Page 39 of A Heart of Crimson Flames
“He is your King!” my father seethed. “I will drag you back there, Sadie, even if it’s only your pelt. He will wear you like a stole, daughter. Your bones will be buried in Highwick where they belong.”
“I thought I belonged in Rikesh?” I countered. “You were so quick to sell me off like a broodmare to Prince Tadei, hmm?”
“You—”
I didn’t wait for his response. I feigned left, then shot right, landing my jaws in my uncle’s rear leg and biting until the bone snapped. He yelped, scrambling on three legs to pull himself away. He’d have to shift back to his human form to heal that break, which would at least buy Navin some time.
But my eldest uncle, Pilus, didn’t shift and heal himself, instead turning on Navin. His prey drive blew his pupils wide as he limped toward Navin’s exposed back as he squared off with my other uncle, Aubron. I tried to shout a warning to Navin, but it came out as a garbled yowl as my uncles attacked him from both sides.
Distracted by Navin’s peril, I didn’t notice the flash of movement until it was too late. My father bowled me over, knocking the air from me.
Before I could move out of his way, he landed on top of me, his jaws landing around my neck and squeezing but not enough to break the skin. We had trained this maneuver so many times when I was a pup. He’d always taught me: tear out the throat, don’t choke, don’t waste that time when another enemy could be at the scruff of your neck at any second.
But my father didn’t do that; he squeezed just enough to bring on panic. I writhed beneath him, trying to suck air back into my lungs but couldn’t. He wanted to kill me slowly, wanted me to regret all the things I’d put him through, all the waysthat I’d failed him. This was the most personal kill he would ever make—ending his daughter’s life—and it made him blind to everything else.
Like the large mass that hit him square in the side. His jaws released me, and he growled, scrambling to his feet as I regained my own footing and looked to see who’d tackled him. I blinked at the Silver Wolf with the curled and snarling maw, his chest heaving—Hector.
“We were meant to bring her back alive,” my brother snapped.
“You betray me even still?” our father shouted so loudly that my temples pulsed. “Shameful children. Neither of you deserves to carry on our family name.” He looked at Hector. “You help me kill her now or you will be next. I can’t bear another day seeing you strung up behind our King’s throne, making all of our pack hate me for siring such a traitor.”
Hector just stood there, neither coming to my defense nor turning to attack me. “You could have stopped Nero,” he spat. “You could have cut me down.”
“This is how I spared you, Hector,” my father seethed. “The only reason you were cut down from your comfy perch at all was because I told King Nero you would come with us to reclaim Sadie. This is your chance to never be strung up again, to bring honor back to our name, andstillyou choose the path of a traitor?”
That sentiment made Hector pause. Neither did he charge my father again nor turn his attention to me, just stood there rooted to the spot as if trapped in his own terror. What had Nero done to him that had made him so immobilized with indecision? I could see the cogs in my brother’s mind turning, caught between two opposing loyalties.
My father’s expression was so riddled with disappointment. These weren’t the faithful, unwavering Wolves he’d raised us to be. In Wolf society our father’s will was only superseded by the pack leader, and in this moment, we were defying both.
I used that moment of heartbroken shock to launch myself at my father. I pinned him in one swift move, knowing exactlyhow he liked to attack, which side he was first to defend. I outmaneuvered him easily, and whenIwent for the throat, I didn’t wait.
I sunk my teeth in and tore, ripping out his throat as hot coppery blood spurted into the air and coated my fur. I watched his wide, shocked eyes as they met mine, the connection between our minds severing as he gasped for air but choked on nothing but blood. His body twitched and spasmed, and he shifted back and forth, human and Wolf, again and again as if one form would save him.
When his blood-soaked body finally stopped writhing, he was in his furs. My chest rose and fell in heaving pants, the world spinning out from under me.
I’d killed him.
I’d killed my father.
In my grief, I shifted. Naked and bloodied, I knelt beside my father’s corpse.
I’d killed him.
Through bleary, tear-filled eyes, I looked around me to find Hector, but my brother was gone. My uncle’s bodies lay on either side of Navin, his back to me as he stared down at them. Blood dripped from his knife, his light brown skin splattered with it.
When he turned to me, his venom disappeared in a flash, and he raced toward me as a broken sob escaped my lips.
Navin’s warm arms banded around me, and he pulled my blood-slick skin against his own. He cradled me to him as sobs racked through me.
“I killed him,” I cried, a keening broken sob.
Every moment of my childhood flashed back through me between one gasping breath and the next. My father had loved Hector and I once. He had been strict, like any good Wolf father, but he had been proud of us—always bragging of our accomplishments, always watching each of our competitions and fights. We had been his legacy. Even when he wanted to sell me to Prince Tadei, somewhere deep down I understood. Hewas doing what he thought was right not only for the pack, but for me, saving my soul from the traitor I had been, giving me a chance to redeem myself in the eyes of our pack. Never in a million years did I think it would end like this, with us fighting to the death. Never did I think I could kill him so swiftly, my training taking over.
Navin held me tighter, crushing me against him, fusing us into one. Any lighter and I might shatter into a thousand pieces, but he held me together with such ferocity as if he knew his arms were the only thing keeping me from slipping away and never coming back.
My father and uncles were gone. Hector had stopped my father but did nothing to save me, either.
I lifted my face from Navin’s skin, staring out to the shadowed forest as tears carved through the coagulated blood on my face. I knew by the end of this I’d have to kill Hector, too, and I knew once I did, I’d never be the same.
