Large thanks to everyone favoriting, following, and reviewing this story! I'd been nervous of spinning of a mostly Fae novel into a werewolf one, and as such, doubted the story.
Rosalina: I'm honored to be in part your book blog! Please pm me for details & to confirm :)
-Ea 3
Telling a woman to calm down works as well as baptizing a cat
Elorcan Werewolf 13
Vernon re-buckled his pants, licking his lips in satisfaction. The experiments on captured wolves turned them into Ilken now guarded Morath so that not one soul would dare not survive a trip past his borders.
He'd gotten his empire, and built a kingdom out of skulls and death. He'd done the impossible without the interference of the Lycans blooded with Royalty. He'd beaten the heir to his Pack into submission.
He'd gotten it all. And so much more.
Nightmares turned into realities.
He had his secrets, his dark deeds, his gory graves, burning in his brain, a living hell, his own to hole up under lock and key.
His boots shoved the limp figure away from him, a nest of black hair lying dead against the slope of stones. Blood pooled around her, her stomach caved in, mouth open in a silent scream of terror. A perfect doll stuffed with poisoned needles and sewed with barbed words.
He had broken the Perranth spirit and heir, and carved out Morath, a devil's realm of hell to rule absolutely.
A mirthless chuckle shuddered through him, seizing every pore. He'd brought down a Pack of light and hope, tore through every crack, and filled the gap with his own gushing red rivers of twisted wickedness.
The truth was out. That heinous acts could thrive and withhold a place in this too gray world.
He'd nudge the canvas towards the ink, and devour the white. Completely.
Vernon felt, rather than saw, a shift in the darkness—a different blackness with more volumes.
A hatchet whistled through the cave, and flew through a wide arc, nearly slicing the limp figure's fingers, rottened and rottled.
A heavy, dark presence shattered the shapes of phantom and shadow.
Pure, undiluted rage and unfiltered feralness.
And barrenly broken.
The Alpha of the Morath Pack slowly turned around, revealing yellow-red teeth, caked with the crimson liquid of the broken body's mortality. A nasty soul for the invading one in his land, his territory, his sanctuary.
"You missed," he hissed in delight.
A warrior of moon's darkness, not of the sun's glory descended into the cave.
Deeper, deeper into hell. His hell and no one else's. His, his, his and his own lovely-pieced heaven.
Welcome, he almost breathed, soaking in the other demon's face. Look at this little lush.
The darkness flared out, every vein within him throbbing as if pins and needles had stitched through him.
A hysterical laughter shot through him.
A consequence that had not foreseen.
A broken girl with a broken mate.
Put together, they healed.
He should have known. Wedged them further, despite the inevitable. His own secret darkness failed, to tell to another larger and loose dark, a spawn of wretched misery.
A wild, maniacal grin—a monster he had unknowingly forged. A living sin.
"Did I?" the twisted darkness rasped.
Vernon's ankle collapsed, a chunk of flesh ripped and torn, blood seeping through the floor, dark ink swirling with the fading scarlet. A slice reeking of revenge felt to the depths of his marrow.
The hatchet yanked out of his ankle, and the Alpha's knees kissed the stones. A pale hand, too twisted for true comprehension, gripped the hatchet.
The little girl who had hung onto that little thread twisted with hope.
A fading will focused on retribution, a face meaner than his own demons.
He hadn't won.
The warrior slipped through his peripheral, the slickness of the liquids sliding over his hands too tangible.
"Tell me how you did it," he insisted, not feebly—anything but. Foam bubbled at his lips. "Slipped through my defenses unharmed."
His utopia. Meeting an end to greater darkness. There was no perfection, truer silencer than this. The Ilken had failed him, his fantasy had not been fulfilled, the girl had not crossed over the line. Into insanity.
The warrior stepped over his mangled ankle. A true devil in a lower hide.
More pain, but numb.
Onyx eyes peered into him, a smile promising more things than the sweet release of decaying. Hardened and unconquered. Eternal seconds of breathings for this very moment.
He repeated his words. Slurred.
Grasped at the syllables in response.
Knew the warrior opened his mouth.
Did not know the warrior had been broken and remade. Would remake the broken, shattered figure next to him, gripping the hatchet with a ferocity only the desperate could hold before fading away into dust.
The warrior knelt down next to him, and leaned close to his ear.
Opened his mouth. Said the words again—
—Death cannot conquer love.
The sickened rose within him, swirling and spiraling savagely. Vernon howled at the sounds of answer, the clipped crunching cracks chipping away. Heard them over and over again, slithering down his ear and wrapping around him, a vice like grip. Choking him from the inside.
Again and again.
The Alpha of the Morath Pack heard the beating drums of madness crescending louder and louder and louder matching the beating within his own ribcage until all fell into silence and solemness.
She knew she was blinded.
Suffering in the darkness did not mean alleviation in the light.
Too bright, too sunny—she could not see the same way again.
The male warrior had stripped his shirt into thin slices and wrapped the fabric around her eyes, shielding them from the blinding sensations of radiant rays that ripped through her orbs.
But—
—she knew she was safe.
Secure, and sound.
Warm, and protected.
There was no words needed to fill the silence, not when a reunion of simple touching kissed away every troubled crack.
It was as if the past had washed away with the present.
A hand wove through her knotted hair and stroked her scalp, rubbing away the grime and dirt coating her roots.
"Elide," he murmured, and Elide felt the vibrations rumbling through his chest.
Hers.
His.
Elide opened her eyes, the thread expanding and pouring through her. The warmth from that sliver span flashed through her, and she felt her insides match the other string's song, the warrior whose arms she was in. Then—in that moment, she realized paradise was not a place, but a feeling.
Mates.
How could she forget that rough-hewn face and those onyx eyes—once haunted—now glimmering with that resounding hope pulsating through her.
Lorcan Salvaterre.
"I am an immortal, seen it all, met it all. But you—" The Commander of the Lycans looked at her with something akin to almost wonder in his eyes. "—You, Elide, are entirely different. You taught me ascension." His fingers cupped her face, a gentle caress. "You taught me that life is finite and fragile." His Adam's apple bobbed.
Elide Lochan cried.
And her mate cried with her.
Elide felt the threads of connections flowing through her, more safety nets, more familiarities. More lives.
She could hear the sharp and feminine voice ringing through the air, and taste the death of Rogues on her tongue.
A blade whistled through the air, and she smiled.
Wind Cleaver.
Which only meant—the white-haired wolf stalked through the clearing, black blood and dust showering her leathers. Claws and teeth and all, she was still radiating the dominance of the powerful and unconquered, the unhinged lethalness of past and present.
A fierce, feral grin. "If you call one werewolf, you invite the pack."
Lycans and Fireheart Pack members filtered through the clearing, some scratched, some bleeding, some scarred. Blistered hands and broken joints.
But alive.
Seeing the Lycan carrying her in his arms, Manon gave him a warning glare, but a sharp nod. The white-haired warrior disappeared through the trees, the sound of wind and death weaving through the trees as more of the Ilken summoned, only to receive the hand of death.
This was not some pity party, but art—in death.
In the deserved.
"No," she whispered, and her mate carried her to the edge of the thick, crooked trees where she could see glimpses of Sorscha and other medical care. Her chest rattled, and her throat cracked. But— "I want to be the one."
She stared into those onyx eyes that carried her physically and mentally through the darkness, and willed them to understand.
"You want to be the one to bring Morath down," her mate said, stroking her cheek.
Yes.
Her eyes fluttered close, tiredness overwhelming her. Every part of her still hurt and throbbed, but once these passings passed—
The once Alpha of the Perranth Pack would reclaim her throne.
"Elide," Lorcan said, solemnly. "I need to know one thing before you pass out."
Elide Lochan blurrily stared at the shape carrying her, stroking her. Loving her.
She could feel the presence of Sorscha pressing a damp cloth against her forehead, and her mate hooking her trembling fingers through his. Flesh thoroughly marked and matched.
"Do you—" A pause "—love—"
Elide Lochan screamed, a new flare of flame flashing through her. She saw red and felt raw, as if her insides were on fire. Her bones rattled and spine seemed to contract.
More pain.
To think it would end, she almost cackled.
"What the hell is going on?" Lorcan roared, gripping her hands, which had started to tremble uncontrollably.
Sorscha—sweet Sorscha—swore, a rattle of a gasp emerging from the pale column of her throat. "She's Settling."
Elide Lochan nestled into the darkness, submitting to this other facet of pain and fracture.
Lorcan looked down at the trembling figure in his arms, twisting and turning. Her skin sweated in large rivulets, stinging even his hands.
His mate.
Suffering once again. They were dirty and dirt, but they could blossom from their own embittered seeds. Together.
He swore it. To her, to his mate, to his future.
Sorscha took a hesitant step forward. "By her conditions, I cannot guarantee that she'll live through the process in becoming Lycan."
He felt his darkness flare out, angry, bent on madness. Rage. "If you cannot guarantee," he said lowly. "Then I will."
He ignored Manon's demands to halt and Sorscha's protest. He sent one demand to Rowan Whitethorn, one if carried out, would pay off all of the Prince's debts to him.
Lorcan Salvaterre whisked his mate away from the screams and tucked her thrashing body under his chin. Elide Lochan was his mate, so damned poison nor words nor ills could deprive him of.
And he would be damned if even Death could snatch that away from him.
Because death could could not conquer love. And love bled in war.
Rowan Whitethorn tossed the Alpha of the Morath Pack into a cold cell.
Dark and damp.
Aelin and Manon and the entire Fireheart Pack had clawed at the dungeon entrance, demanding justice and retribution to end the pitiful existence of the monster of a man, Vernon.
But he had a deal and a command.
And he would make sure it would be upheld.
The Prince of the Lycans locked the door and watched the gears spur shut. Click after click after click.
No escape.
Confinement.
While Morath was in flames, the true dark core rested within the beating heart of the man who had raised an army of rogues into turned Ilken and experiment on the souls of once-purity.
It was only a matter of time before the pulsing faded away into ashes and dust.
The man clawed at the walls and howled and screamed and scratched and laughed.
Insanity and lunacy. His liar.
No prison could hold him, not when he created the barriers.
His bones started to rattle, blood burn, his teeth chatter, his eyes widen, his jaw unhinge, his insides boil, and his body twitch over and over into a dark and forbidden dance of nightmares and little secrets.
A swooning flame swished through him, and the little specks flecked across his head. The chunk of missing flesh at his ankle seared and sparked. The demons within him caved him, a forbidden forgiveness.
Shadow and phantom. Dark and dangerous.
Ill and inquiry.
Hellish and hueless.
And his Settling began. And a new reign dawned.