Novels by crystalsage296

Chapter 4KADEMy mother told me to find you.I didn't have time to ask what that meant.I bit into my own wrist, pressed it to hers, and said the old words. The silver light came up between us, bright enough to push back the dark of the cellar. She screamed once. Then she fell against my chest and went still.For a terrible second I thought I had been too late.Then I felt it. Her heartbeat, suddenly steady and strong. Beating right alongside mine.I carried her out of that burning house and all the way home.A knock at my study door pulled me back to the present."Alpha?" It was Tobias, one of my young guards. "The council is waiting in the great hall. You called the meeting for this morning."I had. I had forgotten."I'm coming," I said.I opened the top drawer of my desk and looked at the strip of black cloth lying inside. The red thorn stared back at me.This was why I couldn't tell her. Not all of it. Not yet.I could tell her I didn't give the order. I could tell her I found he

Chapter 3KADEShe didn't believe me.I saw it in her eyes the second the words left my mouth. First the shock. Then the anger rising up behind it, hot and fast, like a fire catching dry grass."Liar," she whispered.I let go of her wrists. She stumbled back from me and held her bleeding arm against her chest. Her dark hair was wild around her face. Her cheeks were wet. She was shaking so hard I could hear her teeth click.And she looked at me like I was the worst thing she had ever seen.Maybe I was."Hilda will clean that cut," I said. "Eat something. Rest.""I don't want anything from you.""I know."I picked up the little fruit knife from the floor, because I wasn't a fool, and I walked to the door. My arm stung. So did hers. I could feel it, a faint echo of her pain sitting under my own, like a second heartbeat. That was new. Two days, and I still wasn't used to it.At the door, I stopped."The farther I go, the more it will hurt you," I said without turning around. "I'll stay cl

Chapter 2ELENAHilda glanced at him, then back at me. She spoke slowly and calmly, like she was talking to a scared horse."Nobody forced anything on you, child. You agreed to the bond. Two nights ago. I was there."The room went very quiet."That's a lie," I said."It isn't.""That's a lie!" I shouted it this time. "I would never agree to that. Never. Not with him. Not with any of them. His wolves killed my people. They killed—"My throat closed up. I couldn't finish.Hilda's face softened. She didn't argue. She just waited."What's the last thing you remember?" she asked gently.I opened my mouth to answer. Then I stopped.I tried to think. I tried to reach back.The fire. The bell. My mother screaming my name. My mother's hands on my shoulders, pushing me down, down into the dark. The smell of dirt and old potatoes. The cellar. I had been in the cellar.And then nothing.Just black. Like a page ripped out of a book.I searched for more. I pushed and pushed against the dark in my h

Chapter 1 ELENA The first thing I felt was the burning.It started in my left wrist, hot and sharp, like someone had pressed a coal against my skin and held it there. I groaned and tried to pull my arm to my chest, but my body was heavy. My head felt full of smjoke.Smoke.I opened my eyes.The ceiling above me was made of dark wood beams. Not the low, cracked ceiling of my bedroom at home. This one was high and smooth, and a small iron lamp hung from it on a chain. Gray morning light came in from somewhere to my right.I was lying in a bed. A big bed. The sheets were soft and white and smelled like pine ansd cedar and something else I couldn't name. Something warm. Something that made my stomach twist.This was not my bed.I sat up too fast. The room spun, and I grabbed the blanket to stop myself from falling back. My heart was pounding. I looked down at myself. I was wearing a long cotton shirt that wasn't mine. It was too big and hung off one shoulder. My legs were bare under the