Dahlia wasn't sure where she had expected the King to take her, but it certainly wasn't where they ended up. As her eyes adjusted to the light she realized that she had expected a dungeon, maybe, or a cell where she would be chained.
What she hadn't expected was for him to drag her roughly by the arm into his throne room, with it's floors gleaming every bit as immaculately as the floors in the ballroom, although the lights were even dimmer here, with only a few candelabras left burning at key points across the room.
Fear at her situation settled around Dahlia as she glanced quickly around the room, and she felt her canines slice the rest of the way through her gums all at once, although the rest of body remained unchanged. In the darkness, with her head bent forward towards the floor, she was certain that the King couldn't see the way the sharp tips of her newly elongated teeth were poking past the curve of her lower lip. She strained her ears, waiting to hear the sound of Silas' feet come pounding after them, but the only sound that she heard was her heartbeat pounding in her chest, and the combined sounds of their footsteps echoing sharply off the marble floors.
Then another sound joined in.
Dahlia brought her eyes up, startled that she could hear someone else in the room with them. There was another heartbeat thudding steadily, somewhere in the direction of the massive throne whose silhouette she could only just see. Swinging her eyes in it's direction she could make out the outline of a person, and could hear the steady breaths that the woman was taking as she leaned back on the King's throne, her legs dangling sideways over one arm of the seat.
"Making yourself comfortable are you?" Annoyance and amusement seemed to battle each other in his tone, as if he weren't quite sure exactly what to think.
"Of course, your majesty. It is the most comfortable seat in the house and you did leave me here all night while you were out dancing. I had no idea how long you'd be."
"Telling the future isn't in your wheelhouse then?" Dahlia decided he must have settled on being annoyed because his fingers were digging so hard into her arm now that she had no doubt that it was going to leave a mark for days afterwards.
"I don't need to peer into a crystal ball to tell you what happens next. We inject her and get her to renounce her wolf once and for all so that it actually dies this time and she becomes what she always should have been. A human. If I'm right that ought to at least knock that mate of hers on his ass when he feels whatever it is that's going to ripple through that link of theirs and that will give your guards their best shot at taking him down. Or you could just kill her, two birds with one stone, although for some reason you've seemed reluctant to do that, so far at least."
"You want me to kill your daughter?" Dahlia had known, before he asked the question, who the woman was that was draped across his throne. She'd heard that voice every day in her childhood, every bit as disapproving, although she had never imagined that the woman wanted her dead until that moment.
"My sister," Lilia corrected immediately. They were finally close enough that the shadow had fallen away and Dahlia could see her face clearly in the soft light. The King released her arm, shoving her forward, and she stumbled, not expecting the momentum, so that she fell hard onto her knees before his throne and the woman that she had spent years thinking of as her mother. She hardly noticed the pain of the marble slamming against her knees, or the heels of her hands as she caught herself, for the sting of a lifetime of betrayal was far greater than anything else that had ever experienced.
"Okay, so you want me to kill your sister then? Because that son of yours down in the ballroom would have a serious problem with it. The only thing that my very loyal Captain of the Guards has asked me is that she comes through this unharmed. And while you have been valuable to me this week, and I'll freely admit he's screwed up, he's been faithful to me since he set foot in this city and I don't expect that to change. So tell me, why should I kill her? If your reason amuses me, maybe I'll consider it."
"It's not that I want her dead necessarily. But that Alpha's heart needs to stop beating before the night's over. And the easiest way to do that is to end her life. He's shown over and over again that he isn't an easy one to kill. And my guess is we only have a matter of moments before he comes through those doors after her. I'm surprised he isn't here already."
Dahlia tasted blood and realized that she must have bitten her tongue when she had fallen, but she hardly noticed it, because something else was happening. There was a buzzing in her ears and a fullness in her chest that seemed to stretch so tightly for a moment that she thought that she was going to burst. And then the moments between her sister's words began to stretch out so that it almost felt as if there was an eternity between every syllable. Pain began to ripple through her bones as they began to stretch and vibrate, her muscles and sinew relaxing and reforming themselves as the fine silk of her ballgown began to tighten and strain.
"The fuck is happening?" Etan yelled the words and if she had been conscious of what was going on around her she would have seen Lilia scramble to her feet, but by then she was entirely focused on what was going on with her own body, as were both of the other occupants of the throne room.
Lilia took a single step towards her, a syringe in her hand that she had had hidden in one of her pockets, but a bright light flashed, coming from Dahlia's direction, and filling the room with nothing but pure blinding brilliance the color of moonlight. Finally, when they could see again Dahlia was gone, her dress shredded in the place where she had stood and above it stood a large black wolf with dark brown eyes that burned with rage as they focused on Lilia and the syringe that she held.
"You're a monster. Look at yourself Dahlia. Who could love a thing that shifts back and forth between a human and this, this thing that you've become. This life at court is what you've always wanted. You've dreamed about it since you were a little girl. And with what's inside this vial I could give that to you. It could make all of your dreams come true. Do you really want to give that up to go and live in some dirty village and pop out monster babies until it kills you?" The derision dripped from Lilia's voice
A growl rumbled deep in Dahlia's chest, half surprising her, but not nearly as much as the calm, even voice that suddenly shared her mind even as Lilia continued her unhinged rant.
"You can hear me now, can't you?" The voice felt like sunshine and summer and if Dahlia had been entirely in control of this new body that she wasn't really all that sure of what to do with anyways, she thought she probably would have fallen over. Thankfully, it seemed, her wolf was controlling their body for the most part. And that was quite clearly who had spoken.
"Yes. I can." She replied to the voice within her own mind, all the while keeping a careful eye on both the King and her mother.
"Thank the Goddess," her wolf breathed out the words in obvious relief. "I've spent my entire life bound up by her magic and potions and I have no idea how I'm finally free now but I know I cannot go back."
Dahlia felt her eyes focus hard on the syringe in Lilia's hand. "As your wolf I've been along for the ride since I matured along with you as a teenager. I hope you'll forgive me-"
"She's going to kill our mate. And you. And probably me. There's nothing to forgive. I'm with you completely on this. Neither of them deserve to live. But we need to be careful. We need to live to keep Silas and our pack safe." Their eyes flickered back and forth between the King and the witch.
She felt her wolf nod in approval. "Her first and then him. Then we go and find the others. Do you hear that? There's fighting below. I promise you, Silas is trying to reach us. But there is no guarantee that he will. We must be ready to finish whatever we begin. Are you ready?"
"As I'll ever be." Dahlia murmured and a moment later she found herself hurtling through the air as the enormous black wolf lunged at the witch that she had once believed was her mother.
A/N- I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you did I'd love it if you'd comment and click that little star button to vote for it.
This is Chapter Seventy-Two. You can now read all 75 chapters of the finished novel plus the epilogue on Patreon! And for those of you who want more stories, long and short, right this second and who want to read Patreon exclusive short stories, you may also want to check out the link below:
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Little Red's Riding
Fantasy"Why, Alpha?" he had sat down right next to her when he arrived, and now she leaned closer to him so that their lips were only inches apart. He could smell the sweet scent of strawberries and cream that drove him out of his mind whenever she was nea...
