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My wolf! Immediately, I remembered the lessons I’d had with Night, and I closed my eyes and searched for my wolf. I found her crowded toward the back of my mind, just as she’d been when I had no idea that I was a shifter. I’m so sorry, girl. I did it again, didn’t I? In the wake of Troy’s presence, I’d been so afraid that I had forgotten who I was.
I worried that my wolf would be angry, but as she came bounding toward me from that far place, all I sensed from her was relief. My own relief swept over me, I could have trembled and cried with the force of it. When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer blind.
I was indeed in a cave, and I was alone—wait, no! There was another scent on the air, a sweeter, lighter note that I immediately recognized as belonging to Tavi. I turned my head, and found my friend a few yards from me, still unconscious, slumped forward where I was placed against the wall. Her long, black hair fell over her face, obscuring her features from me.
“Tavi!” I called, my voice echoing just slightly.
Tavi didn’t move.
I tried again. “Tavi, wake up!”
Again, my friend remained still. Dread began to drip down my spine like the cold water sliding down my leg. For a moment, I worried that Tavi might be dead. I tugged at my bindings again, but I wasn’t strong enough to pull them apart. I heaved a desperate sigh, almost a sob, and used my feet to drag myself away from the wall and closer to Tavi.
“Octavia, please…” My voice wavered. “Please, open your eyes. Don’t be dead…” I don’t want to be alone again.
And this time, though my voice was softer and thick with tears, Tavi began to stir, her sneaker twitching against the ground.
“Tavi!” I exclaimed, as her eyes fluttered open.
“Bryn?” Tavi lifted her head and looked from side to side, her shifter eyes glimmering amber in the dark. She, like me, had her arms and ankles bound. “What the fuck is this?” she demanded, testing her bonds. “What happened?”
“Troy happened,” I whispered. “He kidnapped us.”
Tavi’s lips pulled back from her teeth and I saw the flash of her sharp, white canines gleaming through the darkness. “That son of a bitch,” she spat. This was in such sharp contrast to the young woman I had come to know that it put a shiver down my spine. But I was just happy that my friend was alive, unlike—
I shifted closer to Tavi. “Are you hurt?”
“My back is still sore, and my head hurts something awful.” She tilted her head first to one side and then to the other until a soft crack came from her neck. “Ah, that helps.” She turned to me. “How about you? Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah, I’m…I’m okay.” But that wasn’t true. In answering the question, my thoughts again returned to the compound—to Violet, to Night, and to Pax. I snipped that thought at its root before it could take hold and spread through my mind like a weed. I couldn’t think about Violet or worry about Pax. Not right now. Instead, I tried to calm myself, focusing on the sounds of the cave. In the distance, I heard the faint babbling of a river.
“Where are we?” Tavi asked.
“I’m not sure, but it can’t be very far from the Kings’ compound.” I paused, thinking a bit more, trying to remember the geography of the area. Were there any caves on the maps I’ve seen? As I racked my brain, the sound of the river reached my ears again, and I knew that it wasn’t within the cave but outside it. “I think we’re on the outskirts of the Kings’ territory,” I said slowly. “Near the Kootenai River.” If I was right, that put us very close to the Canadian border.
“Dammit!” Tavi kicked her bound legs. Her cheeks filled with red as her temper flared. “We’re so far away! I can’t believe I let us get captured. How could I have let this happen?”
Guilt panged in my chest. “Tavi, don’t think like that—”
Tavi’s eyes blazed through the darkness. “Bryn, it was my job to keep you safe. I made a promise to Night that I would protect you no matter what.” She shook her head. “I broke that promise.”
“No, Tavi, it’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
Tavi paused in her kicking, staring at me.
“If not for me, you would be safe at home…a-and Violet wouldn’t have been…” Killed, but I couldn’t say that. “I’d grown so comfortable with you and the others. I should have kept my distance.”
“Bryn, stop.”
I looked up at Tavi and found her eyes had softened from the fiery amber they’d been moments before. Tears glimmered like gems along her lower lids. “Don’t think like that. This isn’t your fault. It’s Redwolf’s. He’s the one who decided to trespass over our borders. He’s the one who chose to spill blood on Wargs soil.” She bit her lip, and I wondered if she was remembering the sound of Violet’s head knocking against the wooden floor. “That could never be your fault, Bryn.”
I heard Tavi’s words, but the doubts persisted in my mind. I knew that Troy was doing this to get back at Night after he humiliated Troy the night of the challenge ceremony, but that didn’t lessen the burden that settled on my shoulders. Troy was my problem. He worked tirelessly to be the bane of my existence; he was a man who thrived off the pain he caused me. If I had been able to escape the night of the challenge ceremony, if I hadn’t fallen into his trap, none of this would have happened.
True, I might never have learned that I was a shifter or connected with my wolf, and I wouldn’t have experienced the heartbreakingly sweet love I had found with Night, but at least I wouldn’t have dragged anyone else into my problems. If I had escaped, then I would be the only one who had to answer to Troy—not Night, Violet, Tavi, or Pax.
I was a curse.
Inside, my wolf whined. I still hadn’t mastered communication with my wolf, but I knew that there was sorrow in that whine. It made me sad, too, to think that all those wonderful things might not have happened.
