All Chapters of The Wolf's Game: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

KaelPain comes first. It is a gut-wrenching agony that rips through the bond, and then, there is nothing but silence. The silence is the kind that can only accompany death. When my senses return, I’m on cold marble, staring up at a ceiling carved with constellations that shift like living creatures. The air smells like her. Not Aria, but the bitch that put me in this terrible Game. Nyxara.This is her throne room. Her bed chambers. Her prison. My cage.I jerk upright, but invisible chains drag tight against my wrists and ribs, forcing me back to my knees.“Let me go,” I snarl through clenched teeth.A soft sigh drifts through the space. Mocking my plight. “Oh, Kael,” Nyxara purrs. “You truly never learn, do you?”She emerges from the shadows like she was carved from moonlight. Hair flowing behind her like smoke, and her eyes glowing like twin stars. She is a reminder that things can be both beautiful and terrible.The goddess of nightmares.“Where is she?” I rasp. “Aria, w

Chapter 53: The Thorned Path SplitsAriaSomething inside the garden shifts. The vines seem to tighten around the heartbloom, making it almost invisible. Dax is still standing under it, closer to winning this Game when he shouldn’t even be here. The vines nearest the clearing lift their heads like snakes tasting the air. The thorns glisten wetly, hungry.Therin swears beside me. “Aria, don’t move.”Elyra steps sideways, fire forming faintly in her palm. Something about the garden dims it instantly, like her magic holds no power here. My skin prickles.Dax stands at the edge of the clearing, trembling, both eyes flickering violently between red and grey.The heartbloom pulses over his head; once, twice, and then a third time. It is calling to me. I am sure of it. Maybe this is the heart my mother was talking about.Violet murmurs in my mind. ‘Step forward.’I take a breath, looking over my shoulders at Therin and Elyra, and then, I do. I take one step toward the bloom.The

AriaTherin screams, the garden answers, and Dax laughs.The maze pulses with hunger, vines whipping violently, thorns rattling like bones. The air fills with the metallic scent of blood, and the entire maze shudders in anticipation. The vines seem to turn to look in Therin’s direction, hunting him with invisible eyes.“THERIN!” I slam my palms against the barrier of vines, but they don’t give. Astonishingly, I don’t cut myself on the thorns. They swell, tightening around the space that we occupy like a prison.Then something tears. A massive crack bursts open in the thorn-wall behind me as Therin barrels through it, ripping the vines apart with brute strength and desperation.The thorns dive into his arms, chest, and shoulders. Blood sprays in an arc covering the ground at my feet. Instinctively, I set back.“NO!” Elyra’s scream tears through the maze somewhere beyond the wall.Therin stumbles into the clearing with his body shredded, and his eyes wild with agony.He’s bleeding

NyxaraMy chamber cracks. Not visibly or physically, but I feel it. A tremor ripples through the celestial floor beneath my bare feet, like the bones of the castle itself are vibrating in panic.No, not in panic, but in rebellion.The Garden of Thorns collapses into dust far below, and for the first time in centuries, I feel a thread of my power, my ancient, carefully woven power, slip away.“No,” I breathe.The mirrors around me tremble, their surfaces rippling like disturbed water.No.This was not meant to happen. She was not meant to survive. The heartbloom was never meant to choose her. I whirl toward the largest mirror, fury gathering in my palms like fire, and there she is.Aria Vale. Standing in the ruins of my garden. Her arm is glowing, and her shoulder is marked by the bloom as she belongs to it, as she belongs to the Game, as she belongs to him. A scream tears out of my throat before I can stop it, sharp enough to shatter one of the lesser mirrors. The glass expl

KaelPain never surprises me anymore. She’s hurt me in a thousand ways across a thousand cycles, but nothing compares to the moment Nyxara presses her fingers to Aria’s mark and tries to rip it out of me.The fire that tears through my throat is nothing mortal. It’s not physical. It’s my soul being pulled taut until the threads fray. My vision blurs into nothing but black and gray, and my back arches so violently the chains rattle louldy. I scream until my voice is raw.The mark doesn’t move. Not even a little.Nyxara staggers backward like she’s the one who’s been hurt, clutching her burned hand, eyes wide, and her fury flowing through the air. Then she’s gone in a flash of divine rage, leaving me in the choking silence of her chambers.When the air settles, and my vision clears. I realize am still alive, but just barely. I slump forward, hanging from the chains, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My entire body trembles. Sweat drips from my forehead, blurring the fractured mirro