Burke wrenches my head back so hard I see stars, my scalp screaming, neck bending to the point of paralyzing pain. I freeze, staring up at his hateful face. “I didn’t do anything, Seneca. You did this. By betraying your pack. By trying to betray your wolf. Since you don’t have the spirit, I can’t punish you physically...yet. So that leaves your kin.” A mean smirk curls his lips. “Too bad you don’t have any of that either. Hess had to fill the position. You should be thanking him.”
My burning stare drops down to Hess, whose swollen eyes are watching me with too many emotions to track. Sadness. Guilt. Desperation. More and more cross his features, but Burke blocks my view, hand leaving my hair to pinch my chin. My heart feels broken in my chest, shattered into sharp pieces that keep stabbing me from the inside.
“If you don’t do the ceremony, Hess’s life is forfeit.”
Burke’s words make me slump, all of the fight cut out from me like a tripped circuit. It’s gone, and in its place, there’s nothing but dark failure.
Vicious satisfaction crosses his face. “You’re going to do what you’re told tonight. Say yes, Alpha.”
I swallow thickly, eyes trained numbly on my feet. “Yes, Alpha.”
His hand drops, and so does Seamus’s hold, making my body slump to the ground, palms scraping on a rock hidden beneath the brush. Burke yanks me back to my feet so fast my head swims. “We don’t want to get your robe dirty, do we?” he asks with condescension, but my eyes are on Hess, who’s still bleeding, still breathing heavily on the forest floor, his pained and defeated gaze still on me. I can’t bear to keep eye contact, to see what they’ve reduced him to because of me, so I drop my stare to the ground, submitting to what’s been done even though everything is screaming for me not to.
When Burke leads me away, I go without struggle. “See? Already being a good little bitch,” he jokes.
Somewhere far above the treetops, I swear I hear a wolf spirit growl.
Chapter Five
Outside, beneath a glaring moon, I kneel in the dirt and watch as the Weaver marks Trinity’s forehead with a dot of blood. Her chest rises and falls even more rapidly as her blooding gets closer and closer. Snarls, bellows, and cries fill the air all around me from the females who’ve been marked and bitten already. Each of them is now experiencing the bond, their bodies taking on a spirit and working to adapt and make room while they transform into so much more than they were before.
Becoming what they were always meant to be.
The Weaver growls something, but it’s unintelligible because his face is half-shifted. His eyes are his own, but his mouth is more wolf than man. Trinity offers her arm to him, and I can see the tremble in it from where I am about four feet away. Burke is to my left, his arrogant and vile presence a constant reminder that there’s nowhere to run.
Maybe I should have left Hess to his fate, but that thought curdles my stomach, even though the spirits know he was going to do the same to me. A part of me wishes I could be that cold-hearted. My life might’ve been easier if I thought and behaved like Burke, but I don’t know how to turn my conscience off. Now I’m here, counting down the seconds until I’m a slave to my alpha, and he’ll probably kill Hess anyway.
How could I be so stupid? I should have run before, but I thought I had time. I thought I could get away. Yet now I’m on my knees, trapped, exactly where Burke wants me. Waiting to become another she-wolf for him to dominate, a bitch for him to claim.
The Weaver takes Trinity’s hand, and in a move so fast it would be startling if I hadn’t seen him do it over and over again tonight, he bites her forearm. She flinches, face gone pale as his wolf mouth releases her flesh. Gnarled fingers curl as he cups his hand under the wound he made, collecting some of the blood now flowing freely from it. When he catches enough in his palm, he moves over to the fire and throws it into the flames with a growl.
Trinity sucks in a breath, and I watch as the blaze from the inferno flickers from orange to blue. Sparks dart out from the middle of the flames as though a sharp wind has sent them flying, and then that same rushing wind and fiery particles seem to swoop right for her.
Trinity’s eyes grow wide with fear, but behind the fear is a gleam of excitement. The invisible force still carrying the glimmering sparks from the fire hits her square in the chest, and she gasps, closing her eyes against everything that slams into her. She falls backward writhing, and my heart races as I watch the physical and spiritual struggle going on.
However, my attention is pulled away from what’s happening to her, because the Weaver steps in front of me. My heart leaps into my throat.
This is it.
I look up at him, his bright blue eyes surveying me, taking my measure. I wish I knew what he was seeing. Is it a failure? Does he see a female who tried to save herself but couldn’t? Does he see a coward who’s swallowed her fight and traded her tenacity for the illusion of safety?
I think he smiles at me, but it’s difficult to tell with his mouth in the state that it is. I’ve seen others in the pack in a partial shift, and it always looks so painful, but it doesn’t seem like this hurts the Spirit Weaver, or maybe he’s used to it. He must’ve performed this ritual hundreds of times in his life.
He dips a finger into the bowl of deer blood and then starts to draw symbols on me. First, he marks lines down my arms, then taps my collarbone before parting the robe slightly and tugging down my shirt collar so he can paint blood on my chest. He speaks in that way that sounds more like growls and yips, and my entire body goes tight with tension, my skin tingling every place the blood touches.
My eyes flick to where Burke stands just off to the side with his arms crossed in front of him. I recoil at the hungry look on his face, at the way his gaze burns into the marks on my chest. When I feel a finger press against my forehead, my eyes shoot back to the Weaver as he holds his touch there, his throat working with a nearly silent wolfish rumble.
The blood is cold everywhere at first, but it seems that with each added stroke and swirl of the Weaver’s design, the symbols begin to warm. By the time he draws another line down my throat, I feel like I’m glowing. Panic slams through me at the sensation. I feel like a beacon, and in my vulnerable state, it terrifies me.
I want nothing more than to turn off the light I sense radiating out of me. It’s like my life is being ripped away, and with it goes my hope and the few shreds of happiness I’m desperately trying to hold on to. At the same time, I can’t fight the curiosity coursing through me. I can’t ignore the exhilaration I feel. I’ve waited so long for this. Celebrated and anticipated it, wished for it to be my turn every time I watched a Flux. I’ve been looking forward to it my whole life, and now it’s here.
But this isn’t how it was supposed to be.
It wasn’t supposed to ruin me. I wish my mom were here. I wish I could welcome this spirit the way my animal deserves, and not hate her for what her presence will do to me. Receiving my wolf spirit is supposed to make me complete, but because of it, I’m going to be less. I’m going to be treated no better than a whipped dog, bred and dominated for Burke’s pleasure.
I flinch at a clawed tap on my arm just as my alpha growls, the sound more excited than threatening, and I realize that the Weaver is waiting for me to extend my arm. It’s time to be blooded. It’s time to be owned. Dread spreads inside of me like a wildfire through dry terrain.