Chapter 114

Evander

I woke up to pain. “Ahh!” The last I remembered, I was searching Broken Forest land for the twins. I’d found a cave, scented them, and entered. Then a bear trap had closed over my leg—a leg that was now my broken right arm.

I tried to call my wolf. Shifting would heal the injury enough to at least take the edge off the pain. But when I called him, he wasn’t there. All I could sense in my own mind was the echo of a whimper. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, gripping my arm. “Fuck!”

From the fever and the fact that my wolf was missing, I had to assume the edges of the bear trap had been painted in liquid silver. I groaned and rolled onto my side, panting. There was cold stone under my cheek. There was no light. I reached for my wolf again, needing his eyes, his ears.

Chapter 114

Nothing. “Fuck,” I said again.

I sat up, cradling my arm. I had to figure out where I was. Definitely not in the entrance of the cave, which meant someone had to have found me and moved me. I reached back through my feverish memories, searching for who might have done it. But everything after the snap of my leg in the trap was just pain, blackness, and sickness.

With a groan that was more like a shout of pain, I forced myself to my feet. I was unsteady, but I didn’t fall, and I didn’t throw up, so that was a win in my book. I stumbled forward with my good arm outstretched until I hit a wall, then trailed my hand along the wall until I came to a corner. From there, I turned and walked until I hit another corner.

Ten steps. I traced the next wall. It was also ten steps. So were the other two. So I was in a small, square cell that was somewhere over ten feet by ten feet. In the final corner, my fingers hit a straight vertical line that went to the ground and about a foot over my head. It was a seam that was stone on one side, and another smooth, cold material on the other. Metal.

Chapter 114

It was a metal door. I searched for a handle, but there wasn’t one. If it opened, it opened from the other side. There was nothing else in the cell. Not food or water, not a bucket, not a bed, not even a pile of straw or a blanket.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. The silver poisoning was still fresh enough that it was hard to think, but it seemed like I wasn’t going to die from it, at least.

Memories started to come back to me. Memories of hours, maybe days, spent in this place, rolling around on the floor, a sweating, fevered mess. No, if I was going to die from the silver, I would have already.

I swallowed and sat with my back against the wall and pulled my knees up to my chest. “Think, Evander. Fucking think.”

Trajan! I reached out for the only pack member on this continent who might be able to hear and help me. But there was a problem. Some kind of…block. I was calling for him, but my message wasn’t going through. Like I was in a soundproof room, except it was telepathy-proof.

I swore again. I would have punched the wall, but I was already injured enough. I’m not sure how long I sat there. Long enough that I nodded off.

Chapter 114

I had to have. Because white, glowing wolves didn’t just walk out of walls in real life.

I watched in a daze as she—it had to be a female, she was so damn exquisite—stepped delicately out of the wall, trotted across, and sniffed me. She was glowing faintly, and by her light I could see my hands: dirty and bloody. “You can take the light with you when you go,” I told her. “I don’t want to see how bad it is.”

She huffed and nuzzled me with her ghostly nose. I didn’t expect to be able to feel it. After all, she had walked out of a wall. And she was a little bit see-through. Definitely not real. But when she touched me, I did feel something. Not a physical sensation, but a brush against my mind.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

The wolf cocked her head at me. She had deep brown eyes, and they looked just as confused as I felt. As if she was saying, Who are you, you ridiculous man?

“Evander,” I whispered. Because it was a dream, I reached out to try and pet her. But I reached with my bad arm. Pain shot through it, and I yelped and shot awake.

The wolf blinked away. One moment she was there. The next, gone.

Chapter 114

I took a shaking breath. I was alone in the dark. What the hell was I going to do? I don’t suppose anyone in here can hear me, I said out of sheer desperation. Then someone said, “Cousin Evander? Is that you?” Then another voice: “We’re here!”

I shot to my feet. I knew those voices. Seraphina! Tristan! Where are you?