LOGINThe werewolves launched a massive invasion of the Elf Forest had been burned, half my people were dead, and my parents were missing. The Elf Queen asked me to go to Damien Thorne and make him stop the war. Damien Thorne. Alpha King of the North, my True Mate, the boy I'd grown up with. His sister Sera was the youngest of the three of us, and my best friend. A year ago, Sera vanished after a secret meeting. I walked out of the forest alive. He didn't — and to him, that was proof enough. He went mad. He burned the sacred trees, slaughtered my people, turned every drop of his hate on me. But he still loved me. So I went. He locked me in his study and fucked me for nine days. Even when I slept,his eyes full of something I couldn't read — madness, and pain. On the tenth day, he kissed his way down my spine, so gentle I let myself think it wasn't too late. The next second, the dagger went into my shoulder blade, straight through the root of my light-wing. The pain detonated from my spine to the crown of my skull. "Shh. Don't scream." He pressed my face into the pillow. "These nine days were the warm-up. Tell me where Sera is." He locked me in the dungeon. He used my people's lives as a leash. He married another she-wolf. The cold-iron whip came down. Each welt sealed itself shut against the iron-poison's burn, then split open again. Every strike felt like a red-hot brand pressed into my skin and ground in. It would never heal. But every time I came close to dying, it was him who tipped the antidote down my throat himself. His fingers shook. His eyes carried a tenderness he hated himself for. The night he got drunk, he crushed me against his chest. "You think I love you, so you can do this to me. Tell me where Sera is, and I'll let you go." I couldn't say it.The moment I opened my mouth, it would burn to ash. I wouldn't have to keep this secret much longer. An elf away from the forest for one full year is dead. No exceptions. I had two days left.
View MoreIt wasn't full daylight yet when Damien came back into the Wolf Castle. He walked slowly. He passed the great hall. He passed the corridor. He passed the storeroom that had once held me — and stopped at the door for a moment.I was still following him. My soul had thinned to almost nothing — less than warmth, less than light. But I was still there. I did not know how much longer I would be. I followed him anyway, the way you follow a thing through to the last of it, because you have come this far and turning away now would be its own kind of defeat.He stood at my door for a moment. He did not go in. He just stood there, one hand not quite raised, as if the door were a thing he could return something to. After a while he pressed his palm flat against the wood. Then he lowered it.Before the Elf guards had carried Lyra away, she had left something on the threshold: a single light-wing, pulled loose from the Luna gown. Mine. Damien crouched, picked it up. He held it in his palm for a mom
Sera knelt beside me. She caught my half-translucent hand and spoke to Damien."Damien Thorne. Listen to me. Father told you, before he died — the Thorne line carries a debt that can never be repaid. You always thought it was a debt of kindness. It wasn't. It was a debt of blood.""When you were seven and the curse hit you, Father took you into the Elf Forest. To Elara's father. Elara's father told him: there is no true antidote for the bloodline poison. Only sacred Elf royal blood can hold it down. But once that blood enters his veins, the elf can never take it back. That elf is bound to him for life. Father knelt down and asked: is there any elf willing to do this?""Elara was twelve. She said — I will. Her father wept. He cut open her wrist himself. Seven bowls. Seven days, seven nights."Sera's tears fell on the back of my translucent hand."This whole year, you've held her in that dungeon. You beat her. You whipped her. You humiliated her. She did not fight back, not once. Because
At that exact moment — upstairs, Damien was holding his son.He looked down at the child, and then he froze. He raised one hand and pressed it to his own chest — not the child's. His own.He felt it. The thread he had thought was severed was burning, drawing back inward. He shoved the child into the Beta's arms, turned, and crashed down the stairs.He punched the cage door open and threw himself in front of me. His face was bloodless. His eyes were threaded with red. He reached for me — his hand passed through my body.Then I saw it in his eyes — the spark of hope. He still thought I could be saved. He still thought there was time. He thought he had only to come down here and call my name once, Elara, and I would do what I had always done — cry, and forgive him.I looked at him. I said nothing. Let him wait. Let him stand there and feel it — what it is like to want someone to save you and know they aren't coming. That was every day, every night, of my year.He dropped to his knees. The
The room emptied out. Just me and Lyra now.In my arms, she had almost no warmth left. The iron-poison was working its way in through the cuts on her back. Her lips, her fingertips, the rims of her ears were going translucent."Sister," she said, very softly, "I'm cold."I held her tighter. I wrapped the hem of the long red gown around her."Lyra, let your sister sing for you. Like when you were little.""Okay." She closed her eyes. "Sister… after you sing… will your throat hurt again?""No. This is the last one."I started the Soul-Binding Lullaby.The song has three movements. As the first line left my mouth, the candle flame leaned toward me. By the end of the first movement, my fingertips were going clear. By the end of the second, my wrists were dissolving into points of light, drifting upward — through the dungeon roof, through the cracks in the stone, toward the moon.Footsteps overhead, in the birthing chamber — quick, pacing, back and forth. Damien's footsteps. Eight years ago












Welcome to GoodNovel world of fiction. If you like this novel, or you are an idealist hoping to explore a perfect world, and also want to become an original novel author online to increase income, you can join our family to read or create various types of books, such as romance novel, epic reading, werewolf novel, fantasy novel, history novel and so on. If you are a reader, high quality novels can be selected here. If you are an author, you can obtain more inspiration from others to create more brilliant works, what's more, your works on our platform will catch more attention and win more admiration from readers.