Spencer's POVElder Jet’s cold laugh chills me to the bone. “My, my, Prince Spencer,” he says smugly. I can see him towering over me, can feel the droplets of my own blood pooling into the ground below me as the silver mist works its way into my skin. “I thought you’d at least be able to put up a better fight than that!” “A prince’s pride is often his own undoing,” comes the witch’s voice, prompting another wave of revulsion to come over me. “So I can’t say I’m particularly surprised.” I let out a ragged cough, droplets of blood splattering out this time. That can’t be good. My chest burns as small drops of silver continue to worm through my skin, and the sizzle of my flesh on fire combined with the iron tang in the back of my throat makes me want to puke. I want to speak, want to form words, but it feels like my vocal chords have been severed and drenched in lighter fluid. Reinforcements. We need reinforcements. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Gamma Everly, Alpha Leo, and
Spencer's POVI can feel Elder Jet watching me as the life slowly ebbs from my body, and I want to tear his eyes out. He’s smirking down at me, lips curled into a sickening grin. I grit my teeth as I look up at him. I think I could stand up if I wanted to, maybe land a couple weak blows, maybe draw a bit of blood, but what’s the point? I’d rather save my energy for when I know I’d at least have a fighting chance at getting something done. “Your army is failing,” Elder Jet says to me, crouching down by my side. “Or rather—you failed them, didn’t you? Because you weren’t strong enough, weren’t smart enough, weren’t able to do what needed to be done. I suppose losing Ivy rattled you even more than I would have anticipated, hm?” He chuckles, a bitter, rasping sound. “You can’t even begin to imagine how glorious it feels to get everything you ever wanted so perfectly laid out for you.”I’m still trying to reach out to my centurions, hoping to rally them and their troops to battle. But ag
Ivy's POVI think I can feel my last breaths rattling in my chest. I don’t know how much longer I have left at all. I thought I’d be long gone by this point, if we’re being really honest. I feel like I’m mostly gone—my vision has gone completely, since I no longer have the energy to keep my eyes open, and I can barely breathe at all. My heartbeat feels like it could stop any moment. I’m aware of the pain wracking my body, that red-hot agony tearing me apart. It sizzles and simmers on my skin. It feels like it’s tearing me apart. But at the same time, I can’t feel anything at all. I know there are things I should be feeling. Grass beneath my body, maybe. The blood that’s seeped into the soil. The grime and metal residue on my skin from having been locked in that cage. I can picture all of these things, in a vague, spun-out way. I can remember what they'd be like. I can simulate the feeling. It’s not the same as actually experiencing it, though. ‘Please, Ivy, try to hold on,’ Venet
Ivy's POVWhen I see Elder Jet rise up behind Spencer, claws poised for a deadly attack, it feels as though the entire world freezes. My breaths, already crackling and ragged and drenched with blood in my failing lungs, seem to stop. I’m aware of my heartbeat as a dull pulsing in my eardrums, but it suddenly slows, a distant ringing in the back of my mind. The pain wracking my body for all of its fiery hot intensity seems to shrink itself down into a tiny parcel. All at once, Spencer is the singular focus of my world. I can feel the panic surging through me. What do I do? What can I do? I can’t say anything—if I opened my mouth, blood would pour out in thick rivulets, and I feel like I’ve swallowed a great many shards of broken glass. My vocal chords are damn near torn. I know I’d just rasp, a gasping sound that would only intensify the weight of Spencer’s focus on me, and Elder Jet’s attack would land true. ‘Think,’ Venetia says softly in my mind, a gentle urge. ‘This is it, Ivy.
Spencer’s POVI think seeing Ivy like this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I approach her slowly, cautiously, the way one might approach a wounded animal. I’m scared of hurting Ivy even more than she’s already been hurt—I feel like if I were even to breathe on her too hard, she’d shatter into a million tiny pieces, just shards of glass splayed out on this battleground. I want to scoop her up into my arms and take her away into a better place, somewhere much safer than this, but would I be able to do anything at all to save her? Or would the simple movement of picking her up be enough to do her in?I did this.A wave of self-loathing hits me as I look Ivy over again. Her bloodstained clothes, her ghastly pale face, her ragged, hollow breaths. She’s the picture of near-death, if she’s not already dead. Every so often her eyes flicker open, and I want to believe she’ll be okay, but I know it’s a lie. All of this is my fault. I did this to Ivy. Despite all my attempts, all the measur
Spencer’s POVAs I stare down into Elder Jet’s cold, uncaring eyes, I’m suddenly struck by an unbearable agony unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I let out a ragged, choking gasp as I sink to my knees. My hands clutch at my chest desperately in a feeble attempt to do anything to relieve the terrible pressure lurking there, but it’s no use. My vision blinks in and out of focus, and all the noise of the outside world is replaced with a dull ringing, a sharp twinge that seems to seep into every nook and cranny of my brain. “No!” I scream. The word is nonsensical and useless in the face of everything that I’ve been through, nothing more than a shout into the void, but I say it nonetheless, over and over again. “No, no, no—“It feels like I’m dying. It really and truly feels like I’m dying. This here, now, this sheer burning agony like countless razors have slipped under my skin, like everything I’ve ever known has been burnt to a crisp before my very eyes, this sensation that I am u
Spencer’s POVI can’t find a pulse. My hands trace over Ivy’s pale throat, the blue veins visible and inflamed just beneath her skin. I press my fingers into the soft crook just beneath the left side of her neck and move them around frantically, searching desperately for any sign of life. Ivy’s heartbeat has become so familiar to me over time, almost like a part of me. An extension of myself. I’ve always been able to feel it. To know her in that intimate way, the rush of her blood. But now I’m met with complete and utter silence. It’s tearing me apart from the inside out, but I can’t find a pulse. Tears fall from my eyes in large droplets, and the lump in my throat feels like it’s choking me. The pain tearing through my body only grows as I continue to run my hands over her delicate pale skin. I want her to blink, to gasp, to shiver—anything, please, any sign that there’s still some trace of life left in Ivy’s body. But there’s nothing. “Ivy,” I say quietly, running my hands thr
Spencer’s POV“I love you, I love you, I love you, please tell me you know just how much I love you—“I’m sprawled out on the ground, a wreck of a man. My body trembles hopelessly, shaking and shivering at the slightest breeze rippling across my skin. I feel cold—colder than I’ve ever felt in my life, the sort of all-encompassing cold that you feel in your chest and in your skin, the kind that feels like it’s stealing away right down to the bone. The cold is going to take me. It’s going to take over every last part of me. I’ve got one arm sprawled over Ivy, pulling her as close to me as she could ever hope to get anymore. I can feel her blood pooling through the already-bloodied fabric of my sleeve. She’s not actively bleeding anymore—that stopped when her heart gave out. But there’s so much blood left anyways. She’s dead. Ivy is dead, and that thought will haunt me all the way into my final moments, until I’m dead too. There’s something comforting about this, though. Knowing she’
Ivy’s POVAs I lay in the quarantine room, I can feel the growing sickness continuing to spread through my body. Alongside all the typical postpartum symptoms, which would be horrendous enough on their own, the burning is horrible in its unrelentingness. The pain meds feel more like an empty consolation than anything else now. I’m more fatigued than I’ve ever felt before, but I can’t bring myself to fall asleep, because the agony simmering just beneath my skin is impossible to ignore. Am I being punished for something? ‘What am I going to do?’ I ask Venetia hopelessly. There’s no one else to talk to but her. ‘You’ll pull through,’ Venetia assures me, though I can hear the reluctance in her tone. ‘You heard the rumours–Spencer is out there right now, searching desperately for a cure! He loves you. He’s not going to let you die. You matter too much to him.’ I chuckle bitterly. ‘At a certain point, it doesn’t matter how much he doesn’t want me to die. I’ll die or I won’t.’ Venetia
Spencer’s POVAs my claws tear through the ice-cold flesh of the witch’s body, a bloodcurdling scream suddenly pierces the air. With a fierce cry, the witch tries to wrench herself from my grasp, but she only succeeds in dragging her body along my claws, worsening her own injuries. Blood splatters on the ground and onto my paws. It doesn’t feel like blood normally does, though–it’s cold like freshwater and feels oddly slick, almost oily. I pull my lips back over my teeth and growl viciously, searching for the witch’s neck in this darkness. “You beast!” The witch wails like a banshee. I can see her eyes glinting reflectively like a cat’s in the darkness. As we hit the ground, one of her antlers breaks and falls off. “Do you have any idea how powerful I am? You don’t have the faintest whisper of a chance against me, you brute–” I curl my claws inward, deepening the wounds further, and the witch lets out another ragged scream. Suddenly, the darkness in the room all seems to slither t
Spencer’s POV“Run!” My warning to Alpha Fierro echoes through the darkened office seemingly unheard. As the shadows continue to creep around my field of vision, obscuring everything from view, my heart thuds in my chest. Never before had I been scared of an enemy until encountering the witch. I shift fluidly into my wolf form, powerful arms and legs rippling with muscles, fangs and teeth sharp as daggers. My growl is a low, warning rumble in the base of my throat. Despite my heightened sentences as I continue to peer ahead, ears trained to detect the slightest sense of movement, I still have no idea where the witch is. “Reveal yourself, coward!” I shout, my voice echoing through the room. “You betray your honour by slinking around in the shadows.” The witch’s laugh, low and melodious, fills the air. There’s a haunting coldness to it. “Honour is a werewolf construct,” she says. “And it’s so unlike a proud, foolish warrior to consider it a cowardly action to win a battle with intel
Ivy’s POVThe longer I stay in the hospital bed, the more I can feel myself beginning to crumble. The pain is ceaseless in its intensity, great waves of agony that crash over me without letting up for even a second. I can’t scream, can’t cry, can’t move. I’ve given up on trying to call in any of the nurses when the flareups get too bad–all they’ll do is look at me sadly, scared of doing anything to make me worse, scared of simply standing by and watching the queen die. There’s an IV flowing an endless stream of pain medication into my veins, which is helping somewhat, but it’s not enough. All I can do is feel this. Until it kills me, I suppose. I have no idea where Spencer is–after he rushed out of my room unexpectedly like that, he never came back. I’ve heard some whispers floating around the hospital about a great escapade, about the looming creep of a plague sweeping through the kingdom. If it really is a plague, I hope more than anything that Tala didn’t catch it from me. If
Spencer’s POV“Alpha Fierro, I need you to focus up.” The words are harsh as they leave my mouth, but I’m not trying to be malicious, although it’s true that things desperately need to get moving. The longer I spend in the Sunclash pack, the more on edge I feel. Every wall in sight feels like it’s closing in on me, and I can feel the sickness permeating the air. There’s a heaviness to this place now, an endless sense of dread. I have a feeling that this ground will carry the weight of all its deaths for a long, long time. “Scour the office for anything that seems out of place,” I say. “If your Beta was in charge of the pack in your absence, it’s likely that he was the one putting any preventative measures into place. He may have tried to find a cure–hopefully there are signs somewhere around here.” I look down at the man’s corpse, the papers clutched in his fist and the expression of profound horror on his face. “I read his reports. He seems to have been a confident, driven man. I’
Spencer’s POV‘I think a considerable number of people managed to leave, contaminated or not.’ The longer Beta Wilson’s words echo through my mind, the more I begin to realize the scale of the potential disaster we might have on our hands. Where would any contaminated werewolves go? To the surrounding packs, most likely, and from there, the plague could spread from pack to pack to pack endlessly, ultimately becoming a worldwide pandemic…I whirl around to look at Alpha Fierro. “What was your relationship with other packs like?” I ask him urgently. “If any of your pack members were to turn up there looking for help, would they receive it?” “Probably, yeah,” Alpha Fierro says. “We tended to keep things as peaceful as possible. Unless there was very clearly something wrong going on, no one would have any reason to turn any of our members away.” I curse silently under my breath. “Keep heading towards the pack house,” I tell Alpha Fierro, already starting to walk away from him and back
Spencer’s POVMost of my skin has already been covered by my day clothes, but in the few places I’m not, I can feel the hazmat suit’s crinkly plastic resting against me uncomfortably. I shudder as the plastic continues to shift. It clings uncomfortably to my skin and is far from stealthy, causing a loud rumpling sound to ring out with every step. I’d hoped that we could carry out this surveillance with at least the slightest bit of stealth and decorum, but as the entire haphazard team of us begins to make our way into the Sunclash pack, it becomes more and more evident that that’s just not going to happen. Through the suit’s bulbous plastic dome, I make eye contact with Doctor Danbury, clearly far from amused. She purses her lips, and I can see my own frustration mirrored on her face as we continue to lug equipment around. “I know,” she says, coming up to walk beside me. “Believe me, I hate the suits too. Easily one of my least favourite parts of this job. But whatever wiped this p
Spencer’s POVAs we all sit in the back of a sleek, high-speed limo, I can’t help but feel thick tendrils of dread curling throughout my stomach. Every second I spend away from Ivy feels like I could be missing her final moments, and the fear over what could happen to her is making me sick. “The hazmat suits will be uncomfortable,” Doctor Danbury warns, holding up a hideous yellow baggy bodysuit. The plastic crinkles under her touch. “And the tanks on the back are going to poke weirdly. It’s no fun to wear, I know. But we still don’t quite know the extent of the toxicity of the environment we’re about to enter, so right now, safety is of the utmost importance. It’s possible that we’ll be able to take the suits off once I’ve run a couple tests and deemed the area safe, but I have no idea yet.” “Whatever it is, it seems to be highly contagious,” Alpha Fierro says somberly. Doctor Danbury nods. “The last thing we want to do is bring an uncontained plague back to the Lycan Kingdom, so
Spencer’s POVJust as Beta Wilson and Alpha Fierro make their way out of my office, I see Alpha Leo slip through the doorway. He looks much better than he did the last time I saw him–there are still the occasional cuts and bruises marring his skin, a couple ridged scars in the process of forming, but Alpha Leo seems to be walking without much pain. His posture is straight and his gaze is keen. He looks at me tentatively as he approaches my desk, and I can tell he’s just the slightest bit on edge. “Your Highness,” he says uncertainly. “Alpha Leo,” I reply. “Um, what can I do for you?” Alpha Leo asks nervously. I shuffle a stack of papers on the desk together. “As I’m sure you know, we’ve suffered considerable gaps in our staff,” I begin. “Specifically in our military and guard positions. One of the most notable absences is Captain McAndrews, as I’m sure you remember quite well.” Alpha Leo blanches. “Right,” he mutters. “The work you did during Elder Jet’s invasion was exceptiona