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terrasensinstitute · 6 years

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Unlikely Romances

Manon wonders about how she feels about the Bluebood witch, Petrah. I have NOT read KOA before this, so its spoiler free

Word Count: About 2,800

It wasn’t a secret that there were relationships between witches in the clans. It wasn’t that uncommon either, and no one really cared. The Blackbeak Matron had a lover in her own coven, and there were others that you would need both hands to count.

What was uncommon, however, was relationships - of any types - between different clans. The Ironteeth already didn’t like each other, not to mention that they barely met. It was better that way - before they ended up ripping each other apart, much like the War Games had proved they would in a heartbeat. They were rivals, and it would always be that way.

So what surprised Manon is that she found herself waiting by Petrah Blueblood’s bedside after those War Games, just hoping that she would wake up.

Maybe some part of Petrah really had been damaged when Iskra had given that order to kill, and Keelie had died on the rocks of the battlefield. The golden-eyed witch didn’t blame Petrah for her pain, because she had a small feeling that she would feel the same way if her own wyvern, Abraxos, suddenly died.

It was the day after she had killed that Crochan prisoner, and even after the time she spent with Abraxos, she couldn’t help but dwell on her words. Made you into monsters. Manon dwelled on it even more as she sat next to Petrah’s barely breathing form, knowing that if her grandmother found out, she would be punished even more than she already had.

Manon looked down at the Blueblood witch. Her sparkling blue eyes were closed, and her deep golden hair framed her pale face like sunlight. The witch had to force herself away in order to prevent herself from running her fingers across her cheeks. She looked frail, and in her face etched deep sadness. It hurt Manon, in some unknown part of her.

Manon stood from the stool, hearing footsteps grow louder on the floor of which Petrah laid. With a small glance back, Manon Blackbeak left the chambers through the window and made her way back to Abraxos. She needed to think without the witch in front of her.

Manon wasn’t sure whether to feel devastation, fear, fury, or nothing at all. She tried to feel the latter, but it was hard to with everything that had just been piled onto her. Her second for as long as she could remember was to be executed at sunrise tomorrow, and Petrah - Petrah - had defended her in that witch trial.

What would have happened if that tall, thin, beautiful witch with the hollow face hadn’t defended her? Would she be the one dying that next sunrise? Or would Asterin not be the one dying? Manon didn’t want to think of the idea that if Petrah had not interfered, her second would not be dying. But she knew deep down that it was her own damned decisions and mistakes that led to this.

She would give her Second a short end, because that was what Asterin deserved. When she knew that along with her own decisions, it was her Matron’s hatred of Asterin that had led to this, too.

But now, Manon had cornered that same witch who had defended her, golden eyes seeming to spark with emotions she did well to keep hidden. It was only this close that Manon finally realised how her freckles stood out against her skin, how her golden hair had been brushed to a beautiful color again - so unlike when she laid in her room in the uppermost chambers of the Omega.

Manon wondered if Petrah knew that she had sat by her bedside for however many hours, the exact amount forgotten in her immortal mind. The witch found that she hoped that Petrah didn’t know.

“Hello, Manon.” Her blue eyes still held that fierceness and unfinished business that she had spoken to Iskra with, and it made Manon realise with a jolt that, no, Petrah did not have her head in the clouds. That Petrah was an Ironteeth witch, and that she probably only put on that facade to trick her rivals and enemies. It was smart, and deadly. And, Manon realised with hatred at herself, hot. “What brings you here?”

Manon didn’t even think about how Petrah knew exactly what she was here for. “Why did you speak in my favor?”

A ghost of a smile graced Petrah’s lips before she spoke. “I think you know why, Manon.” She didn’t even have time to ask her to elaborate before Petrah walked off, still in her fighting leathers.

So Manon Blackbeak stood in that empty hall, looking at where Petrah had disappeared. She did not know how to answer the question hanging in her head, and Manon was unsure how she would even begin to, with all that laid upon her shoulders. With a sharp turn of her body, she stalked off towards her tower, brain churning with questions and ideas.

Made.

As she clumsily hung onto Abraxos’ leathery hide, those words repeated in her mind. Along with what her grandmother had finally admitted. She was a Blackbeak. But she was also the last living Crochan queen with the murder of her half-sister, Rhiannon.

A Queen. A living, breathing Crochan Queen. Well, maybe not living much longer seeing the state she was in, but.. It shook Manon to her core. To her husk of a heart, and Manon genuinely did not know how to feel about this, or much less how to process it.

Her bitch of a grandmother - Manon felt queasy at the thought of her being related to that monster - had killed her mother and father, and made her kill her half-sister. Manon may be a kin-slayer, but the Blackbeak Matron had done it willingly, and would not hesitate to do it again. Just like Manon would not hesitate to kill her if she saw the Matron again.

Her mind drifted off to what Petrah thought of the ordeal, and Manon could not find words why it did. She would probably be disgusted - like no doubt the rest of the Ironteeth were. But maybe Petrah and the other Bluebloods would understand that it was not Manon’s fault, and that she was still Ironteeth.

But did Manon even want to be an Ironteeth witch anymore? With what the Matron had done, along with Iskra Yellowlegs and the rest of her clan had done. With the shred of kindness Petrah had shown her - even if they were in rival clans.

No. She would always be an Ironteeth witch, and she would be a Crochan Queen. But Manon knew that she would have to pick which one to stay with. Because of she didn’t, that would ultimately be her downfall.

Dorian Havilliard and Manon Blackbeak had no feelings for each other besides sexual. Manon had learned that fairly quickly. He was handsome, and made her core burn, but Manon desired nothing beyond that. And Dorian saw her as a release - because human woman were too fragile.

Manon wondered what had made the King of Adarlan think that. What sad part in his life had made him decide not to go after a human woman, even if being with an immortal one would bring him the same sadness, too.

But it was that time with Dorian that she realised - had she ever felt real emotion for a man? No. That was not what witches did. What Ironteeth witches did - her father had proven that the Crochans did. But Asterin had proved that Ironteeth witches could, too.

Manon wondered if she ever felt any real emotion for another witch. She didn’t think she did. She didn’t see why she would feel that useless emotion. The white-haired beauty was unlike Asterin in so many different ways, and she had a feeling that she would be unlike her in their ability to love.

She hoped that she did, too. Because Manon would forever remember the words that Asterin had said. Joy so complete it was pain. The idea of being at such a mercy to something made Manon queasy. But things were changing. That much was obvious when she had to kill her half-sister. When her grandmother tried to kill her. When her grandmother had lied to her face about Asterin.

When she had saved Petrah. That decision alone had rocked her into the mess, and Manon had only now realised that. Maybe she was closer to being like Asterin’s flame than she ever thought.

What surprised Manon Blackbeak - she guess Manon Crochan, now - was not the fact that they had retrieved the third Wyrdkey. The parts she carried were heavy in her leathers, her nor Dorian wanting to trust what would happen when all three were together.

No, it was the fact that as she sat on the edge of a cliff, far off from the small army of Crochans she had managed to find, is that Petrah Blueblood joined her. Petrah did not bring a wyvern; she had brought one of the brooms that all witches alike had used before magic went out over ten years ago. But now they worked.

The white-haired witch supposed that Petrah couldn’t bring herself to have another wyvern, or that she wanted to come here as discreetly as possible. But the Matrons would have made her get another, so it was probably the latter assessment.

“You sure did destroy Morath.”

“You sure did state the obvious.”

Manon looked over at the golden-haired beauty, her blue eyes seeming darker in the night. “Why are you here, Petrah?”

It seemed to be that Petrah hesitated for a moment, and Manon was about to tell her to get the hell away when she finally spoke. “I come here to warn you. Your grandmother” - Manon almost cringed at the word - “has heard about what you are doing, and in all of your destroying of Morath, none of the Matrons have died. Neither has the Blackbeak Matron, who I saw you almost rip to shreds.”

Manon wasn’t as surprised as she was mad. She appreciated the warning - she did - but she was furious that she had not managed to kill the Matron bitch who, frankly, deserved to die in her eyes.

She guessed that it would be Asterin’s life to claim in the end. Her fiery cousin deserved it, for what the Matron had done to her.

“Thank you.” The words came out as Petrah was about mount her broom again, and Manon stood. She could feel Petrah looking at her - and her eyes perhaps lingering a bit too long on certain places.

“I would join you, except to do so would be a dishonor to my mother, and to the Blueblood Clan.” Manon watched as Petrah lifted those two fingers to her brow - respect of a Witch Queen - and then finally took off into the starry night.

The idea of it terrified her, but she also found herself longing to see more of Petrah. How she knew where she had went, Manon did not know, but she wished that Petrah would stay.

Aelin Ashryver Whitethorn Galathynius was not dead.

But Dorian Havillard was, and had left the lands of Adarlan to Terrasen as he forged the lock and put Erawan, Maeve, and the rest of the valg back where they belonged. To that realm, which Manon had no want to know whatsoever.

The fact made Manon sadder than she had ever been in a while, with the war having taken so many of her Thirteen and army of Crochans she had gathered up. Taking her second - but also her grandmother - and taking Dorian.

Dorian - he was someone who Manon was describe as a friend. Nothing more than that, but he should have been honored to even be considered a friend to Manon. No mortal man had ever had the pleasure of being called her friend.

No, he shouldn’t have had to feel honored, Manon thought, trying to hold back tears she had barely shed before, I should be honored. She had so much grief weighing on her shoulders - grief that she know cared about, now acknowledged. The war against Erawan, holding those keys, her friend and some of her Thirteen dying.. It was weight that Manon wished she did not carry. Wished she did not now have to uphold herself as a Crochan Queen - and possibly Queen of the Witches.

The beautiful white-haired witch sat on an unknown hill and cried. Manon did not care if anyone saw her, because she needed to let out all of that grief that had been slowly building up in her ever since she saved Petrah from being splattered on the Omega floor.

She could not tell how long she cried there until a hand laid upon her shoulder, and a comforting presence - smelling of myrrh and rosemary - seated itself besides her. Manon found herself not caring much if this presence was about to kill her, but as she lifted her head, she wiped her tears with the edge of her new cloak. It was not red, but a deep navy blue.

As her golden eyes met such familiar blue ones in the beginnings of dawn, she blinked. The sun shone on the much too familiar deep golden hair, turning some of the strands as light as her own moon-white hair.

“Petrah,” Manon began, unable to tear her eyes away from that calm and understanding face. “What are you doing here?” Her voice was soft and hoarse, and she wished that it was not.

“It seemed that you would need…” Petrah trailed off slightly, as if wishing for something but unable to say it. “It seemed that you needed someone to talk to. After everything that’s happened.”

The kindness in that statement made Manon’s heart swell with both sadness and longing. She wished for Dorian - who had listened to her, even when they were not taking an edge off with each other. Who she had confided in, even if it was just little pieces of information. She wished for someone who she could talk to again, and that she could return the favor.

Manon supposed that that was the reason why she finally spoke to Petrah. Tears flowed, and a comforting and light hand on her shoulder had slowly turned into an embrace as Petrah listened to her speak, the sun slowly rising higher as the time passed.

“I do not know how I am supposed to lead all of those witches by myself. How I am supposed to, with all of this grief still weighing on me. The curse has been lifted off of the Western Wastes-” a gasp came from Petrah at this “-yet, I do not know what will happen. Will the Ironteeth and Crochans live together? Or will I be forced to take a side again in another war for the Wastes?”

Manon had been ready to be the High Witch of the Wastes one day, but now she doubted her abilities to. Maybe in a clear state of mind, she would realise that it was just her emotions clouding her usual sharp judgement. Now, after crying for how many hours and being held by a witch she had long wondered about her feelings for, she felt better.

Manon waited in silence before Petrah finally spoke, that calm voice seeming to lift all of her worries off of her shoulders.

“I believe.. That you can do it. That the Ironteeth and the Crochans will live in peace together, because when you put your mind to something Manon, it happens. I have seen it happen for the past one hundred years, and I have no doubts that you will be a great Queen. That Ironteeth and Crochan blood in you will make you a fine Queen. You just have to believe in yourself, even if it seems impossible right now.” Petrah’s fingers moved some of Manon’s hair away from her tear-painted face, and Manon couldn;t resist the small shiver that wracked through her body. “If you want, I will join you. In whatever way you wish for me to. Because I believe that the world needs to change, and you have the power to do that. What use will it be if we are constantly fighting over who had the rightful claim of the Wastes?”

Manon smiled softly at the witch who she was being held by, and she laid a hand on her face. “I would love for you to join me, Petrah. I admit.. My feelings for you have been complicated. But I don’t think I could do with without some help from a witch who always has had her head in the clouds.”

And, as a grin lit the Bluebloods face, Manon watched as she leaned closer until their lips touched together.

Instead of that despair that had been clouding her, she felt excited for the future. Especially if Petrah Blueblood was joining her.

#manon blackbeack #petrah blueblood #throne of glass #crown of midnight #heir of fire #queen of shadows #empire of storms #tower of dawn #kingdom of ash #manon x petrah #death #koa #angst #romance

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easkyrah · 7 years

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Elorcan Werewolf AU part 8

If you haven’t read the previous 7 installments, I highly recommend you read those first in order as this series is chronological based. My masterlist is here. Also, I have no idea if this part makes any sense at all, so please give me your thoughts. It’s also quite long. I think there may be only two or three parts left, actually! On the bright side, the angst is over. Or at least I think so.

Yuputka — the phantom sensation of something crawling on one’s skin

Elorcan Werwolf 8

Now

Elide drank from the heavy cup of bitterness and spat out the viscous liquid of forgiveness. She lost track of time and sense in the sodden cell, and found paths of bruises and sores lining her body. She gave up on hope towards the light and retained resentment towards what laid on the other side of her prison.

All was dark. Dark was all.

Her hair hung matted as a rat’s nest, perspiration running down her skin, cracked and peeling. Her lips bled frequently, her ankle more mangled than she could remember.

Pain replaced her loneliness. Regret was a mere notion she entertained of what could have been. Suffering served her reality.

Sleep was simultaneous torture. Nightmares of the day’s assault and night’s cold swept through every crevice. The first stay in the cell, Vernon had tore her clothes into tatters, fangs tearing at her skin. Elide had screamed and thrashed until those teeth had bit down on her throat, threatening to tear out her neck.

“I conquer,” was all her Uncle had said before she’d screamed out in pain, blackness slashing across her vision. Aches had throbbed in parts of her body where she had waited for her mate, waited to be respected, waited to be worshipped.

At first, tears had persisted, the tang of salt cracking her lips. Now she cried no more, for the seconds she knew were filled with the consistency of raw anguish. It was just her own shaking, shredded skin and devastating poor excuse of family that haunted her.

The chains became her tether, lest she slip away into the next life or what awaited. Her ankle became a figment of a reminder in her story, of living with a disability, to a euphoric type of enmity in true healing, to a shattered piece of her inked soul.

For all she knew, the seconds had passed to minutes to pass to hours to pass to days and perhaps months. For all she knew, her presence was a forgotten whisper of dust between the burning and burnt stars. For all she knew, her life was declared deceased, her mate with another, her legacy into ashes, her pack free of an invalid.

And perhaps it was better that way.

She could not fathom how the Lycans could have fought for eons, loosing themselves in the raging battlefield, in the horrid torture chambers, in the unescapable sea of blood.

But perhaps they had never been caged, for this was a different war.

This was a battle to live, persist, endure. This was torture in every sense. This was an ocean of loneliness, pain, and belittlement.

She did not want this to be another facet written within her pages.

For Aelin she would not dwell in darkness, but in light.

For Manon she would not toil in coldness, but in warmth.

For Lorcan she would not waver in passiveness, but in aggression.

Her story was not of loneliness and sorrow, but of hope and affinity.

The cell doors rattled open, and the shadow of the Morath Alpha lurked in.

Predatory eyes met her own bleary ones.

“Hello, Elide,” Uncle Vernon said. “Sleeping well?”

When she didn’t answer, he slapped her cheek, the sound richotechting across the walls. When she didn’t bat an eye, he kicked her in the stomach, her teeth grating across one another. When she didn’t flinch, he jerked the chain on her ankle, the scraping scratching the barren floor.

She supposed she should thank her uncle for teaching her to befriend pain.

“I have special news,” Vernon sneered. “Regarding your friends.”

A momentary thread of anticipation tore through her. She kept her face blank under Vernon’s scrutinizing gaze. Her heart did not beat faster, for she had learned that any component of hope was an offering from the devil.

And any dance with the devil ended in the purest sense of hopelessness.

Finally, he said, “I’m moving you to a more secure location.”

Moving.

Hands gripped the chains against the wall, and a key clicked several times. The pull of the metal and steel slammed against the floor, Elide’s knees following suit. She hissed as Vernon wrapped the chains around her, and dragged her about by her hair, her roots harshly yanked and protesting in pain.

The cell was a ghost, surrounding and haunting and cursing her. As soon as her body passed through the doors, elation poured over her, the flickers of pain seeming to subside.

Moving.

“What do they see in a frail, worthless invalid?” Vernon said as her body was limply hauled across stones, the dripping of droplets digging into her cuts and scrapes.

The damp hallways seemed an eternity’s walk, Vernon’s nails digging into her scalp. Little lines of blood ran down her neck and face, her heart twisting and turning.

He tossed her onto the curve pathway of stones, and kicked her ankle. She curled into herself, her withered and emaciated body already tired from movement, her muscles faded away into complete atrophy. Her bones seemed to rattle as coldness prickled at her skin.

“Look up,” Vernon commanded.

Elide looked up.

“Look left,” Vernon ordered.

Elide looked left.

“Move,” Vernon sneered.

Elide looked down—and then looked up at the first step of the many stones that spiraled up into an ascension of a new fatigue. All hope dissipated as a lit candle in a storm. The cuts on her knees and shins flared. Her ankle collapsed and twisted and flared with pain.

This was beyond her limits, and her Uncle knew it.

Vernon yanked the chain around her neck. One harsh tug forward, tossing her against the fragmented stones, leaving her gasping for breath, cutting off her circulation.

Dry coughs filled the air as she blinked away the dizziness and clouds fogging her vision. Manon would have fought back with that sheer strength of hers. Aelin had have snapped back with that vicious tongue of hers. Lorcan would not have been in this situation in the first place with his clear brutality.

She was the weak link. The disabled. The handicapped. The misfit.

She struggled to lift herself onto her knees. Her palms hit the damp stones, the crescending slope a mockery of how far she’d descended.

“If you have all the time in the world, Elide, then perhaps I should entertain myself.”

Her nails dug into the cracks as she forced her head to slowly turn around, her neck aching, the ghost of fingers choking her.

Her heart sunk.

Vernon slowly unbuttoned his collared shirt, and slid the belt off his pants. With expert grace only mastered by practice, he brought the whip down in a single strike across her back. Her body splintered against the base, and her hands desperately reached up to scrabble for purchase.

“You little slut,” Vernon grinned, a maniacal hint tinging the smirk. His fingers went to the hem of his pants. “You want another round, don’t you?”

His eyes raked over her body, her exposed skin, her brokenness.

She turned her head back towards the slope of the slanted stones, cold determination fixing within her.

Biting harshly down on her peeled lip enough to draw slivers of blood, Elide Lochan, true heir to the Morath Pack, slowly began the rise of a climb up.

Three Weeks Ago

“What do you mean you don’t know where she is?” the dark-haired male snarled.

Trend carefully, her mate had warned, when Lorcan had first arrived, beaten and battered and the borders of her pack.

Standing in front of the Alpha of the Fireheart Pack was a Lycan coated from head-to-toe in blood. Standing in front of the Alpha Lycan’s mate was the commander, oozing a stench of something darker and wild.

Standing in front of Aelin Galanthysius was Lorcan Salvaterre, the one who broke Elide Lochan and was broken by Elide Lochan.

Aelin swallowed. As Alpha, she felt each string of connection to her pack members. But a week ago, after her trip to the royal castle, Elide’s familiar and warm presence had disappeared.

Vanished.

Without a trace.

“You’re a shit excuse of an Alpha,” Lorcan swallowed, but she held her stance, finding a soothing in the blades pressed against her skin.

An hour ago, this male had held too-many deaths within his palm. An hour ago, this male had realized that Elide was fully missing. An hour ago, this male had not sensed his mate anywhere within the safe parameters of all the packs.

Yesterday, the onyx-eyed male had snapped her elbow. Yesterday, the male had executed a flawless punch towards her eye. Yesterday, the commander had her ears ringing with his infuriated roaring.

She had merely pointed out that he had been temporarily suspended from his own pack until he resolved the issue with his missing mate.

A week ago, Aelin had lost connection to Elide. A week ago, she had scoured through every book in search of reestablishing the link. A week ago, her pack had been victim to rogue attacks.

A week since Elide’s disappearance, Lorcan had gained full control back of his body, demanding to see his mate.

Only to find that his mate had dissipated if she were nothing but a faded passing.

His rage had destroyed fundamental tenements many omegas depended on. His fury had ceased the fields of crops and plants many werewolves depended on. His enmity had caused the execution of many females connected to the Shadow Market.

She had watched the after-effects of losing scent and connection to his mate drive Lorcan to his knees.

She had watched the dark-haired male wreck up his guts into the bucket for the thousandth time today. She had lost count as her Pack Doctor, Yrene Towers, had replaced each bin with another, dutifully monitoring the impossible male that would have given her own mate, Alpha of the Lycans, a run.

Lorcan gazed at her with a dark look in his eyes.

Aelin braced herself for another attack, but the male merely painfully closed his eyes, and croaked out, “I miss her.”

Longing.

Aelin let the dagger fall back into her sleeve, and looked over the commander of the Lycan’s armies.

Sweat and grime painted the heaving male’s skin, those ghastly eyes cracked and shattered. He was shivering, fists clenched against the rim of the bucket. His had lost his voice frequently, only to have the sound rasp out into a guttural scraping.

Aelin loosed a breath. “What did Sorscha say?”

Flinging open the heavy, steel door with all her might from that fateful day in visiting the castle, walking down the damp and dark hallway, Aelin had seen Lorcan convulsing on a bed of spikes and bones.

No Elide.

No connection.

Only a feral Lycan bringing down the castle from its very roots, shattering the entire southern complex.

It had taken three hours and the rest of the cadre in order to restrain Lorcan against the heaviest chains of silver, surrounded by circles of wolfsbane.

But Lorcan’s feral side still remained, roaring and hissing and screaming for his mate. Sweat and a thick, glowing green liquid had oozed out of his skin for hours until the commander had gained clear consciousness.

“Yellowleg’s Death,” Lorcan said so softly Aelin almost missed it.

Her heart skipped a beat. The manipulative, slow-working concoction created by the blessing of a witch’s spell, only found within the depths of the Shadow Market.

Manon stood next to them, and watched without emotion as Lorcan leaned against the wall, rubbing his forehead. The half-Lycan, half-witch had spent her evenings and mornings looking for their pack’s apprentice healer, her afternoons honing her already skilled abilities with the blade.

A hole had emerged within her pack. A wide, gaping emptiness.

The Fireheart beta let out a dry laugh. “The poison worked.”

Aelin coughed, and muttered out, “Obviously.”

Lorcan didn’t budge from his spot against the wall, a look of concentration and fatigue holding his focus.

“Yellowleg’s Death grants the creator full access over the victim’s body for an hour. It can usurp power from the victim whenever and wherever. It can take years or months to occur.” Manon tapped a nail against the sheath of her blade. “All it took was an hour to break Elide from Lorcan, to spur a rejection, to foster a wound to deep to be mended.”

To seize Elide Lochan, true heir to the Morath Pack and second-Pack Doctor to the Fireheart Pack, away from them all.

Aelin looked at Lorcan. “That’s why you destroyed the Shadow Market, and executed all those connected to the drug.”

A curt nod, and the female Alpha could see the acceptance of the drug settling between the granite-hewn face.

Temporarily expelled from his pack, Lorcan Salvaterre had taken refuge in her pack, where Yrene coaxed the final remains of the poison out.

Where Lorcan had wallowed in self-pity, disappointment and regret drowned him.

Aelin had watched the beta to the Alpha Lycan fade away into a shell, and realized that Rowan Whitethorn had been right: A Lycan would rather die than hurt his mate.

And Lorcan Salvaterre, although slowly being freed of Yellowleg’s poison, would die if he did not have his mate near him.

One Month Ago

Lorcan watched as the spines of the guards snapped with a surety to rival death’s inevitable appearance himself. The darkness wrecked havoc, de-rooting trees around the castle grounds and slamming into entrances. An ominous wind screeched along the fading sunlight, those managing to near him collapsing to the ground, thick rivers of blood pouring out of their ears.

A massacre of those in his bloodlust.

A divine retribution for daring to cast him out.

A welcome for Hellas’s realm.

With a glance towards the newly installed barricaded, Lorcan pushed his will of shadowed obscurity into the silver force. Large dents imprinted onto the wall, and seconds later, the ground shuddered as the barrier collapsed against the marbled floor.

Lorcan stepped through the rubble, stalking towards the center meeting room. Here, the Lycans hung back, heads bowed and eyes cast down. A warning had been issued, and they would obey.

His hand violently jerked the golden knob to the side and pushed the hardened door forward. Silence sagged across the immaculate room as soon as he stepped in.

Five pairs of eyes landed on him, the Alpha Lycan rigidly sitting at the head of the chair. Fenrhys sprawled lazily at the left side, goblets of wine surrounding him. A flicker of something deeper with wronged remembrance flickered through Lorcan’s head, but he dismissed the amiss feeling and flexed his aching back muscles.

“I’m leaving for Morath,” Lorcan said abruptly, striding to the right, empty seat—his spot—at the head of the table. He did not sit down, but calmly gazed at the Prince Rowan Whitethorn with a menace that would have cowed a lesser man.

Fenrhys choked on his wine, Gavriel crossing his arms. Vaughan merely arched a brow, Connal’s face pinching slightly.

“Your ban does not end until you can prove to my mate that you are in control.” Rowan’s words echoed across the room. His hands clenched, and Lorcan knew he was restraining the order to further his banishment.

“Having half of her pack members end up in the infirmary and killing our guards probably isn’t the best way to do it,” Fenrhys chimed in.

“Wrecking Sollomere into a ground of ashes hardly demonstrates control,” Vaughan added.

“You also broke the covenant searching for Elide Lochan,” Gavriel observed.

Rowan’s eyes twitched, his resolve slowly chipping away. Lorcan warily threw up his shields, ignoring the tension wading through the air.

“That’s why you’re travelling to Morath,” Connal mused. “To find your mate.”

Lorcan didn’t bother to object to his pack members. Today marked a month in which Elide Lochan, his mate, had disappeared. A month of futile, ceaseless searching, of unending longing and loneliness. A month of wandering through a parallel trail of sorrows and agony, restless wishes never answered.

The Alpha Lycan shook his head. “You destroyed the Shadow Market. Our connections there have ceased.”

“And what if the chance that Yellowlegs poison harmed your mate?” Lorcan growled. “In which you had no control over?”

No control.

The Lycan’s worst fear.

Whether losing control to their feral wolf side or having dark magic posses them, Lycans eluded any poison, liquid, or scenario that would test their control.

Because absolute control meant absolute power.

To control others, Lycans had to control themselves.

And Lorcan had not been in control one month ago.

Rowan Whitethorn released a burdensome sigh and exhaled quickly. “I revoke your suspension. I grant you full privileges and rights to travel to Morath and do what business you need to do.”

Full control.

His friend, the Alpha, the King—Rowan Whitethorn was giving him full control and access to his actions and the extent of the consequences.

For his mate, for the other half of his soul, for Elide Lochan.

Lorcan bowed his head in acknowledgement, the only recognition and expression of gratitude the Lycan Alpha would receive. When Rowan held out his hand, Lorcan clasped it.

Gavriel cautiously looked between the Prince and the Commander. Finally, he said, “I suppose you need a few nuclear arms, silver covers, and a shit ton of wolfsbane?”

Fenrhys gave them a wolfish grin. “Imagine the terror on Morath’s face when they see the cadre united.”

Connal slowly smiled. “Morath’s time has come to an end.”

Avoidance of the Pack that had violently sucked the former ruling off the throne, had notoriously experimented on the supernatural, had utilized brutal tactics to remain their power didn’t reach for from the Lycans.

Ultimatum after ultimatum, the Morath Pack had ignored the cadre’s warnings.

Now that a direct threat to one of their own had been issued, Morath could burn. Legally within the borders of the covenant, annihilating the pack appealed to the Lycan on another level.

Yet—before more plans could stipulate, Lorcan slammed his shield into the iron table, the hollowing sound causing the five pairs of eyes to once again land on him.

“I go alone,” he firmly stated.

Silence. Then—

“Absolutely absurd,” Vaughun snarled. “You’ll die. Morath broke Maeve’s legions. What do you stand a chance?”

Cold froze through the air at the mention of the former Lycan queen’s name. A curse, an abomination, an infamy. The stinging of lashes whispered in haunting strokes across his back, the silver cell of insanity unfolding within Lorcan’s mind.

The true savagery—

Connal snarled, a thunderous growl building leaking out. “Say the bitch’s name one more time, and I’ll tear out your throat.”

Fenrhys teleported next to his brother, and laid a hand against Vaughun’s chest.

Rowan loosed a bark, and Connal slouched against his seat in submission. The Alpha turned towards his commander, an unfathomable look sketched across his face.

“We have every reason to be concerned. Especially when it concerns another’s welfare. We do not know what lurks in Morath, save for death.”

Lorcan stared at his pack with eyes of the soulless. He had already wasted too much valuable time loitering. The darkness summoned an abstraction into reality, Hellas’s raw power pulsing around him. Lorcan swung the convened hatchet in his hand, the craving for his mate ushering senseless violence through his veins.

Rowan raised a brow at the burst of power emanating from Lorcan.

Before the Prince of Lycans could speak, Lorcan answered the call of darkness webbing through him, his onyx eyes perceiving more than he’d ever before.

“What—” Gavriel started.

“When your gift is Death, you no longer fear him.” Hellas’ might flowed to him.

Lorcan welcomed the sheer control pulsating through every inch and cell.

His voice sounded far away as he spoke with an ancient, long-feared and worshipped guttural tone. “Death is my ally. Mine to control.”

His.

Death had always belong to him.

It was life instead that slipped through his fingers, the facets and faces of true existence evading him.

An integral part of living would not escape him one more time: his mate.

Elide Lochan.

Lorcan stalked out of the castle, the darkness cascading through him and around him in large streams and flares.

Two Months Ago

Lorcan laid in his bed, breathing heavily.

Pain lanced through every pore. Grogginess laced his vision. Lead settled in every muscle.

His wolf roared at him to visit his mate—that he would be content and pliant if he could just settle his eyes on her lithe form or soak in her scent even from afar. Her presence, if utilized correctly, would be the worst type of military tactic used against him. She would be his downfall, and she would not know.

His fingers brushed against papyrus scrawled with loops of elegant curls and spirals, a golden and flaming embroider filling the edges. In another realm, perhaps he could have been the prince charming, showing up to the ball completely unannounced with his finest clothes, locking eyes with Elide, and asking her for the first dance.

He would have kissed the top of her hand and charmed his way into her heart; she would return his affections, and they would have their lives carried out by fate as perfect mates.

But he was Death’s Right Hand.

And she was a living Angel.

This was not a fairytale in which the maiden lived happily ever.

This was reality in which the maiden either was massacred from the vices through violence or was forged into the sculpture created by the monsters.

This lie was that if the maiden followed her mind, then she would not follow love.

The truth was that if the maiden followed her heart, then she would lose her mind.

He lived with forgotten violence and remembered cruelty brimming from every surface. She lived with colored perceptions and warm neutrals on a floating canvas.

His thoughts were polluted with fabrications that belonged to the Devil’s Mind, hers a beautiful universe waiting to be seen.

A creak broke his melancholy.

The doorknob slowly twisted in a torturously slow manner, and Lorcan grimaced in pain as he glanced towards the entrance. If Fenrhys was about to mock the misery of a state he was in just one more time—

A soft, ever-familiar voice filled the room, the sound almost hesitant.

“Lorcan?”

Lorcan hissed in response. The scent that did not belong to his mate seeped into the room. It was an unwelcomed scent, one he constantly regretted and condoned, one he believed better off in the grave, even if royalty. It was a persistent scent that lingered in front of his doors and followed him through the hallways, one that drove his wolf into insanity.

A doe-eyed female leaned in the doorway, eyes sweeping through the darkness. Those gentle orbs locked in his direction when he loosed a grunt, his chest heaving with pain.

“Get out,” he rasped. “You are unwelcome here.”

Lorcan winced in the cover of darkness and and snarled lowly as the quiet padding of footsteps filled his room.

She did not listen.

A soft glow lit his room, the burning wax chasing away the deep shadows. He closed his eyes with the sweeping light, his nose twitching from the candle’s aroma.

The female trespassing into his room stirred the bloodthirsty side of him. She either him as his canines slide out or wished to die as growl thundered in the base of his throat.

A hand caressed his forehead, and Lorcan flinched.

“I said. Get. Out.” Warnings after warnings, and she still paid no heed.

The tips of her fingers touched his lips, and she clucked her tongue once. “That’s no way to treat an old friend.”

He had once thought she knew the line between his animalistic needs and her loose fantasies. She had been nothing more than a body to satiate the Lycan’s feral side, nothing less than a body to use and manipulate. Not a friend, not a lover, not his mate. Nothing more than a passing acquaintance.

The intruding female brushed back her hair, revealing the pale column of her throat, and gracefully settled herself onto his duvet sheets. “You need to relax, Lorcan Salvaterre. You’ve been through so much. I can help you.”

“You know nothing.” He knew the way she said his name was meant to entice him. He knew the purr in her lilt was meant to arouse him. She knew that he was in a vulnerable state.

His eyes managed to catch the flash of a quick smile she flashed.

“I know you have a mate.” She stroked his chest, coaxing his shirt’s buttons apart. His arms were full of inflexible lead to stop her. His mind seemed to seep into an abyss of murkiness no stroke or kick could save. “And that she does not want you. But I do.”

All the dates Elide had accepted. All the males that had pawed at her. All the stares lusting after her. The flowers and smiles endowed towards her. The invisible blood on his hands—is that what she saw? What his history to full of gruesome atrocities that she would not consider the future?

Lorcan’s body laid rigid and paralyzed as the other female’s nails raked across his hardened skin, each strike a burning sensation. He didn’t know if it was because his wolf side was rejecting her touch or because his body was still coping with his mate’s loss.

He wanted Elide Lochan. He wanted her without her cold eyes that chipped him away slowly, with her inviting ones that made him feel worth more than destruction. He wanted her with warm smiles that drove away the darkness, without her frowns that made him fall to his knees. He wanted her with open arms, without her closed walls.

He did not want this woman in his room and her unwarranted advances. Eons later from when they had first met within the forest, and he still did not want her. The one female he wanted and needed, desired to cherish and protect, hold and soothe—did not want him. The path in waging wars had kept him forbid him from entertaining any facet of the elation life had to offer. Yet when he had laid eyes upon Elide, even through the dark night as she had raced through the trees, expertly wielded the car, saw the fierce determination of hope and compassion in those reflections, Lorcan had known that Elide Lochan was the most beautiful, untouched piece of art his eyes had ever laid upon. There would be expensive, lavish masterpieces, but there would not be the kind-hearted, impossible Elide Lochan, a beacon to him.

His mate.

So he managed to stare at the doe-eyed female with coldness centuries had crafted, a glance full of censure.

“You forget that I do not want you.” He struggled to keep his eyes open, the phantom hand of sleep lulling him into another realm.

“So you’ve said,” the royal female said. Lorcan could make out the form of a goblet in her hand, her lips pressed against the edge. “And I respect that.”

“Do you now?” He did not have the energy to raise a brow or move an arm to break her neck.

A sharp, curt nod. “So I propose one last toast. To what we had. To what past we shared. To us.”

Lorcan warily eyed the goblet, and then the princess Lycan that had pursued him for an eternity. He could have said that they had nothing, their past worthless, that there was no ‘us’. But his tongue was ash in his mouth and his bones were tired. Of fighting physically and sparring verbally.

“Is that all?” he managed to scrape out.

The princess twirled a strand of her hair, and sat on his lap. “Yes.”

They had toasted often, during galas and balls and masquerades. She had always plucked flutes of champagne for him, saying he needed to work on his image. The royal had always clinked her glass against his in a possessive way, Lorcan always brushing her off.

Drinking was nothing new. But the glint in her eyes—that was something new.

“Do you swear to cease your advancements towards me and my mate? To allow us to find peace between us? To raise no harm against Elide Lochan?”

The she-wolf raised a dainty brow, and pressed the ruby-studded goblet into his clammy hand. “I, Essar, in the name of the Bright Lady, swear to fulfill the promise.”

The princess Lycan held her back straight and watched as Lorcan gripped the base of the goblet. Essar slowly brought his hand to his lips as his arm remained unwilling, his wolf snarling in protest.

Before he could leash in his feral side or question his wolf’s sudden thrashing, Essar tipped the goblet into his slightly parted mouth, shoving the steaming liquid down his throat. Lorcan gagged, and felt the marks of where she had scratched him respond with searing pain. His body convulsed as the princess Lycan shoved a hand around his throat, forcing every drop down.

His wolf quieted, and his body flared with pain for several seconds until a blurred daze fell across him. He could consciously hear purring, and feel a warm body pressed against his. There was an itching at the back of his mind, something holding him back. An irking of sorts scratched at him, but nonsensical thoughts like cotton clogged his brain.

There was something wrong, something forcing him still and compliant. His mind struggled to cut down every barrier, but there was a hint of dark magic that had his will recoil.

Something tepid pressed against his lips, a hand fingering the hair at the nape of his neck. There was a sound of creaking, and then a scent appeared that had the cotton in his head blowing away.

His eyes snapped open. He turned his head towards the door.

Lorcan knew then by the figure in his lap and the figure at the door he had irrevocably fucked up.

And that by the flash of betrayal and hurt contorting across his mate’s face, he had broken the maiden. And that by the whisper of her scent that fled from the room and the familiar sound of bones cracking and howling, he had sculpted the maiden into a monster.

And from there, the poison of Yellowleg’s Death, bewitched with dark magic and control remained stagnant within his veins, swirling through every notch and crevice, an invasion of his mind and will and muscle.

#elorcan werewolf au #elorcan #elide lochan #lorcan salvaterre #elide x lorcan #lorcan lochan #aelin #aelin ashryver galanthyius #manon blackbeack #easkyrah

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