Page 53 of Wild Wolf

“Fuck you!” I hollered, my rage spilling out all at once. “If you want me dead, then take me now – why make me wait?!”

The moon was quiet in answer and a growl fell from my throat. I released a tide of curses at the celestial being that had afflicted me, letting out my fury until my voice echoed off the hillside.

“Cain,” a gruff voice made me turn and I found Roary Night at my back, reaching for me.

I looked to his outstretched hand and he dropped it, his brow drawing low. “You’re riling up the Oscuras.” He gave me a shove as a chorus of howls sounded from the direction of the manor and I realised I hadn’t run all that far from the house. “Move before they come out here and gut you for speaking about the moon that way.”

As the howls gathered in momentum, I turned and raced for the trees marking the border of their land, not wanting to deal with that shit while my mind was thick with a haze of alcohol. Roary came with me, keeping up, but stumbling over a log as we made it to a clearing. He crashed to the ground, carving a line in the earth as he skidded to a halt at my feet like a half-blind mule with three legs.

He huffed angrily, shoving himself upright and half-heartedly wiping at the dirt covering his jeans.

“You’re the clumsiest Vampire I’ve ever encountered,” I muttered.

“I’m not a fucking Vampire, that’s why,” he hissed and agony flared in his eyes, telling of how much he yearned for his Lion.

I regarded him with a pit opening up in my chest, the thought of losing my Order too vile to consider.

“Mm,” I grunted. “Well it’s your focus that’s the problem. You’re trying too hard to see where your feet land rather than watching where you’re going.”

“My legs are moving so fast, I can’t help but look to make sure I don’t fall and fucking break them,” he sighed.

“You’ll only fall if you don’t watch what’s ahead of you and listen to the world around you. Your legs will take care of themselves if you focus on where you’re damn well going.”

“It’s impossible to adjust to how quickly the world comes at me,” he said, shaking his head.

“Not for our kind,” I said. “You need to trust your Order.”

“It’s not my Order!” he bellowed and a few birds took off from their roosts in the trees around us.

Silence fell and the branches above us swayed in the breeze, making the moonlight ripple across us both. Roary’s hands flexed at his sides, the muscles in his arms tight.

“I feel invaded,” he said at last, his voice lower, hollower. “This thing inside me isn’t mine. It doesn’t belong to me.”

“It’s yours if you embrace it, but shit, I can’t even begin to imagine what it might take to do that mentally.”

“Embracing it feels like betraying my Lion,” Roary admitted.

I nodded stiffly.

“Anyway, I came to find you because Rosalie is worried about you,” he said and my walls flew back up.

“What does she have to worry about?” I scoffed. “She has her two mates and her psychotic plaything to keep her happy.”

“You’re a stubborn motherfucker, aren’t you?” He shook his head at me as if I was the problem and my fingers twitched on instinct, the urge to scold him for talking to me that way still ingrained deep. But stars be damned, he had a point.

And we weren’t on uneven ground anymore. Out here in the real world, it was every Fae for themselves.

“My friend Merrick used to say the same thing,” I said, the memory of my childhood friend cutting open an old wound. It was why I forced all thoughts of him from my mind as often as I could.

“The boy you grew up with under Benjamin Acrux’s rule?” Roary confirmed.

“How’d you know about that?” I clipped.

“Sin told me everything.”

“Of course he did,” I huffed, glancing away from him, unsure if I wanted to go any further with this conversation.

“Lionel Acrux was the one who sent me to prison. Gave me a sentence that was far longer than any thief should have gotten. And he forced me to make a death pact to ensure I was never released early. That’s why Rosalie came to Darkmore. She felt responsible for me ending up there – even though that’s bullshit – but she knew the only way I’d walk out of there as a young man was by breaking me out. Anyway, my point is, I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of an Acrux’s wrath. Their favourite kind of power is one built of cruelty.”

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