The danger in a blood oath is the ancient magic that runs within it. When an oath like that is punishable by death, it doesn’t mean that someone will hunt you down and stick you in an electric chair.
It means you’ll drop dead the second you violate what you swore to adhere to.
And the only reason Declan is doing this is because heknowshe can’t take me. He knows he can’t take me, and that none of my brothers can, either.
“You’ll swear to never challenge my authority as alpha supreme,” Declan goes on, his voice carrying across the wind.
There is no choice. I would choose Nora over anything. Maybe Declan knows that, or maybe he doesn’t.
If my father was here, he might be disappointed in that instinct. He might tell me again that my duty is to the pack, always. That a shifter is nothing without his pack, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
If my father were to come back and stand right here, stopping time and counseling me on this moment, he would tell me not to promise away my right to a challenge. He would tell me to do my best to save Nora, but to accept that I can’t control everything. That her death would be at the hands of Declan, the one holding the knife to her throat.
My father would tell me tothink. To come up with the answer to this.
And, eyes locked with my daughter, I realize the answer is already there, in her eyes. She figured it out a long time ago, and she’s been waiting for me to figure it out. Without speaking, I can see it there between us, hanging in the air so intelligibly that I’m surprised Declan can’t see it, even as he continues to drone on about the choice I have to make.
“… and in return,” Declan is saying, “I’ll let the girl live. You can take her back to whatever human hovel you’ve been hiding in.”
Nora is not afraid. She’s clever and resourceful, too smart for her own good. She sees something that I don’t, an angle that I don’t understand.
The slight nod she gives me back is almost imperceptible, but it’s enough.
And I find that I trust her to follow through.
Without warning, and in the middle of another rambling monologue from my uncle, I launch, shifting mid-air and running toward him at full speed.
At the same time, Nora pushes away from him, but he turns and grabs her, throwing her with all his might over the edge of the cliff.
Phina screams as I collide with my uncle.
And the three of us go tumbling over the side of the ridge.
Chapter 28 - Seraphina
The scream tears from my throat as Xeran launches himself at Declan with inhuman speed, shifting in midair so his massive paws land on his uncle’s shoulders, spinning him around and sending him over the side of the cliff.
But before Declan can fall, before he can tumble to his death, he makes sure to grab Nora, pulling her out and over the edge so she starts to drop, a scream ripping from her mouth just like it has from mine.
“Nora!”
Declan and Xeran are silhouetted against the fire-stained sky for just a moment before gravity takes hold, and they follow after Nora, falling straight down like something out of a cartoon.
“Nora!” I scream again, and this time, there’s nothing stopping me from running forward, falling to my knees on the rocky ground. It should be painful, but I feel nothing, even as the warmth of blood rushes forward.
It doesn’t matter.
Nora fell. Iknowthis ridge—I know how far down it goes. I remember looking past my friends years ago, seeing the steep drop, thinking that one of us was going to go over it in the chaos.
My entire world is gone, over the side of this cliff. Silverville.
This can’t be real.
I crawl on my hands and knees, screaming and crying, almost unable to see through the black dots crowding my vision. My skin scrapes painfully along the rock, ripping away and leaving raw, bloody flesh behind, but I don’t care.
I don’t care.
When I reach the edge where the rocky, grassy earth drops away into darkness, I peer over it, tasting blood and the very start of clawing, suffocating grief. There’s the sound of shouting, of claws on stone, but I can’t see anything through the smoke and shadows.
