Chapter 19

Elouera

The splintering wood outside my door didn't herald Stirling's breach.

Through the narrow, suffocating dark of the wardrobe's secret escape panel, I had dragged my burning body into the stone arteries of the palace, leaving the frantic pounding behind. But the palace was a labyrinth of teeth, and I was bleeding scent with every gasping breath I took.

The accelerant Holden had forced down my throat was a wildfire in my blood. Every muscle in my legs trembled violently as I stumbled through the abandoned east gallery, clutching my unravelling linen bindings against my crushed ribs. The sweet, heavy stench of wild honey and rain was radiating off my skin in waves, drowning out the damp mold of the stone walls.

I just needed to reach the lower catacombs. Just ten more yards to the hidden iron grate behind the tapestries.

A heavy hand clamped over my shoulder, the sheer force of it spinning me around and slamming my back brutally against the cold stone wall.

The breath exploded from my lungs in a ragged gasp. My head cracked against the granite, sending sharp pinpricks of white light dancing across my vision. Before I could draw a breath to scream, a massive, leather clad forearm pressed flush against my throat, trapping me solid.

Callan.

He didn't look like the disciplined Crown Prince. He looked entirely untamed. His icy blue eyes were wild, bloodshot, and dilated so wide the irises were mere slivers of blue rimming pure black pupils. His heavy jaw was set, a muscle leaping violently beneath his pale skin, and his chest heaved against his dark military tunic.

"I found you," Callan rasped.

The sound was barely human, a low, grinding vibration that rattled straight through the bones of my neck. The air around us instantly turned frigid, heavy with the suffocating, razor-sharp scent of cracking glaciers and raw leather. His dominant Alpha biology was flaring out of control, slamming into my fever-wracked frame like a physical blow.

"Callan..." I choked out, my fingers clawing uselessly at the thick leather of his sleeve. "Let... go..."

"Shut up!" he roared, leaning his full weight into my throat.

The stone behind my head felt like ice, but Callan was radiating a terrifying, suffocating heat. He leaned closer, his face inches from mine, his flared nostrils drawing in a deep, desperate breath of the air right above my collarbone.

I saw the exact moment my Omega scent hit his system. His eyes rolled back for a fraction of a second, his grip tightening until my vision began to darken at the edges.

"What are you doing to me?" Callan snarled, his voice cracking with a terrifying, unhinged fury. He pulled back just enough to let a thin sliver of air hit my lungs, but his forearm stayed pinned to my collarbone, trapping me like an animal. "What kind of filthy, dark witchcraft are you using, Elian?"

"I'm not... doing anything," I choked out, tears of pure agony and suffocating heat stinging my eyes. "Get... off me..."

“You’re my brother!” Callan shouted right in my face. His spit hit my cheek. He punched the stone wall beside my head, and the loud bang echoed through the empty hallway. Dust fell onto my hair.

“You’re weak. You’re useless. I’ve hated you since the day you were born! I watched you hide in corners while our mother destroyed this empire. And every time I looked at you, I hated myself for feeling disgusted by you!”

He took another ragged, shaking breath, his lips brushing the rapid, erratic pulse leaping in my throat. He let out a low, tortured groan, his forehead dropping heavily against the stone right next to my head.

"So why can't I stop?" Callan whispered, the fury in his voice turning into something infinitely darker, a desperate, sick humiliation that made my stomach twist into knots. "Why haven't I slept in three days? Why do I wake up in the middle of the night with my blood on fire, ready to murder every guard in the barracks just because they looked in the direction of your chambers?"

He was fighting his own biology with everything he had. His mind was so deeply warped by the imperial court, so thoroughly conditioned to see "Prince Elian" as a weak male beta, that his Alpha instincts were tearing him apart from the inside out. His soul recognized my Omega. His eyes saw a rival he was supposed to hate. And the resulting war inside his chest was turning him into a monster.

"Callan, please," I sobbed, my fevered skin burning everywhere his body pressed against mine. "You're sick... the drugs.

"I am not sick!" he roared, snapping his head up. His blue eyes burned with a terrifying, lethal madness. "You did this to me. You put something in my head. Ever since I ripped your shirt off in the sickroom, ever since I smelled whatever rot you're hiding under those bandages, I can't think. I can't rule. I can't breathe without wanting to tear you apart!"

He shifted his grip, his massive, calloused hand moving from my neck to clamp violently around my chin, forcing my face upward. His thumb dug brutally into my cheek, right over the jagged cut Jace had bled for hours ago.

"I am going to end it," Callan rasped, his face descending toward mine, his eyes locked onto my lips with a sick, possessive hunger that made my soul recoil. "I am going to break this spell. I'm going to take whatever it is you're hiding, and then I'm going to throw your broken body off the North Tower myself."

"Callan, don't!" I screamed, twisting my head frantically, but his grip was a vise.

His mouth was less than an inch from mine, his icy, suffocating Alpha scent completely wrapping around my windpipe, dousing the wild honey in a terrifying frost. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself for the violation, my nails digging into his wrist until I drew blood.

The heavy, iron bound doors at the far end of the gallery didn't just swing open; they were violently thrown back against the stone walls with a deafening crash that echoed like thunder.

Callan froze, his lips hovering a breath away from mine. He didn't let go of my jaw, but his head snapped toward the entrance, a feral, territorial snarl tearing from his throat.

Standing in the doorway, framed by the moonlight pouring through the stained glass, was Stirling Vance.

His velvet doublet was gone. His dark hair was wildly disheveled, his clothes reeking of crushed cedar, woodsmoke, and the scorched iron of my broken door handle. In his right hand, he held an unsheathed longsword, the steel glinting silver in the dim light.

Stirling didn't look at me. His striking green eyes were fixed entirely on Callan's hand clamped around my face.

"Take your hand off him, Callan," Stirling said. His voice wasn't loud. “A low, scary sound came from him. that carried a promise of absolute, merciless slaughter. "Or I will sever your arm at the shoulder."