Chapter 455

Gavriel peeled the bandage off, the adhesive pulling at his skin, and looked at what was underneath.

Something was glowing. It was shaped like something, but the shape was unfamiliar, and the glow was interesting, and the interesting was sitting on his shoulder doing absolutely nothing threatening.

He tilted his head. The second he touched it, he winced. Not because it hurt, but because it was more sensitive than he realized it would be.

His wolf was still silent in his mind.

“Huh.”

Gav shrugged. He had just watched himself die in a past life and woke up alone in a room with empty whiskey glasses. A glowing mark on his shoulder was, by the current day’s standards, unremarkable.

He pulled on a training suit.

The training suit fit, which meant his body hadn’t changed much during the coma, which was either good news or evidence that comas were an underrated weight maintenance strategy. He would keep that joke for Dex.

Dex would hate it. Hating it was the point.

He was starving. He also wanted to know what the hell had happened. And why no one was in the room. How long had he been knocked out?

Did he fight off the dark magic killing him?

Because last time he checked the dark magic was winning, and now he was standing in his room alone wearing a training suit with a glowing mark on his shoulder and zero context for any of it.

He opened his door.

The corridor was empty. Quiet. Suspicious. Drakenfell always had a crisis and the crises rotated on a schedule that Gavriel had long suspected was managed by the Moon Goddess for her personal entertainment.

He turned the corner.

Elara screamed.

The scream was immediate, involuntary, high-pitched, and accompanied by her hand flying to her chest with the specific velocity of a woman whose cardiovascular system had just been ambushed by a man who was supposed to be unconscious.

“GODS.”

Gavriel blinked. “Hey.”

Elara stared at him. Her eyes were wide. Her hand was still on her chest. Her breathing was the breathing of a woman whose heart rate had just tripled and whose body was deciding whether the tripling was fear or relief and had settled on both.

“Oh good,” she said after a moment, her voice finding its footing. “You’re awake.”

“I am awake.”

“That’s great. That is wonderful. Welcome back.”

Her voice was brighter than usual.

Gavriel looked at her. The Beta Luna was radiating anxiety at a volume that was not like her one bit.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Oh yes.” The answer came immediately. Too immediately. The speed of a response that had been prepared before the question was asked, which meant the response was a reflex rather than an assessment, and reflexive responses from Elara Vaelor were rare enough to constitute a data point.

“What about you?” she asked, steering the conversation away from herself. “You were out for days, Gav. Are you okay to be walking? Any strange symptoms?”

“Strange?” Gavriel repeated.

The word sat between them in the corridor. Strange. Yes. The answer was yes. The answer was a past life viewed in comprehensive, heartbreaking detail that had rewritten his understanding of himself, his relationships, and his purpose on this continent.

The answer was a love that predated this body and a grief that outlasted the last one and a hunger that was consuming his ability to think about anything except food.

“I’m starving,” he said. “Last I remember, I was dying.”

“Right.” Elara nodded. Fast. “A lot happened. I will fill you in. Let’s get food. Food is a great idea. Let’s go.”

She was already walking.

Gavriel followed. His legs were stiff.

She shot him a sideways glance after a minute. “Has your wolf said anything since you woke up?”

“My wolf has been quiet. Are you alright? You’re acting strange.”

“I’m fine,” she said, a little too quickly. “You missed a few things while you’ve been out.”

“Like?”

“A dragon crashed into Guinevere Ashford’s execution and turned out to be her bonded.”

Gav snorted. “Very funny.”

“I’m not kidding. She’s alive. The dragon landed on the execution block mid-ceremony. Bonded to her in front of three hundred wolves.”

He stopped mid-step. Processed. Resumed walking.

“She’s alive,” he repeated.

“Alive but missing. She was being transported to Maximus South and her carriage was intercepted. Portal extraction.”

Gav looked at her. She looked back at him.

“Sounds about right,” he said. “What else?”

“Bellatrix fainted in the grand hall after Serena told her to fuck off in front of the entire staff.”

Gav stopped again. This time fully. Both feet. Complete halt.

“I’m sorry. Serena said what?”

“Fuck off. To the queen. In the grand hall. With witnesses. Multiple curse words. It was comprehensive.”

“Serena. Our Serena,” he repeated.

“Yup. Our Serena. She also called Bellatrix the cruelest Luna she’s ever met.”

Gav stared at Elara for three full seconds. “I was in a coma for what, a few days? What the hell happened to everyone?”

“Growth,” Elara said. “Aggressive, unscheduled growth.”

They continued walking, passing through the grand hall. Gav’s eyes moved upward, caught the mural, and his legs stopped working for the third time in five minutes.

He stared at it. “What in the flying fuck is that?”

The staring lasted long enough for Elara to stop, turn, walk back, and stand beside him.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s new too.”

Gav looked at the mural. Looked at Elara. Looked back at the mural. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

He looked at it one more time. Tiberon in the center looking like a man who had never experienced joy. Bellatrix beside him looking like she had experienced too much of it. Dex looking like a threat in formal wear. Serena glowing like a lamp someone forgot to turn off.

“This place has lost its goddamn mind.”

“It has,” Elara agreed.

✦✦✦

ONE HOUR LATER

Elara hadn’t left his side since the corridor. She was walking beside him, eating beside him, hovering. Gav didn’t mind the company, but the company was behaving like a parole officer.

“Where’s Hale?” he asked between bites.

“Not feeling well today.”

Gav nodded. He looked around the dining hall as they left. Empty. The corridors had been empty. The halls had been empty. The entire castle had the energy of a building whose population had migrated somewhere specific and the somewhere was not here.

“Where the hell is everyone? This place looks abandoned.”

“Probably heading down to the training field to watch Serena shift.”

A grin spread across Elara’s face. Not a kind grin. Not a supportive grin. The grin of a woman who knew her best friend was about to perform under maximum public pressure and was finding the knowledge deeply, personally entertaining.

“Thank the gods I made her drink a glass of whiskey this morning,” Elara muttered.

“You what?” Gav asked, brows knitting.

Elara laughed. The laugh was an evil laugh that communicated she was playing chess in god-mode and no one understood.

“Nothing,” she replied after a moment.