Chapter 146

Olivia POV

I watched Emma plunge a dagger into her father’s chest before she threw her head back and shouted something like, “Jeh mang lah coor de monpear poor rejoin da tapussence.” Then she reached into his chest to pull out Hermes’s heart. Several wolves around me screamed in horror.

Elroy moved so fast he was hard to see as he knocked the blood-wet organ from her hand to the ground. In a blink he was in his human form and locked his arms around her before he rose to hold her in a bear hug that made her feet dangle in the air.

“Block her mouth!” Iris shouted, and Elroy kept her close with one arm while he used his left hand to cover her lips. The Apothecary rushed to them and began to strip Emma of her clothes. “Help me!” she shouted, and I ran to her with Jordan and Claudia at my sides.

Once Iris had gotten rid of Emma’s outer shirt, despite her desperate struggles, we could see the runes and sigils on her skin and undergarments. We tore off everything she wore, including her jewelry, before Iris drew a piece of charcoal from a pocket and began to mark through every tattoo one by one.

And first with the loss of her clothes, and then more and more as each marking on her skin was marred, I felt the witch’s power ease. I heard the snarls and barks of the wolves around us turn to confused whimpers and chuffs. I heard words join in the cacophony, until with a final smudge of her charcoal, Iris stopped, panting deeply, and looked into Emma’s furious but defeated eyes.

“Your possessions will all be salted and burned,” Iris spat. “Your body markings will be permanently modified.”

Emma shook her head frantically.

“You took the magic that holds a Pack together and perverted it with human heresy,” Iris said next.

“But that isn’t your worst crime,” Claudia said. “You took over the lives of your fellow wolves to make them do your bidding. You corrupted minds and hearts and families. For the good of every wolf in this world, you will never know a moment’s freedom again.

Behind Elroy’s hand, the broken witch screamed.

“Sir?” a voice behind us asked, and we turned, Elroy only with his head, to see Sam standing there looking healthy and fit.

“Sam,” Elroy said, and the wealth of relief and affection in the single word was heartbreaking. “We thought you were ill.”

“Just in another of Emma’s comas,” he said, looking at the she-wolf in Elroy’s arms with disgust.

“Sam,” Iris said before she nodded to her right. “I dropped my satchel just there. Please fetch it for me.”

Sam did so without a word and held it up to her. She reached inside and pulled out a strip of cloth decorated with an X shape crossed over and topped with two separate lines. When Emma saw it, she struggled again, but Iris put the cloth, which I realized was a gag, around her head and then coordinated with Elroy to tie it over her mouth.

Seeing this, Sam motioned over a stunned-looking wolf I realized was a Palace Guard only half in uniform. From him, Sam took handcuffs before, again silently working with Elroy, putting them around Emma’s wrists.

“I’ll escort her to the cells,” Sam told Elroy.

“Do, and put your most trusted guards on her watch,” Elroy ordered.

Sam nodded and took Emma away from us. The crowd of wolves, all in their skin now and looking in turns angry, bewildered, lost, and satisfied, parted for him and his prisoner. The Palace Guard followed behind them and was joined by what I assumed was another guard, this one also wearing only vestiges of the Palace uniform.

Elroy looked over himself then, pulling up his bloodied shirt to show that the injury in his side was already healing. Iris went to tend to him, but he gently took her hand and shook his head before looking out over the motley assembly of Lunaris’s various Packs.

“Oh, Goddess,” Ines said, stepping out from the others before falling to her knees with tears on her cheeks. Her eyes met mine. “Oh, forgive me, Luna. Forgive me.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing to forgive. Emma’s magic was powerful.”

“Still, to have said what I said,” she wheezed as she began to cry. I was going to walk to her, but then Fay was there, taking her into her arms as Ines began to weep openly.

Several other wolves, male and female, alpha, beta, and omega, began to cry as well.

“We have all been under attack by a witch using the darkest of black magic,” Elroy said. “We have all been injured by her, whether she targeted us or the wolves around us. The greatest forgiveness is something we must offer ourselves before we can begin to heal.”

“Emma is powerless now,” Fay said over Ines’s heaving shoulder.

“Not yet.” A figure emerged from the crowd, and I recognized Adele, Hermes’s niece who had met with me for coffee what seemed now ages ago. She looked much older somehow.

“What do you mean?” Elroy asked, and I knew he was thinking, like me, that Adele was from Ravencrest, the Pack that had supported Emma first.

“I mean I’ve spent the last few weeks in a fog,” she said, at which several wolves around her nodded in agreement. “I mean I haven’t been able to control my own body, not really, like I was drunk or high, but instead of just losing control, I felt someone else took my control to guide me, to urge me to say things.”

Several murmured in agreement, but Adele turned almost violently to the male beta I didn’t recognize standing to her right.

“Not you, Marcus!” she shouted. “You were in complete control! You knew what was going on, and you supported it!” She looked back at Elroy. “There were others, mostly from Ravencrest, but other packs too.”

“She’s right!” Ines said. “I could tell when I was talking with someone who realized I wasn’t in control of myself. The way they looked at me, the things they said!” She looked around at the wolves flanking us, and several of them began to back away in fear.

I turned to Elroy in alarm, but even as I did, I saw a contingent of wolves from the Palace guard run toward us in their fur.

“Goddess bless you, Sam,” Elroy muttered.

With the help of the guards, Elroy, Claudia, and Alpha David of Eclipse Pack were able to separate those who had been used by Emma, those who had helped her, and those who had simply borne witness to Emma’s crimes were separated and taken back to the Palace.

Later in the day, Elroy and I entered the Palace ourselves and made our slow, weary way to the Lily Room.

“I confess,” Elroy said as he started taking off his traveling coat, “bed has never seemed so welcome before.”

“Not even with me in it?” I asked with a smile. Even this simple bit of intimacy was glorious to me.

“Aren’t you going to be in it?” he asked with a smile of his own.

“Yes, but first I want to tell you something you just might not have realized.”

“Oh?”

“I spoke with our daughter,” I told him.

“Daughter?” he asked before a wide smile took over his face.

“Yes, and I know she can’t wait to meet you.”