Chapter 214: Darkwater Keep

Moonfire burns and burns till it has eaten up every cell in your body. It only stops burning when you are just an ash in the wind.

Della knew a lot of people had died, if not everyone.

She had tried to save them, but they had chosen loyalty. They had chosen to die with everyone else rather than to be saved alone.

It was in front of her eyes that Rowan had burnt to death. In front of her very eyes that Moira had screamed on top of her lungs as Moonfire turned her to dust.

Even Alpha Cassian was gone, along with his Pack.

Everything…no, everyone had fallen.

The only person she wasn’t sure if they were alive or dead was Malachi.

A few hours ago, she’d been at Riverrock. Moonfire had surrounded everything and everyone, and even Alpha Conan had died before she arrived. The fire had started to spill underground, and she heard someone screaming for help down there.

When she walked into the cell, Leopold was there.

He stared at her like everyone else – like he was seeing a ghost.

Della had considered turning around and leaving him to perish like the rest of them, but she thought of something better in store for him.

She’d walked up to him, stood over him with those frightening eyes and extended a hand toward him.

Fear clouded his gaze, and now, there was confusion.

She didn’t extend the hand for him to take it. She extended it for him to see the scar that was still in the middle of her palm. The blood pact he’d tricked her into making.

Then, she said, “How about we make another one?”

“W…what?” He squeezed himself harder against the wall, trembling.

Blood was oozing out of his nose and ears already, and smoke filled the air around them. The Moonfire particle radiation in the air was poisoning him, and usually, it’d poison her too.

Now she was awakened. Her body would instantly turn it into harmless particles.

“Let’s make a blood pact,” Della offered. She tried to make her voice sound soft, but there was no change. She still sounded like an empty can.

Leopold blinked. Blood pact?!

“I’ll get you out of here,” She continued, “Out of the Moonfire completely, to somewhere the flames would not reach. How about that?”

She saw the suspicion clear and wide in his gaze, and then he pressed himself against the wall harder and shook his head immediately. Looks like he wasn’t going to take that chance with her.

“Aren’t you going to at least ask me what I want in return for saving you?”

“How are you still alive?” He finally asked, wiping blood from under his nose.

The man was a weak mess. He’d gone pale from the poison, and she was pretty sure it took a lot of effort to even raise a hand to his face.

“Let’s just say that when your ex-bride killed me, you should have also set me on fire to make sure I was properly dead,” Della replied, then she turned around to leave.

If he wasn’t going to accept the pact, then fine. She might as well just watch him from a distance and enjoy the sight of him stranded, weak, dying, before the Moonfire swallows him too.

But the moment she took a step forward, she heard him scramble desperately and caught her leg.

Leopold instantly reeled back in pain, clutching his palm in pain. He’d only touched her for a second, but it felt like he’d just experienced frostbite.

His breathing was shallow, “What would you ask for in return?”

Della slowly smirked, but then it disappeared. She turned around again, and Leopold felt like a hundred spiders were crawling up his skin as her gaze fell on his face again, “In return, I simply ask that you…kill someone for me,”

“Who?” He asked.

“A little fly. I’m sure you’ll enjoy killing him. What do you say?”

“I want to know who this person is,”

Her gaze intensified, and Leopold swallowed tightly. Behind him, the Moonfire was beginning to chew the Mooniron bars. It was blazing, and the poison was clouding his vision now.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to demand anything from me. Unless you want me to change my mind and leave. And when I turn around this time, I will not turn back for any other reason,”

His body leaned forward, eyes bloodshot from pain. His wolf had already passed out inside of him, and the poison had burrowed itself deep inside his lungs.

“Fine,” He held out a hand, “I agree. Just… just take me out of here,”

Della reached down and took a swipe of the blood running out of his nose, then she cut herself in the palm a little bit and mixed the blood together. Once the pact was done, she stretched back to her full length and looked down at the dying man again.

Desperate. Scared. Alone.

He’d taken advantage of it the night he’d made that fake pact with her. He’d taken advantage of her fear of losing Lian. Now, the tables have turned.

Now, it was her turn.

“Please…” He said weakly and grabbed her leg again. Looks like he was no longer afraid of frostbite.

“Of course,” Her smirk deepened, “Let’s get you out of here,”

.

.

.

This was the day Della had been waiting for ever since she arose from the dead. Ever since she opened her eyes and decided that every single person who participated in torturing her and the people she loved would not go unpunished. Would not go unscarred.

Moonfire had eaten up everything, and was still eating everything. On this earth, only a few wolves still exist, and that was because she let them keep existing. Because she wasn’t done with them.

And now, they were here with her.

At the Darkwater Keep.

Where they would spend the rest of their days.

It was somewhere beyond the Northern mountains — a fortress surrounded by a black lake.

It was abandoned after a war destroyed its inhabitants. Over time, the water rose and swallowed its lower chambers, leaving only the upper towers and a few crumbling courtyards above the surface.

The Moonfire still surrounded them, but it wouldn’t reach them here because of the Darkwater…unless she brought it here herself.

She was staring into the Black water below them when she heard the faint noise of stirring chains and painful groans coming from the upper chambers of the fortress.

A smile crossed her face again, and then she said, “Looks like my family is finally awake.”