57. Lyra

I’d been under the hot water for an hour already, the showerhead working me to a state of near-fulfilment so many times. Except it never satisfied me. It was only through imagining Declan doing those things to me that I ascended but it was a pale imitation of feeling his hands on my body.

Without warning my wolf grew tense. I panicked Ronan was loose for a second until I remembered the tattooed monster was dead. So what was my wolf afraid of?

Turning off the shower I quickly dried, wrapping an emerald green silk nightgown around my body. I had to investigate. I wandered to the Black Hall first, but it felt off. Normally my wolf is pulling me there with all the force in the world but not tonight. Instead I walked down Corridor Six. Usually the warmest part of the bunker, tonight it was cold. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

A series of clattering and banging stopped me in my tracks. Then a cry of pain. I hid behind a concrete beam. After some more noise, from around the corner emerged two figures struggling. Declan in grey and the black-clad figure of Howen.

And ice. What was ice doing on the floor?

Declan didn’t seem himself, unable to see off Howen’s silently flailing rage. Only the glittering edge of a cleaver and the vivid red hair of Howen visible in the dim light. I waited, holding my breath for Declan to make his move. Except Declan stood on a lump of ice and fell, Howen quickly standing over him.

“Howen, you don’t have to do this,” he croaked.

Now.

My wolf bellowed inside as Howen raised his arm, preparing to strike.

Now what?

SHIFT

A cry of pain escaped, breaking into a run. My robe fluttered away behind me as my limbs swiftly distorted, bent and snapped. It has been so many years I had completely forgotten how agonising it was to take on my wolfs form.

We barrelled towards Howen, a black-furred bundle of fury and shoulder-charged into him to the floor.. I stood over him growling. He dared to try and hurt what was mine. My Declan. My furred body formed a barrier, my teeth bared.

Declan stumbled to his feet, rubbing his jaw. “Lyra?”

I cast a look back at him so he could see my green eyes. I felt electric. I had finally shifted! In a soft inner voice my wolf tried to explain how my fear had stopped her shifting before. I had been too afraid to hand over my trust to my wolf, blocking my own salvation.

Her soft voice explained she never wanted Ronan’s touch. The full moon amplifies my feelings including fear and it paralysed her too. Warm, soothing love cascades through my senses as the gulf between us begins to heal.

Thanks to years of Valdis mistreatment, I and every other slave of this place had been so traumatised we had lost the very ability that could free us.

“You can shift back now, I’ve got it covered,” Declan said grittily. I caught whiskey on his breath. I didn’t even know he drank. Obediently, I slunk back down the corridor towards the discarded green robe.

Thanking my wolf, swearing to shift again in spring I returned to human form. Tying the robe around my waist I heard Howen struggling to his feet, Declan now brandishing the cleaver.

“Howen, I can’t let this go. You can’t do this.”

The two stared at each other. “Tell me what you want? You want me dead?”

Howen blinked twice. “No? Then what do you want? Talk to me!”

In his chunky, black leather Howen climbed up the ladder and smacked the wall of ice above. From what I could see, hiding around the corner he had managed to get a hole going. Declan let out a growl of frustration, his hands on his hips, the huge mountains that formed his shoulders visible under his grey top.

“You want out? You’ll be dead! It’s a fucking death sentence Howen! I can’t cut through metres of ice man, even grenades can’t do that much.”

Howen placed his head in his hands, pacing back and forth between the ladder and the small corner of the wall. His soul was in utter anguish.

I recognised that kind of self-hatred. He had broken every bond in his life. It was probably only his wolf preventing him from taking his own life right now. This was an act of desperation.

“Look out!” Declan cried as a thick cracking rumbled through the corridor. Suddenly huge wedges of ice started tumbling down the ladder steps. “Fuck, get back! Lyra where are you!” his brown eyes meeting mine, heading towards me instead of the crumpled figure of Howen.

Despite the panic of the falling ice I was still on a high from having shifted. I wanted to charge forward, help Declan but he didn’t want me. I am an onlooker.

I took some steps around the smaller chunks of ice but he stuck his hand out, motioning me to stop, “stay where you are, keep back!”

Another three huge chunks of ice, the size of pumpkins, crashed down, shattering into pieces hit the concrete. Then came a freezing cold gust that left the hairs on the back of my neck standing. “No…” Delcan muttered before grabbing the rungs of the ladder. “There’s a fucking hole! The ice is only a couple of metres thick! We’re nearly done!”

“Spring is early!” I cried. It was usually around the sixth month that they started to test the strength of the ice. The aim being to create a basic hole, and then send scouts out to check for damage. There was no point sending everyone back above ground without the fortress above functioning.

Under Valdis if the scouts were not quick to return he would sometimes shut the bunker door. He hated to be cold.

“I can’t believe it. We’ve fucking made it. We can send scouts up from tomorrow,” Declan muttered, almost to himself, lost in gazing up at the icy hole. I could see from the doorway how the breeze blew his brown mop of hair gently.

Howen gazed up at him, his green eyes filled with so much emotion. Longing, anguish, sadness all caused his youthful face to crease and scrunch. He was a broken figure.

Letting out a sigh Declan climbed back down. Taking a few steps back he placed his hand on Howen’s shoulder. “I can’t, even after everything, I can’t kill you. I should never have let you fall in with those other Rogues when you were younger. I should have warned you about Corina instead of waiting for you to find out yourself.”

Howen gripped his wrist tightly, as if pleading for him to say no more. “I’m saying How, that I love you but I can’t see you again. Ever. This is the end of us as brothers. So…” and he placed the metal cleaver into his hands. “...you can go. Climb out of here and take your chances if that’s what you want. You’ve got a twelve hour start on the scout.”

Howen shook his head in agreement as tears flooded down his face, running into that coppery beard. He took the cleaver in one hand and Declan’s hand in the other and kissed the top of Declan’s hand.

“How did you get out of your cell?” I asked, feeling guilty for interrupting. Howen looked at Declan. “Was it Viktor?” Declan said softly, and Howen blinked once. I gasped.

“Did he give you these weapons and furs?”

Two blinks. “No, okay,” Declan started rubbing his bearded face. “So…did he suggest get revenge on me? Kill me?” One blink. “Yes. But you chose to try and escape instead?”

One blink. “Then I need you to do just that. Now.”

Howen blinked back more tears, quickly wiping his face. Then he clattered up the ladder, not looking back as his legs wiggled, then vanished.

Declan stared up at the hole that Howen had escaped through. Without thinking I opened one of the boiler room doors. They always had mops for spillages, so I started cleaning up.

“Lyra what the fuck are you doing?” Declan asked, his brown eyes staring at me.

“My job. This is what I do.”

“No. No Luna of mine cleans the floors. Not anymore.”

In one swift move his huge arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me into him. My hands landed on his solid chest, just as warm as I remembered. “I am sor-”

“None of it matters. It never should have mattered,” he growled, his lips crashing into mine, sending fireworks through every inch of my already freezing body.