trusted Severn because Elianne trusted him. But no. She trusted him with her life because, until today, she could. He had not wanted to bring her home—and he wished, in bitter self-loathing, that he had not. Bringing her home led to this death. To this, or the other death that waited in the shadows.

Jade died less easily, but truthfully, not by much. Both girls had known who their killer was. He thought the pain of that worse, in the end, than the deep cuts to their jugulars. He did not cry, did not weep—not then. But after, hands slick with blood that would not stop flowing, he had been sick in the corner of the room; he could not make it out of the apartment in time.

He didn’t know what he looked like when Elianne came home. Didn’t know what his expression was. He saw hers. Everything that Jade and Steffi felt when they died was there—and worse.

Nothing, not even her mother’s death, had hurt her this much. Nothing except Severn could.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ybelline did not let go of Severn. His arms had long since stiffened and fallen away; hers gained strength. She did not tell him that it was not his fault. He had killed the children. He accepted the guilt, and she did not attempt to pry it from him. Nor did she tell him that he was wrong: what he had done to Elianne on that day had hurt her more than anything possibly could.

But she understood Lord Nightshade’s fear far better than Severn did or could.

It would have been better, he said, speaking through the chaos of a past that was always with him, if they had died at the hands of the killers.

It wouldn’t have been better for them.

It would have been better for Elianne.

What he did not say surprised Ybelline, because he did not feel it either: it would have been better for Severn.

Would it? In the end, would it? You would almost certainly be dead before that happened. Steffi and Jade would die as well. But not cleanly. Your Elianne would have come face-to-face with helplessness and utter despair—and in that state of mind, the transformation of her marks and her essential purpose would be fully formed.

Ybelline brushed hair from his forehead. In pain, we lash out. In pain, we destroy both ourselves and others. That is the nature of pain. What might she then accomplish with the power she does not understand, when her pain was so deep and so endless?

She won’t come back to me.

I don’t know.

Would you?

...It is not a valid question for one such as I. No matter who I am or what I do, I am part of my kin. But you found her. You found her again.

Silence. Walls grew thicker, stronger, and this time Ybelline did not press or touch them at all. She understood what the Wolves wanted of and from her, and she now had the answers that Helmat demanded.

She’s here, Severn surprised her by saying. She’s with the Hawks.

And Elianne did not know Severn was here, with the Wolves—or attempting to join them. I tried to find her when