Page 79 of Wolf Queen Ruin
I raised my head to meet the Wolf Queen’s gaze.“What do I do?”
“Accept who you truly are,” she said.“Not a night-son.Not fae.Not cold.Not Summer.Both and neither.The mask you wear for the world has become your prison.Remove it.”
I understood then that my trial wasn’t about physical endurance but identity.My choices.My mistakes.My regrets.I’d accumulated so many.
When I opened my eyes again, I felt raw, exposed.
The Wolf Queen nodded in approval.
“The first Shadow Fang piece is yours to claim,” she said.“But remember this, Prince of Summer.Night-sons are especially sensitive to its power.Whether it’s used as a tool to heal or a weapon to continue your vengeance war, the Shadow Fang can ruin you.”
The chamber began to fade around us.
Her voice echoed one last time, like a benediction and a warning.“Just like it ruined me.”
Chapter twenty-four
Luna
Pureinstincttookover.My arms shot out, my fingers clawing desperately at anything within reach.
By some miracle, my right hand closed around a thick branch jutting from the cliff face.My momentum jerked my shoulder with such force I thought my arm might tear clean off, but I held on.
Dangling one-handed over the forest floor, I managed to swing my left arm up and secure a better grip.My heart roared against my ribs as I pressed my body against the cold stone.
The Wolf Queen’s massive head appeared over the edge of the cliff, her blue eyes peering down at me with what looked suspiciously like amusement.
You have questions, she said, her voice reverberating through my mind.Ask them.
“Are you kidding me?”I snarled.“You just tried to kill me!”
The Wolf Queen continued to stare.Waiting.
“Where’s Damien?”I demanded.“Are you going to kill him just because he’s a vampire?”
The night-son faces his own trial, as befits his nature.Her massive head tilted.You concern yourself with his welfare so much that he’s your first question.Interesting.
I chose to ignore that observation as I searched the cliff face for hand and foot holds.“You said we began a dangerous magic by mixing our blood.What did you mean?”
The Wolf Queen settled onto her haunches, still towering above me.The essence of vampire and werewolf, when combined, creates power beyond either.Her blue eyes studied me intently.The Shadow Fang was born of this discovery—a tool to manipulate the fundamental nature of supernatural beings.
I swung my foot toward a divot in the rock and secured my boot into it, easing the burden on my shoulders some.“And our blood mixing at the entrance—“
—began an alteration in you both, she said.A small change now, but one that will grow with time and proximity.Already you carry fragments of his memories, do you not?Feel echoes of his hunger?
I couldn’t deny it.Since our blood had mingled at the entrance, I still felt foreign sensations occasionally intruding on my consciousness.Flashes of places I’d never seen, faces I’d never known, the strange burning thirst that I now recognized as Damien’s constant companion.
“Is it permanent?”I asked, spotting a hand hold filled with luminescent green moss.
That depends on your choices in the days to come, she said.But we digress.You are here to be tested, Luna Rookwood, not merely to satisfy curiosity about Damien.
“I wasn’t just asking about Damien, you oversized furball,” I grumbled, then louder said, “I’m coming up.”
With one hand and one foot secured in the cliff face, I swung the rest of my body toward the rock wall, finding whatever rock or narrow ledge I could to help support my weight.My fingers screamed in protest while my heart rioted behind my chest.The cold, unforgiving stone pressed against my skin.
I forced myself to breathe.Panic was the enemy here.Looking up, I could make out the cliff edge maybe eight feet above—not an impossible climb, but daunting when every muscle already trembled from the effort of not falling to my death for the second time today and trying to prevent Damien from doing the same.
We must’ve really pissed gravity off somehow.
