Chapter 20 #2
"Karik cannot claim what is already claimed," he said.
The words landed, and for a moment I simply stood there, letting them settle. Already claimed. Already…
"A mated female," I said slowly, the understanding creeping in, "is protected under inter-pack law."
"Not just protected. Untouchable. You saw him today, Daska. As soon as he realised Megan was mated, even to that pathetic excuse for a wolf, Karik backed off. The same must apply to Ellie, and going back on his word would make him lose face. He won’t do that.”
I went very still.
The rain drummed against the rock beneath our feet, steady and relentless, and in the valley below, firelight flickered between the shelters like scattered stars. Rivik watched me with that sharp, focused expression and I nodded slowly.
"You want her mated," I said. "Before the full moon. Before Karik returns."
"Yes."
The simplicity of it made my chest tighten. So obvious, so elegant, and so utterly devastating that I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it coming.
"Then do it," I said. "Mate her. Claim her publicly, before the pack, before any witnesses Karik might send to watch. Make it binding and undeniable."
"I cannot. You know I cannot."
"Rivik." I took a step toward him, confusion and frustration tangling together in my chest. "You are the alpha. You are her fated mate. The Great Mother herself—"
“Nothing has changed in that regard, Daska.
The Great Mother does not sit on the council of alphas.
" His voice was controlled again, but it shook.
"The Great Mother does not negotiate trade agreements with neighbouring packs.
The Great Mother does not have to stand before eighty wolves and explain why their alpha chose a human female over every wolf-born woman in the territory who would have been honoured to stand beside him. "
He was right. I knew he was right. I'd heard the elders speak.
I'd watched the way they looked at Ellie—some with curiosity, some with warmth, but others with the flat, calculating gaze of people measuring a threat to the natural order of things.
An alpha's mate was not merely a companion.
She was a symbol. A statement of strength, of bloodline, of the pack's future.
A human mate would be seen as weakness, as madness, as an alpha who had lost his way.
And Karik would use it. By the Great Mother, he would use it like a blade, twisting it before every pack at the summer gathering until the other alphas had no choice but to question Rivik's fitness to lead.
“Then who?”
"You, Daska. You are the only one who can do this."
"Rivik—"
"Listen to me." He stepped closer, and laid his hand on my shoulder.
"I have thought about this. I have thought about nothing else since Karik left this valley.
I have turned it over and over until I cannot think straight, and there is no other way.
She is your fated mated, Daska. Do you not want to mate her? "
“Of course I do, I have wanted nothing else since the day I met her… but not like this. Not because a monster is forcing our hand. Not because she has no other choice. That is not how I want to come to her, Rivik. That is not what she deserves."
"No. It isn't, but she’s a smart woman. She’ll understand.”
I stepped back and rubbed my hand over my face. “I don’t know if she will, brother. She’s been hurt before. She had a fated mate before and he rejected her.”
“What?” Rivik started at me in horror. “Who in their right mind would reject Ellie?”
I gave a bitter laugh. “Nathan.”
Rivik blinked. “You’re jesting with me.”
I shook my head. “He was with her for three years, laid with her, told her he would mate her, then chose the other one over her. It broke her, Rivik, and she’s terrified of being broken again.
You know I want her, what she is to me. She knows there is something between us, but I haven’t told her about the bond.
I didn’t want to scare her, I wanted her to come to me on her own.
To her, this will sound like she has no choice.
She deserves more than that. She deserves to be chosen because someone wants her, not because someone needs to protect her. "
Rivik closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“I understand, and I agree. She deserves a courtship.
She deserves time, and choice, and a male who comes to her with nothing but love in his hands.
She deserves everything I cannot give her and everything you should have the chance to give her properly.
" His voice dropped. "But we don't have that luxury. We have fourteen days."
I pulled away from him and walked to the edge of the overlook, staring down at the camp below without seeing it.
The rain was coming harder now, a steady, cold curtain that blurred the firelight and turned the paths between shelters into dark ribbons of mud.
Somewhere down there, Ellie was probably sitting in my cave, wrapped in the furs I'd given her, with the salve still drying on her arm where Nathan had grabbed her.
She'd be frightened. She'd understood enough of what Karik had said to know exactly what was at stake, and she'd be sitting there in the firelight trying to figure out how to survive this, because that was what Ellie did.
She survived. She adapted. She found a way.
"There has to be another way."
"There isn't." He said it with flat finality. "I have considered every option, Daska. I cannot think of another option that will protect her, and not pull apart our pack. Our family.”
I took a shaky breath. “Your family, Rivik. Your pack. The one that won’t accept her.”
He shook his head, his eyes meeting mine.
“You understand, then? You take Ellie as your mate and it will protect her from Karik, and it will protect the pack.” The gold had faded to his normal grey brown colour, and they were filled with so much pain, I couldn’t bear to see it.
The magnitude of what he’d proposed and what I was agreeing to had hit us both, and the consequences of that decision.
“It’s Ellie,” I whispered. “There is no other choice for me. She is my heart now, brother. She is my home.”
Rivik nodded, not saying anything, and I reached out and pulled him into my arms, squeezing him tightly for just a few moments. He returned it.
“I am going to miss you, my brother.”