Chapter 8 Alphas #3
He was chewing his lip, looking into the forest but not seeing the tees. His mind was elsewhere—maybe back in Kaledonea. Or maybe contemplating the change his life had taken. Ridan had never considered what this might be like for him. Even if it was a choice Brune made, it was still a change.
Ridan elbowed him harder than necessary.
“Look at the creek.” He jutted his chin up to where he’d picked the flower, where the creek was shallow as it split in two.
“Here it’s a small thing, but up in the mountains it’s a river so strong not even a horse can cross without losing its footing.
It travels all the way down, losing some of its power before splitting off into two different directions. ”
Brune nodded, eyes on Ridan.
“If you take the far fork, you can follow the creek all the way to the Road where it grows strong again. And if you take the closer fork, you can follow back to the Clan where it might be smaller, but it gives us water.” He turned back to Brune, unwilling to look into his eyes, but unable to look away.
“Do you see? The mountain river changes, but that doesn’t make it wrong or weaker. It’s just a new direction.” He licked his lips. “That’s where you are now. You just have to pick.”
Brune’s lips parted slightly, his breath hitching as he leaned a little closer to Ridan. “What if it’s the wrong choice?”
“Won’t know until you’re at the end. And by then it’ll be too late to regret it.”
“Which would you choose?”
“I wouldn’t,” Ridan declared, lifting his chin. “I’d make my own path.”
That made the alpha chuckle, his smile brightening until he was tossing his head back. “I bet you would. Use your own two hands to make a whole new river.”
Ridan huffed.
Leaning back on his hands, Brune rolled his neck so he could lazily look over at Ridan. “Maybe I’ll just follow you then. Shield your back so you can focus on what’s ahead.”
His face was so genuine, Ridan had to look away. There was nothing mocking in his tone. An alpha willing to show him his neck, willing to follow in his shadow.
Ridan wrinkled his nose. “As if I need you,” he grumbled petulantly.
Brune laughed.
“Where’s Ridan?” Jonen lifted his head, curls bouncing as he glanced around the small clearing they were picking herbs in.
Corric didn’t bother looking up, nails pulling the leaves off a stem. “He left an hour ago.”
“What?!” Jonen squeaked, dropping his basket. His black tea scent grew stronger, thicker. Alpha is worried. Corric couldn’t help the small smile that slipped across his face.
“He’s fine, alpha,” he teased, watching as Jonen’s cheeks colored in embarrassment. “You know he needs time alone.”
Jonen stammered something about ‘dangerous times’ but he picked up his basket, continuing the chore his mother sent them on.
He wasn’t wrong, of course. The thick smoke in the sky from burial pyres was proof of that.
But this close to the clan, and in the shroud of the forest Ridan knew so well, he would be fine.
Besides, there are dangers beyond that of a physical nature.
A darkness of the mind that no amount of distance could save you from.
It was a darkness Corric was intimately familiar with.
Most days he could ignore it, the persistent shadows that liked to stew in the back of his mind.
But lately, they had become oppressive. They brought nightmares with them.
As if the presence of his father’s men on their land had breathed new life into them.
Dreams that were so indistinct he couldn’t be sure if they were memories or something he’d conjured from the depths of his own mind.
He’d been so close to making those nightmares real.
Corric had accepted it. He would hold the time he spent with the clan close, using it as a shield to protect himself.
Maybe it was a foolish decision, but it’s one he would have made again if it meant just one of those funeral pyres would remain dark.
Corric didn’t often spend time wondering about things outside of what he could touch.
His mother did. She used to sit in the window, face canted to catch the sun.
Eyes closed so she could chase whatever was projected on the back of her lids.
Sometimes she would smile. Corric liked that.
He liked when he could sit beside her and listen to her speak to someone he couldn’t see.
She’d ask them questions and tell Corric the answers.
Now he knew it was madness. A woman so fractured she’d tried to fix herself with the pieces she had left.
Back then, it had seemed like there was a purpose.
Like she could tell him it all meant something, that every terrible cruel thing was planned.
Privately, he thought perhaps having his carriage beset upon was one of those things. A cruelty that led him to so much joy.
But now he wondered if he hadn’t just been biding time. Fate lurking on the outskirts, waiting to pounce when he least expected it. Outrunning his fate had only brought it here, to poison those he loves most.
“Corric?” Jonen was looking at him, his big eyes wide. No, dilated. With a jerk, he realized his scent had soured to the point that Jonen was uncomfortable. He’d put the basket down and come to kneel beside him, hand reaching for him but not touching. Never touching outside of training.
“I’m—” he cut himself off. He was going to say fine. Brush it off. Jonen would know he was lying. He’d even accept it, probably say something unbearably understanding and sweet. Best alpha.
Corric didn’t want to lie to him.
“I was thinking about my father.”
Jonen pursed his lips. “What about him?”
“Why he is so interested in me,” he admitted. “He never was before. I was just a useless omega to him. He couldn’t wait to be rid of me. Sold me off to Bargrave when he didn’t really need the alliance. So why now?”
Corric was the youngest, his father’s last chance to have an heir he could count on. But first there was Schok. He was everything. A first born alpha with his mother’s blonde hair and those Tylock pale eyes. Corric barely remembered him. Just a cheeky smile as he slipped off to cause mischief.
Until the day he slipped out a window and never returned. His father sent out search parties, ripped the city apart, but Schok was gone. Never to be seen again. It was the first fracture in his mother’s already fragile mind.
“I wasn’t born with the ability to use magic,” Corric continued. Schok had been gifted that ability. Even as a child, he could conjure the wind and rain. But not Corric. He couldn’t so much as light a candle.
“My father had no use for a magicless omega then, so why does he want me now?”
Jonen dropped into the grass, crossing his legs. “I don’t know,” he admitted, as if he should know, and it pained him that he didn’t. Maybe it did. Jonen never liked not having the answers.
“Maybe…maybe he’s changed? And he misses you?”
“My father is incapable of that,” Corric said resolutely.
A burly hand slipped around Corric’s wrist, and he looked down at the tentative touch.
Jonen was short for an alpha, but broad.
His hands were big and gnarled, ruined from a lifetime of holding a weapon and ignoring his own wellbeing.
Just last year he shoved Corric out of the way of a rampaging Gulon, taking the hit and breaking nearly all his fingers as the thing tried to kill him.
Corric and Ridan had managed to pull it off, killing it. Ridan had yelled for an entire week that they had a plan for a reason and stupid knotheaded alphas need to stay behind if they can’t control their curly haired assed selves.
Jonen had just shrugged when Iylah wrapped his fingers, saying he’d rather lose his arm than lose Corric.
“Does the reason matter?” Jonen asked, his scent flaring, heady and possessive. He was looking at Corric’s wrist under his fingers, pressing on the pulse point. “Your father can send as many soldiers as he wants. He can’t have you.”
Chief Restrina had said much the same. So had Ridan when he found out what Corric had tried to do. Actually, Ridan had kicked him, but the sentiment was the same.
But Jonen was different. His scent, the way he looked at him…it was more than pack. It was moments like these that had Corric calling his name during his heats, wondering what those thick knuckles would feel like pressed into his skin.
“I don’t want anyone else to die for me,” Corric said, trying to keep his voice even.
Jonen winced, his fingers digging in a little harder. “He can’t take you. He won’t.”
Emotion caught in the back of Corric’s throat. “Why not?”
Hissing slightly, big doe eyes looked up at him, nearly dark with the promise of violence. From under his curls, Jonen pinned him in place. His scent was almost unbearable. It made Corric want to bear his throat. Spread his legs.
Then the warmth from his hand was gone and back in his lap. “B-because you’re pack,” he stuttered.
Disappointment lanced through him like a physical pain. Because he was pack.
Swallowing back the scream his omega wanted to split the air with, he pushed himself to his feet. Collecting his half full basket, he started to walk away.
“We should go find Ridan,” Corric said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “He’s pack after all.”