Pack of Wolves by Maggie Claire (read along books .TXT) 📕

mind. I hear Cyrus’s exhausted voice whispering my name. She is something far more precious, he wheezed as a whip cut into his body. Every memory burdens my shoulders with agonizing guilt until I fear the weight of it all will suffocate me.

I’ve known all along what the Carreglas had shared with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Cyrus was truly the boy of my childhood. Nor could I reconcile Cane with the tyrant he’d become. Yet now, faced with the undeniable proof right in front of my eyes, I cannot live in denial any longer. I sink to my knees beside the bloody remnants of the wooden chair, and I add my tears to the House of Vultures’ already ruined floor.

It feels like hours have passed when I finally step out into the sunlight once more. “Where are they, Siri?” I croak, my eyes barely able to open from their puffiness.

“Headed to the House of Piranhas,” Siri replies wearily; no doubt listening to my pain has grieved her spirit too. “Suryc has your old ally, Wren; they are trying to catch up to the rest of them.”

“Then take us there,” I demand, struggling to move away from the charred stoop. My bones feel brittle with the depth of my sorrows. “I don’t want to stay here another minute.” I want to find Cyrus and get him out of the clutches of his abomination of a brother. Without another word, I claw my way onto Siri’s back and we take to the skies.

And if I have my way, I’ll never return to the House of Vultures again.

***

The next morning, the sounds of footsteps slipping in the mud and the soft grumbling whinnies of horses unaccustomed to early hours pull Cyrus from his nightmares.

“They’re moving,” Bittern announces from the tent’s canvas entry, her eyes scanning the soldiers as they pass.

“Did they wake you too?” Cyrus whispers through a stifled yawn, hindered by the soreness in his jaw. Every part of his body aches, especially his shoulder. He turns to inspect the wound, certain he’ll find the gleaming metal shard still lodged in his skin, laughing at him as it grinds into his bones. It still feels like it’s there, and Cyrus wonders if the wound will ever fully heal.

“I don’t ever sleep through the night anymore. I’ve been awake for hours.” The ghosts that skulk in Bittern’s slumbers still shine in her fatigued eyes.

“You loved him very much,” Cyrus deducts, as a spectral face of death looms in the shadows right beside her head. When he blinks, the visage is gone, but the stain of its image mars what little peace remains in Cyrus’s mind. Panic claws its way up his throat, its vicelike hands clenching his vocal cords. He endures his silent scream, the voice of the Vibría creature humming its laughter into his ear. Is this real? Or am I still in the House of Vultures? Have I not escaped? His mind races, trying to discern some tangible reminder that will make the events of the last few days real to him. The scars, he decides, his eyes returning to his shoulder. The arrow’s wound is real. My time in the coffin was real. I’m no longer in the Vibria’s thrall. When he finally regains control over his thoughts, he croaks, “Tell…tell me about your family, Bittern,” praying she will indulge his request if only to help him keep his mind focused on reality.

“I cherished them just as much as I despise my own heartbeat now. I should have died with them the day our world fell apart. In some ways, I think I did. My body hasn’t realized it yet, but I did.” Bittern’s last words fade on her lips. Standing abruptly, she scurries to her makeshift cot at the farthest corner of the room. “Wolf comes. Pretend to sleep!”

No sooner has Cyrus’s head dropped back onto his rolled shirt pillow than Wolf yanks the canvas flaps wide to let in the morning’s first sunbeams. “Get up! You’re coming with me.”

“What? Where?” Cyrus cries, attempting to seem startled by the sudden appearance of his brother. He fumbles his way into a sitting position, hissing when Wolf clamps heavy iron shackles onto his wrists.

“I’m going up to the Piranhas, and I want you there,” Wolf explains, smirking when the smell of scalded flesh and hair assaults his nose. “How’s that iron feel, brother?”

“Still trying to break me?” Cyrus sneers, failing to appear unscathed as his skin bleeds around the shackles. It’s worked, he almost cries, crushing his tongue between his teeth to keep that confession from pouring out of his mouth. “Have you finally decided to let me die by allowing the metal to poison me?” He croaks, trying to keep still so the metal does not bite into any more skin on his arms.

A backhanded slap rattles Cyrus’s aching jaw, nearly knocking him off his bed. The sound of the strike is enough to wake Grouse.

“What happened? Wolf, what—?” She mutters, her words sleepy and confused.

“Shut up or you’ll get the same,” Wolf barks at the tousled woman, jerking the chain that connects to Cyrus’s bonds. Cyrus feels his body drag off the bed and move closer to his brother, his knees sticking in the mud under his cot. “Stand or I drag you out.”

Cyrus’s bones creak, his muscles crying with pain as he hauls himself upright. His feet are unsteady and he sways in place, but his words are clear and filled with quiet rage as he demands, “Leave Grouse and Bittern alone.” A sharp kick threatens to knock his knees back out from under him. “They’ve done nothing wrong, Wolf. Please! Don’t punish them for the hate you harbor for me.”

Wolf yanks Cyrus’s binds until he is nose to nose with his brother, spitting his hateful commands directly into his brother’s mouth. “You do not give the orders. Now walk!”

Cyrus weaves a crooked path through the mud as he exits the tent. Some