Chapter 10 #2
A huge stone castle came into view after we turned a corner. The large double doors were open, and six Velesians stood out front on the stairs.
“Our Alpha welcomes you, Bastian of the Alpha pack,” a man with dark brown hair announced from the top of the stairs. “And your new packmate.”
I instantly recognized the man who had spoken. Sorin Valatieri, Rynn’s brother.
“‘Packmate,’” Rynn said with a derisive snort as she climbed the stairs. “Maybe I should have invited Anita to come along after all and let her sit right next to you, batting those pretty eyelashes.”
“You’re not that much of a bitch.” The corners of Sorin’s mouth curled into the faintest hint of amusement.
“People change.” Rynn shoulder-checked him and then disappeared inside, not waiting for either of us.
The barely-there grin on Sorin’s face faded entirely, and not a single guard reacted to the exchange.
“Apologies, Bastian.” Sorin gave me a tight smile.
It was my turn to shrug as I walked up the stairs and clapped him on the shoulder. “No worries. Honestly, her foul mood is probably my fault. She’s been dealing with me nonstop for days now.”
“Is that so different than when she’s home with you though?” He glanced at me as we followed after Rynn. “She is living in the stronghold, right? Like in the main part of the castle?”
“That’s oddly specific.” I slowed my pace slightly, and Sorin did the same until we came to a complete stop. “Where else would she possibly be staying?”
Emotions flashed across his face before going carefully blank. “Forgive me, it’s been a long week and my thoughts are scattered. I was just concerned about my baby sister.”
He started walking again, but I’d identified at least one thing he was feeling: guilt.
“Aren’t you and Rynn twins?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“Yes,” Sorin said quietly. “I beat her into this world by twenty-three minutes, which makes me her older brother.”
I hummed my agreement but didn’t ask anything else.
Sorin didn’t try to strike up any further conversation, which was unusual for him.
He was a bit of a people pleaser. It was the reason his family used him as their representative.
Both Rynn’s father and uncle were a little rough around the edges.
Before her death, Rynn’s mother, Grecia, often played the role of hostess, but her decline had been slow, and Sorin had stepped up to fill the void before she’d left this world.
We walked deeper into the castle, and I tried not to let the enclosed space irritate me. Unlike our stronghold, there wasn’t much they could do to open up the castle here. Even if they did knock down the walls on the lower floor, they would just look out into other buildings.
I knew the top floors of the castle had open spaces where walls had been removed, but the bottom floors were left largely intact, which made it feel more like the castles the Moroi had taken over.
The Moroi were all about maintaining the luxurious living the Fae had left behind, whereas the Velesians were more about making it our own.
The Narchis Order had claimed this stronghold for its strategic position and because the Fae who had built it had clearly intended to house a lot of people here.
So while the cramped nature of this place wasn’t ideal, it suited the requirements of Narchis well.
Since no walls had been removed, there was no sunlight to allow plants to grow.
Instead, the Narchis had left all the original murals intact and on full display.
Most of the paintings were of night skies, which meant it had likely belonged to the Unseelie; the Seelie favored sunny meadows and crystal-clear lakes.
We turned down another hallway, and I took a few seconds to admire the painting on the right. It was one of my favorites. If I could steal this portion of the wall and bring it back to the stronghold, I would.
An endless ocean was painted onto the wall with a full moon rising out of the clouds on one side, casting its light across the rippling tide.
It was breathtaking. I was convinced that there was some magic involved, because every time I looked at the painting, I could’ve sworn that, despite being hundreds of miles from the coast, I could smell the salt of the ocean and hear the waves crashing against the shore.
The only thing the Fae had painted on the walls of our stronghold was the giant map in Cade’s study. Every other wall was nothing but blank stone.
“That’s one of Rynn’s favorites too,” Sorin said casually, and I realized I’d been staring at the painting longer than I’d intended. I tore my gaze away and looked at him.
“She probably misses it,” I said truthfully. “We don’t have any paintings like this in our stronghold. Either the Fae that built it weren’t the artistic type or they never got around to it before they vanished.”
“No place to swim, no paintings to admire.” Again, that barely-there smile graced Sorin’s lips. “My little sister no doubt misses all of that.”
“I forgot she mentioned she likes to swim,” I admitted as a thought occurred to me. “There are some hot springs tucked away in a cavern a few miles from our home. Honestly, it should have occurred to me sooner to show them to her.”
Hot springs always led to bad decisions. Maybe I’d bring Rynn when we returned and win this bet faster than even I’d anticipated.
“She’d like that,” he agreed. We made it halfway down the hall before Sorin’s footsteps slowed and he stepped a little closer to me than necessary. I arched a brow at him but didn’t move away. “Is she happy?” His words were barely over a whisper.
“Yes,” I lied.
Some of the tension bled out of his shoulders. “Good,” he breathed and stepped away. In the span of a few seconds, the apprehension and concern that had been evident on his face a moment before was gone. In its place, was his usual pleasant disposition.
I was mildly amused that Rynn’s twin was good at masking his emotions while she was absolute shit at it.
“So how are things up north?” He started walking again, and I fell into step beside him as we made our way up to the second floor.
“Same as always,” I replied casually. “Unbearably cold, too many monsters, not nearly enough fresh fish to eat.” Cade and I had grown up on the coast, where fish was available just about year-round. It was the only thing I missed from our childhood home.
He snorted. “We’re mostly down to dry meats around here. Our hunting parties have been coming home empty-handed for weeks. There’s something in the area that has driven all the prey away, which means we’ll have to go farther out if we want to get anything, but that comes with its own problems.”
“Will you be okay for the rest of winter?” I tried to recall what Cade had said about our supply levels.
He was the one who carefully tracked all of that so resources could be redistributed if necessary.
Well, Rynn helped him with it now. There were general concerns across all of the Velesian realm, but I didn’t recall him specifically calling out Rynn’s old pack, and it hadn’t been mentioned in the correspondence they’d sent to Rynn either.
I needed to make sure she never found out I’d been reading her letters. My balls couldn’t take another direct hit from her.
“No.” Rynn’s brother waved me off. “We’ll be fine. People are already getting bored of eating the same thing over and over again, but their bellies are full, and that’s all that matters.”
We fell back into a companionable silence.
Out of all of Rynn’s clan, her brother had always been the one I’d liked the best. He played things close to the chest, but he seemed honest enough and genuinely cared for his people.
Not that the rest of her family didn’t, but there was something about them that had always rubbed me the wrong way.
They had more of an us-versus-them mentality when it came to their Order and the other two Velesian Orders.
Since signing the alliance that had resulted in Rynn joining our pack over a decade ago, they had expanded to include Avala in the us part of their mentality, but they still very much hated the Fervis Order.
I knew, in Rynn’s uncle’s eyes, the best solution was to wipe out the Fervis Order entirely, which was not something the Alpha pack, and therefore the Avala Order, would ever agree to.
Sorin and I walked into a large room that was fairly similar to Cade’s study, just lacking the openness of the wall that had been torn out.
Sorin’s gaze immediately went to Rynn, and I followed it.
She was standing in front of a dark wood desk, a tall man with the same chestnut brown hair stood in front her, leaning in to whisper in her ear.
Altair, Rynn’s uncle and the Alpha of not only his pack but the entire Narchis Order.
I found it interesting that Sorin had felt the need to speak quietly to me in the hallway, and here we found Rynn’s uncle doing the same to her.
The Valatieri pack seemed to have many secrets, and it felt like most of them revolved around Rynn.
Altair dropped his hand away from Rynn’s shoulder and gave me a wide smile. “Thank you so much for making the journey and bringing Rynn back to see us. We’ve all missed her.”
Given all the letters he had sent me over the past month, I knew he was happy I was here, but I was also equally sure he didn’t give a single shit that Rynn had come with me.
There was no tenderness in his eyes when he looked at her, and based on the stiff way Rynn was standing, whatever he’d been telling her hadn’t been welcome information.
Cade hated dealing with this aspect of Velesian politics.
How our supposed allies would say one thing but mean another.
In person, he would politely go along with it, but once we got home, he’d drown his frustration in a barrel of honey ale and complain about how the further up in hierarchy Velesians got, the more they acted like Moroi.