VALERIE That night, I dreamt of a woman with green eyes. At first, I thought I was seeing myself. But there were certain differences in our faces. Things that I could pick apart in detail if I looked at her long enough. She was a few years older, her eyes far lighter. And her belly bulged, large and telling as she ran through the brambles of a thick and endless forest. Yapping came from behind her. A sound that took me back to the night of the raid. I knew that sound better than anyone. It had not left my thoughts in years. The woman stumbled through the thickets. She ran, clutching onto trees with one hand and her belly with the other. She could not move fast with a child in her womb, and as she turned back, a trio of werewolves dashed through the slats in the trees. They were large. The size of horses, at least. And they were close on her tail. Still, she ran. As quickly as her legs would take her. She ran until pain twinged on her face and she felt her legs give. And even aft
VALERIE The next day, Xavier took me to his study. And she was there. I walked in and at the sight of her, it was like all the air was knocked from my lungs. Staring at Ava felt like a dream. It was her. I knew it was her. And she seemed to recognize me as well. If I had been holding anything at the moment, I would have dropped it. But instead I just froze there, staring at her. Wondering if I’d ever actually woken that morning, or if I was still steadily dreaming. And when I realized this was no dream at all, my heart quickened in my chest. “V-Valerie,” Ava mumbled, her eyes wide, her mouth parted. We did nothing but stand there, facing one another for a long while. Then tears hit my eyes. I stumbled to her, my legs numb beneath me, and wrapped her in my arms. We nearly went to the floor together, my knees buckling under me and Ava too weak to hold my weight. I hugged her tightly—too tightly, because Ava let out a groan. I released, feeling the high-risen skin on her back.
CAESAR Xavier’s response might have been prompt. And perhaps I had underestimated him. But I was a man who liked to stay ahead of the curb. Two-steps ahead, if I was being honest. I had arranged a safe haven for the wizard—an old family home of mine. It was once known as the House of Murphy before I married the Alpha’s daughter and took my crown. But now the grand mansion stood there lonely and decaying. It had once been a beautiful marvel among the city, and now it was beginning to crumble, overtaken by vines and shrubbery. No one was left to use it after all. Besides me. Occasionally—at any usual time—the maids would be sent to keep the house in order. The rooms would need dusting in the case of once-yearly visit, and any vermin would need to be eradicated. But apart from them, it was entirely abandoned, and therefor…the perfect place to stow away a fugitive. In addition, the mating season was still in full effect. Every ounce of attention in Oreheroad was on the mating season,
XAVIERThe end of the festival was fast approaching, and Ares was a wild, insatiable thing within me.Are you really going to do it? he was asking, pleading, snarling. Are you really going to let her go? We will never see her again. The others will not be like her. Keep her. Keep her. I can not.Then you should have never brought that poor human girl back. You should have never fulfilled your mission. Our mate leaves us now. Our mate leaves us. There is nothing I can do. It is her freedom to leave.Mark her, Ares howled. Mark her so you may find her and take her back.I pressed Ares’s voice to the back of my mind, bringing myself into focus. I was already distracted enough with thoughts of Valerie. He was making it twice as difficult to be productive in my search for the wizard.A handful of councilors were gathered in front of me, their heads bowed. Their body language was tense, their expressions wrought with fear.They did not ease. And they should not have. They were all in a gr
VALERIEAva’s recovery was surprisingly fast.I was relieved to see her in full health when she awoke that morning. She greeted me with her usual glowing face and her cheerful voice. A peppy, “Hello, Valerie!” touched my ears like music.I had been so worried that she’d had the potion. That she’d wound up like a mindless, soulless shell, just as the others had. But she seemed…relatively normal. Perhaps not the Ava I knew, but a fragment of her.We sat over breakfast and I recanted everything to her. Every single little event that had led up to this moment. From that miraculous day in the shop when Xavier stumbled upon me. From the moment he took me to the castle and every event that transpired after.I left out some details, of course. The romance between Xavier and I, my moment with Lucas. All of the fine, gritty details that brought a warmth to my cheeks. Another time, perhaps, I would tell her. After the dust settled and things went back to normal.Ava was strangely quiet as I spok
VALERIE The longer I stayed with Ava, the more obvious it became that she wasn’t the same as she used to be. Every time we spoke, she was becoming more of a stranger. Less of Ava. She seemed to have forgotten most of the time we’d spent together in the shop. Vague things came back to her now and then—the day her master purchased her. The view of the market district from the pane glass windows. But not much else. And though she remembered who I was, she didn’t remember Aunt Louise and Aunt Rita. She couldn’t name a single girl from the shop, and she didn’t seem to recall the talks we used to have, either. I didn’t sleep well that night. I dreamed instead…the strangest dreams. I dreamed of wild, vivid forests and the air billowing against my skin. I dreamed of running and running until my feet lost all feeling. I did not know why I dreamed such strange things, but I didn’t mind it either. I could taste the earthy scent of the forest around me. I could feel my heart thundering in my ch
XAVIER I stared at the phone for much too long. The small device—one of only a few left in the entire world—sitting in inanimate silence, and somehow still mocking me. It took all I had to reach for it, and even once I’d done that, I could not bring myself to pick it up. After several beats of hesitation, I lifted it in my hands and dialed the number to Saelmere Castle. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Then he answered. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t the long lost prince. What is it? Did you miss me too terribly?” At first, Lucas sounded joyful—maybe even a little humorous. And then suddenly, his tone dropped. All the smile fell from his voice and he grumbled lowly into the line, “I must say, It is about damned time.” I frowned at the sound of Lucas’s droll, irritable tone. After the security over the city was reinforced, no one had been able to call in or out. I wasn’t sure how many times Lucas had made the attempt, but by the sound of his hard-edged voice, he was angry. Whic
XAVIER After my conversation with Lucas, I sat in silence for a long while. I was in an agonizing pull of pressure—one side mulling over the idea of telling Valerie the truth, the other considering a world where I ran away with her. Of course, this couldn’t happen. But it did bring me a moment of ease to imagine. No more chaos. No more responsibility. Just the two of us, running from this face as fast as our legs would take us. But that was a dream. Not the reality that spilled out in front of me. The truth was, I was casting her out of Orheroad, whether she liked it or not. I had no other option. And she would not be happy about this. But she would be okay. And that was enough. Eventually, my silent thinking came to an end when a knock rapped on the door. Before I would rise to answer it, Ralph entered with the injured guard from yesterday. As most wolves do, he had recovered quickly. “Sir,” the guard said, drawing down in a slight, pained bow. I waved a hand to ward off the f