Page 77 of Veradel
My mouth falls open. I meant what I told Kyra—that I don’twantto be queen, a fact that clings to my heart and buries roots deep into my stomach. But Stella’s not just offering me a crown, I know. She’s offering me maternal love, acceptance, and a place in her family.
So the fact that I cannot accept this gift makes my stomach crumple with pain.
“Oh, come here.” Stella puts the crown back in the box and pulls me into another hug that feels so good and warm and right that tears actually swell in my eyes this time. Over and over, I whisper a muffled thank you into her shoulder, and Stella just holds me, until finally I’m pulling back with a laugh, trying to compose myself.
“Sorry,” I say finally, eyeing the wet spot on her shoulder with a grimace.
She waves a hand with a scoff. “Are you kidding? I’m used to puppy slobber. A few vampire tears are nothing.”
“I didn’t realize Lucan slobbered,” I say with another laugh, “but now I’ll have to make fun of him for that.”
“I do no such thing.”
We both whip our heads around to find Lucan standing in the open doorway in human form, his dark, mottled hair pushed back. But he’s not alone. Standing next to him, leaning heavily on his cane, is Taika, with all the other werewolves gathered behind them in Stella’s garden.
There’s only one reason they could have all followed Lucan here. I glance down at the medical bag in Taika’s hand, and he nods at me as Stella squeezes my hand in her own.
The air around us becomes magnified, electric, heavy, as if the full weight of the world is finally crashing down.
“The antivenom is ready.”
By the time we make it to the right part of the Wall, the moon hangs like a sickle in the sky.
I’m glad it’s not a full blood moon tonight. According to the journal entries of Lucan’s father, I would need to feed if it was, but as of right now, I feel just as energized and powerful as I did this morning, Lucan’s blood still singing through my veins. Like I could fight in a war.
“You’re sure you want to do it here?” Taika asks, leaning his cane against the crooked edge of a nearby stump to grasp the handle of his medical bag in both hands.
I glance back at him and all the other members of Lucan’s pack behind us. Vivian is practically bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement, Merrick with his arm slung tight around her, and Soren rubbing his hands together in anticipation. Gabriel and Kyra lurk in the back, arms folded with skepticism, but several of the others look openly hopeful.
Even Stella followed us here, watching from a distance in the shadows of the trees.
“This is where we first almost met,” Lucan tells Taika, tugging my eyesight forward. “Just the Wall between us,” he whispers to me, and I think back to that day in the catacombs when I ran into the edge of the city, trapped, just on the other side. Now, we’re both standing on the outside together, the forest floor dipping down to that same stone door that’s locked shut. “I wanted so badly to claw every piece of it apart to get to you.”
I swallow the thickness in my throat and squeeze his hand. “Now we get to claw it apart together,” I tell him, and nerves squirm in my belly as I glance at the medical bag. “If this works.”
“It will, Saskia.”
I stare straight at the door, at the slowly-moving veins of venom writhing in the fossilized wood. “I wish I had your confidence.”
Lucan leans in close to murmur in my ear, his voice tickling against my hair, “That’s ironic, considering you’re the only thing I’m truly confidentin.”
I close my eyes briefly before turning to Taika with a nod. He unclasps the medical bag, setting it on the crown of the stump and dipping his hand in to pull out one syringe, then another—then finally a vial filled with a bright, clear liquid.
Turning the vial upside down, he slides a needle through the top and extracts the liquid slowly, filling the syringe carefully as if he’s about toinject a living, breathing soul and not a Wall that we want to completely destroy.
Finally, he hands a now-filled syringe to me, and I take it with a steady hand, my years as a healer overpowering the tremble that might otherwise fill my fingers.
Taika repeats his steps before he tries to hand the second syringe to Lucan. “Alpha,” he says with a proud dip of his head.
Lucan only stares at the needle pointed directly at him.
“I—I don’t think I can. It wasn’t my idea. I didn’t make it with you.”
All too aware of every pair of ears listening behind us, I lay my free hand on his wrist. “These areyourantibodies, Lucan.Yourfight. Every time you tried to climb this Wall, every time you tried to tear it down to save your people, to save me… it resulted inthis.” I nod at the syringe still in Taika’s hand. “This is literally your blood, sweat, and tears at work. So you can.”
The whistle of the wind though tree branches twirls around us. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hoots as Lucan stares and stares and stares at me.
Finally, an awed smile spreads across his face, and he outstretches his hand, his fingers closing around the barrel while his eyes never leave my face. “Look who’s confident now.”
