Chapter 18 - Patrick
For the first time in sixteen years, I’m fighting alongside wolves who aren’t trying to kill me.
The training grounds behind Oren’s packhouse sprawl across several acres of packed dirt and worn grass.
A dozen wolves circle the sparring ring where I’m currently trying not to get my head taken off by Aidan Grayhide.
The gray-haired alpha moves like smoke, full of grace and devastating power, and I’m struggling to keep up with his unorthodox style.
Thornridge trained me to fight with brute force and overwhelming aggression.
These wolves fight differently. They work together, cover each other’s weaknesses, and communicate through subtle signals I’m only beginning to understand.
Every time I think I’ve figured out Aidan’s pattern, he changes it, adapting to my movements like water flowing around stone.
Aidan feints left, and I take the bait like an idiot. His fist connects with my ribs hard enough to steal my breath, and I stumble back with a grunt.
“You’re still telegraphing,” he comments. The man isn’t even winded. “Your shoulder drops before every right hook.”
“Noted.” I spit blood onto the dirt and raise my fists again. “Again.”
We’ve been at this for four days now. Ever since the council accepted my intelligence and authorized a strike against one of Thornridge’s supply caches, I’ve spent every waking hour either training or providing tactical information to the pack leaders.
The latest mission was a success. Thanks to my intel, Grayhide found twelve crates of weapons and ammunition and swiped them. Three Thornridge scouts have been captured and interrogated. A significant blow to Bastian’s operation, all because I told them exactly where to look.
The raid itself was surgical. I drew them maps of the cache location, marked the guard rotations, and identified the weak points in their perimeter.
When the strike team returned with wagons full of confiscated supplies and three prisoners in chains, something changed in the way the younger warriors looked at me.
I wouldn’t call it trust, not yet. More like curiosity.
Recognition that maybe I’m not completely useless, after all.
Some of them have started nodding at me in the hallways now.
A few have even initiated conversations that don’t involve thinly veiled threats or accusations.
Yesterday, a young Grayhide wolf named Trenton asked me about Thornridge fighting techniques over dinner.
He actually seemed interested rather than just mining for intelligence, and we ended up talking for almost an hour about the differences between pack combat styles.
The pack leaders remain more cautious, which I understand.
Oren watches me with those cold blue eyes whenever we’re in the same room, measuring and assessing every word I say.
Dorian hasn’t spoken to me since the council meeting, except to bark orders during the supply cache raid.
Matriarch Lydia refuses to acknowledge my existence at all, which is probably for the best, given how her last conversation with Caelan ended.
But here, on the training grounds, I can almost forget that I’m an enemy combatant on probation. Here, I’m just another wolf trying to prove his worth through sweat and blood and bruised knuckles. Here, my past doesn’t matter as much as my ability to take a hit and get back up again.
Aidan comes at me again, and this time, I’m ready. I dodge his opening strike and counter with an elbow to his solar plexus that actually lands. He grunts and grins, and for a moment, I see approval in his eyes.
“Better,” he admits. “You’re learning.”
“I’m a fast learner.”
“You’d have to be, surviving Thornridge as long as you did.” He drops his fighting stance and rolls his shoulders. “Take five. Wyn wants a turn with you next.”
I grab a water bottle from the bench at the edge of the ring and drain half of it in one long swig. My muscles are screaming, and my ribs throb where Aidan’s fist connected, but beneath the pain, there’s something I haven’t felt in years.
Purpose.
The wolves watching from the sidelines disperse as Aidan exits the ring, some heading toward other training equipment while others break into smaller sparring groups.
I use the momentary lull to catch my breath and stretch out my aching shoulders.
Thornridge training was brutal, but it focused on individual dominance rather than endurance.
These allied wolves could fight all day and still have energy for more.
Wyn Lemay approaches the ring with a predatory stalk that reminds me why Bastian hates him so much. The dark-haired wolf moves like he was born fighting, keeping every step economical. He’s leaner than Aidan but no less dangerous, and the look he gives me says he’s not planning to pull his punches.
“Heard you did good work on the supply cache raid,” he comments as he ducks under the ropes.
“I gave directions. Your wolves did the actual fighting.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. Good intelligence is worth more than a dozen warriors swinging blind.” He settles into a fighting stance that looks nothing like Aidan’s. “Let’s see what Thornridge taught you.”
The next hour is brutal. Wyn fights dirty in ways that would get you killed in Thornridge’s formal training sessions, but that’s exactly the point.
Real combat isn’t about honor or form. It’s about survival.
He teaches me holds and counters I’ve never seen before, techniques designed to end fights quickly rather than prove dominance.
Some of them are vicious enough that I wonder where he learned them, but I don’t ask.
Every wolf has secrets, and Wyn’s are his own business.
By the time he calls a halt, I’m dripping sweat and sporting a split lip to match my bruised ribs. My muscles are trembling with exhaustion, but there’s a satisfaction in the pain that I can’t quite explain.
“Not bad,” Wyn declares as he tosses me a towel. “You’ve got solid instincts. Just need to unlearn some of that Thornridge bullshit.”
“Sixteen years of bullshit,” I correct before wiping my face. “Might take a while.”
“We’ve got time.” He eyes me for a moment, almost like he’s trying to work out if he should say what’s about to come out. “Raegan told me what you did for Caelan. How you gave up everything to keep her safe.”
“I didn’t have a choice. She’s my mate.”
“There’s always a choice. You could have followed Bastian’s orders and handed her over. Plenty of wolves would have. I know something about being backed into corners when it comes to protecting your mate. Doesn’t make the choices any easier, but it does make them clearer.”
Before I can ask what he means, he’s already walking away toward the packhouse. I watch him go and wonder if that was his version of acceptance or just an acknowledgment that we’re cut from similar cloth. Either way, it feels like progress.
The training grounds empty as the afternoon fades into evening.
Most of the wolves head inside for dinner, and their voices carry across the grounds as they trade jokes and insults the way packmates do.
I stay behind on the bench at the edge of the ring, watching shadows creep across the packed dirt as the sun dips lower.
The quiet helps me think, and lately I’ve had too much to think about.
Jonas.
My brother’s face swims up from the depths of my memory, and I can’t push it away no matter how hard I try.
He’ll have heard about my defection by now.
Bastian will have made sure of that. I’m certain he spun a story to paint me as a traitor and a coward who abandoned his pack for a woman.
Everything I built over sixteen years, every sacrifice I made to keep Jonas safe, will be reduced to ashes.
He probably hates me now. My brother probably thinks I abandoned him the same way he believes our mother abandoned our father’s memory when she remarried. The thought makes my stomach churn, but I can’t blame him for it. From his perspective, I did exactly that.
Every piece of intelligence I share with the allied packs puts Jonas at greater risk.
If Bastian decides to make an example of traitors’ families, my brother will be first on the list. And there’s nothing I can do about it from here except hope that Jonas is smart enough to keep his head down and not draw attention to himself.
Hope has never been my strong suit.
“You’re brooding.”
I lift my head to find Caelan walking toward me across the packed dirt. The setting sun paints her silver-blonde hair with shades of copper, and the sight of her makes something loosen in my chest.
“I’m just thinking,” I explain.
She takes a seat on the bench beside me and bumps her shoulder against mine. “The kitchen staff is starting to worry you don’t like their cooking.”
“Their cooking is fine. Better than fine, actually. I’m pretty sure I’ve gained five pounds since we got here.” I manage a weak smile. “I just needed some space.”
Her smile falls. “Oh. Should I go?”
“No, no.” I reach over and take her hand. “Space from everything else, I mean. The looks, the whispers, the constant feeling that I’m one wrong move away from getting my throat torn out.”
“It’s getting better, isn’t it? Some of the younger wolves seem almost friendly now. I saw you talking to that Trenton kid earlier.”
“Almost friendly is a long way from being trusted.” I stare out at the empty training ring, watching the last rays of sunlight fade from the dirt. “But yeah. It’s getting better. Slowly.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
The mate bond vibrates between us in a steady rhythm that always grounds me, even when everything else feels like quicksand.
I’ve never had anything like this before.
Never let myself want it. The connection feels foreign and familiar all at once, like coming home to a place I’ve never been.
“Tell me about Jonas,” Caelan prompts.
Damn it. That’s the one downside to this bond. I can’t hide much of anything.
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you want to tell me. You mentioned him a few times, but you’ve never really talked about him. Not who he is as a person, beyond the little brother you’re trying to protect.”
My first instinct is to deflect. To make some joke about little brothers being annoying and change the subject to something less painful. But Caelan is my mate, and she deserves more than deflection. She deserves the truth, even when the truth hurts.
“Jonas is the best person I know,” I admit, and the words hurt coming out.
“He’s kind in ways that shouldn’t be possible for someone raised in Thornridge.
He sneaks extra food to the omega servants when he thinks no one is watching.
He plays with the pack children during his off hours, teaching them games he learned from the older wolves before everything went to hell.
He once spent days nursing a wounded bird back to health because he couldn’t stand to watch it suffer. ”
“He sounds nothing like what I’d expect from a Thornridge wolf.”
“That’s because he doesn’t remember being anything else.
” I run my free hand through my hair, tugging at the strands.
“Our mother told him to forget what we were before, that remembering would only bring pain, and he listened. He packed away everything from before like it was just a bad dream and never looked back.”
“But you didn’t forget.”
“Couldn’t. Someone had to remember what we lost. Someone had to carry our father’s memory, even if Jonas couldn’t.
” I swallow hard against the tightness in my throat.
“Jonas grew up believing Thornridge was his family. He joined the warriors because he wanted to make Mordaunt proud, wanted to prove he was loyal and strong, and everything a pack wolf should be. He doesn’t see the corruption.
Doesn’t want to see it. In his mind, Thornridge saved us when we had nowhere else to go. ”
Caelan moves closer to me on the bench until our sides are pressed together. “And you let him believe that.”
“What was I supposed to do? Tell an eight-year-old that the people feeding him and housing him were the same ones who murdered his father? That his whole life was built on a lie?” I shake my head.
“I made a choice. I let him have his illusions because the truth would have destroyed him. And then I spent sixteen years making sure those illusions never shattered, even when it meant lying to him every single day.”
“That must have been lonely.”
I think about all the times I stood beside Jonas at pack gatherings, smiling and nodding while Mordaunt spouted nonsense about Thornridge’s righteous mission.
All the times I bit my tongue when my brother talked about how grateful we should be for everything the pack had given us.
All the times I wanted to scream the truth and didn’t because protecting Jonas meant protecting his delusions, too.
“He worships Bastian,” I confess. “Thinks he’s everything a leader should be. Strong, decisive, willing to do whatever it takes to protect the pack. Jonas has no idea what Bastian really is. What he’s capable of doing to the people who trust him.”
“Would he believe you if you told him?”
“Probably not. Bastian has spent years cultivating Jonas’s loyalty.
He saw the same thing in my brother that I did, that desperate need to belong somewhere, to matter to someone, and he exploited it.
Made Jonas feel special, important, like he was part of something bigger than himself.
By now, Bastian will have convinced him that I’m the enemy.
That I betrayed the pack for a woman. Jonas will hate me, and he won’t even understand why. ”
Caelan doesn’t offer platitudes or empty reassurances. She just takes my hand again and holds on tight. The gesture is simple, but it means more than any words could.
“I’m sorry,” she says after a long moment. “I’m sorry you had to make that choice.”
“I’m not. Given the same circumstances, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. You’re worth it, Caelan. Whatever happens with Jonas, whatever I’ve lost or will lose, you’re worth all of it.”
She lifts our joined hands and presses a kiss to my knuckles. The gesture is so tender, so unexpected, that it makes that space behind my sternum ache.
“We’ll find a way to help him,” she promises. “When this is over, when Thornridge falls, we’ll find Jonas and show him the truth. He’ll understand eventually.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” she admits. “But I believe it. And sometimes belief is all we have.”