Chapter 10
I couldn't run.
The parasite inside Merrick’s chest was already at critical mass. For weeks, my nightly infusions had sated its ravenous appetite while building its scaffold. If I fled, the sudden withdrawal of my silver aura would leave the foreign queen starving. Deprived of its nutrient stream, the entity wouldn't sleep—it would go into a violent, predatory frenzy within hours, chewing through Merrick’s myocardium to feed on his raw marrow. He would suffer the exact same fate as Keith, Vance, and Corin, liquefying into black sludge before sunrise.
Could I tell him? Could I confess what I had read?
My heart twisted in agonizing pain. Merrick had handed me a silver dagger only last night and commanded: *If you see my mind begin to slip... you drive this blade straight through the center of that knot... I would rather die ten thousand deaths by your hand than live as a rabid dog.*
If I told Merrick the truth right now, his wolf would make the ultimate Alpha sacrifice. He would refuse to let his pack bear the risk for another second. He would plunge silver into his own heart to protect his people, throwing his life away before giving me a chance to excise the monstrosity.
And if Donald and the council learned that I was the carrier, they would execute me on the spot, lock Merrick in iron chains, and watch him disintegrate while civil war tore the ridge apart from within.
There was only one path left. A desperate, terrifying gamble.
I turned back to Torin’s journal, scanning the dense anatomical glyphs.
The incubation ritual required two precise triggers: the resonance of the Blood Moon’s peak, and the carrier’s *blood* dropped into the cut to unlock the seed. Without the blood, the parasite remained encased in its chitinous casing.
Torin had mapped the exact geometric angles of the scaffold: thirty-two degrees at every branching node, anchoring three millimeters above the pericardium.
*I will not trigger the hatch,* I resolved, wiping the cold tears from my cheeks, my jaw locking with fierce determination. *I will hijack the ritual.*
The obsidian crypt was the only chamber in the entire fortress carved into primordial bedrock and sealed by ancient dampening wards. If the parasite stirred during an extraction attempt anywhere else, its psychic frequency would broadcast directly through the Alpha bond, driving the four thousand wolves above instantly feral. The crypt was the only cage strong enough to absorb the spiritual shockwave.
I had to lead Merrick into the crypt, not to perform Torin’s blood-catalyst ritual, but to perform an emergency surgical excision before the Blood Moon forced the parasite to awaken on its own.
I would not shed a single drop of my carrier blood onto his runes. Instead, I would use the silver scalpel to surgically sever the thirty-two-degree anchoring tendrils, flood the exposed cavity with cold silverleaf distillate to paralyze the queen, and cauterize the wound with pure silver before the entity could breach his heart.
It was an operation with a razor-thin margin for survival. But it was the only way Merrick walked out of that crypt alive.
***
The sacred crypts of Onyx Ridge lay five levels beneath the foundation of the fortress, carved directly into the living, primordial obsidian bedrock of the mountain.
It was a place of terrifying, absolute silence.
The walls were black as the void, polished so smooth they reflected the flickering flames of the silver braziers like pools of dark water. Deep beneath our feet, the spiritual ley lines of the territory pulsed with an ancient, subterranean heat, drawing the ambient magic of the mountain into the chamber.
At the center of the hexagonal room stood the Ancestral Cleansing Altar—a massive block of solid, mirror-sheened obsidian, etched with deep, winding channels designed to catch sacrificial blood.
Alpha Merrick lay atop the altar.
He was stripped to his waist, his long, muscular legs clad only in dark warrior breeches. His dark hair was pulled back, his sculpted chest rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic cadence.
Over his heart, the dark geometric knot was astonishingly still. It didn't writhe. It didn't pulse with necrotic violet. Beneath the pale bronze of his skin, it looked like an intricate, resting jewel—plump, dormant, and perfectly tranquilized by my weeks of touch.
Beside the altar, on a low slate stand, lay my apothecary instruments.
A porcelain bowl of concentrated silverleaf distillate. Linen bandages soaked in mountain spring water.
And a slender, razor-sharp scalpel forged from pure border silver.
Beside the scalpel lay the open page of Torin’s journal, its anatomical diagram propped up so I could track the thirty-two-degree root angles during the cut.
Merrick turned his head, watching me as I approached from the shadowed archway. When his amber eyes caught mine, the raw, unadorned tenderness in his gaze was a physical blow that nearly brought me to my knees.
"You're pale, Rielle," Merrick murmured, his deep baritone echoing softly off the glass-smooth obsidian walls. "Your scent... you smell like ash and winter frost. Are you afraid?"
I stopped beside the altar, my fingers trembling so violently I had to tuck them into the folds of my tunic to keep him from seeing.
"The crypts are cold," I whispered, my voice sounding hollow, like a voice echoing from the bottom of a dry well.
Merrick reached out, catching my right hand with his large, calloused fingers. His grip was warm, solid, and overwhelmingly gentle. He lifted my knuckles to his lips, pressing a slow, lingering kiss against the skin, his warm breath sending shivers down my frozen arms.
"There is nothing down here to hurt you, my sweet mate," he said softly, his thumb caressing the pulse-point at my wrist. "In this place, our ancestors swore their vows. In this place, my father was cleansed before he took my mother to the forest. When this night is over, the shadow-rot will be dust, and I will walk you out into the moonlight as the sovereign Luna of Onyx Ridge."
Every word he spoke felt like a silver blade twisting between my ribs.
*He loves me.*
He didn't just trust me with his pack. He trusted me with his life. He was lying completely defenseless on an executioner's stone, offering his bare chest to my hands because he believed with every fiber of his primordial wolf that I was his savior.
"Merrick..." my voice broke, a ragged sob catching in my throat.
He frowned slightly, rising onto one elbow, his brow furrowing with sudden concern. "Rielle? What is it? Look at me."
"I am looking at you," I whispered, the tears finally spilling over my lashes, tracking hot paths down my cold cheeks.
"Hey," he murmured, his voice softening with infinite patience. He reached up, cupping the side of my face with his massive palm, his thumb wiping away a tear. "I know this burden has been heavy. Carrying the weight of my life... fighting my elders... you’ve stood alone against the whole world to keep me breathing. But after tonight, you don't have to fight anymore. I will carry you. My wolf will shield you from everything."
*Your wolf is carrying an abomination,* my mind screamed in silent, agonizing despair. *And my touch built its cage.*
