26 - Deal With The Devil

Ivar strides down the familiar hallway, taking all the air with him. The house is the exact same— open, modern, airy, clinical. Everything about it seeps with contemporary comfort, save for the wall displays of katanas, scimitars, crossbows and assortments of ritualistic daggers; all of them silver, all of them carrying stories of the werewolves they've killed at the hands of Ferreus hunters.

Rowan and Lachlan study them all as we walk past. Though, to their credit, they keep their expressions strictly neutral.

"Cassian, would you fetch the others from the map room?" Ivar orders over his shoulder as he leads us through an archway into the lounge. "Tell them we have unexpected company."

As Cassian obediently strides further down the hall, Ivar settles down in an armchair by the hearth and opens the book I offered once more, his silver eyes scanning the pages thoroughly. I take Ro and Lach to the furthest point in the room where a window seat looks out over the trails. I know how to unlatch and open it in moments, should the need arise. We're tucked in a corner like prey seeking solace in a dead-end— a foolish position, but I trust Ivar's truce about as much as I trust a butter knife to make a killing blow, and all I want is to keep Rowan and Lach as far away from him as possible.

Lachlan drops the rest of the books onto the cushions, but none of us settle down on the seat. I expect the others are following my lead and I'm too jittery to feign comfort. So instead we cross our arms, lean against the wall, and return our focus to Ivar.

He's been watching us from his seat, his eyes gleaming, his lips twitching with a little smile, as though he finds our discomfort vaguely amusing. My answering stare is sharp.

Silence descends between us for a moment that stretches on and on.

That is until Cassian appears in the archway, silent as death, and shadowed by four others; Elias and Constance, and his parents, Vera and Louis. They catch sight of me and their features twist with disbelief. Shock sparks in their eyes; confusion curls their lips; dread snatches the warmth from me.

I straighten beneath their scrutiny, the figures and lichtenberg figures on my arms shimmering as my Haze stirs at their proximity and their sheer number. Six Ferreus hunters against us three. We won't stand a chance if they act.

"Now isn't that interesting?" Ivar breaks the silence, his silver eyes piercing as he studies me closely. "I'm not sure whether to offer you my congratulations or my condolences, River. You've got your Haze, but it seems to be faulty."

I somehow manage to bite back the urge to sneer at him.

"How— I don't understand," Vera manages. Her brows furrow as she stares me down, and I watch the cogs turning behind her eyes as her focus flickers to Lachlan and Rowan.

"You dare to come back here with vermin after what you did?" Elias spits out, fury sharpening his tone and his expression. He swipes a throwing blade from a belt around his waist; within the instant, my own knife is clutched in my fist as I step forwards to better cover my family. My Haze tugs at my focus but I urge it back.

Ivar raises his hand with a weary sigh. "That's quite enough, Elias. Put it down."

"He killed Myles. He led the others to that pack and those beasts killed them. He's responsible for their deaths," Elias retorts, his markings flickering beneath his skin as his Haze prowls. At his side, his wife Constance narrows her eyes at me, scrutinising.

I'm frozen in a defensive stance, my knife aimed before me. I stare at the Ferreus hunters, my attention darting from one to the other as I attempt to determine who will act first.

"I said enough," Ivar hisses, the command trembling through the room like thunder.

The effect is immediate. Elias stows his weapon with a sharp sigh and their razor-edged stances wilt a little.

After letting a few seconds pass in case any of them change their mind, I let my defence slip a fraction, too, but I don't stash my knife. Instead, I keep a firm hold of the hilt, just in case.

"I know what he's done," Ivar forges on, his attention landing on me like a particularly disgruntled beacon. "He knows it, too. And he knows that if he tries anything, we will end him and his dogs." His stare sharpens and I hold back the temptation to roll my eyes. That truce is as strong as a sheet of ice. "But I also know he wouldn't have dared step foot on our land and announce himself unless it was for a good reason."

"Well?" Vera snaps, glowering at me. "What reason could you possibly have for coming here like this with— with them?"

Ivar tosses the book onto the coffee table with a resounding thud. It's open, displaying a dark, jagged two-page charcoal spread of gaping jaws and fiery eyes and horror made manifest. It captures the attention of the others, and I watch as they step closer for a better look, their markings stirring with echoes of power.

"It's called a lycanthrope," I say at last, lowering my knife. At my voice, they all glance up at me, silver eyes gleaming with a recognition that's as deeply woven into their souls as the markings on their skin. I know they feel it, too— that call. "It's a cursed creature, and only we can kill them."

"You've seen one?" Cassian asks, his brows furrowed as his focus flickers between me and the pages.

"I've fought one, and it nearly killed me."

My words drop like stones in a still lake and the room goes utterly silent. As much as they don't like me — and the feeling is utterly mutual — they recognise that I'm a skilled fighter. My heritage demands it; my markings prove it. There aren't many fights someone like me loses. A Ferreus hunter against a single werewolf is an easy fight — so easy, it's not really considered a fight at all — but this creature isn't a werewolf. It's something else, something dangerous. Its very existence demands their attention.

I take a deep breath and say, though the words feel thick in my throat, "I'm here because I need your help. There's two of them terrorising a werewolf pack and if we do nothing, if we let them wipe out the wolves, they'll turn on humans. They'll grow in strength and number and then we'll have no chance against them. Please. I know what I've done and what I've taken from you. Orion took Esme from me, and I took Myles from him. A son for a sister. It was his choice to come after me, his choice to start a fight he couldn't win. I'm not responsible for that. He fought and he lost."

They glare, but they don't challenge me. Ferreus hunters value the hunt above all else, and Orion, Liliana and my mother simply weren't quick enough. Their loyalty is brittle, that way. Mine was, too, until losing Esme ripped out a shard of my soul, and until Rowan and his pack taught me the true meaning of loyalty.

"This werewolf pack these... lycanthropes are targeting," Louis begins, his narrowed eyes darting from me to Rowan and Lachlan. His hand settles protectively onto Cassian's shoulder. "Is it the same pack that hid you? The one that's supposed to be destroyed?"

I know what he's doing. I know he's trying to establish where I've come from, and who I've brought with me. He wants to piece together the puzzle of my escape, of my survival, and figure out where to turn his attention for revenge. "No," I say, casting my mind back over a month earlier, when I had Orion on his knees and telling Ivar exactly what I wanted him to. "That pack is gone. Orion, Liliana and my mother saw to that."

I watch, disgusted, as the storm behind their expressions starts to ease a little, as relief shines like the breach of sunlight through those dark clouds of suspicion. They believe their family succeeded before they fell, and it makes them glad.

Suddenly, desperately, I want to get out of here. Not because I fear for my safety, or Rowan and Lachlan's safety, but because I cannot stand the truth that I used to be just like them. Their prejudice and their clouded judgement are like tendrils of a choking fog reaching out for me; grasping, constricting, damning.

"Then who are these two?" Elias demands, gesturing to Ro and Lach in a sharp manner that has me flinching against the desire to raise my knife once more.

"They're scouts from the pack the lycans are targeting," I tell them. The fewer links to Crescent Valley I make, the safer our pack will be. "And they're here in case you get difficult."

Ivar laughs to himself. "So you haven't completely lost your mind," he says, a flicker of pride lurking at the edges of his tone.

"Why should we help you? After all you've done, all you've taken from us?" Vera snaps. Her features are twisted with contained fury and I catch her Haze prowling behind her eyes.

"Orion took someone from me," I retort sharply. "You're all blind to the true threat out there because you believe werewolves are your enemies, but they aren't."

She scoffs. "So they've poisoned your mind. You showed such promise, River. Your parents would be so disappointed in you. Esme would be, too."

I shake my head, my lingering Haze forming a wall that weakens her words before they can slice too deeply. "You believe you're in the right. You think you're purging the world of monsters, but look at that. Really look at it." I gesture to the book, to the depiction of a living nightmare, and then I say, "That is what we should've been hunting all this time. You've got it wrong, but you can make it right. You can help me put an end to them."

"What do you mean, we got it wrong?" Cassian asks, frowning as he crosses his arms. His expression is more lost than furious, and I latch onto the hope that perhaps I can get through to him, at the very least.

My focus snags on his markings, on the symbols of power lurking in the tangled roots of his lichtenberg figures. I stash my knife and hold out my arm. "These aren't figures," I tell him, pointing out the mirrored markings on my own skin; the emblem of a heritage I do not want. "Apparently they're cracks. We have silver in our veins and in our eyes and we can take out whole packs in a night when other hunters would struggle to breach their forces. We have our Hazes and we heal from broken bones and bullet wounds like they're scratches. We aren't human; we're something else. Werewolves fall to us so easily because they aren't supposed to be our enemies. Lycanthropes are. I threw everything I had at one of them and I could barely scratch the damn thing. Their power is a match for ours, and we're the only ones who can kill them."

"That's a lie—" Elias sneers.

"No," Ivar cuts in. "He's not lying. I've seen these drawings before."

The room goes silent. The others all turn to gape at him, shock dancing behind their electric eyes. He rises from his seat, his eyes flickering up from the book to regard me.

"River, come with me."

I shake my head and back up until I'm firmly between Rowan and Lachlan, who straighten, alert and ready to face any threat. "Not unless they come too. They go where I go."

Ivar's features jump with disapproval, but he relents with a sharp nod. He leads the way out of the room and the others follow dutifully after him. Warily, I follow at a distance, with Rowan and Lachlan at my back.

He leads the way towards the map room and my pace falters as they all disappear inside. Dread has my chest in a vice.

"Fuck," I breathe. I know what's in that room. "Don't come with me," I tell the others in a sharp undertone.

"Like hell are we leaving you now," Lachlan retorts softly, his voice the rustling of leaves.

"It's okay, Riv," Rowan assures me. "We're with you, no matter what."

With a deep, steeling breath, I cross the threshold into the map room. As I see the other Ferreus hunters gathered around the oaken table full of maps and annotations — no doubt halfway through a plan of attack on a werewolf pack — I once more catch a glimpse of Esme amidst their faces, her brows pinched as she studies me. He's ready.

I'm losing my fucking mind in here.

A sharp intake of breath at my back startles me to clarity and my focus, at first locked on the table and the Ferreus hunters, lifts to the dreaded decoration on the walls. The knives and swords are displays of bygone eras, but dividing them are the stuffed heads and pelts of fallen werewolves. They all suddenly look so familiar, even though they've been here for years. One could be the brown coat of Beau's wolf— one of the grey pelts could belong to Morgan.

Suddenly, desperately, I want to tear the markings off my skin, my eyes from their sockets, the Haze from my peripheral. This isn't who I am. I'm not one of them. I never want to be one of them again.

The hunters stare at us all, gauging Ro and Lach's reactions with leering expressions— all except for Ivar, who has his back to us as he searches through the bookshelf on the far side of the room. After all, if anything would entice werewolves to fight, it would be those disgusting displays.

Rowan and Lachlan stay utterly silent, keeping the true extent of their reactions under firm control, though they've both gone pale as death. I'm about to assure them I'll be fine if they'd rather leave when Ivar plucks out a heavy tome from the shelf and breaks the tense silence.

"Here it is," he says, turning to face us all and dumping the book onto the table. Its binding is worn and brittle, and Ivar opens it with the utmost care as he tells us, "This book was passed down to my mother from her own grandparents, and theirs before that. It's a record of our heritage, our duties, our sworn purpose. It's a ledger of the early hunts. Recognise that?" He turns to a page I can't quite make out and taps it; the others crowd round for a closer look.

"It's the same creature," Elias manages at last when I risk taking a step closer to peer across the table. Sure enough, there's an old charcoal sketch of a creature with gaping jaws, a huge, sinewy frame, and eyes black as midnight. A lycanthrope. A shiver scuttles down my spine.

"I always thought it was a werewolf. A damned furious one, at that," Ivar continues. He lifts his gaze to mine and he says, "I'd forgotten all about this book until you said that word on the doorstep. Lycanthrope. My mother used to tell me about these creatures, and that was the name she used. I always thought she meant werewolves— how could she not? They were all we ever fought, but she insisted that no matter how many packs we took down, lycanthropes would always be lurking. She said our powers came from the Goddess herself. I never believed in that devout bullshit, but she always insisted it was our duty to put an end to them."

"It isn't just a duty," I tell him. "Our ancestors supposedly made an oath to the one who gave us our Hazes and our powers. They were meant to use their gifts to take out the lycans, and when they turned on the werewolves, their gifts became a curse. Their markings began to crack with every kill, and we're following along blindly."

Ivar stares down at the book, at the snarling charcoal creature. He doesn't say his thoughts aloud, but I can read them in his pinched features. He grew up seeing werewolves as monsters like the one locked between the pages of that old book.

"You're saying we've got it wrong?" Vera demands sceptically, bracing her hands on the table and scowling at me. "You're saying generations upon generations of our sacred line all made the same mistakes because you happened across a werewolf you couldn't kill?"

"The creatures I saw," I tell her firmly, "were not werewolves. They were nightmares. If I'm making this up, why do you and a werewolf pack both have books with drawings of the exact same creature? Why has Ivar heard the name 'lycanthrope' before today? Ask yourself why you felt a part of you recognise the name and the threat it poses? I'm not making this up."

She blinks, startled, and when she opens her mouth to retaliate, no words come out. Louis places his hand over hers on the table even as his focus remains locked on the open book, his silver eyes scanning the pages. Cassian is similarly entranced by the book's contents, though he keeps glancing my way as though trying to picture the fight between me and the lycanthrope.

"And you need our help to kill these creatures?" Constance asks, breaking her silent spell. She peers at me curiously from Elias' side.

I nod stiffly. "I do. I hate this as much as you all do, but you're my last resort."

A heavy silence descends between us, thick with duty and tension and a sliver of hope like the last light of dusk before an endless night.

"We will come with you," Ivar says at last, plans stirring like silver leaves behind his eyes as his gaze snaps up to regard me once more. "We'll see these lycanthropes for ourselves and determine the threat they pose. Only then, we will decide on our course of action."

Relief spears through me, chased closely by the reminder of the guarantee Darius sought from me. The one I couldn't promise him. But perhaps I can make that promise now.

"I want you to make an oath," I blurt out. An oath is what got us into this mess in the first place, after all. With a steeling breath, I hold Ivar's stony gaze, step forwards, and say with every shred of confidence I can muster, "If you choose to fight with us, I want you to vow not to kill any werewolves. The lycanthropes are our priority. If you turn on a werewolf, I have the right to kill you. Understood?"

Despite the weight to my words, a small smile touches his lips as he makes his way around the table towards me. "I know why you've returned, River. I know what revealing yourself means to you. So, how about an oath of my own? If you dare turn your blades or your dogs on us like you did my boy, we have the right to kill you. No interference from your friends. No running from your fate. If we cannot kill your wolves, they cannot try to kill us, and neither can you. Do we have a deal?"

He stops before me and offers his hand, his silver eyes glittering.

Unbidden, I think of the truce with the Duskland pack a month earlier, when their alpha Alessandro demanded that I shake his hand to prove my loyalty. Back then, he'd tricked us all and forced out a Haze in me that destroyed his entire pack.

All I wanted when I chose to join Matteo was to be rid of the Ferreus hunters, only to get entangled in a feud with lycanthropes that shifted my priorities the moment I realised they put my family at risk. If it means keeping my family safe, I can let go of that cold revenge whispering in my ear. Besides, the lycans might do my job for me.

And so, with my Haze murmuring vows in my soul, I shove past my fear, step up close to him, and shake his hand.

At once, quick as a lightning bolt, a fissure of power jolts between us. A thunderclap that has our markings blazing to life, that tears the breath from my lungs. I try to rip my hand back but cannot— our hands are entwined like stone. Wariness sparks deep within me and I see an answering flame in his eyes, in the eyes of the other Ferreus hunters as their own markings stir with light.

It fades like ripples in a lake, that raw power settling down until our markings fade and the connection dims.

"What was that?" Cassian demands sharply, rubbing at his chest.

Ivar frowns at our hands as though they've just spoken to him. "If this so-called Goddess did give us our powers, I think she might've heard us, just now, and she's holding us to our oath." As his focus lifts to me, his expression hardens and he uses his grip on my hand to tug me a little closer. "Do not think this means you're forgiven for what you did. This is a job — a truce — nothing more. You will never have a place here again."

I glare at him. "I don't want your forgiveness."

"He already has a place," Rowan speaks up, authority strengthening his tone as he commands every shred of their attention. "And it is not with you."

I rip my hand free of Ivar's and back up until I'm nestled back in the security of my family.

The Ferreus hunters stare at us all, expressions flickering with too many emotions to name. Stood before them, Ivar offers me a cutting, cold smile.

"Well then, River," he says, gesturing to the door at my back. "We won't need long to pack. Then you can take us to the wolf's den."