Of Savage and Sin (Wolves of Ossary #2)

CHAPTER TEN

–Bain–

ALTHOUGH I HAD nothing to do with the strange-looking door that appeared ahead in the tunnel leading to my territory, somehow, I wasn’t surprised to see it there. Whether it had been magically born from mine and Naya’s inner beasts or perhaps even the Viking blade, the normal door was gone, and, in its place, a door made from Naya’s worst nightmare.

The door that first led me to her in a dream when I was a child.

One that made Naya cry out in fear and try to race by me in the opposite direction, but I caught her and pulled her into my arms, then held her tight when she tried to push me away. Fortunately, she gave in as swiftly as she fought me, melting against me and biting back a sob I knew embarrassed her because she hated crying. Hated being anything but strong.

“What is she seeing when she looks at that door?”

Kaia asked, worried as her eyes met mine. “Because I can’t see inside her mind right now. The Viking blade—”

she tilted her head, getting a better feel for things— “or your wolf is stopping me.”

“I see something I shouldn’t,”

Naya ground out, struggling to gather herself because she loathed looking and feeling weak. I felt it in every fiber of her being as she untangled herself from my arms but still stayed close, drawing on my strength to steady her. “And I don’t think it’s Bain’s wolf doing it but mine. Another attempt to keep me from getting further away from Niall.”

Kaia frowned. “What kind of door could do that?”

“The door,”

Naya said softly, giving Kaia a look. “You know the one.”

“Oh, shit,”

Kaia said just as softly when she figured it out. “The one our parents were trapped behind when their boat was sinking?”

“That’s the one.”

Naya sighed and shivered a little when she glanced at the door again. “I thought with so much therapy under my belt, I wouldn’t react so strongly, but I guess not.”

I eyed Naya curiously, wondering if she remembered my role on the fateful day she’d not only lost her parents but aunts and uncles. Kaia’s and Storm’s parents.

“Did you really want to flee the door that day, though?”

Kaia asked gently, considering Naya. “Granted, I blacked out, but I’m pretty sure you were fighting me to get to it. Pretty sure you didn’t understand the water filling our parent’s cabin would have killed us all had we managed to open it.”

“Whether I knew or not, according to my therapist, that didn’t stop it from representing fear.”

Naya kept looking that way and swallowed hard. “It came to represent everything that was taken away from me. The terrible loss we all suffered. Everything that kept me from being strong because I didn’t fight you harder when you pulled me out of there.”

She shook her head. “I hadn't tried hard enough to save them.”

She shrugged. “Of course, I understand now I couldn’t have saved them even if I wanted to, but that didn’t change what I took from it as a child.”

“Yet you did try to go back,”

I said softly, realizing she didn’t recall my role that day. Did not remember me being there at all. “I tried to pull you to safety, but you went back anyway, determined to save them.”

When Naya shook her head in confusion, I rested my hand on her shoulder and let her see inside my memories and, unfortunately, remember moments that would be difficult for her.

That had been devastating for me.

“Kaia,”

Naya cried out, latching onto the memory far faster than I thought she would by the terror in her eyes as she reached out for her cousins in the turbulent ocean. “Storm!”

Kaia and Storm had been with her moments before, but the frothing angry waves had separated them when they surfaced. Though only a child, Naya was a strong swimmer, but she struggled to get her bearings in the rough water. Struggled to find her cousins because they were suddenly gone. Vanished along with everyone else she loved into the deep, dark, cold waters below. Heavy rain beat down, and lightning flashed before coppery gold eyes caught her attention on the distant shoreline.

My reddish-gold wolven eyes.

Though I had only ever dreamt of her, somehow, I was there that day with no idea how I had arrived. No idea if she would recognize me. Nor did I care when I saw her struggling in the rough sea. All that mattered was saving her, so I dove in and swam with all the power my human form could muster, swimming as if my life depended on it because it did.

She did.

And I realized it the closer I got to her. She was crucial to me beyond dreams and meant far more than I understood at the time.

“But I had to save them,”

Naya murmured, remembering, shivering as if she were back in that icy water. “I had to get back to that door, save them, and try to save my cousins. So I dove back down when I saw you heading my way.”

“You did,”

I confirmed, recalling my dread when I dove down after her. “But I could not let you go. Refused to let you die because you would have.”

“Hell, yeah, she would have,”

Kaia said. “Forget ever getting to that door. If she had got caught in the wake of that sinking boat, it would have sucked her down after it.”

“But you pulled me up before it could, Bain,”

Naya said, her eyes wide at the memory of a boy with black hair pulling her to the surface, only for the boy to become a wolf.

“I’m not sure why my beast took over at that moment, other than it knew my human half wouldn’t be strong enough to get you to safety and didn’t want me taking the risk,”

I said gently but wasn't sure if she heard me from the depths of her memories. “My wolf would never have let you drown, even if it had to grab you by the back of your shirt collar and drag you to shore.”

“Nooo!”

Naya wailed, her eyes wide with the same terror she’d felt as a child when she saw a boy become a wolf. When she had screamed and batted me away in fear and disgust.

When she rejected me because of what I had become.

“I had no time to shift back and explain myself in the roiling waves because a rescue boat appeared,”

I went on, doing my best to coax her back to the present. “When it did, and I knew you were safe, I skulked away, devastated over your rejection. Hurt because, to my wolf’s mind, you had shunned me.”

“But I wasn’t half wolf back then,”

Naya murmured softly, having heard my words. Her eyes cleared, and her gaze drifted to my face when I removed my hand, releasing her from the memory. “I was just a frightened, heartbroken kid who saw a werewolf during the most terrifying moment of my life.”

I knew that now, but it didn’t undo the years of agony I’d endured because she had become my closest friend before that happened, and I thought she’d accepted me for who I was. I thought she knew I was lycan, even if only in dreams.

“As much as I’d like you two to keep unpacking this,”

Kaia said, her voice taking on an urgent edge again, “I recommend you go further onto Bain’s territory.”

I didn’t need to ask why because I felt Tréan’s growing frustration with Niall and his men. They had been enjoying our female pack members a little too much, and Tréan would not stand for it much longer.

“And he shouldn’t have to,”

Naya said, clearly catching my thoughts, or perhaps by this point, sensing Tréan’s because she had sworn fealty to him in New Hampshire whether she truly understood what she was doing at the time or not.

Her wolf had understood, and that’s what mattered most.

Despite being in turmoil as she tried to understand everything I’d just shown her, Naya showed admirable courage when she looked at the door again, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and strode toward it without a backward glance. She pushed past her emotions and fear, only hesitating for a moment with her hand resting on the door handle before pushing it open and stepping through.

The moment she did, stepping more firmly onto my territory, my wolf felt it. When she stopped and looked back over her shoulder, her eyes locked with mine, not in fear this time but in determination.

More than that, our wolven eyes connected.

She wasn’t shunning me this time but accepting me. Ready to face more memories. Ready to let me past all the walls she had erected in the deep, dark waters of her mind where she hid everything.

The deep, dark waters of a boat long resting on the seabed.

She was ready to let me in and give up control as she had minutes before on the ground when her wolf submitted to mine. When her human half did the same. I had thought I knew all the different ways a female could make me feel, but that moment had been new. Better. More than I realized existed. Having her body and mind submit and trust me had been the most arousing thing I’d ever felt.

Naya had given me all the power at that moment. Wanted me to have it. Her. To own her flesh and her trust. Give up everything in ways she never had with anyone else. And it was already addictive. Everything about her was. She wasn’t just worth bedding and loving but dying for.

Just like my wolf had known the day I tried to save her from drowning.

A day I had long hated but would repeat a million times if I knew it would bring me to this moment. If I had known I’d someday escort her through an earthen tunnel toward my castle.

If I had known she would be in my bed by nightfall.

“As much as I hate to put it like this,”

Kaia said into my mind, taking the lead in front of Naya again. “Sex should probably happen sooner rather than later. Anything you can do to pull her wolf closer to you and further away from Niall because he’s proving stronger than we anticipated.”

“And I suspect he’s being an asshole to your female pack members because that’s who he's always been,”

Naya said aloud, making it clear she could follow any internal conversations I had now, which was good because it meant our inner beasts were growing even closer.

“Niall’s always been a chauvinistic dick to women,”

Naya went on. “Something it took me far too long to figure out.”

“You weren’t the only one who didn’t see it right away,”

Kaia muttered. “We were all friends as kids. Shoot, he was almost family, so don’t beat yourself up too much. I get your reasons for sticking close to him now.”

She gave Naya a thankful, reassuring look over her shoulder. “I know you were just trying to climb out of the gutter like the rest of us, no matter what it took. And I know you two got on better because you were the same age…then, well, you know.”

I bit back a growl at Kaia’s unspoken words because Naya and Niall had been attracted to each other. Undoubtedly, more Niall to her, but Naya hadn’t been immune to whatever they shared. Had she, she wouldn’t have enticed him the night he bit her, flirting on that dance floor, because she had.

She had wanted something from him, only not what she got.

“Just when I think we’re making headway, Bain,”

Naya said telepathically, her emotions fluctuating in ways I didn’t need them to right now, “you remind me that you might have tried to save me once, but certainly not a second time. And now I know why. Not just bitterness of my rejection years before but jealousy got in the way.”

Though tempted to respond, I remained quiet when I felt my alpha’s unease at the instability growing due to Niall and his men. Not only that but his concern the unresolved issues between Naya and me might not go away so easily. If Naya and I didn’t unite properly and soon, things could go wrong quickly.

Especially if Tadc were to pick up on Niall and Naya’s presence.

Understanding what my inner beast wanted Naya to experience at my castle in hopes of bringing her wolf closer to mine, Kaia took a right at the fork ahead, and we started up the wooden stairs that led to a door that brought us to one of my castle’s back hallways.

“Naya should see it all.”

I gestured to go left toward the great hall where I had recently sat. “My pack knows she’s coming, so ‘tis best we start there.”

“Shouldn’t my presence be kept secret?”

Naya asked, taking in everything, from the torch-lit wooden hallways to furnishings she found appealing in ways that shocked even her.

“Since Kaia’s arrival in this century, all the disloyal pack members have been weeded out,”

I told Naya. “So, rest assured, everyone here can be trusted.”

“Agreed,”

Kaia said. “Everyone here pays homage to Tréan as their high king, yet they are loyal to Bain in ways they aren’t to Tréan because this is his territory. So you need to meet them. Know them. And they need to know you because it will bring strength to us all.”

“Here’s hoping,”

Naya muttered under her breath, her emotions still fluctuating toward me, so she was right to question if this would work. Especially given I had lain with more of my pack members than she would probably appreciate. While a part of me felt justified because she had taken Niall between her thighs, another part felt uneasy. Off-center in a way I didn’t much like.

Thankfully, as we made our way through the corridor toward the great hall, Naya seemed more interested in my castle's architecture, which made sense given she bought, sold, and even rented buildings to people in her century.

“This is beautiful,”

Naya murmured, her attention caught by the carved archways and the intricate designs in the woodwork. She stopped and traced her fingers over one design just beyond the great hall that looked like flowing waves. “Who created all this? They’re incredibly talented.”

I shook my head when Kaia looked at me and wanted to say that I had.

“Pack members,”

I replied gruffly, surprised by my inner beast’s reaction to Naya's praise. “Come.”

Putting my hand to the small of her back because I wanted to be close, however briefly, I gestured at the towering entranceway to the hall. “’Tis time to meet those wishing to protect you.”

I tried to hold my tongue but could not help myself. “And call you pack. Call you part of their pack.”

Although Naya tensed, it seemed she understood. This was the only path forward for now, so she straightened her spine and nodded at Kaia and me. “Okay. Whatever puts distance between Niall and I.”

Glad to hear it, I led her into the hall, not to where I’d sat before on the high dais but toward a table tucked in the center of all the others. One I sat at often because, like Tréan and Callum, I liked to be on equal footing with my pack.

It was stranger than I thought it would be, leading her into the heart of my pack for the first time and seeing them through her eyes. Her through their eyes. As expected, outside of my guardsmen, and children because they were resting, most pack members were here either in wolf or human form, and all were as taken by her as she was by them.

If I had learned nothing else about Naya via our dreams over the years, she excelled at adapting and doing whatever it took to achieve her goals. It seemed those traits came just as naturally here when they might not have given she was over a thousand years in her past.

“Yet she’s becoming a part of you and you, her,”

Kaia said into my mind as Naya didn’t act aloof or discourteous but cordial with everyone, smiling and nodding. Even with the females who had enjoyed my bed because I got the discomforting feeling she pinpointed each and every one of them.

And as if karma was coming home to roost, the males were keenly aware of her in a way that discomforted me. In fact, they set me so on edge I couldn't help but growl at any mid-level beta males who dared come too close to her with too much interest in their eyes.

Fortunately for them, they lowered their heads, whether human or wolf, and backed away slowly, submitting to me and acknowledging she was mine. Even so, it became abundantly clear as Naya sat among my pack and got to know them, so at ease and clearly so desired, that I would need to mark my territory soon.

And my territory, above all else, was Naya.

Or so I thought until she did something that proved it might be the other way around. More so, she proved it in a fashion that set my inner beast on edge, yet again, but in a whole new way.