The fire beneath Nick’s thoughts was one that she knew, just from her brief acquaintance with him, would not stop burning until it had shredded its object into bite-sized pieces. What message is that?
That he won a long time ago. And that soon you would be out of the way and forgotten.
Will I? He said in a tone that wasn’t really a question, and leaned down and kissed her cheek. We’ll see. Very soon. You just rest.
Zara looked up into his eyes a moment longer as a few tears leaked out of the corners and slid down the sides of her face. Everything will be okay, won’t it?
Yes, it will. He stared down at her with his intricate hazel eyes that seemed to look right through her, into a future where he stood over the bloody pieces of her mate’s corpse. His hatred was so strong, growing stronger by the moment. It was intoxicating. I’m going to make it okay.
IX
Ever since Lea and Zara returned and suffered through their painful recoveries, the Ironborn mentality had switched from slow and steady to a burning desire for the destruction of the Council and anyone loyal to them. Zara and Lea had healed considerably, but they both wore scars on their bodies that would forever be a reminder of what the Council had done.
Every time Nick looked at Zara, he could see the scars, faint as they were, across her face. One of the Council guards had left three lines across her cheek, underneath her right eye. The blood from the wound made her think that she had lost an eye at first, but eventually it all cleared up, leaving her with just the marks. Even when they were together, ever after, Nick traced over the marks on her otherwise back-to-perfect body, as though he needed a constant reminder of what the Council did to whoever they thought deserved it.
In the two months that followed, Candra and Orlando remained on the outskirts of the compound after the event that had turned a fight into a war. The packs that came to visit weren’t allowed to see Orlando and Candra, mainly to keep them safe, but also to keep strangers wondering.
The people who saw them walk amongst the Ironborn, and the Ironborn fighters who had witnessed Orlando destroy the Council fighters with Candra at his side, were the ones to perpetuate the stories. The fear. The legendary nature of the Shadowborn and the Lightborn together. The more wolves they had on their side of the fight, the more likely it would be that packs would join them, and stories, at times, did better than any example that Candra or Orlando could give of themselves.
After Candra saw what happened to Lea and Zara, she hadn’t been the same. Death and abuse like that were different to her, since death seemed merciful and abuse of that magnitude seemed nothing but cruelty. When she was told that the abuse was by Coren’s command, it was days before Orlando could get her to open up and talk to him again. Slowly, but surely, Candra was learning that the world she lived in was nothing like her books had described. Learning that the wolves she had trusted, followed, and obeyed, were not who she believed them to be.
Aura and Ziem spent most of their time together if he wasn’t helping with house construction or out training with the fighters. It was an alternating routine for nearly all the adult Ironborn, and whoever else from the packs loyal to the cause. Aura wanted to have a more active part in it all, but every time she tried to get involved, people remained unforgiving. The more they loved Nick and Zara, the more they hated her, and the more reason they had to snub her completely. Zara, a wolf that wasn’t even Ironborn, had nearly died standing up to the Council. Aura had simply been a liability, and that was only after she had willfully turned her back on her own people, her own kind, by not choosing Nick. She remained in the compound only by Nick’s allowance, and no one felt bad reminding her of her place.
The only happiness that she could find was in her puppies and in Ziem. Ziem loved her and she loved him, and the further along she got in her pregnancy, the more she loved the little lives inside of her. She could feel them respond to her touch on everything in her house, so she knew that there had to be at least one Ironborn inside of her, if not more. What others might exist, she had no idea, but she was excited to one day find out.
She received a visit from a Guard one morning, a few days before the Fulness, after Ziem had been gone all day. It was longer than usual. The visitor was William, whom some had taken to calling Sir William, as a nickname to go along with Nick’s supposed royal status. Many of the Alphas that came to join them over the last two months, Earthborn, Oceanborn, Skyborn, even a very small pack of Fireborn with twenty members, had taken on the joke as well. Nick’s standing as a Prince was beginning to be more reality than rumor, by popular acclaim.
She felt William’s knock on her door and could see him outside the single window in the front of her house, stern-faced and stoic as always. With a sigh she went to the door and opened it slowly to step out, since she
