Chapter 25: Taken
The eastern tower stairwell swallowed sound. Each step the triplets took downward rang hollow against ancient stone, boots striking in perfect, predatory unison. The bond between them thrummed like a plucked string. Seren’s terror, a bright, jagged note that pulled them faster, deeper, toward the dungeon levels.
Another scream tore upward from below.
Seren’s voice. Raw, furious, cut short too soon.
Aeron’s wolf ripped at the inside of his skin. Gold flared across his irises; claws punched through fingertips and retracted again in the same heartbeat. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Kael and Theron felt it through the bond the same way he did: she was fighting, she was bleeding, she was still alive.
They hit the dungeon landing at a dead run.
The iron gate at the top of the service stair hung crooked, lock twisted into scrap. Someone had forced it...and recently. Torchlight flickered erratically along the corridor ahead. Cell doors stood open like broken teeth. The air reeked of damp stone, old iron, and fresh copper.
Blood.
Aeron reached Seren’s cell first.
The door was opened wide.
Inside: overturned stool, shredded blanket, a thin smear of red on the flagstones. Unmistakable hers. The manacles that should have secured the outer bars lay in pieces, links sheared clean through as though bitten by something far stronger than human muscle.
Kael dropped to one knee beside the blood smear. Two fingers came away wet. He brought them to his nose, inhaled, growled low in his throat.
"Minutes old," he said. "She fought."
Theron was already at the back wall, running fingertips along the mortar lines. "Hidden passage," he said flatly. "East corner. Stone cut and reset. Professional work...recent."
Aeron didn’t answer. He was staring at the blood.
His wolf howled inside his skull. Fury, possession, terror so absolute it burned.
"They took her," he said. The words came out quiet. Lethal.
Kael rose. "Elowen’s men. No one else would dare touch her under our noses."
Theron pressed a seam. Stone ground against stone. A narrow panel slid inward, revealing a black tunnel barely wide enough for Kael’s shoulders. Fresh boot prints scarred the dust floor...three heavy sets. And one smaller set...dragged.
Aeron went first.
The passage sloped, levelled, and sloped again. Water dripped ahead. The air grew colder, thicker with centuries of disuse. After forty paces it forked.
Kael crouched, nostrils flaring.
"Left," he growled. "Her scent’s strongest."
They took the left fork.
Another scream echoed down the tunnel. Muffled, distant, furious.
Seren.
Aeron broke into a sprint.
The tunnel ended at a rusted iron grate set into the outer foundation wall. Beyond it lay the eastern service yard...laundry lines, refuse pits, rarely patrolled after dark. The grate had been forced outward; bent bars showed pry-bar marks.
Kael ripped the entire grate free with one savage yank and hurled it aside.
They stepped into the moonlight.
The yard was empty.
But fresh cart tracks scarred the mud. Narrow, deep, laundry-wagon wheels. Hoofprints beside them. Two horses. Moving fast.
And dragged through the mud beside the left wheel was a long smear of blood and torn green fabric.
Seren’s dress.
Aeron’s vision narrowed to pinpoints.
He felt Kael’s snarl more than he heard it. Low, lethal, promising carnage.
Theron crouched beside the tracks, fingers tracing the rut.
"They’re heading for the old mill road," he said. "It circles toward the eastern forest. If they reach the tree-line, we lose the scent in the undergrowth."
Aeron straightened.
"No," he said. "We don’t."
He turned to Kael.
"Rouse the guard. Full cohort. Seal every gate. No one leaves the palace grounds tonight."
Kael was already shifting...muscle tearing, fur exploding outward in iron-grey waves. He didn’t wait for more orders. He simply launched himself toward the nearest guard post, a howl ripping from his throat that rolled across the palace grounds like thunder.
Theron looked at Aeron.
"Together?" he asked.
Aeron’s answer was already happening.
Bone cracked. Muscle reshaped. Black fur surged across skin like spilled ink. In seconds the eldest prince was gone; in his place stood a massive black wolf, frost edging his ruff, gold eyes burning.
Theron followed a heartbeat later...silver-black coat gleaming, lean and lethal.
They scented the wind once.
They found her.
The bond sang. Pain, fear, defiance and they answered with a triple note of fury that shook the night.
Then they ran.
The mill road was narrow, rutted, hemmed by thorn-hedge on one side and the palace curtain wall on the other. Moonlight turned the ruts silver. The cart was ahead...small, enclosed, drawn by two heavy draught horses. Two riders flanked it; a third sat the box, whip cracking over the team.
Inside the cart, they could hear muffled struggle, and a choked cry.
Aeron closed the distance in a blur of black shadow.
He didn’t howl. He took them by surprise.
He launched from the hedge line, slammed into the lead rider’s mount at full speed. Horse and man went sideways into the thorns with a scream of horseflesh and a wet crunch of bone. The rider’s cry cut off abruptly.
The cart lurched.
Kael hit the second rider from the off-side—pure brute force, jaws closing around the sword arm and ripping downward. Bone snapped like dry wood. The man fell, screaming, blood spraying black in the moonlight.
Theron went for the driver.
No theatrics. He leaped onto the box, knocked the man sideways, and sent him tumbling into the road. The whip fell. The horses bolted, panicked.
The cart careened wildly.
Aeron landed on the roof, claws punching through canvas and wood. He ripped the cover away in one savage tear.
Seren lay inside. Her wrists bound behind her back, gag in her mouth, and fresh blood trickling from a split lip. The remaining piece of her green gown was torn at the shoulder; bruises bloomed along her cheekbone and throat where rough hands had held her down.
When she saw him, her eyes went wide—fear, relief, fury all at once.
The gag muffled her cry, but the bond carried it straight into his chest like a blade.
He dropped inside the cart, shifting mid-fall...man again, naked, furious, reaching for the ropes.
The driver, still alive, scrambled up from the road, crossbow rising.
Theron landed on his back before he could aim.
One twist, his neck snapped.
Kael tore the last rider apart in seconds with teeth and claws, showing no mercy.
The horses slowed, confused, then stopped.
Silence fell...broken only by the creak of the settling cart and Seren’s ragged breathing through the gag.
Aeron sliced the ropes with a claw that hadn’t fully retracted. Pulled the cloth from her mouth.
She sucked in air and coughed. Twice.
"They said..." Her voice cracked. "They said Elowen wanted me gone. Before you could..."
Aeron cupped her face in both hands gently despite the blood on his fingers.
"Shh," he said. "We have you."
She stared up at him—pupils blown, cheeks streaked with tears and dirt with someone else’s blood.
"They hit me," she whispered. "When I fought. I think...I think they were going to—"
Kael appeared at the back of the cart, still half-wolf, blood matting his grey ruff, eyes blazing.
"They won’t touch you again."
Theron dragged the last body off the road, wiped his hands on the dead man’s cloak.
"We need to get her inside," he said. "Now. Before Elowen realizes her men failed."
Aeron lifted Seren against his chest. She was shaking—shock, adrenaline, pain—but she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
They moved.
Not toward the main gates. Too exposed, too many eyes.
They moved toward the old sally-port in the curtain wall, a hidden door used only in sieges. Theron knew the mechanism. One press, one turn, and the stone swung inward on silent counterweights.
They slipped through into the palace’s lower levels.
The corridors here were deserted, lit only by occasional guttering torches. They moved fast, silent, until they reached the eastern tower stair.
Aeron carried her the entire way.
At the top, the tower chamber waited. Round, high-ceilinged, fire already burning low, furs piled on the wide bed, windows shuttered tight.
Six of Kael’s most trusted men stood outside the door. They snapped to attention when they saw the princes—naked, blood-streaked, carrying the small human girl between them.
No one questioned it.
Inside, Aeron set Seren on the edge of the mattress.
She looked up at them—three princes, three wolves, who had just torn through the night to reach her. "Thank you." She whispered.
And for the first time since the marking, she felt sure of their promise. They are in this together.
She reached out her small, shaking hand, and touched Aeron’s cheek where a streak of someone else’s blood had dried.
"Thank you for standing by your words." She muttered.
Aeron caught her wrist. Gently.
"Always."
Behind him, Kael barred the door.
Theron moved to the fire, added wood, and sent sparks spiralling upward.
And then, four heartbeats synced.
One small, mortal heart and three massive, predatory ones.
They all freshened up, had dinner and proceeded to have a much-needed rest.
So much battle lies ahead.
.
.
.
.
Elowen opened her eyes in her bed.
She sat up slowly.
Reached for the bell-pull.
No answer.
She rang again.
Silence.
Then someone knocked on her chamber door.
Elowen smiled.
She rose, wrapped a silk robe around herself, and crossed the room.
When she opened the door, Commander Draven stood outside.
He was alone.
His silver hair gleamed in the torchlight. His expression was unreadable.
"Princess," he said quietly.
"Commander." Elowen tilted her head. "You’re up late."
Draven did not smile.
"Your men," he said. "The ones you sent to the dungeon. They’re dead."
Elowen’s smile never wavered.
"Are they?"
Draven stepped closer—close enough that she could smell steel and old blood on him.
"And your brother," he continued, "has your little servant back. Safe. In the eastern tower. Under triple guard."
Elowen studied him for a long moment.
Then she laughed—soft, delighted, dangerous.
"Well then," she said. "I suppose we’ll have to try something... louder next time."
Draven did not answer.
He simply reached into his cloak—and drew out a single sheet of parchment.
He held it between two fingers.
Elowen’s laughter died.
On the parchment—written in her own hand—was the original order to poison the heirs’ meal.
The one she had burned.
Or thought she had burned.
Draven’s voice was very soft.
"The council meets at dawn, Princess."
He let the parchment flutter to the floor between them.
"And they will want to know why their future kings were almost fed silver-laced honey tonight."
Elowen stared at the paper.
Then slowly, very slowly, she lifted her gaze to Draven’s face.
And smiled again.
This time it was not amused.
It was the smile of someone who had just decided to burn the entire board.
"Tell me, Commander," she said sweetly.
"Whose side are you on?"
