Chapter 6 The Alpha returns.
Silas collapsed, clutching his neck as blood poured over his fingers. He choked, his eyes fixed on Halloway in bewilderment, until they finally went still.
Halloway grabbed the dead driver by the collar and threw him into the pit with the dead Russians.
The phone in his pocket buzzed.
He wiped the bloody blade on his slacks and answered.
“Malakai,” he said smoothly. “Where are you?”
“I am still in Oslo,” Malakai’s voice came through the speaker.
Halloway stopped wiping the blade. “Lord Nikolai could arrive here at any moment. Why the hell are you still in Oslo?”
“My car crashed in the mountains,” Malakai explained. “I woke up in a werewolf medical facility. Their Alpha is currently tearing the city apart looking for me.”
“Send me your coordinates. I will drive you to the airport myself.”
“Where is Silas?” Malakai asked, apparently noticing the eerie silence on the other end.
Halloway looked down into the open grave.
“Silas knew too much. Your father gave clear orders. Leave no witnesses. I only trust myself.”
He kicked a pile of dirt over Silas’s face.
“Stay put,” Halloway commanded. “Make sure no one sees you. Whoever does will have to be taken care of. I will come and get you the second these bodies are buried.”
“Halloway.” Malakai’s voice tightened. “Silas has been my driver for two years.”
“I know. But I still do not trust him not to rat us out,” Halloway replied flatly. “That is the job, Malakai. Yours and mine. Unless you want to leave the Von Voss without an heir.”
The line went dead.
---
Malakai lowered the phone. The quiet beep of the disconnected call filled the living room.
He turned around.
Henrik stood ten feet away. The colour had drained from his face, leaving him pale with fear.
His vampire hearing was just as keen as Malakai’s. He had heard every word that had echoed from the phone. He knew Malakai had just sparked a war by killing the Winter Heir. And he had heard Halloway’s direct orders, issued in the name of the Lord of London.
“Henrik,” Malakai said carefully, using the same tone one might use when approaching a spooked animal. “You did not hear that right, did you?”
“I heard all of it.” Henrik’s voice shook.
The tension between them stretched longer than the war outside.
“Malakai, I have known you for years. I would never say a word,” Henrik pleaded as the reality of the situation finally dawned on him.
“That is not your choice to make anymore. It is his.”
“So what are you going to do? Kill me right here in my own living room?” Henrik’s laugh came out broken. “After I just pulled you out of the rain?”
“I did not say that.”
“You did not have to. But you are considering it. I heard the same order you did.”
Henrik took a slow step backwards. His eyes darted towards the front door.
“You are not actually considering this, are you?”
“This is not about how long I have known you.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Staying alive,” Malakai said. “Both of us, if I can manage it.”
He dropped the towel. His muscles coiled tight.
He was caught in a lethal trap, unsure whether to kill the friend who had just saved his life or let him go and risk becoming the reason Halloway came for him next.
“Please,” Henrik said quietly. “I swear I will not tell anyone.”
The silence in the living room stretched, thick and suffocating.
Malakai looked at the friend who had just pulled him out of the storm. Slowly, his muscles uncoiled. He lowered his bloodied hands.
“You need to leave,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “He will be here in less than an hour. And when he walks through that door, he will do what I failed to do.”
Henrik froze. His chest heaved as he swallowed hard. His eyes darted from Malakai’s blood-soaked shirt to the front door and back.
“Are you really letting me go?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that? No conditions?”
“Do not make me reconsider. Also, you need to leave Ravnehall. Things will get very messy there soon.”
Henrik moved slowly towards the threshold. He reached for the doorknob, paused, then turned back to face him. The tension finally left his shoulders.
“I will not say a single word,” Henrik swore again. “I will take this to my grave.”
“Let us hope you do not have to,” Malakai replied coldly. “I am leaving your phone on the table. You can come back for it after I am gone.”
“Where will you even go? Your father…”
“Is not your problem anymore. Go, Henrik.”
Henrik nodded, slipped through the door and ran into the rain.
Malakai let out an exhale and leaned against the wall. Sparing him was a fatal risk. But slaughtering a friend who had just offered him shelter was a line he simply could not cross.
Fifty minutes later, tyres crunched against the gravel driveway.
The phone on the table buzzed. He looked at it and it was Halloway.
Malakai grabbed his shirt and stepped outside into the rain. A black armoured SUV idled in the shadows. He pulled open the passenger door and slid into the leather seat.
Halloway did not look at him. His face was a mask of deadly focus. His eyes scanned the dark tree line while one hand rested near the pistol holstered beneath his coat.
“Keep your head down,” Halloway ordered.
He threw the vehicle into drive before Malakai had even shut the door.
“Are we being tracked?” Malakai asked, wincing as the seat belt pressed against his broken ribs.
“The wolves are ripping the streets apart looking for a bleeding vampire. We are heading straight to the airport.” Halloway pressed harder on the accelerator. “No stops. No delays. You leave Norway tonight, Malakai, or you do not leave at all.”
“Was there anyone else at the safehouse?” Halloway asked, his eyes flicking towards the rear-view mirror.
“No,” Malakai lied.
Halloway did not push it. But the silence that followed felt as though he already knew.
---
LYRA
Evening finally fell over Oslo. The violent storm had passed, leaving a chilling quiet in its wake.
Lyra sat on the edge of the hospital bed, staring blankly at the sterile white floor tiles. Her mother sat beside her, one hand resting over hers.
The hours had stretched on endlessly. Every tick of the wall clock felt like a hammer striking an anvil inside her skull.
Her father had been gone for far too long.
The hospital door opened.
Alpha Vane marched into the room. A suffocating chill flooded the space. Lyra pressed her spine against the headboard, pulling the thin sheets up to her chest.
He looked deeply exhausted, his suit damp from the rain. But beneath the fatigue was a visible disappointment.
“The hunt failed,” Vane announced.
From where Lyra sat, unexplainable relieve surge through her body.
