Chapter Seventeen:
Jace

 

Blood was everything — maddening, chaotic, disastrous, and bringing a sort of peace he hadn’t known in years. This was what he knew, all he wanted to know, and he didn’t want to come out of the blood haze. Jace knew what he was doing was — oh, fuck, he didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was glorious.

It infected every sense — heavy on his tongue, in his nostrils, matting his fur — and it left him feeling alive. Bloodlust permeated every aspect of his being, everything he was, everything he could be, and he lost himself to it.

For so long he’d simply been there, existing and languishing, and it hadn’t been until the past few months that anything had changed. He’d lacked a purpose after the Takeover, and it had led him to places he’d never meant to go. This? This was where he was meant to be, on the front lines, ripping and tearing and rending and—

Flesh tore beneath his fangs, those merciless teeth that drove into one spot then the next, and he was left with the glory of it all as he watched his enemies fall.

And fall they did, one by one.

He abruptly turned, sensing only one more presence in the room. Still snarling, he saw the witch standing there — the witch he knew he’d wanted to tear into pieces more than once, the witch who had torn him into pieces and stitched him back together into this patchwork mockery of what a werewolf ought to be.

This was what a werewolf was meant to be.

He was the predator in the room, and everyone should fucking fear him.

Everyone had feared him until they’d breathed their last, even the witch in front of him, despite the calm front he put up.

Jace could smell it though, radiating from the witch in a way that was entirely unfamiliar. It only made him bare his fangs again, unsettling him, and he started to stalk closer.

“Good boy,” the witch said.

It caught him off guard, and Jace faltered, staring suspiciously at the witch as a growl escaped him.

“Good boy,” the witch said again.

He knew those words. They were words he had heard so many times, words he’d craved even as he’d dreaded them, words that were something new and something old and—

“Jace.”

There was his name, dripping like blood from the witch’s tongue, and he knew it. He knew it, but he didn’t respond to it any more than the “good boy” because he didn’t know how to.

“Shh,” the witch — his master — said.

His master.

Jace snarled louder.

“Good boy,” his master said. He stood there, the fear slowly dissipating, and as it did, Jace relaxed.

That was right. That was better. That was good.

“You are such a good boy.”

He was a good boy. He’d painted the walls red, leaving behind a bloodbath like he was meant to.

He liked it. He liked the taste of the blood on his tongue as he earned all of that approval — approval and the tiniest taint of fear, but it was going to be gone soon, leaving his master instead of more prey.

Only his master.

He stopped stalking forward when he was only a step away from his master, when he was close enough that he could’ve snapped and ripped out the last throat that was pumping red hot blood through a warm body. He could end it all, as he had the others.

He wanted to. There was a part of him that ached to. He bared his teeth again just because he could, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat. The blood-soaked hackles on his back rose to remind the witch — his master — that he was still the ‘wolf he’d once been.

He was still in control, despite having a master, despite being the “good boy” that his master had trained him to be. He was in control, yet he didn’t dare tear this body apart. He couldn’t make sense of the conflict warring inside of him. It was all a blood-tinged mess in his head, and another murmured “good boy” let him smooth his hackles back down.

He had defended his master, as he had been commanded. He had destroyed all of his master’s enemies, because he was a Good Boy.

His master reached forward regardless of Jace’s bared teeth, the witch’s fingers curling behind his ear in a familiar, comforting scratch. Tension ebbed from his blood-soaked body, and Jace expelled a breath in a low sigh as he lost himself to it. His eyes closed.

“Good boy. Such a good boy.”

Those words… He knew those words, and the tone now began to match the familiarity of the words.

“Doesn’t that feel good?”

He knew those too. With the fear now gone, the apprehension fading fast they were like a warm blanket — or a pillow…

“Doesn’t it feel right?”

And those.

“Surrender to me, Jace.”

Surrender.

It all came flooding back, the confusion fading for one of those rare moments of utter clarity. He snarled as he launched himself back, out of Elias’s reach.

Elias.

Elias Ivers.

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. What had he just done?

It was all he could smell, all he could see, the blood still lingering thick and heavy on his every sense, and Jace had been the cause of all of it.

Elias was going to fucking kill him if he didn’t kill the witch first.

But he didn’t want to kill him. He wanted more of those scritches and scratches behind his ear, wanted to settle at his master’s feet and sleep for a week now that he’d come down from the spell of blood that had enraptured him. He wanted to be a good boy.

Elias kept saying it too. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

“Jace.”

Jace licked his lips anxiously, and he eyed the man who ruled him, who had made Jace’s life his own, his eyes going gleaming wet as apprehension made him freeze where he stood.

Elias breathed in and out deeply, staring at him. He seemed lost for a moment.

Jace could do it. He could tear him down, like he should, like he felt like he should want to.

He should’ve done it already.

He couldn’t.

He backed down instead.

He surrendered, with his head low and his tail tucking between his legs. He remembered those words as they ghosted through his mind.

Good boy. Such a good boy. Doesn’t it feel good? Doesn’t it feel right to surrender to me?

It felt so good, so right, and—

“Are you well?” Elias asked, his voice oddly quiet.

Jace took a moment to account for any injuries, but there weren’t any. A werewolf’s resilience was nothing to scoff at, even without the moon to empower them further.

Hesitantly, he let himself feel the shock of it. He’d taken down six Elders. Six. It felt impossible, yet he and Elias — together, together, together — had killed the entire Council. All but a tiny vampire and a soft ‘wolf.

The ferocious and predatory part of him hoped Elias would command him to hunt down the only remaining members. He would rip them apart, too, allowing him to hand all of it over to Elias on a silver platter, just as his master desired.

But the bloodlust had faded too much, and rational thought took center stage again, albeit slowly and jerkily in his broken mind. He wouldn’t be able to surprise the other two as he had the Elders in this room.

“We need to leave,” Elias told him. He hesitated, then added, “Stay as you are.”

Jace’s ears flicked, and he eyed his master again. No leash. No collar. No means of control over him. Only trust that he would be good, that he would do as he was told… that he wouldn’t change his mind, that he wouldn’t destroy the Ivers witch who had destroyed him so thoroughly that he was able to decimate the Council when left unchecked.

Elias reached for him again. Those fingers weren’t as steady as they normally were, but they scratched behind Jace’s ear all the same without any fear Jace could discern.

Elias gestured to the door. Jace cast a glance at him before trotting ahead of him like some twisted sort of guard dog, but he had already passed the point of being bothered by the notion — not after savaging six Elders.

He was torn between nausea and triumph.

His master had hated the Council, which meant he leaned toward the latter.

Elias reached past him to open the door, and beyond it lay smoke and chaos. Men and women shouted, but Jace couldn’t see them through the thick cloud of smoke.

The witch turned for the hallway leading to his office rather than the exit, and Jace’s teeth snatched up the ankle of one of his trouser legs. Elias looked down, startled, but Jace started to pull in the direction of the exit.

There was nothing worth trying to save, not when everything was going to be burned to the ground.

Tartarus was falling, and with it, the pillars of Elias’s grand empire.

The very least he could do was escape with his life.

The shouting sounded so distant, but there were footsteps not far from them. Jace had no way of telling if they were allies or enemies, and he glanced up at Elias.

“This way,” Elias insisted in a low murmur, shaking Jace free of his leg.

Jace whined, but he followed Elias in the direction of his office. It wasn’t far from the VIP area, and they cleared the distance without running into anyone.

They approached the end of the hallway, near Elias’s office door but not going inside — thank fuck. Jace would’ve had to physically drag the man out of the building if he’d tried to rescue any of his belongings. Instead, Elias murmured a spell, and a door shimmered into existence.

Jace stared at it.

“What?” Elias asked Jace, something damn near grim amusement in his voice. “Did you think I wouldn’t have a way out in case of an emergency?” He took a deep breath. “We won’t escape into safety from the sound of things, though,” he warned.

Elias unlocked the door, magic pricking at Jace’s fur as he released a spell. The door opened, leading out onto the street that ran along the side of Tartarus.

Their abrupt appearance startled the sentries there, and Jace made quick work of them with teeth and claws. He didn’t lose himself this time. He couldn’t risk everything ending because he’d been careless.

Even from there, he could see that Elias’s car had been demolished, the windshields and doors smashed in, with the tires slashed. There would be no escaping by car, which meant they had to leave on foot.

Covered in blood and gore as they were, they were sure to attract attention. He shook as much of it as he could, trying to avoid leaving a trail of it to follow. He didn’t know where Elias was going, but the man certainly seemed to have a plan. It didn’t surprise him. The witch was made of plan after plan, plot within plot.

They didn’t need to go far. They reached a small house with a one car garage, and after making sure they hadn’t attracted undue attention, Elias looked to Jace.

Jace sniffed the air, but he couldn’t smell or hear anything. He shook his head.

Elias unlocked the door to the house, the one that was a little too close to Tartarus for comfort considering that there was fire — always, always fire, consuming everything and leaving nothing behind.

“Come,” Elias said under his breath, catching Jace’s attention.

He followed the witch into the house and to the bathroom, where Elias held the door open for him.

“Shift and bathe.”

Jace didn’t dare hesitate, and he shifted back. The laws of nature didn’t apply to werewolves, and his collar was right where it had always been — feeling natural, like it belonged there. He was still covered in blood.

He’d been naked before, and he remained that way. There was still a rush of blood down the drain as he crawled into the shower Elias had started while he’d been shifting.

“Hurry,” Elias warned briskly before leaving the room.

The warm water was fucking orgasmic, but he didn’t have time to enjoy it. He let the water sluice away the blood that was matting his hair and flaking off of his skin, reaching for the cloth Elias had tossed to him. He sat, grabbing the soap, and by the time Elias returned with two sets of clothing, he was done.

Two?

Elias set them on the counter and stripped quickly, ordering him, “Stand and dress.”

He wasn’t even sure he could stand, and the idea of putting on clothes felt wrong, but Jace awkwardly got to his feet. He hurriedly toweled himself off and pulled on the bigger set of clothes. They clung to his still-damp skin, and his hair left trails of water down his face until he dried it again.

He grabbed another towel, handing it to Elias as the witch stepped from his own efficient shower, and he dressed in silence — awkward and with furtive looks cast in Elias’s direction.

Elias wasn’t explaining anything, but that was typical for the witch.

Jace just had to follow… and hope they were going to get out of this in one piece.