Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Rynn
“Might I have a word?” I asked calmly from the seat I’d claimed in Cade’s large study on the third floor.
Ryker stopped halfway across the room, where he’d been heading for the exit, and smoothly pivoted to glare at me.
We’d spent the last hour hashing out the details of Selene’s arrival and her living situation here.
And by we, I meant me, Cade, and Bastian. Ryker had spent most of the meeting alternating between glaring at Bastian and me. I had no idea why he was pissed at Bastian, but I assumed he was still upset over how I’d slammed the door in his face last night and ignored him all morning.
I turned away from Ryker’s intense stare and met Cade’s questioning eyes. “Alone,” I clarified. “A moment of your time alone.”
“Come on, little wolf.” Bastian gracefully leapt down from the ledge in the broken outer wall. “Let’s go find some food.” I flicked my gaze away from Cade to see Bastian sling an arm over Ryker’s shoulders and practically drag the lycan out of the room.
“There’s no need to be so formal, Rynn,” Cade said after we could no longer hear Bastian’s and Ryker’s footsteps.
“I realize we could have handled things differently, but truthfully, I thought you understood you were a member of our pack in name only. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want you here.
” When I just continued to stare at him, he amended his statement.
“It doesn’t mean I don’t want you here. Your input over these past eight months has been very helpful, and I both value and respect you. ”
“You value and respect the spy in your midst?” I arched a brow at him.
He just shrugged. “Two things can be true at once. I believe your loyalty will always be to your pack, which I don’t blame you for, but I also truly believe you want to improve things for all Velesians. And you’ve never been shy about your loyalty to Samara, and therefore, the Moroi in general.”
Maybe a few years ago, I would have accepted that.
It was kind of hilarious Cade and the others thought I had this intense loyalty to my birth pack and the Narchis Order, considering I’d felt like an outsider in my own damn pack shortly after the deal had been struck for me to join the Alphas.
But there was no use in explaining that to them. They wouldn’t believe me or understand.
Samara did though. She knew exactly what it felt like to have your future bargained away, and it was because of my best friend and her mates that I wouldn’t settle for this part-of-a-pack-but-not-really bullshit Cade was trying to sell me.
I’d stayed awake all night thinking about it. Plotting out my options.
A bargain had gotten me into this mess. A bargain could get me out.
I just needed to come up with an offer the Alphas couldn’t refuse, which meant it had to be something they really wanted. The bargain had to be so in their favor that the Narchis and Fervis Orders would understand why they had accepted it.
Just one problem: the only idea I’d come up with was crazy. And had a lot of gaps in terms of how to accomplish what multiple people had failed to do over years.
Somewhere in the mountains was something both the Alphas and the Seelie King wanted. There was no chance of Warrick or the others telling me what they were searching for. But Erendriel might.
Not out of the kindness of his heart, of course. But the Seelie King did love listening to himself talk, so I might be able to trick him into revealing something. I just needed a tiny clue to go on.
To talk to Erendriel though, I’d need to get to the temple again.
And I couldn’t risk Bastian or one of the Alphas listening in on the conversation.
They had a habit of showing up unexpectedly when I went to the temple.
Sometimes Cade would stay with me and peruse the books and weapons stored in the hidden rooms.
The mirror in the Alpha stronghold wasn’t the only one that went to the temple though.
There was another in Narchis territory, not far from where I’d grown up.
I’d insisted on Bastian moving up the trip because I wanted some space from the Alphas, but now I could use it to kick off the first phase of my plan.
When we made it to the Narchis stronghold, I could ditch Bastian. Which shouldn’t be too difficult because once he took care of whatever business he needed to, Bastian would fall into the bed of whatever voluptuous beauty caught his eye, or beauties. His carnal appetite was well-known.
The problem was Ryker, because I had no doubt he would follow us, and that would definitely put a damper on my plans.
A deep laugh drew me out of my thoughts.
“You know Ryker’s picked up your habit of getting lost in your own head, right?
You’ve been an interesting influence on him.
” Cade leaned back, and the chair creaked a little under his weight.
Amusement danced in his eyes. “I’m guessing you wanted to speak to me alone because of Ryker.
Let me guess, you’re concerned he’s going to follow after you and Bastian? ”
Cade was quietly perceptive. It was one of the many things I liked about him. When he wasn’t being a lying asshole, anyway.
“We both know he will,” I replied. “Just like we both know that if you order him to stay here, he will.”
Cade looked at me for a long moment before dipping his head in a nod. “As you wish.”
I snorted. “At the moment, my wish is to never see any of you again.”
“Can’t help you with that, I’m afraid.” He shrugged, not seeming all that apologetic.
“Will you look at the letters on my desk before you go? We got in some new reports from the west.” Cade waved a hand towards the enormous stone desk that had been shoved in front of the open wall so he could look out at the forest while he worked.
Curiosity beckoned me, and I walked over to the desk, picking up some letters tidily stacked on the right side.
Cade was obsessively neat, and his system of organizing incoming and outgoing letters made total sense to me.
It was almost identical to my much smaller desk in the room beneath the stronghold.
Before moving here and getting to know them all better, I would have pegged Bastian as the compulsively neat one, just based on how well put-together he always looked.
I was fairly confident that, even after a night of wild sex, Bastian would roll out of bed with artfully mussed hair, looking perfect as always.
Not that what Bastian looked like the morning after his escapades was any of my business.
Although, I did see him shirtless often, and he tended to wear loose-fitting pants that hung low enough to give me all sorts of wicked thoughts.
Like how it would feel to trace my fingers across the carved V-shaped muscles over his hips before dipping them down and—
“Didn’t know migration pattern reports would make you blush,” Cade said casually next to me. Entirely too close.
“Will you stop doing that!” I jumped and slapped my hand against his chest.
Cade laughed, his enormous hand falling over mine. “I wasn’t sneaking up on you, Rynn. The chair creaked when I stood, for fuck’s sake.”
I scowled at him. “I’m putting a bell on all of you.”
A lopsided grin fell across his lips, and I found myself staring at it.
Cade’s genuine smiles were rare, and I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen one—and it definitely hadn’t been directed at me.
He was so serious all the time. I understood why.
He had to deal with the chaos generated by Bastian, Ryker, and Warrick.
It was a wonder he didn’t have grey hair.
My gaze flipped up to his inky black hair.
Today, it was pulled up into a messy knot, but not a hint of grey showed in the dark strands.
I glanced at his jawline. No grey in the dark stubble he sported either.
My eyes followed the deep scars that carved a path across the right side of his face, cutting across his mouth before trailing off.
I had no idea where he’d gotten them from, but Velesians could heal just about anything, so the injury must have been severe and possibly laced with magic.
“Going to tell me what had you blushing?” Cade’s voice deepened, and his thumb lightly brushed the back of my hand.
We both froze and looked at where my palm was still on his chest, covered by his own scarred hand, like neither of us were fully aware of what we were doing.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, and we dropped our hands and stepped away from each other.
What the fuck was that? I mentally whispered to myself. The only saving grace was that Cade looked just as bewildered as I felt.
I cleared my throat. “Something is pushing the deer to the coast.”
“Yes,” Cade agreed. “But where?”
I looked away from him and scoured the letters again, absorbing all the details scouts had reported back and organizing them into little mental folders.
Setting the letters back into the same stack I found them in, I moved to stand in front of the wall behind the desk.
On it, a giant map of Lunaria was painted.
The original map had been done by the Fae, but it had been added to by the Alphas.
Lines in bright red paint marked the Velesian, Moroi, and Furie realms. Each of those were then further broken down into different territories.
Houses for the Moroi and Order territories for the Velesians. The Furies were just . . . the Furies.
I stared at the Furie stronghold on the southwestern coast. I missed my fiery best friend, and I knew Samara did too, but there wasn’t anything I could do for her at the moment other than hope Samara was wrong and Cali hadn’t brought Nyx into the Velesian realm.
My gaze drifted up to the mountain range that covered the top of the map. Someone had added several known migration patterns. They hadn’t significantly changed in decades.
Until now.
“The scouts have been reporting changes to the migration patterns for months; I noted some last year actually. The changes were small at first, but they’ve settled into a new pattern.
” I pointed to a spot midway between the center of the map and the west coast. “I think that’s where it started.
They went farther west instead of east because of the gorge, I’m guessing.
It’s like a little piece of the badlands in the middle of the forest.”
“You know about the gorge?” I felt Cade’s attention on me but stayed focused on the map.
“Yes,” I responded. “Any area of significance is noted at Drudonia.”
Cade grunted, and I relaxed a little at the familiarity of the sound. This was what we did. Calmly talked about facts. We didn’t stand intimately close with our hands touching.
“Do you think this migration shift is permanent?” he asked.
I thought about it. “At this point, probably. It was multiple herds that changed over months. Unless something drives them off their new paths, they’ll stick to those, which means we’ll need to adjust our hunting parties.”
“The coastline will be challenging, but we’ll just have to adapt.
” Cade’s gaze drifted to the western side of the map.
Unlike the southeastern coastline in the Moroi region, which was generally safe as long as you stayed close to the shore, the western shore of Velesian territory was quite dangerous.
Reptilian sea monsters liked to bask on the rocks, and despite their aquatic nature, they were more than happy to hunt on land.
And they were fast and vicious. Any hunting parties that ventured into that area would have to be careful to not get too close.
We still had months before the herds returned to the mountains, but if I’d known about this sooner, I could have already prepared some options.
“Why are we just now hearing about this?” I frowned. “These reports are dated from months ago. Have you had them the whole time?”
“No.” Cade shook his head, eyes still on the map. “The west coast has also been inundated with predators. Not just the typical howlers and bears, but some new creatures we haven’t come across before. The packs have been preoccupied with shoring up their defenses.”
“New creatures?” I arched an eyebrow. “Any more information about what they are? Appearance? Behavior?”
Aside from my own curiosity, Drudonia would need to be informed.
They’d been cataloging all the creatures from the bestiary books we’d found in some of the hidden rooms. It was a slow process because the books couldn’t be moved from the rooms thanks to whatever spell the Fae had placed on them, and there were only so many of us fluent in Seelie and even fewer in Unseelie.
But there could be useful knowledge about these new monsters in those books, knowledge that could keep Velesians alive.
“I left the reports in . . .” Cade trailed off, his warm brown eyes cutting to me before looking away.
“They are elsewhere at the moment. I’ll have them ready for you when you return, but they mentioned seeing large creatures that were a combination between a wolf and a bear with plated armor, plus some new type of insect monster, and something that they have no idea what it is other than it can fly. It’s taken out several scouts already.”
Frustration hit me. He was hiding something.
I looked back at the map. All of Lunaria was deadly, but the worst of the monsters were in the mountains.
Lucky for us, they normally stayed there.
Whatever had been driving the deer out was doing the same to the predators.
There was only one thing I knew that could do that: wraiths.
“Whatever Warrick is hunting, is it in that region?” I pointed to the spot on the map that seemed to be the focal point of all this.
“Warrick covers a lot of territory in his search,” Cade answered evasively, his expression carefully blank.
And there it was, that wall that would always exist between us. I knew when I’d asked the question that I wouldn’t get an answer. That was fine. I’d just have to get something out of the Seelie King.
I straightened and stepped away from the wall, my hands clasped in front of me. “Is there anything else?”
Cade turned from the map to face me. “No,” he said slowly, his eyes seeming to search mine. I matched his blank expression from earlier with one of my own, and the muscles along his jawline feathered.
“Then I’ll be off with Bastian,” I said evenly. “Please uphold your end of the bargain and keep Ryker here.”
“Rynn—” Cade started, but I was already walking out the door.