Chapter 1 #2
The room spins around me, and I close my eyes and take several deep breaths.
Chest tightening, I lurch away from him and pace to the wall, leaning on it for support.
It’s all a lie, of course. Soren was as surprised as I was to find hunters in our village.
All these years he’d believed his father to be dead and gone, just like his mother and his friends from the village he’d grown up in.
Snarling, I rake my claws down the wall. “Then I will tell them it’s not true, any of it! I will make Wulfric listen to reason. I—”
“No!” Soren’s broken shout fills the chamber. “I will not be the reason you lose your family, Lyall. I can’t!”
“You are my family!” My roar tears at my throat. “And I have already lost so much. I will not lose you, too!”
“So… if you had to choose… myself or your family… you would choose me?”
Yes, I want to say, but the word won’t come.
I swallow hard, trying to speak, but emotion chokes me.
I am the eldest brother, and unlike my twin Anders, it’s a duty I’ve always taken to heart.
Ever since I held newborn Gunnar in my arms, then Wulfric a couple years later, I knew I would protect them with my life.
That is my duty as their big brother. My brothers come first. Always.
That is the promise I made to myself. To Father.
How can this world be so cruel, to ask me to choose between my brothers and the man I’ve loved since I was a boy?
A tender smile breaks on Soren’s face. He does not hate me for being too weak to choose. No, he looks as if he loves me all the more for my foolish indecision. “It is all right, Lyall.”
A sob chokes me, and the room blurs through my tears as I fall to my knees and pull him into my arms.
No, it is not.
Nothing will ever be all right again.
I hurl open the doors to the longhouse. “Wulfric! I must speak with you, now!”
Sitting in my father’s seat at the table makes Wulfric look so very small. A child playing dress-up.
Wulfric sets his mouth into a grim line. “You saw him.”
My fists tremble as I curl them. “Release him. Now. Give me the keys.” I will rip them from his hand myself if I have to.
“Lyall…” Wulfric begins, as if he’s speaking to a wild animal. “I can’t do that.”
“You can and you will!” I slam my fist down on the table, making it shake. Flinching, Wulfric stumbles out of his seat, not like an Alpha but like the thirteen-year-old boy he is.
Shame burns me up inside. This is my little brother. I shouldn’t raise my voice. I should be kinder. I—
No. He is not only my little brother.
He is my Alpha now, and he has to learn that not everyone will agree with his decisions.
Taking in a slow breath, I say, “Why not?”
Balling his hands into fists, Wulfric meets my gaze head-on. “Because he has betrayed us.”
I grind my teeth. “You can’t believe that. Not after all the years he’s spent with us.”
“I didn’t want to.” A sheen dampens Wulfric’s silver eyes. “But he told us himself. All these years, he was just using us… using y-you, Lyall.”
“That isn’t true, Wulfric. You have to know that.”
“I…” Wulfric parts his lips, then snaps his mouth shut. “I’m sorry, Lyall. Truly. The pack… my pack”—his voice breaks on the word—“want answers. They want justice.”
“And this is how you’ll get it?” The roar escapes me before I can stop it. “By exiling an innocent man? Why? So you can feel like half the Alpha our father was?”
Wulfric staggers back, looking like I struck him. “Lyall, I know how you feel about him. You care for him. We all did. But he has betrayed us. It’s his fault Father is dead! He must be exiled, or I will kill him myself.”
Lunging forward, I grab his hands in mine. “Please. Wulfric, please, do not do this. Do not take him from me. Please.”
Wulfric’s wet eyes widen, his lips working soundlessly.
My knees give out, and I clutch onto his arms to keep myself upright. “Wherever he goes, so will I.”
A choked sound escapes Wulfric. “No. Lyall, you can’t. I need you here. I can’t be an alpha without my pack.”
His pleas strike me in the chest. “You’d make me choose?”
How could I decide between my family and my mate? I promised Father after Mother died that I would look after my brothers, but Soren and I are mated, bonded for life.
“How dare you?” My voice breaks, half a sob, half a snarl. “You’re no Alpha. You’re a coward, looking for someone to blame for your own failures!”
Wulfric’s eyes flash with fury. “And where were you?” he bellows. “I was on the beach with Father! We fought for our lives, and you weren’t there!”
My claws come out. “You will not blame Soren for your shortcomings! Father died because of you, not Soren!”
As soon as those poisonous words leave my lips, something between us shatters. Perhaps even irrevocably.
Tears blazing in his eyes, Wulfric charges me, and his claw tears across my cheek. I don’t try and stop him as he punches, kicks, and claws at me. The wounds on the surface will heal but there’s no healing a shattered heart.
“I tried!” Wulfric screams, swinging wildly at me. “I did everything I could! I wish I’d died instead of him! It should be me! I should be dead! Not him!” He sobs freely now, great wrenching gasps that leave him hunched over.
I don’t know when it happens, but my arms are around him and we’re kneeling on the floor, holding on to each other like we’re all that’s keeping the other afloat.
“I know,” I whisper. “I know, little brother. I know, little Wulf. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me.”
A tear spills down Wulfric’s grimy cheek, his body trembling in my grasp. “Don’t make me do this without you, Lyall. Please. I lost Father. Gunnar w-won’t even speak to us. Anders blames me for everything. I can’t… I c-can’t lose you, too. Don’t leave me alone. Please.”
Gods. He sounds like a little boy. The little boy I’d carried on my shoulders through the woods. The child I soothed as he struggled to shift to his wolf the first time. My little brother, my Alpha, needs me.
I promised my father.
I promised.
How can I leave my broken family behind?
How can I part from Soren, half of my heart and soul?
With a gasp, I bury my face in his stomach and break apart.
“It’s okay, Lyall.” Soren kisses my hair.
I can’t bear to look at him. “My family needs me, Soren.”
“They do,” Soren agrees, and I wonder at how he can be so forgiving, so understanding. “More than ever.”
I hold him tight, wondering when I will next get the chance.
“I will come for you.” When he doesn’t speak, I untuck my head from the spot under his chin and look him in the eyes.
The anguish sparkling in his gaze nearly breaks me.
Framing his face in my hands, I say, “You are my mate, Soren. Half of my very soul.”
“And you are mine,” he whispers, voice shaking.
I touch my forehead to his, heart aching. “They will exile you at dawn but as soon as I can, I will come for you, whether you are in the past or the future.”
“How? I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
I kiss the tip of his nose. “I will keep a branch of Yggdrasil and hide it away.” The branch of our holiest tree will allow me to travel through time to wherever he is. “As soon as I think it is safe, I will find you, and we will be together. I promise.”
Soren’s lips tremble when he smiles. “I will wait for you. No matter how long it takes.”
Leaning in, I capture his lips, sealing the promise that warms the bond between us.
Nothing will keep my mate from me.
Not even time itself.