Chapter 1

Xander POV

They took her… They took Ida.

My mate was now in the hands of Osprey. I wanted to shift into Lycan form and jump into the swarm of knights and decapitate every last one of them. However, Gideon’s silver chain was still wrapped around my arm, preventing me from raining chaos among those I wanted dead.

Gideon kept shoving me back, using all the strength he must have had. I was stronger than him, but he was more stubborn than I would have liked. Gideon kept pushing and grabbing my shoulders, forcing me down on the ground. He put me down on my stomach, placed his knee on my neck, and twisted my left arm behind my back. He dislocated my shoulder when he pulled harder. I could barely feel it. I was high on adrenaline and couldn’t feel anything.

Ida…

“You’re no good to Ida if you’re dead, Alex. Hold it together until we figure something out.” Gideon hissed while repositioning himself on me. His voice sounded out of focus and was barely audible in my ears.

“I didn’t see Diana come out. We need to wait until the guards leave and go find her. I hope she’s OK. They were clearly after Ida, not her, so they most likely left her for dead if she's alive.” His voice had become sombre.

I stayed on the ground for the better part of the afternoon. Gideon just sat on me. I groaned when I started feeling my left arm go numb. My friend repositioned himself and let my arm fall on the grass. I had calmed myself enough for him to give me more room to move. I knew he would have to help me replace my shoulder in its socket, or else it would not heal right, and we would have to dislocate it again for it to set correctly.

However, the pain I was feeling wasn’t just about my arm. It was about Ida; her being pregnant and having been abducted right under our noses, and that we couldn’t do anything about it without being discovered. I didn’t care if they caught me, so long as she would have been safe after I had gotten to her. But it was too late.

Besides, they would probably piece everything together and hunt me down since they were bound to figure out I was a shifter and Ida and I were fated mates. I hated I was putting Ida in a dangerous position.

I would need to warn my mother to leave High Hill Estate and save herself from my father’s wrath. Once he would learn I was a shifter, he’d kill her and come after me.

“You can get off me now. I’ve calmed down.” I said through my teeth.

Gideon shifted his knees and removed his arms from my back. I was able to lift myself with my good arm and sit down. I readied myself for him to set my shoulder back in place. He looked over at me with questioning eyes, and I simply nodded.

Gideon went to my left side and took my limb in both hands. He placed a foot on my ribs and pulled, rotating my shoulder upward. I heard a popping sound, then relaxed. The pain would subside within minutes, and maybe after an hour, my arm would completely heal as though nothing had happened.

“Sorry about that.” He mumbled as he sat down beside me.

Gideon removed the silver chain around my arm and placed it back in his pocket, wincing at the burn it caused him.

I looked at him sideways, but I didn’t respond. I was still angry he prevented me from saving Ida.

“You know I had to do that, right? I couldn’t just let you destroy your chances of getting her back because you couldn’t see right from wrong anymore.” Gideon’s tone was soft but full of remorse. “I’m sorry this happened to you both. I’ve failed her yet again.”

He let his head fall towards his chest and took a deep, shaky breath. I didn’t think he would take it so hard on himself. I nudged him, shoulder to shoulder, and sighed.

“I get it. I would have been no good to Ida if I were dead. You did the right thing, Gideon. I couldn’t see anything past my rage and fear. When I gave that lady her child back and smelled her, I realized Ida had the same smell and lost control over myself. I hadn’t even noticed I had started shifting.”

“Yeah. I’d say congratulations, but I think it's probably moot at this point.” Gideon fell to his back, placing his hands on his chest.

“Thank you, my friend. I always thought that finding my mate would be different. That we would live happily ever after. I didn’t think we’d have to endure all this pain.” I whispered as I raked my fingers through my hair. It was a habit I had whenever I was anxious.

I looked over to the underground door and noticed the guards had left. They must have finished clearing everything for the day. It gave us a small window to go in and hopefully find Diana.

“Come on. The guards have left. Let’s go in and leave quickly. We need to get Leo and Nimu out of here before they realize what we are and sack the house.”

Gideon got up and helped me back to my feet. I rotated my arm and cringed a bit. It still felt tender.

“Will you be alright? We might need to remove some debris down there.”

“I’ll be fine. Let’s just go now before the guards come back.”

We set out, half running under the collapsed bridge. The knights who had drowned in the stream below had been removed and taken back to the castle. The castle would burn them along with the others that had perished in the explosion.

The door was clear, but the passage was still packed with fallen rocks and bricks once we went inside. A narrow path had been freed, and we followed it, barely squeezing through since both Gideon and I were broad in stature and tall.

I didn’t know in what state we would find Diana, but I sincerely hoped she was alright. Before all of this, Diana had been a close friend. I remembered the day when she found out what I was. I was young, maybe in my mid-twenties, and had gone for a run in Lycan form. When I returned and transitioned, Diana stood before me with her wicker basket under her arm. She had left the castle grounds to find herbs for her healing kit. Diana did not scream, nor did she run. She simply looked at me with her quiet, understanding eyes. Diana never judged me, and she had kept my secret all this time. She had been the only person I could genuinely be myself when she was around, besides my mother. She helped me keep my sanity. Living a double life was no small feat; Diana had helped me stay grounded all those years since.

We arrived in front of a torn-down metal door. With the roof that collapsed, the hinges had broken and left the door hanging sideways. We passed beside it and entered the vaulted chamber. It was dark, but Gideon and I could see clearly with our shifter sight. There was rubble everywhere except in the middle of the room. It was like there had been a shield that had blocked the rocks from falling at that specific point. It must have been Ida’s doing to prevent herself from being crushed.

Pools of blood were everywhere, and knights were still stuck under rocks. This surprised me since they had cleared most of the dead. However, upon further inspection, I noticed that their sabatons and greaves were stuck in the metal floor as if it had swallowed them and prevented the knights from escaping. This looked more and more like a tomb.

Gideon was the first to spot a slender arm sticking out from under a pile of dirt.

He pushed over some wreckage and started digging to remove the layers covering the body. I came over to help him clear as much as we could. He pulled a big rock, and Diana’s sleeping face came into view. Her skin was pale and cold, and her mouth and chin were covered with dried blood.

“She’s dead….” Sobbed Gideon.

My heart pinched at the sight of her, and I had to reel in my anger or I would lose it again.

As we continued uncovering her body, I saw she was positioned as if trying to get to someone. Her right arm was sticking out, trying to reach for something. Then we noticed the cut on her back. It seemed as though she was stabbed. What in Faith’s name had happened here?

“Who do you think killed her?” I asked Gideon, who gently pulled Diana out.

“I don’t know. The entry point was made with a short blade. None of the knights seem to have such a weapon. It could have been the hunter. It had to be made with something that is easily concealed.”

I shuddered. Diana’s last minutes must have been a nightmare I wouldn’t wish on anyone except Osprey. They had killed my friend and left her there.

“Come on, let’s get her out of here. I would hate to leave her body at their mercy. She deserves better.” I mentioned as I patted Gideon’s shoulder.

He took her in his arms and started making his way out. I noticed the top of a pair of boots sticking out from the ground. The bastard hunter had removed his feet before everything collapsed. That’s why he had been able to come out alive.

Once we were out, we placed Gideon’s coat over Diana and quickly headed to my house. It was getting dark, and we needed to avoid the patrols. We still had a curfew to be wary of, and we didn’t need anyone finding us hauling a dead body on our shoulders. It would have been hard to explain.

We silently walked into the house and listened for anything suspicious. I didn’t know how fast they would realize that shifters were here and send a platoon to arrest us. There was no sound, and I couldn’t discern anything from the ordinary. I heard a door open and close, then a startled Leo came out from the kitchen, rubbing his face. He saw the slumped body of Diana over Gideon’s shoulder and his eyes became wide with fright.

“W-What happened?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him, but there was no way to hide this from him. I made to move closer and comfort the boy when another voice sounded in the back, and it wasn’t Nimu’s.

“Are they back?” Asked the strangely familiar voice.

A small man came out from the kitchen and crept towards us. It was Denis, the head curator of the Arcane Library. He cradled his arm, and I noticed someone severely bandaged his hand with blood seeping through the cloth. I placed a foot in front, readying myself to jump on him, when Gideon’s spare hand gripped my vest and hurled me back towards the door.

“You! You’re the reason all of this happened!” I spat at the man, trying to free myself from Gideon’s hold. “You killed your own sister!”

He blanched when he noticed Gideon placing Diana’s body on the floor.

“I-I didn’t know what they would do. I was trying to protect her. I didn’t want any of this to happen! You have to believe me.” He moved over to his sister’s side, dropped to his knees, took her in his arms, and sobbed. “They promised no harm would come to her; they just wanted the Princess.” He kept repeating.

Gideon growled at me in a warning and pushed me back once more.

“Why have you come here?” Gideon’s eyes were dark.

“I came to warn you of their intentions. Believe me. Everything I did was to protect my sister and the Princess. I don’t know how they knew something had happened. Maybe one guard who escorted me noticed something strange when we came over with the rebellion letters and reported it. They intercepted my letter I had asked a trusted friend to give you, and they came into the library, chained me up, and requested to know what Diana had asked me to recover for her.” Denis never moved his eyes off Diana.

“Once they had what they wanted, they cut off my fingers and left me to bleed. I’ll tell you everything I know. Please don’t kill me!”

I fought back against my desire to rip his throat from his neck. He didn’t deserve to live, not after what he had done, but if what Denis said was true and he was simply a victim of circumstance, I needed to hear him out, at least.

“Fine,” I barked at Denis, “You have one hour to change my mind.”