Page 21 of Shadebound (Dark Fantasy #1)

Behind me, the wolves were muttering in low, angry voices that overlapped. Because we all knew this wasn’t random. This wasn’t just a murder. It was a message. One we were running out of time to understand.

“Same markings. Same stench as the previous bodies,” Saphira muttered, crouching near the corpse, her nose wrinkled in disgust. “I’ll tell the others.”

She meant the other shifters. The dragons. The sirens. The rest of whoever had been dumped into Mors alongside us. Everyone had carved out their own corners. Their own makeshift alliances. Their own simmering hostilities.

We didn’t like sharing territory with other packs. Wolves weren’t built for it. Our instincts itched, restless, when we crossed scents with something not our own. But we didn’t have a choice anymore.

To be fair, I could tolerate most of them. Even the sirens, when they weren’t being too pretentious. It was the dragons I couldn’t stand. All ego and heat and superiority. Walking furnace nightmares.

I’d lost count of the number of times I’d got into a fight with the motherfuckers who shared my dorm just because they breathed a little too loud near me. And I had no clue how Saphira could tolerate them well enough to be friends. Let alone more.

She knelt lower beside the body, fingertips brushing the air just above his midnight hair. “He smells of dark magic. Like rot and decay and...” She tilted her head, golden eyes glowing. “He reeks of the shadebound girl, Alpha. It’s just like how she stank earlier.”

I could feel the darkness too. Like a film crawling over my senses. It clung to everything—the trees, the leaves, the corpse. The magic tasted thick, bitter, wrong. It reeked of something ancient. Something hungry.

But it was nothing like Jinx, and I didn’t appreciate Saphira’s tone.

“Definitely not natural.” My eyes narrowed. “Definitely something dark. But it’s not shadebound magic. At least not Jinx.”

“How do you know?” Saphira pushed. “Her kind love all this freaky shit. They get their rocks off to dead bodies and—”

I growled at her, and she instantly backed up, getting to her feet and offering me a soft smile.

“Well, I meant no offence, Zayden. I was just pointing out what I can smell.” She smiled harder, but I had no energy in me to respond.

I liked her well enough, but it was mostly out of pity. There were barely any panther shifters left, and there were no others in Mors. I’d only allowed her into my pack so she wasn’t alone, but that didn’t mean I liked her enough to put up with her shit talking Jinx.

“And we both know you can’t smell Jinx,” Maya piped up, voice rough.

“It’s not her magic. And even if it were, she only just got here.

How do you explain the murders over the last few weeks?

” She looked up at me, her face grim, lips pressed in a thin line.

“You think something is coming through the portal? That seashell necklace on his neck is a protection charm. But it doesn’t work on dead things, and those monsters are all dead. ”

“I don’t know.” But part of me thought yes. Something was shifting. Something was slipping through. Maybe not or monsters. But something worse . Things without shape. Things that fed on fear.

But if it was a monster, then who the fuck had killed Bells? And how come they’d done it the same way?

Surely a monster could not plan things like this?

“I can make a meeting with Hightower in the morning.” I ran a hand over my face, head throbbing as I looked at Connor’s seashell necklace and wondered if he’d known about a threat worth protecting himself over. “Not that it will do much good.”

We’d reported every body. Every shadow. Every shriek in the night.

Hightower didn’t care.

She said it was suicide. Wild animals. Rogue students. She said she’d investigate, but she never did.

Behind me, someone muttered. One of the newer wolves—Rhett, with thick brows, and shaggy dark hair—snorted under his breath.

“Honestly, after what Draconis did in the arena? Maybe she is the one doing it. I wouldn’t be surprised she floated out here to kill as a warmup for her arrival. She looked like she enjoyed killing.”

My body stilled. Head throbbing harder.

“She’s hot, though,” he added. “I’d tap that, even if she is psychotic.”

I turned before I made the conscious decision to do so. In two strides, I’d grabbed him by the front of his shirt and slammed him into the nearest tree.

The bark cracked from the force. He gasped, wind knocked out of him. His hands flayed, and he caught my face on accident.

“You do not talk about her,” I said, voice low and cold, barely keeping my claws from surfacing. “Not like that. Not at all.”

Rhett coughed. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t care what you meant. Keep your fucking mouth shut.

” With a snarl, I dropped him. He hit the ground hard, wheezing.

The urge to kick him and beat some sense into him was almost too strong to ignore.

“Next person to mention Jinx like that gets their legs broken. I will not tolerate any of you talking about a woman disrespectfully, least of all her. Understood?”

A chorus of nods. Mumbled apologies. Whimpers. I swore I heard one tiny scoff under a breath.

I wanted to shift and kill them all, but I couldn’t. And not just because it was an overreaction to a group that was mostly my friends.

“Keep scouting the grounds,” I ordered, jaw ticking. “Report anything you find, and if there is nothing within the next hour, then call it a night.”

They scattered with a mumbled chorus of, yes, Alpha , and nobody argued.

Maya stayed behind, dusting off the leaves caught on my jumper. She stepped closer and studied me for a long beat. I had no idea what she was staring so hard at until she lifted her hand, water magic swirling.

“You’ve got some blood on your face.” She muttered, brows furrowing as she washed away the slightest trickle that had come from my nose.

“Rhett caught me.” I huffed. “I’m also tired of all this fucking stress. My brain feels like melting some days, and I’ve had a killer headache all fucking week. I think I bashed my brains in the arena a bit too much. And these dead bodies are not helping. I don’t know what to do.”

“So,” she said, folding her arms, her mouth tugging up at one corner. “It probably doesn’t help the stress levels that you’re still in love with Jinx, then?”

I gave a humourless laugh. “Don’t start.”

She shifted her weight, leaning back against a low-hanging branch, watching me with that too-knowing look that always irritated and unnerved in equal measure. The faint glow from her magic cast a pale light on the bark, highlighting the slight smirk curving her lips.

“Come on. You can tell Aunty Maya all your secrets. I can keep ‘em.” She winked, and I wanted to smother her to death.

I made a note to think about it later. Only a little. Just a tiny smothering until she gasped and realised sometimes she talked shit.

“You didn’t kill Rhett. That’s restraint. Especially for you.” She grinned harder, all earlier panic forgotten. “Maybe you don’t love Jinx as much as I thought. Maybe instead of being a mega simp, you’re just a regular one.”

I crossed my arms, stare fixed on the trees behind her. “He was an idiot. Doesn’t mean I kill idiots. Especially ones who only talk smack because they think it makes them look cool to the other guys.”

She shrugged, then nudged a loose rock with her toe. “Still. I’ve seen you rip someone’s arm out for less. What’s got you so... calm?”

She wasn’t wrong. I’d done worse for less provocation.

But this wasn’t about pride. This wasn’t about dominance.

This was about Jinx. About protecting what was mine—even if she never knew it.

And part of that meant behaving rationally.

Not bringing drama to her door, or killing anyone who was rude about her. I had to be a smart man, not an idiot.

I had to make sure I didn’t make a long list of enemies she would have to deal with one day.

“You love her, Zayden,” Maya added, voice soft but certain.

“You should tell her. My only regret in life is telling Bells I didn’t love her when she said it to me.

And I can’t even begin to describe what that feels like.

” Her hands shook. “And it’s not just because she died that night, but because she died not knowing how I felt.

She died, thinking I didn’t love every ounce of her ridiculous, rainbow soul. ”

I didn’t answer. My throat was tight. Out of everyone in the universe, only Maya understood my hesitation. Only she had the tiniest inkling of why I did what I did. And why it made sense.

Only she knew how much it fucking sucked.

“You were going to Mors. Your parents were sending you away, and you didn’t want Bells to follow you, which we both know she would have volunteered to do. That was a nice thing. The right thing for her.” I muttered as the wind blew my hair into my eyes. “Why can’t I do a nice thing for Jinx?”

“Because your girl doesn’t need protecting.” She snorted. “You never told her, did you?” She ignored half of what I said. “That night, before they took you.”

I turned my head, breaking eye contact. “No.”

“She’d want to know.”

“She doesn’t need to.” I huffed and looked back at her, unable to stop myself when I knew she was right.

Maya exhaled slowly, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. “You’re a fool.”

I didn’t argue. She was right. Again.

The night I’d gone to Jinx, bloodied and shaking, I hadn’t planned to touch her. But she let me stay. Held me when I broke. Kissed me like I wasn’t a monster.

And I let her. Just that once.

Then I left before the sun came up. Let her wake up alone. Pretended it hadn’t meant anything—like I hadn’t just carved something real out of a world that never gave me anything but pain.

She spent eight months breaking because of that. Eight months setting the world on fire trying to avenge her sister and give herself a way to channel her anger and grief. I knew what it did to her. I knew I played a part in it.

So I couldn’t do that to her again.

Not even when she smiled, and I wanted to kiss her. Not when she cried, and I wanted to kill whoever made her sad. Not even when I wanted to fall to my knees and beg for one more second of her simply looking at me.

She deserved better than someone who only knew how to ruin things. And I wasn’t going to be the reason she shattered again.

“Zayden,” Maya said, voice sharp enough to cut through my thoughts, tugging me back.

I looked up.

The shadows around us thickened. Like the dark itself was breathing and full of malicious intent.

Like the shadows were alive .

“Let’s go back to the dorm,” I told her, voice low. “We can tell Hightower in the morning. I don’t trust those shadows.”

We headed back to the dorms together, and though Maya tried to make random small talk, I could barely listen. Not when my head was throbbing and my mind was racing.

If it wasn’t bad enough that Jinx had only been sentenced to Mors because she’d gone after the people who she thought murdered her twin—torturing them for months, brutalising them with twisted, sadistic care, until eventually she killed them in the slowest ways she could dream up—it was the fact that she never even got the right ones.

And if she ever found out the real killer might actually have been here , at Mors...

I didn’t think she’d survive it. Not because she couldn’t. But because she’d go all in. She’d destroy herself for vengeance.

As much as I loved her for her darkness—as much as I admired it—I knew it would be the end of her. And I knew I would die before I let her kill herself.

Not again.