Chapter 8 Fading

Liora

He locked me in his fucking bedroom!

But I had to give it to him, his bedroom wasn’t that bad, if I do say so myself. It was ridiculously fancy. But still, it was nothing like Cassius’ dark, gloomy lair.

We’re talking plush carpet, a fireplace I could jump up and down in if I was a cat! a huge bed, a sitting area, a balcony. You’d think he was the Alpha King himself.

But I wasn’t here to make myself comfortable.

I needed to get out, and fast.

Getting out of his comfortable prison was insulting, honestly. I guess he didn’t think a talking cat would try to escape a room this nice like the thread count was supposed to distract me from the fact that the Alpha King was minutes from being poisoned. 

I checked the door first, obviously. Latched, of course. Then the balcony, which was a two-story drop I was not built for, not in this body. That left the window Dax had cracked open earlier for air, barely wide enough for a draft, let alone a cat.

“This is a terrible idea,” Echo said.

“Noted. Do you see another way to stop Zane’s assassination before the full moon?” I said sharply. Yes, I was still very angry at her. And thankfully, that was enough to shut her up.

I wedged myself into the gap in the window and shoved. My shoulders caught first, then my hips, and for one deeply undignified second I thought I was going to die stuck in a windowsill instead of saving anyone. Then I popped free and landed badly on the ledge outside, leaving my dignity back in that bedroom with the rest of my pride.

My cat form meant I was agile and lithe, able to squeeze through every crack and gap no matter how small eventually, and with effort nobody needed to witness. 

That was how I got into the banquet hall without an invite, slipping through the same gap under the double doors I’d used the first night, keeping low, keeping to the legs and the shadows and the hems of gowns until I found cover under the nearest table.

The banquet hall was even more exquisite than the rest of the pack house – not that I’d toured the whole place yet. Gold light bathed everywhere, a live band played lilting music, and above was a ceiling almost transparent enough to see the sky through. 

Everyone was drinking, dancing, laughing, reveling like the world wasn’t currently trying to end.

This was the life. Sadly, I wasn’t living it.

I reminded myself I wasn’t here to have fun. I was here to stop the Alpha King from being assassinated by his own best friend and beta. So instead of letting my mind wander, I went looking for Zane.

I found him seated on a raised dais, overlooking the entire party with Cassius and Dax flanking his sides. 

They looked picture perfect. 

Zane was laughing at something someone said. It was the kind of laugh that made a girl fall in love. Thankfully though, I wasn't a girl. And I’d sooner jump off a cliff before I admit the tig in my chest. 

Dax beside him was quieter, and stiff. He kept glancing at Cassius every few seconds like he was trying to catch him at something. And Cassius on the other side, smiled at anyone who came close, playing his part so well I almost believed it myself.

They looked exactly like what I’d assumed they were that first week the Alpha King’s most trusted men, his shadow and his sword, whatever those titles actually meant here. 

I still didn’t fully understand this world’s hierarchy of wolves and crowns and blood. I only understood this: whatever they were to Zane, they were everything, and that was exactly what made watching this so much worse.

If only I didn’t know what I knew.

My eyes drifted to Cassius. His face – Kael’s face – smiling and talking to whoever floated up to him. I was painfully aware of how much my heart ached just watching him. I wanted to tear my eyes away. I couldn’t.

That was my best friend. That was the same crooked smile that used to show up on my porch at midnight with terrible takeout because he knew I’d had a bad day. That was –

“That is not Kael,” Echo said, her words unusually soft. “Don’t forget you’re doing this to get back to him. Cassius may have his face, but he’s not your best friend.”

That snapped me out of it. I tore my eyes away. 

He isn’t Kael. He isn’t Kael. I repeated it over and over in my head, but it didn’t help much. Every now and then my eyes drifted back to him, and the ache came back worse than before, like picking at a wound just to check if it still hurt.

“I can’t do this,” I said. I wanted to be anywhere but here, watching Kael’s face plan to murder his own best friend. The Kael I knew would never do that. He would never intentionally–

But Cassius was doing it. 

My eyes caught the movement whether I wanted them to or not. It was like time slowed. From under the table, I watched him pull a vial from his pocket and tip its contents – just a drop –into Zane’s drink.

The motion was so fast, so casual, that no one would’ve noticed it or thought twice if they did. My heart froze in place. So did my body.

He really

“Fucking move, girl,” Echo hissed. “You have to move now!”

Her voice restarted my heart, my legs, everything but the second I tried to move, I noticed it.

My body. My paws were… fading? 

I stared at where my leg should have been and frowned. Surely I was imagining that. I blinked, hard, and looked again. Still there – barely – the stone floor visible straight through my own fur like I was made of smoke. Someone was slowly breathing out.

“Um. Echo.”

“The moon,” she said, her voice trembling. I’d never heard her sound scared before, and that scared me more than whatever was actually happening to me. “Look outside. We’re running out of time.”

She was right. 

Through the transparent ceiling, I could see the moon –obnoxiously bright, full, taunting. Like it had been waiting all night for exactly this. Telling me I was a failure. That I couldn’t finish one mission. That I wouldn’t get back to Kael because I hadn’t tried hard enough, fast enough, been brave enough soon enough.

I took a shaky breath. I didn’t know the rules of any of this. I just knew this was bad. Really bad.

“How long do we have?”

“Minutes,” Echo said. “Maybe less, before…” She trailed off, but I knew what she wasn’t saying.

I didn’t have much time before I blinked out of this world completely – maybe out of existence altogether – mission unfinished, no Kael, no life, no second chance at any of it.

“Great. Cool. Fucking awesome timing.” I forced my half-invisible legs to move anyway.

I didn’t even make it out from under the table before Zane rose to his feet, fingers wound tight around the glass – the glass that was going to end his life.

I moved without thinking. I didn’t care anymore. I was fading either way, and if I was going to disappear, I was going to do it fighting. I wasn’t going to let Cassius do something so stupid – especially while wearing Kael’s face to do it.