Chapter 6 The road to Thornewood
MALAKAI
“Malakai I have known you for years. I would never say a word.” he pleaded as reality dawn on him.
“That is not your choice to make anymore. It is his.”
“So what you are going to do? Kill me right here in my own living room?” Henrik’s laugh came out broken. “After I just pulled you off the rain?”
“I did not say that.”
“You did not have to but you are considering it. I heard the same order you did.”
Henrik took a slow step backward. His eyes darted toward the front door. “You are not actually considering this right? ”
“This is not about how long I have known you.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Staying alive,” I said. “Both of us if I can manage it.”
I dropped the towel. My muscles coiled tight. I was caught in a lethal trap unsure if I should kill the friend who had just saved my life or let him go and risk being the reason Halloway came for him next.
“Please,” Henrik said quietly. “I swear I will not tell anyone.”
The silence in the living room stretched thick and suffocating.
I looked at the man who had just pulled me out of the storm. My muscles uncoiled. I lowered my bloody hands.
“You need to leave,” I said. My voice dropped to a whisper. “He will be here in less than an hour. And when he walks through that door he will do what I will not.”
Henrik froze. His chest heaved. He swallowed hard. His eyes darted from my blood soaked shirt to the front door and back. “Are you really letting me go?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that? No conditions?”
“Do not make me reconsider. Also you need to leave Ravnehall. Things will get very messy there soon”
Henrik moved slowly toward the threshold. He reached the doorknob paused and turned back to face me. The tension finally left his shoulders.
“I will not say a single word,” Henrik swore again. “I will take this to my grave.”
“Let us hope you do not have to,” I replied coldly. “I am leaving your phone on the table. You can come back for it after I am gone.”
“Where will you even go? Your father…”
“Is not your problem anymore. Go Henrik.”
He nodded slipped through the door and ran into the rain.
I let out an exhale and leaned against the wall. Sparing him was a fatal risk. But slaughtering a friend who had just offered me shelter was a line I simply could not cross.
Fifty minutes later tires crunched against the gravel driveway.
The phone on the table buzzed. Halloway.
I grabbed my jacket and stepped out into the biting wind. A black armored SUV idled in the shadows. I pulled the passenger door open and slid into the leather seat.
Halloway did not look at me. His face was a mask of deadly focus. His eyes scanned the dark tree line while one hand rested near the pistol holstered beneath his coat.
“Keep your head down,” Halloway ordered. He threw the vehicle into drive before I even had the door shut.
“Are we being tracked?” I asked wincing as the seatbelt pressed against my broken ribs.
“The wolves are ripping the streets apart looking for a bleeding vampire. We are heading straight to the airport,” Halloway said his foot pressing harder on the accelerator. “No stops. No delays. You leave Norway tonight Malakai or you do not leave at all.”
“Was there anyone else at the safehouse?” Halloway asked his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.
“No,” I lied.
He did not push it. But the silence that followed felt like he already knew better.
LYRA
Evening finally fell over Oslo. The violent storm had passed leaving a chilling quiet in its wake.
I sat on the edge of the hospital bed staring blankly at the sterile white floor tiles. My mother sat right beside me her hand resting over mine. The hours had stretched on endlessly. Every tick of the wall clock felt like a hammer striking an anvil against my skull.
My father had been gone for far too long.
The hospital door opened.
Alpha Vane marched into the room. A suffocating chill flooded the space. I pressed my spine against the headboard pulling the thin sheets up to my chest. He looked deeply exhausted his suit damp from the rain but beneath the fatigue was a visible disappointment.
“The hunt failed,” Vane announced.
“No sight of him at all?” my mother asked standing up quickly.
“Nothing,” Vane snarled pacing toward the window to stare out at the rising moon. “ I had one hundred wolves tearing this city apart by scent and sight. The vampire vanished without a single trace. No blood trail. No body to recover.”
“Maybe he crawled off somewhere and died,” my mother offered.
“Vampires do not just die quietly Elena.” Vane’s jaw tightened. “Not the ones with enough strength left to break a window”
He turned back to face us.
I stared down at my lap keeping my face blank. Beneath my ribs my wolf let out a soft inexplicable hum of relief.
“All this madness started because of that Beta,” Vane said his voice dropping to a register so calm it made the hair on my arms stand up. “I will deal with Kaelen and his father personally. I will strip their bloodline until there is nothing left to salvage. I will ensure the name Aldric is synonymous with filth across the Dominions. But you,” he paused turning his gaze onto me. “You are done with Norway.”
“You are taking me back to London?” I asked the word slipping out before I could stop it.
“Yes London,” Vane declared with finality. “You dragged my name through the mud forced me to sanction an engagement in foreign territory and you think I will simply leave you here to wallow in it?”
A pin drop silence took over the room. Neither my mother nor I could answer.
“The High Council convenes in five days.”
“The treaty renewal?” my mother finally asked.
“Every major bloodline will be watching us. Vampires. Witches. Elves. Every one of them looking for weakness.”
He turned toward me.
“I will not let you give them a reason to presume we are weak. Neither will I allow my family to be scattered around Europe during this sensitive period. You will return to London. You will finish your studies where I can keep a strict leash on you.”
The thought of returning to the Thorne Chen pack estate made me physically sick. Three years ago I had marched out of those iron gates with my head held high fighting for Kaelen. Returning now meant facing the entire elite class as the Alpha’s daughter who had publicly humiliated herself over a boy who only wanted her crown.
“Dad please,” I pleaded a sudden strength flooding my voice. “If I have to go to London let me transfer to Thornewood Academy.”
Vane turned slowly. Shock briefly flashed across his features before hardening into disgust.
“Thornewood? Why in the name of the Goddess would I send my heir to a sanctuary filled with half breeds and outcast?"
“Because no one knows me there,” I argued throwing the covers off my legs and standing up to face him. “In the North I am a scandal. At Thornewood I can just be a student. I need a fresh start away from the whispers.”
Vane let out a short bitter laugh. “A fresh start? You really think you can hide from the shame you brought upon this family by mingling with lesser bloodlines?”
