“What?” Grae pulled back, his worried eyes meeting mine.
“I was going to tell you.” I clenched my jaw, staring past him at Sawyn, hating that this was how the conversation would play out. “But at first I didn’t know how to explain it and . . . and then there were more pressing things, but I was going to—”
“Go on.” Sawyn’s face filled with wicked delight as she waited for me to speak. I knew from her catlike grin that she thought I was about to humiliate myself . . . but that arrogance, that certainty, only bolstered me to speak. Let me show her how a real Wolf acted, because as confident as she was, I was certain of my mate.
“This is the first time I’ve been away from Briar,” I said, steeling myself with a deep breath. “And it’s the first time I’ve seen myself as someone other than her twin. Someone other than a Wolf. Someone who existed outside of my title and pack. I always felt as if I’d been cast in the wrong role, one that never quite fit me, but I could never put my finger on why. I thought maybe it was because I was never meant to be a shadow, but it was so much more.”
Grae’s arms stayed folded around me as I spoke, his eyebrows knitting together in concern.
“And then I met Ora, and I realized there was someone within me under the layers of self-doubt and agitation . . . and then it all made sense. I think you’ve seen it within me on this trip already. Maybe you’ve seen it within me my entire life, before either of us could understand. It slowly grew within me and struck me like lightning all at once,” I whispered, shaking my head in disbelief. “Daggers and jackets, dresses and kohl, man and woman and beyond. I exist somewhere, flowing in between them. And I thought I’d have to break myself down into little pieces to make it fit me, that I’d have to deny one part of myself to choose another, but I don’t.” My voice wobbled. “I am a whole person always, flowing, carving my own path.”
Grae’s arms tightened around me. “Yes,” he murmured softly into my hair.
I began to pull away from him, but Grae held me tight to him, looking down into my eyes. “Ora had a human word for it—merem. With the river. That feels like what I am.”
Tears welled in my eyes as I claimed that word for myself again, relief and joy washing through me even in the confines of a dungeon. And now I’d said it to my mate. He finally got to know all of me. This was a power Sawyn would never know—the confidence I had that Grae would love me unconditionally.
“Ha! He’s speechless!” Sawyn cackled, misreading how our bond was growing even stronger. “He thinks you’re crazy too, girl. Why would you think any Wolf would want you if you don’t want to be his woman—”
Grae grabbed my cheeks, pulling my lips to his, the action silencing Sawyn. Tears streamed down my cheeks as he kissed me, slow and deep.
He lifted his lips an inch from mine to speak. “I only ever wanted you, little fox.” His chest rumbled against me. “I’ve seen the beauty and strength in every side of you, even before it had a name, and I know all the things that you are were meant to be mine. You’re my partner, my person, my mate.”
A dizzying, soaring feeling washed through me as he wiped my tears. He wrapped his arm around my rib cage and squeezed me against his muscled chest. His lips enveloped mine, a promise of all he said, a sweet burning kiss that skittered down to my toes.
“I love you,” he murmured across my mouth. “You’re my merem.” The word on his lips made a soft cry escape mine.
I pressed my salt-stained lips together as more tears spilled down my cheeks. “I love you, too.”
“You can’t be serious,” Sawyn hissed, snapping her fingers. “Disgusting.”
Grae flew across the room and I screamed as he hit the grate, stopping inches from falling into the open drain.
“You two would erase the Wolf way of life if you could,” she sneered. “You spit on your ancestors’ graves with these human words. But I will make it better. My reign will be magnificent.” She turned over her hands one more time, straightening her emerald ring. “Unfortunately, you won’t live long enough to see it.”
“You don’t have to do this, Sawyn.” I yanked against my chains. “This is your last chance.”
“Your spirit is admirable, girl. Most entertaining.” Sawyn huffed. She cut a glance at the gurgling drain. “But I have celebrations to attend, a victory to claim. Goodbye, niece—may our ancestors shun you in the afterlife.”
She vanished, leaving sparks of dark magic in her wake. A swirling rumble echoed up the black pit in the corner. Grae scuttled away from the hole, watching in rapt terror.
“What in the Moon’s name is that?” But we didn’t have time for an answer before a black tentacle slithered up from the abyss.
“That can’t be.” I watched in horror as another obsidian tentacle snaked up from the pit, probing the wet stones, searching for its prey.
“An ostekke.” Grae’s eyes darted around the room, looking for a weapon.
“I thought they were all dead,” I hissed, gaping as a third tentacle suctioned to the wall.
The tip of the slimy limb reached Grae’s bare foot, and he drove his heel down, stomping on it. A keening wail split the rotten air as black water burbled up the pit and sloshed over the edges. The ostekke withdrew only an inch and then shot forward, grabbing Grae around the forearm and yanking him off his feet.
I screamed as he crashed into the slippery stone, his free arm barely catching him before his face hit the floor. Grae frantically clawed and punched the corded limb, but the monster wouldn’t release him. The ostekke pulled again, yanking its victim toward the hole and a watery death in the lake below. I thrashed the skin of my wrists raw, the stinging adding to the pain in my shoulder joints, but to no effect.
“Grae!” The soles of my feet slipped on the cold stone, trying to reach my mate.
My scream seemed to split the ostekke’s attention. Its second tentacle shot out toward me, slithering around my shoulder. Its grip was so tight, suckers pulling painfully on my skin. In desperation, I twisted my head and sunk my teeth into the slimy flesh. Hot goo burst into my mouth and I gagged as the foul mucus coated my tongue.
The creature shrieked, recoiling so rapidly its tentacle ripped through the chains. My arm dropped and my body lurched forward, hanging from my one tethered arm. The pain shot through me, calling forward my Wolf, and with one blinding jolt I shifted, my forearm slipping free of its shackle as I dropped onto four paws.
Grae groaned, lifting a hand to clutch his head as the beast released him. Relief flooded through me, and as his eyes landed on me, he shifted, too, his Wolf being beckoned by my own.