Wolf Pact: A Wolf Pact Novel (21 page)

Romulus raised his staff again, but a voice rang from the balcony.

“Don’t touch him. You are nothing but my father’s dog,” Bliss said, entering the room. She must have climbed up from the back way to avoid being seen, Lawson thought. But what was she doing here? Why had she returned? Why did she care? Wasn’t she the one who had stolen the angel’s sword from him?

“Ah, Lucifer’s bastard. He has been searching for you,” Romulus said, smiling. “Why don’t you return to him? Do not waste your time with this filth.”

Bliss smiled. “I have a message you can send to my father … Ahri, now!” she said as she tossed Michael’s sword to Lawson. The archangel’s blade glinted golden in the sunlight while Ahramin stepped out of the shadows. She was wearing thick black gloves and holding a heavy silver chain.

“Stay, hound. You are still one of mine. I can hear your thoughts as clearly as I hear my own. You are correct in believing you will die if you do not listen to me,” Romulus said.

With a great
scream, Ahramin leapt and wrapped the chain twice around Romulus’s neck, climbing on his back as she pulled and tightened, and the Great Beast of Hell fell to his knees.

“Remove it! If you treasure your life, you will do as I say!” Romulus ordered as he struggled with the chain, which smoked around his skin. As powerful as he was, he was still a creature of Hell, and silver was poison to him as well.

The scars on Ahramin’s neck began to throb, and a silver collar appeared against the skin as Romulus bent his will to hers. She wrestled and thrashed against it, howling in pain, but slowly, excruciatingly, she began to remove the silver chain around Romulus’s neck. “I’m so sorry …” She sobbed. “I’m so sorry, I can’t fight him anymore … “

They were losing time. “Lawson!” Bliss yelled. “Do it!”

With a roar, Romulus threw Ahramin off his back, and he turned to pick up his staff. Romulus snarled and readied to launch the final blow.

But Lawson had gotten up. If he could stand, he could fight, and if he could fight, he could hold a sword. He felt the weight of it in his palm, and he stood, uncertainly. He was broken and battered but he was resolute.

“For
Tala,” he whispered. “For all the wolves in the underworld.” Then he lunged with the blade, which cut through the golden armor like butter, and he stuck it deep into Romulus’s black heart.

The Great Beast of Hell howled in pain, and his whole body began to shift, from wolf to man and back, trembling and shaking and smoking, until finally only a small black wolf lay dead on the floor before it disappeared in dark smoke.

There was a clamor and the rest of the pack entered the room. Rafe and Malcolm ran to Lawson, Malcolm’s eyes wide with fright, but Edon had eyes for only one person.

“Ahri!” Edon yelled, running to her side; she lay still on the ground next to Romulus. He knelt and cradled her in his arms. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

She was lifeless in his arms, and the silver collar was still around her neck, but when Romulus’s heart exploded, the collar fell apart and broke in two.

Finally, she opened her eyes. “I told you, there is still wolf in me.” She smiled, and Edon kissed her.

*

Lawson
collapsed to the floor even as his wounds began to heal. The silver poison had disappeared with Romulus’s death. He put his sword away as he turned to Bliss. “I’m sorry I doubted you,”he said as she knelt down to hear him.

“Never mind that now, did you find Tala?” she asked.

He shook his head to indicate no hope remained, but he had little time to dwell on that for now. “What about your aunt Jane?” he asked.

“She got away. I asked the oculus to show her to me, when I changed the orders. She told me she led the hounds through the passages but she was able to slip away at the very end. She went to London, she said. She told me to meet her there. The Blue Bloods need us there.”

Lawson removed the postcard he kept in his pocket and turned it over to read the text:
The Abduction of the Sabines
. They had succeeded in keeping the timeline safe, in killing Romulus. The wolves would soon be free, and there was still hope for the hounds as well; Ahramin had shown that. Lawson should have felt joy, but all he felt was exhaustion.

“I’m sorry about Tala,” Bliss said, and squeezed his hand. “I wish it had been otherwise.”

He had won, and yet he had lost. Bliss, of all people, seemed to understand that victory and triumph were not the same.

T
he chronolog
took them back through time, and as they moved through the passages, Lawson could see places that looked familiar. The monastery, in Venice. France, with the enormous carved stones. He stopped in front of a house that looked more familiar than most.

“I’m sorry, I thought we were going back to the serpent mound,” Bliss said. “But this thing seems to have a mind of its own.”

Lawson looked at the structure in front of them. It was half-built, with only the foundation and the wood frame. He hadn’t recognized it at first, but now he did. “Can you take us here, only closer to the present? A week before we met?”

“I can help,” Malcolm said, and showed Bliss how to set the chronolog again.

Again
they moved through time, but more quickly. Probably because they didn’t have far to go, Lawson figured. The passages finally landed them where he wanted to be.

“Where are we?” Bliss asked. “Is this where we’re supposed to go?”

“That’s the house,” he said, pointing to an ordinary-looking brown house at the end of a familiar cul-de-sac. There was a foreclosure sign on the front lawn. “Look, we’d just arrived, the curtains aren’t up yet. Remember those, Mac?”

“I remember,” Malcolm said quietly.

“Lawson, we need to keep moving,” Bliss said. “Marrok might need our help.”

“Hold on just a moment,” he said excitedly. “See, we can change what happened. I can leave a message—tell them to run. Tell myself to run. So they won’t stay here. Then the hounds won’t come and Tala will be alive. She’ll be
alive
.” Lawson turned to them, his eyes shining.

But his brothers just shook their heads. Ahramin was mute, hesitant.

“Bliss … you understand, help me. Help me do this.”

“No, Lawson.” Her tone was kind, but firm. “You know the rules. You’re a Praetorian. You can’t change the past. You can’t change what’s happened. Time must be allowed to flow, and the course of history must remain unchanged. You told me that.”

“No,
not in this instance. No.”

“You’ve got to let her go, Lawson. It’s the only way you’re going to be able to move forward,” Bliss said. She put a hand on his arm. “I know you loved her, but you’ve got to say goodbye.”

Lawson closed his eyes. Bliss was right. Of course she was right. He couldn’t change what had happened, not if he wanted to remain true to what he was, to what Tala had loved about him from the start.

With tears in his eyes, he watched as the door opened and Tala appeared in the doorway. He felt his heart swell with love and sadness.

Tala looked across the way, almost as if she were looking right at him, but he knew she couldn’t see him.

She had a smile on her face. She was happy. They’d been happy for a while in that little brown house. A bright and peaceful happiness after the darkness of their life in the underworld. It hadn’t lasted very long, but Lawson would treasure that love; he wouldn’t let his love destroy him. He would let it make him stronger.

Tala.

She was so
beautiful and kind. She loved him so much.

Every moment in time happened all at the same moment. That was the way of it in the Passages of Time. There was no past and no future, only an endless present. And in this moment, Tala was alive, and Tala was happy. He would have this moment forever, he realized. It was not lost; he could return to it, again and again, in his memory. It would sustain him. He thought of Bliss, who had suffered a loss as well.
I lost someone too, and he’s gone
, she’d said.
I have to let go.
He would be strong for her, he thought. He would move on, like she had.

Tala, I love you. Goodbye.

Why, Lawson, where are you going?

He recoiled. She had heard him. She looked out into the darkness with a frown on her face. Then she turned around and there he was. The Lawson from the past was standing behind her. He put his arms around her and they kissed.

Lawson remembered that kiss.

It had been a good one.

“Lawson, we’ve set the coordinates,” Bliss said. “We’re ready to go.”

He turned away
from the house and followed his pack down the passage.

T
his time they
landed in the dark, underground, deep within the earth. “We must be under the serpent mound,” Malcolm said.

“Start walking,” Rafe said.

Lawson led the group through the narrow tunnels, limping a little. Finally they reached the end of the tunnel; the sun lit the exit, and they rose out of the ground, one by one, until they were all standing next to the serpent mound. Lawson signaled the team to remain behind him. He looked down at the ground. It was covered in blood, a dark red stain on the dirt and grass.

“Marrok?” he whispered.

What had happened here? He felt a sickening lurch in his stomach, a knot of guilt forming at the thought of what he’d left the wolves behind to do.

“Hounds?” Bliss asked.

Malcolm shook his head. “I think they’re gone,” he said. “I feel fine.”

Rain
began to fall, lightly, in cold drops. The sun remained in the sky but its light faded, though not enough to block the sight of a body, just steps past the entrance. It was Ulric, the big wolf. He’d been gutted from belly to throat. It made sense that he would have been the last to fall; Lawson remembered from the pits he’d been a fierce warrior. It appeared the wolves had held off the hounds as long as they could, but ultimately they had lost. The field was strewn with the corpses of dead wolves, some in human form, some in their wolf skin. There were dead hounds too; Lawson noted with satisfaction that the wolves had taken down many of them, more than he’d expected them to.

“Ulf,” a voice called.

Lawson saw Marrok lying motionless in the damp earth. A black sword was wedged in his chest. The rain had begun to wash the wound clear, but Marrok had lacked the strength to remove it. The metal glistened in the faint sunlight.

Lawson removed the blade. Marrok began to heave with pain. The rain grew stronger and poured over his face, welling in his eyes and nostrils. His skin was pale and still, almost lifeless. Lawson pressed a firm hand to the cut and dark blood flowed outward through his fingers. He said the words that Arthur had taught him, and prayed that Marrok would heal.

“It’s
no use,” the fallen wolf said. “The hounds’ swords carry the Black Fire. Nothing can help me now.”

“Marrok … brother …” Lawson said, feeling tears form in his eyes.

“We held them off as long as we could,” Marrok said.

“You fought bravely,” Lawson said, and everyone else nodded behind him. “It was not in vain. We made it to Rome and averted the massacre. The timeline is intact. Romulus is dead. The Great Beast of Hell has been silenced.”

Marrok smiled and coughed; dark blood dribbled from his chin.

“What can I do for you, my brother?” Lawson asked. “How can I ease your passage?”

Marrok closed his eyes, and Lawson was afraid he had already lost him. Then, with some effort, he opened them again. “Promise me again what we promised back in the underworld. That you will free all of our people, that you will not rest until we return to our former glory, as guardians of the abyss. Use your power to restore order and keep the timeline pure. Now that the passages are open, time is vulnerable. You must guard them, protect against their misuse. It is imperative that they do not fall into the wrong hands. Even as Romulus has been defeated, there are others who will use the passages for their own gain. The Dark Prince …”

“You
have my word,” Lawson said, clasping his hand.

They sat there together for a long time, long enough that Lawson thought maybe Marrok had been wrong, maybe there was a chance that he could make it. The rain continued to fall, washing the dirt from Marrok’s white hair, mixing with the tears now streaming from Lawson’s eyes.

Edon, Malcolm, Rafe, and Ahramin all knelt down on the muddy ground, encircling the fallen wolf. Bliss knelt with them, next to Lawson, pushing his wet hair off his forehead and then placing her hand on his back. The feel of her palm steadied him as he watched Marrok fighting the pain. Was it possible? Was there any hope?

Marrok lifted his head to look Lawson in the eye. “It’s been an honor, Fenrir,” he whispered. Then he closed his eyes. His skin went gray, then black as the fire of Hell consumed him.

“Goodbye, my friend,” Lawson said.

Lawson regarded
his pack. His brothers: Malcolm, Rafe, Edon. Ahramin, who had returned to them. Bliss, the vampire in their midst. He turned to her now. “The Fallen need us for this task, you say. To help them in this war against our masters.”