Forest of Lies

Chapter 27-There be Bloodshed Here

♥️I know this is a short chapter, but I wanted to give y'all something before I get super busy. Please enjoy and comment any ideas or theories that you have for the story. 😁😈

🔥(Ps, I am running out of good ideas and story plots for this book, my brain has been fried for a little bit and is in recovery from me editing my other book I'm trying to get published. I would very much appreciate the help. Thanks you guys.) 😸

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Evander

I had my reasons to send the humans to the Black Tower if they lost their duels. I had even more reasons to feel that something would go awry on this very day. I knew that Nyx was far more quiet than usual these pasts weeks. Though she shared my bed and met my carnal hunger with her own, something was amiss.

Something in her conniving gaze showed distraction. Revealed an awareness that was not there the first night she arrived at the castle. But for all my foresight of her secretive and cunning nature, for all my plans to close off any avenue for her to cause trouble, none of it prepared me for this. For Nyx to be choking one of the regional Alpha's with black vines trimmed by flesh piercing thorns.

The Arena is filled with screams and cries for the nearest soldiers to intervene. The nobles around the Alpha scramble to get away, the cracks around the vines continue to grow as the vines start to rise, pulling the Alpha up with them. I stand up and rush toward Nyx, stretching out one hand to grab her arm.

But at the last second, Nyx, to my horror and fury, leaps over the balcony and lands on one of the benches below. My fingers manage only to snag and rip a peice of her dress as she descends. Her face empty of feeling or emotion. As if she were a living statue of pale stone.

She starts to move along the bench, toward the writhing Alpha caught in the thorns. Toward the female in silken robes of rose that had been seated beside him before the cracks appeared. The woman watches the vines constrict the Alpha's throat tighter and tighter as Nyx continues across the benches. Several soilders already rushing down the steps to intervene.

In my mind, I know the wide eyed female should be screaming. Crying hysterically at the sight of her mate being dangled above her head.

But she isn't.

No, she is laughing. Smiling wide with manic joy. Her bejeweled hands clapping and clapping as the vines constrict one last time, and the sound of cracking bone splits the air. Nyx not batting an eye as the Arena goes quiet, before the stands of the citizens erupt in chaos.

Wrathful fire floods through my bones and blood.
How dare she do this? How could she do this? Time and again I've agreed to her wishes and deals. Put up with her wants to continue training with weapons alongside her human companions.
I could have been cruel, but I chose to let her set the pace. It seems I was wrong, and this angers my wolf's nature. Makes him froth at the mouth to remind our mate who is in charge.

She has now made a mockery of my rule. Has stained the Petrosus line with the public murder of a high ranking alpha. She will be punished.
My vision turns red and my body bends as the shift from man to wolf overtakes me. The mind of the wolf within set on reasserting his rule.

Nyx

A howl sounds from my right as Mogrem is released by from the vines' hold. His body greeting the hard marble bench in time with a shaking wave of the stone as a large black wolf lands before me. The jolt of its landing causes me to fall back, hitting the bench behind me hard with a sharp pain going up my spine.

I hear Lisa shriek as the hands of a solider grab my arm. It's the last thing he does, for one heartbeat he's grasping me and the next he falls back with a javelin spearing him all the way through. The wolf growls deep and low, my gaze being drawn to his blown red eyes as I slowly push myself back up to my feet.

Once I'm back up, I catch sight of two soilders stepping up behind my sister, and two more down in the Arena pushing Orlan down into the sand. A javelin falling from his grip as the soilders yank his arms back and chain his wrists.
The fiery anger in my chest gutters out, and the cold bite of awareness streams into my mind.

The scuffing of boots pulls my head to the left, my eyes locking on the Axe and the Hammer just ten feet away from and the wolf who growls once again when it sees them. I look again at the wolf, seeing its size and rich dark fur. Understanding who the wolf is, and how dangerous he is to everyone at this moment. Deadly even to me.

"Evander!" I shout, pulling his fiery eyes back to me, his knife long fangs dripping with saliva. Wanting to sink into flesh and make blood drip onto his tounge. "Your anger is for me. Not them. I killed Alpha Mogrem. I let myself lose control of my magic. I am the one who you want punished."

Slowly, I raise my hands, hoping to coax him toward me, but then I halt and feel my heart plummet. Beneath my pale skin, for all to see with the naked eye, are the black trailing forms of my veins. From fingertips to midway up my arms, my veins are black.

Like the vines still standing tall from the cracks in the stone benches. Like the fur of Evander's hide. Like his pupils, smaller than the body of spider. Ones that find the black trails at the precise moment that I do.

It sends him stark raving mad and he launches his powerful body straight at me with a roar that shakes the Arena's granite columns. Agony rips through me in waves. My body hitting the hard marble, Evander's claws sinking into the meat of my upper arms. His jaws, his cruel fangs biting deep into my left shoulder.

I am lost to an abyss of an empty void. One I drown in, until an image appears within the vast darkness.

A large towering tree. A great oak with a trunk wider than a hut. Its roots larger than a man. Its leaves gold as the sun.

And in my head I can hear something beating. Something akin to that of a heart. Something that I can almost decipher before the image cracks and splinters.

Then, I feel myself falling faster and faster. Until my body snaps up and my eyes open wide to the Alpha King's dark furnished room. A room filled with the near entirety of the Wild Hunt and the Royal family.

And all stare at me as if the mere sight of their wrathful gazes would choke like the vines did to Alpha Mogrem.