Each time, the landscape blurred. My head drooped, as if I’d fallen asleep and woken in a new place. Beryl’s magic surrounded me, evident by the smell of flowers and wine on the air. The fae queen couldn’t hold me forever, even if this was starting to feel futile.
She wanted me to kill someone. I’d told her that I would never murder ever again, but she hadn’t believed me. The fae queen seemed to think that, in time, I would fold. She tried to wear away at me, but I wasn’t going to give her what she wanted.
Not even if I agreed with her. She’d asked me to kill someone that I thought deserved it, but it wasn’t my job to kill. I’d stepped in and killed to protect my dragon clan, but that had cost me my home, my family, and part of my soul.
While I had little left to lose, I wouldn’t give Beryl any more of my soul.
Tired and annoyed, I shifted back to my human form and grabbed clothes from my car. I pulled on a pair of worn jeans and a t-shirt that should have been replaced ages ago.
What now, I wondered?
My next move wasn’t clear to me. I’d been so focused on running that I was lost as soon as I stopped. I needed to come up with a clear plan to keep Morgan from finding me here. Maybe I could tell him where to find me. If I could meet him some place that wasn’t too close to Lakesedge. I would have been happier if I could have told him to meet me in Beryl’s court, but I didn’t think that was feasible.
Nothing would have pleased me more than to watch Beryl’s court burn. The fae queen was running a long game, though. I sat on the hood of my car and stared out at the horizon while I tried to figure out exactly what Beryl was up to.
Considering who she wanted me to kill, I figured that maybe she had the best intentions for Lakesedge, even if she was a pain in the ass. If that was the case, then I wondered if there was much of a reason to fight against her. I didn’t want to kill again, but maybe Beryl and I could come to another kind of agreement.
Perhaps that’s what she really wanted. Beryl might have placed the worse option in front of me so that I would take the next thing she offered. I would have to approach her with caution. No one was going to get away with using me.
I dropped my gaze to the back of my hand where a lightning-shaped mark appeared once in a while. It’d glowed bright the night before, when I’d fought against Ness’s command.
The fact that I could not hurt Harvey still bothered me. Beryl would lose her mind when she found out. I was more concerned with what that meant for Ness. She’d barely survived the night before.
My beast had raged and reached for anything. I’d hoped that I would be able to hit Harvey with something. Every throw had flown past the wolf. I’d been close to losing my control to my dragon. We’d been on the border of Lakesedge, but shifting still would have been bad, especially if my beast had lost control.
Being around Ness made me fear for my beast. No one really knew much about Treasure Sickness. It appeared without warning and claimed even the best of us. If it ran in the family, passed down from one generation to the other, then I was in trouble. I already felt like I was standing on the precipice of something dangerous.
All I needed was someone malicious enough to push me over the edge. Here, I was surrounded by enemies and conniving allies. I had to be careful, or I would lose everything.
The beast growled. It flexed its immaterial claws and told me to touch the ground. This ground belonged to me, according to the beast. I sighed, frustrated.
“No. We can’t stay. This isn’t our territory.”
It could be, the beast whispered inside me.You know what needs to be done, and you have the strength to do it. You know you do.
I ran my hand through my hair and made a fist. Tugging, I tried to settle the beast inside me, but it seemed like a waste of time. The creature refused to slink back. It wanted this territory. The Alpha here didn’t deserve what had been given to him. My beast could take care of this tyrannical Alpha and give the pack a good leader.
Maybe, in time, the pack would heal. They wouldn’t be so afraid of their own shadows, and they would support Ness.
This was not my problem, though. The beast had to understand that Morgan would find me. The consequences for my actions were going to catch up, and I didn’t want anyone else—other than Beryl or Alvin specifically—to feel the fallout from that.