BLAISE “Noel!” It’s my fault. It feels as if my own breaths are being twisted away from my throat. The door swings shut limply behind me, clicking weakly into place. My gaze wavers violently as it slowly settles on a pair of unblinking amber eyes. No. Not him. Why? He hadn’t even… Noel gives me a soft smile. He taps his lips, in a gentle reminder. “Mask, Blaise.” It feels as if the world is crumbling down in front of my eyes. With trembling hands, I grip one of the masks and pull it over my mouth. I’m about to rush over to his bedside when he shakes his head. He whispers silently. Don’t. He tells me not to come closer, with bloodshot eyes and his face streaked with the harsh, dark colors of violet. But how can I not. How can I not? When I can see the way his own hands tremble underneath his gloves. I ignore his warning. His eyes widen as I easily push past the several empty beds separating me from him. Tears sting the corners of my eyes as I watch him flinch, wh
BLAISE It’s past sunset, nearing nightfall. I silently raise myself up from the chair, making sure to stay completely silent as I pad across the room. Noel’s soft, labored breathing is the only thing that fills the air. He doesn’t stir, as I carefully draw the edge of the blankets all the way up to his chin. One of the symptoms of the Plague was sleeplessness. I knew this from Beau, who had always gone to sleep with nightmares whenever I hadn’t sung to him. Knowing this, I would not let Noel spend a single night trying to fall asleep alone. After lighting a candle on the nightstand, I shut the curtains and wordlessly make my way out of the room. My heart shutters still, whenever I see the violet staining his cheeks. Every second I want to deny reality. The door falls close behind me with a click. And I lift my eyes, to see a bloodshot pair of shadowed violet eyes. I barely stop a scream from escaping my throat as I stumble backward into the frame of the door. The Beta sta
NOEL The thirst wakes me up. I scramble to a sitting position, fingers twisting the sheets apart. Sweat runs like a river down the sides of my face. It’s already wet the back of my shirt, making it stick to skin. Every inch of my body aches. It burns with fever. Water. I feel like a stiff, unoiled jumble of metal. My limbs are stiff and heavy when I try to move them. Every motion requires so much effort that by the time I’ve shifted to the edge of the bed, I’m exhausted out of my mind. The knuckles gripping the frame are a blend of pale skin and marred violet. Could I even make it a step out of that door? I stutter in a breath, frustrated tears glazing the corners of my eyes. I can already foresee the future, where both my legs give out the second I push off of this bed. Never mind the door. I wouldn’t even be able to get there in the first place. When had I become this weak? Was I really going to die, this soon? It felt like I was half-dead already. The tears thicken
BLAISE The Packhouse library is absolutely massive. “I didn’t know you liked books,” I murmur, staring up at the shelves that seem to cover the walls that curve inwards. It must be at least thirty feet tall. Pale sunlight enters through the glassy, dome-shaped ceiling, shrouding the chamber in a faint, pastel blue. It smells of worn pages and warm tea. Christian glances up from the corner of the room, legs crossed and already settled into a velvet, cushioned chair. He drums his fingertips against a book open on the armrest. “The Shadow Pack has generations of history,” He replies. “And it’s my responsibility to make sure that mistakes don’t repeat itself.” I give him a look of mild surprise. Who would’ve known that the Shadow Alpha had a side like this? I’d never believed him to be an intellectual. My eyes trace down the lines of his figure. He looks lax and unhurried, already immersed in the book he’d opened in less than a minute ago. Intelligence burns like a low, soft fla
BLAISEFor the past four days, I’d scoured a quarter of the library. At this point my eyes felt permanently bloodshot, from the way I’d read through more than two lifetimes’ worth of books in less than a week. The tips of my fingers are ashen from flipping past page after page. Noel was not recovering. The Beta had been making visits to his room every night. I’d noticed after the third day, after I’d put Christian to sleep and wanted to check on him. I’d noticed the Beta watching over an asleep Noel in the chair set in the corner of the room. And I’d realized that Noel didn’t need me as much as I’d thought he did. He was wasting away. Just as Beau had. The sun is high up in the sky. And I’m standing by his bedside, hands tightened into fists by my sides as I look down at his unconscious figure. The dark splotches now completely cover the right half of his face, a poisonous ivy wrapping around his throat and wisping down underneath the neckline of his shirt. He has lost so much wei
I can practically tell the moment he snaps. He throws his head back in a roar of laughter. And a wave of snickering runs through the crowd. I catch snippets of amused agreement, mixed in with suppressed chuckles, before stars explode in the corners of my eyes. It paints my thoughts black. I crumple to the side, my eyes still wide as I stare blankly at the soles of a pair of dark brown boots. At first, I don’t even register the pain. One second I had been spitting curses at him. The next, I’m on the ground before I can even tell what had even put me there. I can’t even breathe, with this damn gag around my mouth. The looming shadow crouches downwards. And I hear a dark murmur, any traces of the laughter wiped entirely away. “Say that again, Omega bitch.” I don’t move. I can’t. My tongue tastes like the roughest sandpaper in my lips. And I see the shadow slightly rise. I see the silhouette of a hand flicker as it raises itself higher above my head. He’s about to bring dow
“What were you thinking?” “What were you thinking?” I reply back, my eyes fixed on the bandage in my hands. I press my lips together as I unwrap the edge. “Give me your arm.” In the corner of my eye, I see a smile tinge his lips. His gaze stays on me the entire time as he rests his arm on my open palm, purposely keeping a bit of tension knowing that I wouldn’t be able to handle the weight of it by myself. The mark of fangs is so clear against the flesh that it makes me wince. It’s not deep, but it’s certainly not on the shallow side either. I hear the Alpha laugh. “A bit too much for you?” “Don’t be ridiculous,” I snap as I start circling the roll of gauze over the ravaged skin. The corners of my lips fall downwards. It looks like it hurts. A lot. A hand grazes the top of my head, fingertips skimming through my dark locks. I notice, but I can’t do anything about it with both my hands busy. I can only keep my mouth running, to try and distract myself from it. “That wolf,”
BLAISE “...what?” “I’ve ordered a room for you across the Packhouse,” He starts, repeating his words again when I shake my head roughly. I stare up at him, both brows creased. “I heard you the first time. I’m asking why you’re telling me to stay away. You need me, Alpha. You need me to sing for you so that you—” The smile that tinges his lips is both mysterious and bittersweet. And as usual, he’s more vague than the clouds of fog that had descended over Shadow outside the windows. Even the day is as dark as the falling night, these last couple days. “I don’t want you near me when she arises.” He says, and I crumple my expression, my brain rolling along at full power to try and decipher what he’s saying. “The Moon?” He nods, his golden eyes fixed on me. By his side, his fist flexes open and close. I faintly remember what he had said last night. It lays some of us bare, to our true selves. Was his true self so terrible that he didn’t even want me near him? Was that it? “