Page 17 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 16

Cellmates

GRIGOR

I lay quiet in the thick cloth bag Finnick had left me in, harvesting power as quickly as I could, and sleeping. The need to sleep surprised me. As I’d grown older, I’d needed less and less rest, drawing power from the night around me. But here, in this room, the only source of power I could access was the current that flowed through the walls. Soon, I hoped, I would be strong enough to reach for my queen and not harm her. I ached for the touch of her mind, for the fresh, clean sensation of her spirit.

I did not let myself think of the touch of her hands, her lips, though my own burned with remembered fire.

Drawing power from the current in the walls alone was time-consuming and tiring, and I’d been forced to use some of my reserves to remove the final slivers of silver from my body. If only a guard would approach the cell, and linger for just one moment too long nearby…

As if I’d summoned him, a guard did just that. No, two guards, I thought, as the door swung open and I listened to males speaking. Two guards, and two others…

“You should have given my father your pledge when he gave you the opportunity, Becker,” Finnick said, his voice loud enough to hear clearly even through the cloth bag. “Maybe you just needed some time to consider it?”

“Fuck off, Finnick.” Brand’s reply was a deep growl.

Finnick laughed bitterly. “I’ll fuck off then, and leave you to think. When Father gets back, you’ll have another chance.”

“If he’s alive,” an unfamiliar voice broke in.

“What do you mean?”

“I’d swear that’s not where we left Dimitrivich, Alpha Heir. The bag, I mean. And… there’s blood on the floor, and the silver?—”

Finnick cut him off. “Then that will be an inducement, won’t it? I wonder… who would win in a fight? The Alpha of Mountain, or the broken boogeyman? Maybe we’ll find out.”

“Alpha Heir, the cameras down here. They’re still not working. We won’t be able to tell if—” The door shut with a loud bang, and the rest of what the guard was saying was lost. The room was silent except for the sound of my breathing, and Brand’s. The silence stretched for a few minutes, until an aggrieved sigh split the quiet.

“Right, get out of that thing then and let’s see what state you’re in.” Rough hands moved the bag, and light entered the opening at my head as he widened the sack with his hands. I slid free and propped myself on the wall, glad to know that I had enough energy to move even that much. Even if this one was on Flor’s side, my wolf didn’t want to show any more weakness than necessary.

“So, we meet at last—” I began, but when my gaze rose to meet his, I was stunned into silence. Silver orbs shone on me, into me, it seemed. I’d heard of his moonblessed eyes, but seeing them was a different matter. Power practically flowed from them. No, it did .A clean trickle of energy lit up my face, sharp and cold as a mountain stream in early spring, and flowed across my skin and into it, giving my magic enough of a boost to heal some small cuts along my cheekbone.

“By the moon, you’re a mess,” he grunted, lowering himself to sit cross-legged in front of me while I stared. He had silver manacles on his wrists—not handcuffs, but the type of devices I’d seen used on feral Alphas twice before, and on more than one bear shifter when they still existed. His dark eyes were red-rimmed, the skin beneath them almost purple with exhaustion. I knew the silver restraints must be hurting him, but before I could even consider if I had enough power to offer my assistance, he reached into his sleeve and withdrew a small roll of foil. With quick, deft movements, he unrolled it. Carefully, he placed the tape along the inside of the cuffs, until the silver no longer came in contact with his skin.

“What magic is that?”

“The magic of technology,” he grunted as he relaxed, those moon-bright eyes spearing me. Judging me. We sat for a long moment like that, the electricity in the wall at my back humming in my mind as I harvested it, his gaze growing brighter and brighter, until the room didn’t need any other light.

I was transfixed. But, as the minutes piled up, wisps of an unusual feeling began to dance through my mind. It wasn’t shame, not precisely. It reminded me of how I’d felt as a young boy, when my mother had tried to teach me a simple spell, and I’d overshot, destroying a favorite clay pitcher in the kitchen. As if I had disappointed a teacher, and needed a chance to try again. To do better.

The feeling grew until, to my surprise and his, I dropped my gaze.

He breathed what might have been a curse. I swallowed and stared at my filthy, blood-speckled bare feet, shocked at my instinctive response. I’d stared down stronger shifters than this one, but something about meeting his gaze felt like committing some unknown sacrilege.

As if the Moon Goddess was there, just behind his eyes, telling me in my mother’s voice to try again. To be careful with my power.

“Tell me why I should let you live,” Brand said at last. When I didn’t speak, he went on. “Explain to me why I should let you be in Flor’s world, in any way. Give me a reason to… accept you. Help me understand how a creature like you could deserve her.”

“I don’t,” I said truthfully, my voice raw. “I don’t deserve her. None of us do. I cannot undo my past. All I can tell you is that I will never harm her. If she chooses not to accept me, I will never touch her, only watch from the shadows and protect her.”

After another long moment, he spoke again. “The histories say you killed your first wife. How can I be certain you’ve changed?”

Rage was a source of power as well, and for a split second, I met his eyes, my own probably glowing as red as his were silver-white. “I never hurt Anya. I could never have. She was the mate to the half of my soul that came from my mother. My witch mate.” When he didn’t ask what I meant, I wondered if he’d heard of that before.

“When I met Anya, when she marked me, my magic expanded so fast, my soul felt as if it might burst at the seams. Perhaps a crack did form then. My wolf… separated himself from me. He spoke to me, as if we were not one soul.” Brand blinked slowly, but stayed silent. “I’m not certain if I was born that way, or if my soul’s connection with an incredibly powerful witch caused it. But something inside me broke.”

I’d never imagined such a thing was possible, that a hybrid like me might have two mates, one for each half of their magic. It had never happened before, or again, from what I’d learned over the centuries. I wouldn’t have believed it was my fate… until I’d lost Anya, and stayed alive.Until my wolf had kept me that way, insisting that his mate would come to us, someday, if we waited.

“My father murdered her to punish me. I slaughtered him, and all the corrupt males of his pack, to avenge her.”

Finally, he spoke. “And then killed ten thousand more shifters, for what? More revenge?”

I closed my eyes, taking a shaky, deep breath. “You don’t understand. The pack structure there was as rotten as the packs on this continent were fast becoming, before Flor came into the world. Magic was used to kill and maim. Other forms of shifters were driven mad through curses and spells, until they had to be put down. Alphas gained a taste for power instead of protecting their vulnerable, and fancied themselves kings. I reminded them they were only mortal.” I pressed a hand to my chest, tempted to open my illicit bond with Flor, just to remind my wolf his mate— our mate—was alive and well. “I may not have only killed the wicked… I was too far gone to the madness of grief to be certain every creature I killed was fully corrupt. But I never intentionally killed a child. I never knowingly killed a shifter female.”

The silence returned, heavier this time. But not as heavy as the large hand that landed on my arm, his grip firm and unyielding, yet not punishing. Not yet.

“You’ll need to help me kill one here,” Brand said.

I nodded, gratitude flooding me. “With pleasure.”

He moved to the wall, keeping the silver manacles away from my exposed skin. “Reach into my pocket. Finn left some sort of energy bars there.” He lifted his arms, and I did as he instructed, then unwrapped the first of three narrow bars. It tasted of chalk, sugar, and chemicals, but I ate it with gratitude. I offered him the next, but he shook his head. “I choked down as many as I could before he brought me here.” As I ate, he brought me up to speed on what was happening in the house above, and with Flor.

“She said something about coming here before we got cut off on the phone,” he growled. “But my friend Dean is bringing the Mountain troops to Southern, and that should give us at least a couple more days. We need to keep Flor clear of this place, and the witch Elina, until the battle is over.”

I almost choked on the energy bar. When I could speak, I had a hard time hiding my amusement. “Have you met our queen? I half-expected her to tear a hole in the wall here, or tunnel through the floor, any second. She is a wonder.”

He pushed up his sleeve and rubbed at his arm, and I froze as he went on. “You don’t need to tell me that. The only thing keeping me from losing my shit entirely is knowing the witch is away for now. I just need to get a little stronger.”

“You won’t, though, not with her mark on you. May I see it?”He grumbled, but rolled up his sleeve and let me lift the arm to my nose, though it took all of my strength to do so. “She’s still draining you, but Luke did well to offer to mate bond you. I had no idea such a thing would work.”

“It’s not a fucking mate bond!” he half-roared, then stopped as he saw my smile. “I didn’t expect an ancient, evil serial killer to have a sense of humor,” he grumbled as he settled. “You and Glen will get along like a house on fire.”

“Glen and I get along very well, though he prefers to think of me as Joaquin. I think it makes him feel safer.”

We both chuckled at that, and then we spoke, haltingly at first, of the one we both adored. Flor.

He shared the story of her introduction to the Mountain pack. I shared how I’d been drawn to the continent when she was kindled in her mother’s womb. He spoke of his lake, and how she loved it. I shared stories of Anya and our son, finding myself able to speak of them for the first time without pain.

“Finnick is my descendant, you know. Elina is some great-great-granddaughter.”

He wasn’t surprised. “No one gets to pick their family,” he said. We both glanced at each other, knowing that wasn’t entirely true. Hours passed, and we grew closer in the way that prisoners must. I slept a bit more, then he did.

“Her scar,” Brand said simply when I woke, the electricity humming in my veins now. “What do you know about it?”

“I believe pieces of her soul were set loose the day it was made, marking her for the ones she was destined to find.”

“You mean the one. Only one of us was meant to be her mate. Was it you?”

“Does it matter?” I was truly curious. He appeared to be as steadfast and unmoving in his affections as the mountains he called home. Would learning that he wasn’t her moon-destined mate alter that love? If it were even true. There was no way to know which of us would have—in another, more peaceful world—been her only bonded mate.

“Not to me. But if knowing would make any difference in protecting her, if it was witchcraft that caused it…”

“It had to be,” I mused aloud after a long moment. “I had thought perhaps a moon blessing, like your eyes. But when I saw the scar, after her fight at Southern, I knew it came from a darker root.”

He waited patiently, and I considered how much to share about my conjecture. All of it , I decided. He might need the whole story, especially if things went the way I feared they might. I would not be here to tell it to her myself.

“I told you that my soul was broken, somehow. Split into two halves.” He nodded. “I believe Flor’s soul was split as well.”

“Her scar has five points.”

“Five arrows to find her mates,” I agreed. “Five mates to help her change the world. Flor’s and her mother’s magical legacies were far too powerful for one witch, even a strong one, to overcome.” I almost smiled, my next thought amusing me more than it should. “I believe Flor drank down the witch’s power, fed on it while she was still unborn, and that it became that part of her that fights so brilliantly. She used it to fight to hold her soul together in the womb. To stay alive in her wretched pack as a child. To bind Luke to her, when she needed her first protector, and the rest of us when she found us. We make her stronger. She makes us whole.”

His brows furrowed. “Do you believe she will die if one of us does?”

“As true mates do?” I shrugged. “I should have died when Anya did. Instead, her death gave me the strength to do unspeakable acts. The strength to stay alive, to wait for Flor.”

“That doesn’t make sense. She wasn’t born yet.”

“I know. Hybrids like me can live many years past the normal span, though I am the oldest I’ve heard of.” I shifted under his assessing gaze. I had wondered if the sheer number of lives I’d taken, all the blood I’d spilled, had turned the moon against me. Made me unwelcome to ever run with the eternal pack, for my crimes. I hadn’t understood exactly why I was so long-lived, but I’d felt certain it was not a gift. “I thought my long life was a curse, until I felt her soul descend to the earth.”

The waiting had been a terrible penance, a fitting punishment. Only the moon’s monthly promise, as she waned to nothing, like my sanity and my soul, then grew full again, kept any hope alive of finding her.

“I did what I could to make the world safer for her, when she came,” I whispered. “Searching for her, I sensed her arrival. And then, days later, I felt her spirit break apart, and go still.”

“You thought she was dead?”

“No. I was frantic, hunting for her. I scented her blood on the wind, years later. When our brave young Luke saved her.”

“Our Luke?”

“He’s as much a part of my soul as Finnick, or Glen. I’m not certain they have any cause to rejoice at the connection with me, but I know precisely how little I deserve to be called their brother. I do not regret giving my power to them.” I glanced at him. “Or to you, when you had need.”Brand grumbled a thanks, and I went on. “The scar on Flor’s chest was formed in the womb; I am certain of that. A witch—perhaps Elina, more likely her coven leader—used a spell to break a mate bond on the mother.”

“Lily.”

“Yes. And when the witch discovered there were two souls standing against her… I assume she died. But not before Flor was injured.”

“She could have died then.”

“Could she have?” I met his eyes, and recognized the moon’s power in them again. “I believe the moon has Her ways. I believe our little queen was tethered to this world with the five points of that star, with the same magic I see in your face now. And I hope that the moon’s guiding all of our steps. Even those of us who live in the darkness.” I exhaled slowly.“It doesn’t matter who her intended mates were. She may have been destined to have one, or even two. We should just thank the moon that she was born requiring five.”

Brand opened his mouth to say something, but a sound in the hallway had us quieting. Boots moved down the hallway, though no one entered.

“The full moon is tomorrow night,” I mused quietly. “I don’t have enough power yet to face Elina on my own.”

Brand hesitated, then offered, “I will fight beside you, if you teach me how to face a witch.”

I shook my head immediately. “She has a connection to you through that mark, which exposes our little queen to danger as well. I am the only one unbound. The only one who can be sacrificed if need be.”

“She won’t like that,” he muttered. “For some reason, Flor wants you to be… hers.” He wrinkled his nose and for a moment, looked like a small boy taking a bite of some bitter vegetable. I stifled yet another smile. What was it about my queen’s mates that made my pitch-black spirit feel so much brighter?

“I cannot teach you how to face a witch. But I can face her for you, for Flor. For my little brothers.” I sighed. “If I had the strength. I can hardly sit upright.”

“Blood, Finn said. You can feed from the moon, pain, and blood.”

“And electricity, among other things. There isn’t enough power in these walls, I’m afraid, and pulling it out is tiring.” Before he could offer, I hurried on. “And I won’t take your blood, Brand. You’ll need your strength as well.”

He took a breath as if he was going to speak, then let it out and looked to one side, rubbing his brow. “I can’t,” he murmured. “I can’t do it.” He slumped down on the floor, and I let my own weight fall on the wall, both of us lost in our thoughts. Not a moment later, though, we both sat up straight, as if we’d been shocked, or stabbed.

His white eyes met mine in horror. “She’s here.”