Author's Note: Here's the final part! Although, I may add a short epilogue as its own part.
In the thin, grey hours of dawn, Charles' car brought them back to the castle. To Lili, the party already felt like a dream chased away with the night, all freedom and excitement flattened to a weariness as stale as spoiled champagne. She stared at the fog shrouding the road ahead, so thick that the waves could only be heard while they frothed on either side. Their roar matched the one trapped behind her ribs, vibrating the very flesh and bone of her body. It felt as if something had woken deep within, a restlessness that refused to leave.
Despite the early hour, servants had coffee and cream-filled pastries ready in the breakfast room. Charles seemed in a pleasant enough mood, although he offered nothing beyond the basic pleasantries. Lili didn't fill the silence, suddenly aware of how cold and harsh the air always felt between them, of how they spoke to each other like strangers. Had she ever even laughed in his presence? Had he ever tried coaxing one out of her? The warmth of gold eyes flashed through her mind, and she quickly sipped at her coffee before somethingâa cry, a shriekâcould escape.
As soon as Charles finished breakfast, he left for work, as inflexible in his commitment as a clockwork toy. Lili gave up trying to eat and went to bed, hoping her throbbing headache would go away with enough rest.
Fitful sleep. Vivid dreams. The darkness of shuttered windows thickened into beguiling night, and the glitter of her wedding ring into the sweet, heavy moon. The brush of Nicholas' fingers against her throat melted into the thrill of fur against bare skin while she clung to him and cried, tears rolling down her cheeks as pearls. Silent shadows watched from all around, their glowing eyes as numerous as the stars. Then a great howling started up, Nicholas loudest of all. Making her bones sing, making her teeth ache. Inviting her to howl with them.
The shrill ring of the telephone woke her, and she blinked at the ceiling while wiping the wetness from her face. A servant would answer it, she knew, but the very fact that it rang at all was as chilling an omen as the cry of a carrion bird. The phone was always silent in the day, brought to life only when Charles came home in the evening. It could only mean someone was calling to speak to her.
A knock came at the door. Then a voice drifted through, meek yet clear. "Ma'am? The call is for you. They refused to leave a name."
"It's all right, Hilda. I'll take it in here," said Lili, her gaze already on her husband's bedside table. The telephone waited there, a big, brutish thing gilded with golden swans. Her fingers felt damp against the handset as she picked it up. "Hello?"
"What were you thinking?" hissed out a familiar voice.
"Mother." She tried to sound calm even as her heart flinched. Not this. Not now. She felt too raw to face anything with the composure expected of her.
"Have you checked the morning papers?" The words were cut through with the crackling of a bad connection, but their anger was undeniable. "No? Well, I have, and I've never been so ashamed in my life."
Lili found herself hunching over in bed, one hand braced against the velvet and silk as if each syllable had been a blow. "I don't know whatâ"
"Don't you dare lie to me, you stupid girl. Being seen with a wolf. Going off with him! After everything we've told you."
Panic itched up from a well deep within her heart, one that had existed as far back as she could remember. The desperate need to do the right thing was as instinctive for her as breathing was for others, and failure was as terrifying as water in the lungs, carrying the threat of suffocating on her own guilt. Nothing hurt as much as her mother's voice.
Aware of the seething silence, she struggled for words. "I'm..."
Sorry? But she wasn't. Last night had been wonderful, and she only regretted that others had found out about it. It was a terrible realization, and she nearly gasped at her own wickedness.
Her mother seemed to sense the tone of her thoughts. "He's already corrupted you, hasn't he? You're not even thinking about us. Both your aunts are crying in their rooms, too ashamed to go out and face the ridicule from our neighbors. We were supposed to shop for groceries. Are you happy that your selfish actions have led us to starve?"
"No, of course not." She twisted the telephone cord between her fingers, wishing she could rip it out of the wall. "Mother, we didn't do anything. I swear it."
"Do you think that matters? Haven't I told you what it means to be in the company of a wolf? And what will your husband think, having a wife who runs off like a bitch in heat?"
A slap couldn't have stunned her more. For a moment, Lili could only fight for breath, feeling that strange restlessness swell into something vicious. "That's a terrible thing to say to me, Mother."
"Don't sulk. There's no time for it. We must work quickly to cover up this mess. You'll tell everyone how the wolf threatened you to go with him. How you were afraid for your life, too much so to run away."
"No." The word came out very flat and calm. Unyielding. Lili hardly recognized her own voice while adding, "I wanted to go with him."
"Never say that again."
"But it's the truth." She was dimly aware of rising from the bed, every muscle knotting with tension. "It's what happened, and I won't lie about it. Not even to Charles."
"You have to." A shrill note had slipped into her mother's tone. "How can you not understand that?"
"I understand, Mother. But I still won't do it."
Then her mother screamed. "Why was I burdened with a child that could never do anything right? The worst day of my life was the day you were born."
Something deep inside Lili broke. Not like the shatter of delicate porcelain. Not like the crack of bone beneath too much strain. Instead, it was the heavy snap of a lock finally giving, its rusted metal left powerless.
"I married the man you wanted me to, didn't I?" she said, vaguely surprised at how even she sounded.
In contrast, her mother was sobbing. "You were only able to do that because of our efforts, and even then, everything you did undermined us. Just like now."
"No." Again, that word which sounded so odd in her voice. "Not like now. Then, I did everything you asked. Now, I've decided to never try again. Goodbye, Mother."
The sound of the handset settling into its cradle was a cold clatter of metal against metal, and Lili found herself staring at the telephone for several moments afterward, shivering all over despite not feeling cold.
Then it rang again. She shook her head, backing away from it, but knew it was a futile gesture even before the servant knocked on the door again.
"Ma'am? It's your husband. He wishes to speak with you immediately."
Her stomach twisted as she lifted the handset to her ear once more. "Yes?"
"Lilliana." Her husband's voice held its usual indifference. "Have you seen the papers?"
"No. But I've already heard how they include gossip about me and the alpha-king." Then she hesitated. "Charles, I..."
"Let's not waste time with unnecessary explanations." Even as her grip tightened against the phone, he added, "You performed your role very well."
"What?"
"He's still open to the business deal. Whatever you did, he enjoyed it."
"I didn't... It wasn't like that."
"Of course not." He sounded amused, as if he thought she lied to preserve a semblance of decency. "Anyway, I called to make sure you won't be overcome by misgivings when we visit Crescent City this weekend. We'll see him again, and this time I want you to lock in his favor. I need this deal."
"Charles." She gasped his name, hardly believing the implication. He thought she was still terrified of wolves, terrified of Nicholas, and yet he now asked this of her.
"Is there a problem?"
"Yes! You make it sound as if you're expecting me to... To..."
"Fuck him? If it comes to that, then absolutely." The very implacability of his tone somehow made the words even worse.
"But our marriage vows. We swore to each other." Tears filled her eyes for too many reasons to name.
"I'm aware of that. Trust, fidelity, and duty. I can't say I've ever been any good at those."
"You really think I'll do it, won't you? I can hear it in your voice."
"Of course. It's why I married you, remember?"
After Charles hung up, she found herself sinking to the floor and staring at nothing in particular. It felt like all the strings that kept her upright had been cut, and now there was nothing to do except slump like a discarded puppet. Her wedding ring glittered at her, its many diamonds as lively and mocking as eyes. Her family ring remained as muted as ever, but the weight of its silver seemed to burn against her skin with each heartbeat.
Eventually, she rose and pulled on a robe, still unthinking while sitting at the dressing table, still stiff and uncertain while opening one of its drawers for her hairbrush. Her face looked very pale in the mirror and she stared at herself, wondering if this was how she always looked when Charles asked her to do something he knew she would find uncomfortable, when her mother chastised her for something she hadn't done. Then she suddenly spat at her reflection, hating what she saw.
Even as her head dropped into her arms, shoulders shaking with the effort of holding back a scream, a glint of gold caught her eye. The key ring had been in this same drawer since the day Charles had given it to her, glimpsed at every morning while she styled her hair. Yet now, she stared at the mass of metal as if seeing it for the first time, something bright and hot and savage rising in her heart.
The keys felt as cold as ice while she picked through them with care, separating the little golden one that he had forbidden her to use.
"Obedient Lili," she murmured aloud while slipping it free of the ring. The key winked against her palm, picking up the heat of her skin until it seemed to burn like a coal. She thought of her husband's amused expression, of his derision toward her best attempts to please him, and then the seething between her ribs roared into a conflagration.
All her previous wanderings now served her well, and she quickly found the damp stone staircase that spiraled into the dark roots of the castle. Her bare feet made no noise as she hurried down endless steps that were unlit but for the lamp she held. Her panting breaths sounded overloud in the still air.
There was no hesitation in her movements, no fear in her heart. No uncertainty of what to do once she stood there before the door. What drove her forward was the simple urge of breaking his one spoken rule, of showing him how disobedient she could be.
The door appeared as quickly as a gasp, its metal-banded wood swollen from the damp air and groaning at her very touch. It was the first crude thing she had seen in the castle, and a thread of disquiet slipped around her heart as she reached out with the key. It seemed much too delicate to command such bulk, but turned in the lock with ease. A mere push of her fingers and the door swung open.
Darkness gaped before her. An acrid tinge joined the hints of salt that always lingered in the air. This far down, the roar of waves sounded like a muffled heartbeat, throbbing all around. Lili held the lamp out, trying to see further in. That small movement must have activated hidden magic, for light suddenly flared all around, a sullen red glow that snuffed her lamp to nothing.
The room was very large and very empty, the crude stone of its walls left unadorned and the floor little more than packed earth. Lili blinked at the narrow length of red carpet that unfurled before her like a path, her gaze following it to a handful of large glass displays set up much like a museum exhibit. In the red light, they were little more than blocks of shadow, their inner contents hidden from view.
Her skin prickled unpleasantly to see them. She hadn't known what to expect, but this was still so odd, so unlike the luxury of the rest of the castle. Something felt wrong, and her first step was backwards, not closer.
Just then, the nearest glass case lit up from within. This new light was bright, white, and utterly revealing, and Lili found herself drifting closer, her unease slipping away at the chance to finallyâfinallyâcatch a glimpse of Charles that was more than his unshakeable mask.
At first, she only recognized the sheen of gold. Then the smooth limbs and graceful features of a woman. A priceless sculpture? Lili studied it carefully, trying to understand why it was down here. The figure had the lean elegance of a greyhound as it knelt, chin lowered and hands together as if in prayer. It was so exquisitely rendered that the anguish on its face was clear, even penetrating. Lili had to glance away, suddenly uncomfortable. Then she saw there was something around its neck, and her next breath came out as a shudder. It was a key. A key hanging from a necklace like a perverse charm. A key just like Lili's.
"No," she whispered, but the truth flashed through her with the same terrible sheen as the body before her. For it was a bodyâwhat sculptor could render unliving metal into as fine a detail as individual eyelashes? Or the slight creases of skin at the elbows and wrists? This was a woman trapped in gold. Preserved by it.
Lili blindly stumbled back until her shoulder blades hit the glass of another case. Fresh light flared, and she turned with a gasp. Dead eyes stared from behind a pair of wire spectacles. A golden key gleamed brightly against skin the color and texture of rotting cheese. The entire torso had been cut open, sternum and ribs removed to expose the dark organs pinned in place and labeled as neatly as with a dissected frog.
A whimper escaped Lili as she flinched away, not wanting to see any more. Then she turned for the doorway, and her voice strangled itself at the sight of her husband standing there, watching her with a small smile.
"Charles?" she gasped.
"So, I finally pushed you far enough." His suit looked as neat and crisp as ever, but now he began taking it off. Pulling his tie free, unbuttoning his jacket and the vest beneath it. "It took much longer than I'd expected."
"What is this? Are these..."
"Your predecessors, yes." Then he approached her, still so completely calm. "But you've only met two of them so far. Let's introduce you to the rest."
Her eyes felt very dry, but her next words came out as a sob. "Charles, please..."
"I insist." Then he caught the back of her neck, holding on even when she screamed, dragging her with him even when she fought. "You might still recognize my third wife. She was in many plays."
A marble pedestal displayed a decaying head. Pink lipstick had been smeared over the exposed teeth, as crude as a child with a crayon. Diamond earrings had pulled the ears off with their weight, glittering among strands of blonde hair.
"She always worried about her looks. That's what drove her down hereâthe idea that I might have found someone even prettier. Tedious. Very tedious. As for this one..."
A twist of his hand, and Lili found herself facing a severed torso marked like an archery target and riddled with arrows. Bloodstains black with age crusted the floor around it.
"We enjoyed target practice together," he said, voice falling soft.
Lili tried to jerk away, unable to take it. "Why did you do this to them?"
There was a strange light in his eyes, a feverish delight as he forced her face close to his. "I can buy whatever I wish. Own whatever I'd like. Do you realize how boring that is? The only thrill left is learning what it will take to make a wife break her vows. What is the one thing I asked you not to do?"
She writhed in his grip, but his fingers tightened against her neck until she answered. "To open this door."
"And yet here you are." Even before he turned her in a new direction, she knew what she would find. It made the sight no less horrifying. A fifth glass case, empty and waiting. Ropes of pearls were coiled on the floor like chains.
Her mind froze, and all she could think to say was, "How are you going to do it?"
His hand flexed against her neck. "Strangulation. Then you'll be held in place with the pearls. Fitting, as it was nothing more than my money you wanted. You know, for some weeks I wondered whether you might pass this test, but thenâ"
She didn't give him the chance to finish, instead whirling around to scratch at his face. Her fingernails sliced across his cheek and eyes, drawing a howl of pain from him as he instinctively flinched back and covered himself.
Then she was running past those horrifying cases and out through the doorway, screaming for the servants even while still on the staircase. Her husband's voice echoed up after her. "It's no use. Everything here belongs to me, especially you."
It only made her fly up the steps faster, heart racing as she burst into the lower level of the castle. Every instinct pushed her to keep moving, to ignore the startled looks from any servants who saw her. Surrounded by those loyal to their master, trapped by the sea... The only way out through a car she couldn't drive. Her single chance of survival was calling out to Nicholas, even if it meant trapping herself in the bedroom to reach that piece of paper.
She made it without knowing how closely Charles followed her. Inside, she pushed a desk and then a chair against the door to block it. Then she tore through her purse, hands clumsy, shaking. The paper flashed at her as if sensing the urgency, flaring again as she ripped it in half without ceremony. The pieces glowed like embers, like eyes in the dark, and then evaporated into ash. She was left panting at her fingers as Charles began throwing his weight against the door.
Wood groaned. The desk slid over the carpet inch by inch. The chair toppled aside. Lili scrabbled for anything to arm herself with, anything that might give her a chance. "Too late," she murmured aloud, breath hitching. "Too late."
Then the door broke and Charles stepped inside, still with that strange look in his eyes. As she shrank into the nearest corner, her breath coming out as gasps, he said, "I had someone beautiful, someone brilliant, someone charming, and someone bold. Now it's time to add 'obedient' to the collection."
"Charlesâ" she tried, but his hands were already around her neck, squeezing away the rest of her words. Panic left her scratching at any part of him she could reach, but he kept his face well out of the way, the pressure of his fingers crushing her breath.
Her vision blackened. Then she seemed to sink into herself, falling beyond the reach of Charles and his violent hands. Back into the dark waters of her childhood, back to that time she and her mother hurried down a street gone dim from the coming night. They were out late shopping for groceries, a shameful chore now that there were no servants to do it for them. Her mother insisting that Lili hurry her steps, to be quick and silent to avoid anyone recognizing them.
Thenâa figure stepping out from the alley, faceless in the shadows. Only his knife revealed itself, the blade winking nastily. Her mother screamed, flinching back, but Lili only trembled, feeling something inside her snarl instead of cower. A threatening jab with the knife and then panic overwhelmed all thought, her body buckling as if he'd really stabbed her. She lunged up again just as quickly, lunging for him as the sour stench of fear filled her nose.
She didn't even know what she'd done until her mother's shrieks rose in pitch, until the hot, coppery taste in her mouth slid into her belly along with some of the man's throat. It was the look on her mother's face that sent her body into another convulsion, though. That left her stumbling upright, dress in tatters, the fabric hanging off limbs that were once more human but now bloodstained.
Her mother falling silent, dragging her home and washing her down while her aunts fluttered around like distressed birds. Every time she tried to explain or apologize, a slap took away her words. Eventually, she fell quiet, shivering from the frigid water and trying not to cry.
For two days afterward, her mother wouldn't speak to her. On the third, she handed Lili a plain silver ring. "Never take this off."
"It's like yours," she said, timidly.
"Yes. We all wear it. We all have to. Now go to bed, and never bring this up again."
Then tears really did fill her eyes and spill over, chasing away the past. Chasing away the darkness. Charles' face swam before her once more as she came back into herself, every vein in her head feeling like it was about to burst. Even as she choked and kicked for breath, her fingers found the silver ring burning against her skin and pulled it off. Then her nails tore into his wrists, harder and deeper than should have been possible. Skin ripped, drawing a hoarse yell from him.
The pressure on her throat melted away, leaving her coughing and gasping as she pushed herself into a crouch. Charles was staring at his bleeding arms, face pale, and she waited until he looked at her with shocked eyes.
"I tried. I really did." Something pulsed in her voiceâperhaps regret over how all her attempts had come to nothing in the end. Perhaps the same sort of pain as finding a wedding dress yellowed to the color of bone. A dream that could never live long as reality.
Yet her hand remained steady as she pulled off her wedding band and let it fall. "But none of it mattered, did it?"
Then it was easy to breathe, and her bones felt so light, so strong as she stood and ripped away the fabric of her dress. Surprise jolted across her husband's face, but it was too late for her to care. Then she snarled, the pounding of her heart overwhelming everything else, even Charles' screaming, as she began to change.
* * *
Mrs. Smith felt very cross and tired while carrying a mop and bucket up to the bedroom Mr. Halliday shared with his wife. There would be a mess waiting for her, she knew that. One of the footmen had told her about Mrs. Halliday shrieking and running for her room. That had been an hour ago, far long enough for Mr. Halliday to finish the business.
Two of the maidservants were already boiling water in the laundry room, those big copper pots filling the air with steam while they waited for Mr. Halliday's bloodied clothes. He was a dear boy, as close to her heart as any from his family, but sometimes she wished he didn't let his passion run away with him. It made things so inconvenient at times.
On her way up the final flight of stairs, she checked with another maid to make sure someone was also heating water for his bath. These girls all knew better than to ask what had happened, but she still didn't trust anyone besides herself to go into the room and clean it up. These days, people talked. These days, newspapers paid well for secrets.
She made a tsking noise at the sight of the broken door, and then a mental note to call the proper tradesman to repair it. Then she rapped on the wood with the handle of her mop. "Sir?"
There was a slight scuffling noise, but no other answer.
The housekeeper knocked again, and then pushed the ruined door further inward. The bucket slid from her grip. So did the mop. As her hands flew up to her mouth, the wolf before her looked up from where it crouched over something ruined, something reduced to torn flesh and exposed bone from head to torso.
When Mrs. Smith saw the Halliday signet ring flashing from a motionless hand, her voice rose ragged and high. The wolf flinched at the sound, ears flattening even as its teeth flashed in a snarl. But then it lunged past her, gone in the span of a breath.
The housekeeper continued to scream, her voice far stronger than her steps as she staggered after it. "Murder! She hid herself as human and murdered him!"
Servants swarmed to her in confusion, some yelling that they'd also seen the beast, and others trying to understand what had happened. Decades of experience tempered enough of Mrs. Smith's horror for her to call for the groundskeeper and his men to gather their rifles, and the gameskeeper to gather his mastiffs.
Glass shattered somewhere in the castle, and then the cry went out. "Outside! She's made it outside."
The wolf seemed stunned by her escape, shaking at the glass chips caught in her fur until the first shot rang out. It missed. So did the second, but then the two mastiffs were on her, ripping at her while she screamed and bit back.
The men with rifles hesitated, then, not wanting to shoot the dogs even as Mrs. Smith yelled at them. "For God's sake, shoot her! She killed Mr. Halliday."
The words had hardly left the housekeeper's mouth when the roar of engines joined the thunder of the sea. Headlights appeared through the mist as car after car barrelled down the road toward the castle. The groundskeeper waved his hat at them, thinking the police had already arrived.
The cars swerved to a stop. Doors flung open and then shapes lunged out, eyes glowing even in the heavy mist. Wolves. They swarmed the mastiffs as one, silent and merciless. A male with fur the color of cinders seemed the angriest, lunging at the dog that had the she-wolf by the throat. His teeth sank into the mastiff's face until bone cracked and it let go with a yelp.
As soon as the men raised rifles toward them, figures leaned through the windows of the carsâwolves that had kept to their human forms. Wolves that had their own weapons ready. Gun smoke joined the fog.
Half of the groundskeeper's men were dead by the time the she-wolf broke free and fled. The rest had given up. The cinder-colored wolf circled away from the dead dogs until all eyes were on him, absorbing his silent commands. Then he ran after her alone, leaving his pack to finish things.
The wolf called Cooper approached the trembling housekeeper while lighting a cigarette for himself. His usual smile was missing. "Don't have a heart attack on me. We're through with the killing."
"Fiends," managed Mrs. Smith, crying into her handkerchief while some of the other wolves slipped past, their guns cocked and ready as they stepped into the castle to investigate. "B-brutes."
"He wants to know everything that happened. As soon as he does, we'll leave. You can help speed that up if you answer my questions."
When the housekeeper nodded, Cooper jerked his head in the direction that the she-wolf had fled. "What's over there?"
"The ancestral cemetery. In this fog, she'll be able to hide there for hours."
At that, Cooper gave her a grim smile. "He'll find her faster than that. She was bleeding."
Red drops soaking into the damp earth. Winding around the clusters of cypress trees that blocked the cemetery from view. The cinder-colored wolf followed them at a slow lope, aware of her terror thickening the air. A crow cried from the roof of an ancient church, harsh and thin over the endless crash of waves breaking against the nearby cliffs. Then the wolf's ears twitched, catching the smallest hint of another sound. A muffled sob.
A moment's consideration. A body shifting from wolf to human through that unknown, impossible ability that only the packs of Crescent City had. And then it was a man who wound around gravestones worn to stubs, a man who stopped and crouched before the largest one, aware of the figure hiding behind it.
"Lili," said Nicholas, his voice very gentle.
She just knelt there and trembled, once more a girl, her hands pressing against the worst of the bites left on her skin. "You knew," she said, without looking up. "Didn't you?"
"That you were a wolf? Yes. Silver can't hide what's so clear to our noses." Then he slowly reached out. "Let's get you out of here."
She only shrank further into the shadows. "There's nowhere to go. I killed him."
He shook his head. "That won't matter in Crescent City."
At that, her eyes met his. Tears left tracks in the blood still smeared on her face. "But everyone will know what I am. What happened to my family. It was a wolf my great-grandmother ran away with. She fell in love and ruined our bloodline, and now we're all cursed by it."
He eased closer, and when she didn't flinch away, brushed his thumbs over her cheeks to wipe them dry. "Is that what you think, or is that what you've been told?"
Her mouth trembled. "I think I'm a monster."
He stroked her face again. "Then I'm in good company." The gold of his eyes looked very bright as he added, "I'm not afraid of you. Are you afraid of me?"
And for the first time, she knew what it felt like to be seen for what she was, to be known and still loved. Slowly, she shook her head, one hand reaching up to touch the blood on his jaw. Something like wonder filled her expression, and when he licked her own mouth clean, her gasp wasn't out of fear.
Shapes appeared, silent and solemn as they circled around her and Nicholas. The wolves of the Thorne Pack hardly seemed any more solid than the fog, but their eyes glowed like the stars she had so often watched at night while wishing she could be anywhere else.
"Lili," said Nicholas, his deep voice turning her name into something so much more. "It took only one night to realize I wanted you as my queen. I can wait much longer to learn whether you'd want me as your king."
It had been a wolf that had torn apart the richest man in New Obsidian. A wolf that had hidden behind a gravestone while trembling in his blood. But now it was a girl who nodded and rose to her feet. A girl who placed her bloodstained hand into the alpha-king's.
As they walked out together, the other wolves followed as silently as shadows, leaving the rest of the world to discover what remained behind.