Ivy's POV“Because I don’t want Spencer to die!”My eyes widen at the princess’s confession. “What do you mean you don’t want Spencer to die?” I ask. “I thought me dying would only weaken him–are you telling me it would kill him?”Princess Sylvia sighs. “That part is true–in theory, it would only weaken him, because you’re his mate and you performed the Blood Oath Ceremony together. But the Lycan Royal Family is at war now, and Spencer is right there out on the battlefield. If you were to be killed, the pain it would bring Spencer could cost him his life in the heat of combat. Spencer is the Crown Prince, the future Lycan King. And I have to put my family first. So I had no choice but to try and save you.” I fall into stunned silence. Princess Sylvia smiles at me wryly, a bit of blood dribbling out of her mouth. “Does that upset you?” She asks. “To know I only saved you for the sake of the Lycan Royal Family?”“I don’t… I don’t know,” I manage, still stunned by her words. She chuck
Ivy's POV“We need to move.”The words leave my mouth in a hiss. I scoop Princess Sylvia up into my arms, praying I’m not jostling her too badly as I look frantically around the cave for somewhere tucked-away to hide her. “What are you doing?” Princess Sylvia whispers angrily, pushing at my chest weakly. “Put me down!” “Fine.” I’ve already found where I need her to be anyway. I set her down behind a little stone outcropping that will hopefully conceal her from view, then grab a couple strewn-about sticks and leaves and scatter them nearby. My haphazard heap of materials mostly obscures the princess from immediate view, looking almost like the abandoned nest of some long-gone critter. I pray it’s enough to divert any attention away from her. The footsteps continue to shuffle around the woods, but I can’t quite manage to gauge their distance. “I’m gonna need you to be real quiet, now,” I whisper. My plan is simple: I’m going to use myself as a diversion to distract whoever’s out t
Ivy's POVBeta Wilson’s clothes are streaked with blood. I want to cry with relief upon seeing him here to rescue us, but I have to suppress them, knowing now isn’t the right moment. Because Beta Wilson’s clothes are streaked with blood, which means that something is very, very wrong. “What happened?” I ask, crawling out of the cave and leaning against the mountainside in shock. I look up at him. The blood splatter on his clothes looks like it was left by slashing wounds, and there’s so much of it I can’t tell if any of it is Beta Wilson’s. “Are you okay?” “I’m alright,” Beta Wilson assures me quickly. “But as I was searching the woods for you and the princess, I encountered a raging Lycan nearby. I tried to speak with him, but he was extremely aggressive, and ended up attacking me first. I had to fight him.” He lowers his head, somewhat ashamed. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Miss Ivy. Or–well. I’ve seen something like it once.”Beta Wilson averts his gaze, and I know he’s ta
Ivy's POV“We need to go.”I look up at Beta Wilson in surprise. He’s spent the past little while taking care of Princess Sylvia–applying bandages, cleaning out wounds, and speaking to her in a hushed voice–but there’s a concern to his voice now that takes me off guard. “We don’t know how many more enemies are out there,” Beta Wilson says. “I’ve managed to get the princess stabilized enough for transport now, but I don’t want to risk us staying here any longer.”I nod. I’m about to ask what our next steps are when suddenly I realize that Beta Wilson is here alone with us–there aren’t any more of our warriors in sight. “Why isn’t anyone with you, Beta Wilson?” I ask. “Where are the others?”“They’re on their way, but I scouted ahead,” he explains, scooping Princess Sylvia up into his arms. He cradles her head gently, brushing his fingers through her matted hair, and walks towards the cave entrance. “I was worried about their safety, so I figured I’d have a look around first. I’d only
Ivy's POV“Take her.” Beta Wilson rushes over to me as the two werewolf warriors advance on us, pressing us closer and closer together. They grin as they circle us, clearly confident they’ve got their prey cornered. I gasp as Beta Wilson hoists Princess Sylvia into my arms. He turns his sharp gaze to the enemies in front of us, sizing them up warily. The princess’s body feels heavy in my arms, damp with sweat and blood. Her eyes are shut, moving back and forth rapidly behind closed eyelids. Her skin is ghostly pale and glossy. Her lips open and close, murmuring words no one can understand. She’s clearly fallen unconscious, well beyond reach now. She’s burning red-hot with fever. The moment Princess Sylvia is out of his hands, Beta Wilson steps away and shifts into a large brown wolf. With a roar that shakes the treetops, Beta Wilson launches himself into combat, hurling himself at the first werewolf in a flurry of fangs and snapping teeth. The sounds of battle quickly fill the ai
Ivy's POVThe pain never comes. I crack an eye open, surprised that the enemy’s claws haven’t landed on me. As the enemy frantically swings his massive paw towards me, claws out, a mysterious gray wolf suddenly lunges towards me and knocks the enemy away. I scream, stumbling backwards at the sight of the wolf. He doesn’t even bat an eye at me, taking advantage of the enemy werewolf’s disorientation. His jaws lock around the werewolf’s throat, and in an instant, he’s dead. Blood splatters onto the gray wolf’s fur, but he doesn’t seem concerned with it in the slightest. I lock eyes with Beta Wilson. ‘Who is he?’ I mouth. ‘No idea,’ Beta Wilson mouths back. The gray wolf shifts fluidly into his human form–tall and broad-shouldered, with tousled black hair and piercing hazel eyes. He doesn’t spare myself or Beta Wilson a second glance, turning instead to the deceased wolf lying at his feet. “Useless trash!” He spits at the fallen enemy, snarling viciously. “Even with the potion’s he
Ivy's POVThe moment I step out from the bushes, the gray wolf’s eyes lock onto me with the intensity of a thousand suns. “There you are,” he says, voice suddenly as slickly smooth as oil and honey. I start to tremble, taking a step back in fear. As I do, though, he takes another step towards me. I look back at Princess Sylvia–the weak rise and fall of her chest, the unconscious slump of her body in Beta Wilson’s arms, the blood that’s stained her clothes so red they look black. The sight of her strengthens my resolve. I return my gaze to the strange man, steeling myself for whatever is to come. “Is your promise genuine?” I ask the stranger. My voice sounds frail and small as it drifts through the cold night air. “Will you spare them?”“Oh, I’m not interested in anyone else. I only want you.”The gray wolf looks me up and down, and I find myself resisting the urge to shrink back again. I don’t know what this stranger wants with me, but I’m all out of options at this moment–Prince
Ivy's POVAs we walk through the dark woods, I find myself trailing behind Alpha Leo.It’s not my intention to move slowly–I’m completely and utterly lost in thought, a storm of anxiety racing through my mind. I’m worried about Princess Sylvia, about Spencer out there on the battlefield up against who knows what, about Alpha Leo and what he may have in store for me. The unknowns are building up to an excruciating high. The more stressed I get, the more my gaze lingers on the dark trees surrounding me, and my feet move slower and slower along the forest floor. Alpha Leo looks back at me in mild annoyance, tugging my arm to indicate I need to pick up the pace. “Hurry up,” he complains, rolling his eyes. “Do you really think you’ll be able to escape? Please. Quit wasting your energy scheming and just follow me.”Alpha Leo’s words catch me off-guard, and suddenly, I find myself frozen in place. “I wasn’t scheming–”My words die in my mouth as, in a split second, Alpha Leo shifts fluidly
Spencer’s POVAs I push past the double doors and into the hospital’s foyer, I’m struck by the absolute chaos everywhere. There are patients being pushed and shuffled in every direction, and the entire hospital staff looks criminally overworked, worry lines and downcast expressions almost completely hidden behind thick airtight filters. I realize the yellow suits all the staff are wearing match the protective suits Doctor Danbury gave us when we were investigating the Sunclash pack. And if everyone is in plague equipment now…I can only hope we’ll have enough of the antidote to deal with all the infected. That’s an issue for later, though. Right now, my focus is solely on Ivy. “Where’s the queen?” I shout, looking around the foyer frantically. A nurse rushes over towards me hurriedly, gaze darting back and forth. “She–she’s in the quarantine wing, Your Majesty,” the nurse says. “Quite a few patients are, unfortunately. Before I can take you there, I’m going to have to ask you to
Spencer’s POVAs soon as I pass the threshold of the Lycan Kingdom, I hear a frantic message from Captain Leo echoing in my mind. ‘–and they’re here!’ Comes the call, which has surely been repeating over and over again for ages now, if I’m hearing it as soon as I’m able. Captain Leo’s voice is frantic and desperate. ‘Please, Your Majesty, we have to get this under control. We need you here.’ I grit my teeth and keep my gaze peeled on the road ahead. We’re on our way to the palace now, to deliver the antidote to Ivy and whoever else may need it, but we’re still a matter of minutes away at least. ‘We’re in the kingdom now,’ I assure him. ‘Who’s here?’‘The rest of Elder Jet’s rebels, Your Majesty. It seems they were waiting for you to leave.’ I scowl in displeasure as I watch the scenery continue to blur around us. Of course that was the witch’s final plan, coward that she was. To poison my wife and lure me out to the middle of nowhere knowing how desperate I’d be to cure her… It’s
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