“Wait,” Harley said. “Uh, you shouldn't leave yet.”
“I've had enough of you boys standing around holding your enormous dicks. I've got a mate to go save, with or without your help.” She came here thinking the Troikas were her only hope. Seemed like politics was going to get in the way. She never cared for politics.
“But we got more information on Aleksei. We found out before you got here that he'd been taken and was being held by this new faction.”
“Great. Then let's go take them out.”
“I mean. We can and we probably should. But it's Max's place to declare war on them since he's the alpha who can demand blood for blood, a life for a life.”
Max swore not quite under his breath. “Fuck.”
Blood for blood. A life for a life.
The trembles from before came back, but this time they rattled all the way to her bones. Her vision didn't go dark, and she didn't see a grey wolf or anything else, but everything just went blurry and she had to get control of her hands to wipe the tears out of her eyes.
“No. Don't say it. Don't. It's not true, you don't know what you're talking about. I would know. I would know.”
The women surrounded her in a giant group hug, which almost insulated her from hearing Harley's next words. Almost.
“Aleksei's dead. Killed by this wolf who wants to be the new Tzar.”
Not Not Dead
Was he dead?
Sure as hell felt like he was. Every bone in his human body had cracks in them. All two hundred and six of them. Maybe that's why he couldn't seem to shift into his wolf form. Two-hundred-ish was a whole lot less to heal that the three-hundred-ish of his wolf. But damn, he was sure as shit missing his fur right now, and his ability to see better in the dark.
There wasn't a single twinkle of light in this cold place. Fuck. Maybe he was dead and this was purgatory.
Didn't all dogs go to heaven?
If this was the good place, shouldn't there be fluffy clouds, rainbows, lots of rare steaks, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream smothered all over angels? His angel would look and taste and smell like his mate.
Helena, Helena, Helena. The ache in his bones receded, the chill across his skin faded, but still his wolf remained silent, even when her name was on his lips.
Fuck. Where was Helena? That grey wolf better have gotten her safely away, or Aleksei was going to haunt his ass from here to eternity.
While he was pretty sure his eyes were open, everything from the inside out felt...wrong. He didn't know which way was up, down, or if he way lying down, or suspended in the air.
“It's a very strange feeling, isn't it? Not having access to your wolf. Might as well be dead.” A female voice that could have been death itself reverberated around in his head as if his mind was a cold, stone cave.
Aleksei licked his lips, trying to find his voice through the desert of his mouth and sore throat. He managed to croak out a few words. “Who are you?”
“Was I so insignificant to you Troikas you don't even remember me?” She didn't exactly sound hurt. Was this woman friend or foe?
“It's been a shitty day, lady. All I want to know is if we're friends or enemies.” And if she could help him get out of here and back to Helena, that would be great. Or off on his mission to kill the grey wolf if he needed to, now that he knew he wasn't dead.
But what was that she'd said about not having access to his wolf?
“A long time ago, we were allies. But then Nikolai fucked up the world, my father fucked it up some more, and I lost everything. So I think at best we're frenemies, Troika.”
“Taryn?” If he'd guessed right, this was the daughter of the defunct Crescent Bay pack. Her father had murdered Piotr Troika. Stabbed him in the back when the Troikas had come to the Crescents seeking an alliance by mating her to one of the Troika sons.
Aleksei had been on that mission. The one that destroyed his world. It had cost him his alpha, his sanity, and almost his life. His only joy in the last year was hearing that Niko had defeated Taryn's father in a battle to the death and claimed the pack as was his right.
Taryn had disappeared that day and hadn't been seen since. What was she doing here in whatever dark prison they were in?
“Ah, so you do remember me. Well, at least someone does.” Her voice got quieter until it was almost a whisper. “Not that it matters now. Neither you nor I will ever see the light of the moon ever again.”
Of anyone, Aleksei understood exactly where Taryn was coming from. All up in her head, letting the darkness of depression consume her. Been there, done that, got the scars. Only he'd been lucky. His pack hadn't allowed him to wither away to the nothingness that Taryn had become. Selena had brought him back into the light where he'd found the one person that could make his soul burn with life again.
He would not die here in the darkness. Not as long as his Helena was out there somewhere waiting for him. “Taryn, we are getting out of here. You hear me?”
She laughed in that way people who have given up do. Sad, joyless, almost-sobs came from her. “No, we aren't. He needs us too much to ever let us go. We can't defeat him. You should learn that now. It's better to join him.”
What the fuck?
“Join who? What are you talking about? This sounds like some bullshit. You're a wolftress. Get your shit together and let's find a way to get out of here.” Never in his life had he known a wolf to back down from any fight. Even the stinking one-bloods fought for what they believed in, even as crazy as those beliefs were. This attitude of joining the dark side just because it was too hard or it hurt too much to do what was right, that simply wasn't the wolf way.
“I'm no longer a wolftress, and you aren't a wolf. You'll see, Troika. You'll see.” She was almost angry in her despair.
Aleksei gentled his tone. If Taryn had been captured by this new faction that wanted to take down Niko as the Wolf Tzar and had kept her here, making her think she was no longer a wolf, they'd done a lot of damage to a woman who was once a savvy and powerful wolftress. “Of course we are. We were born shifters. No one but the Goddess can take that away.”
“Try to shift, try to even feel your wolf, then tell me you're still a child of the Moon Goddess.” Taryn spat out the words.
He closed his eyes to focus, and called on his wolf. All he found deep in his soul where the wolf lived was more darkness, total emptiness. He shuddered.
“It's not there, is it?”
What had they done to him, to her? “Who? How? Why?”
Aleksei could hardly get those questions out. All he could think about was this hollow place inside.
“The demon wolf.”
Umm. No. That wasn't a thing, and her saying something so crazy made his instincts flare back to life. No way he'd lost his own wolf, it was perhaps suppressed but he'd never believe it wasn't there at all. So, think. What was really going on here?
Niko had defeated an incubus who'd allied itself with some kind of demon dragon. They'd used the wolves as pawns in their own war. But when Niko became the Wolf Tzar, he'd extricated all of wolfkind from that game. That was the only demon Aleksei had ever heard of interfering with other supernaturals. Those kinds of creatures usually kept to themselves.