Chapter 4
STARK
Well, that was a fucking disaster.
The arena is quiet after Meryn departs, people staring after her in shocked silence. I let them gape for a moment, two.
Then I get tired of looking at their ignorant, confused faces. Did they not understand their instructions?
“You heard your queen,” I snap loudly, my voice carrying across the crowd from where I still sit astride Cratos.
“Phlyax, grab the perished wolves. Daemos, help the servants with the bodies. Any recent graduates of the Trials are still shipping out tomorrow, so Strategos and Kryptos, go prepare. If you’re not a recent graduate—”
Skimming the crowd, I pick out several older Bonded who were here for the ceremonies, making eye contact with them.
“Get the fuck out of here. Bonded instructors, to me.”
People startle on their wolves and break into motion. Through it all come the three instructors who oversaw the Trials with me and Aldrich: Elinor Gardiner, Phylax Gamma; Samson Whyte, Kryptos Gamma; and Daegan Prak, Strategos Gamma.
Samson reaches me and Cratos first, astride his sleek, dappled gray wolf. Daegan and Elinor are close behind him.
“Quite a way to wrap up the Trials this year.” He raises a pale eyebrow at me, nonplussed. How Kryptos of him. I’ve never liked this sly asshole much.
“You need to keep your packs in line,” I tell the three of them, my voice a low growl. “Everything she showed you was real.”
“I believe it,” Daegan responds immediately. “Alpha Meryn is many things, but a liar is not one of them.”
“Queen Meryn,” I correct him tersely.
Elinor’s lips are a tight line as the older woman surveys the arena. “Alpha Stark, I believe you—and Queen Meryn—but…” She cuts herself off, sighing, and then looks at me with trepidation. “I mean no disrespect, but how do you expect us to keep our packs in line?”
“She’s worried. She’s only a Gamma, and even you and I could not control Daemos,” Cratos chimes in. He bares his teeth, and Elinor recoils a bit, but I know he’s not directing it toward her.
He’s livid at the pack members who dared to disobey us. In the past, even if a human and I have not seen eye to eye, Cratos has always been able to bring their wolf to heel. That’s part of the power we have as an Alpha pair.
It’s supposed to be, at least.
“What was that, Cratos?” I ask him, vengeful rage burning in my veins. “When we hunt those fuckers down—and we will—I’m going to let you eat the riders slowly.”
Cratos shakes his large, lupine head. “I do not know. No one should be able to resist their Alpha. Perhaps it’s because of the corruption in the communication bonds from the Siphon, or perhaps it had something to do with the Dire Blade…”
That was certainly troubling, watching that powerful weapon shatter like glass.
But even before I was made Alpha, Cratos never had wolves disobey him; they knew to follow his orders. He was too powerful—always the largest, the most vicious. That some wolves would want to defy him is disturbing.
“Do your best,” I tell Elinor. “Make it known that if they do not follow your orders, they will have to answer to me.”
Cratos howls out a growling bark, and the wolves of the other three instructors skitter backward. From all around the arena, the fearful gazes of the recent graduates dart toward us.
Good. They clearly did not have enough terror beat into them over the past four months.
As the three instructors turn to go oversee their packs, Cratos stills underneath me, his ears pulling back.
“Meryn is not okay,” he says. “Anassa took her to your office.”
Shit.
“Show me.”
I’ve asked Cratos to keep a wall present ever since Anassa bonded to her. It never bothered me before, Cratos having a mate. His longing and lust for her would come through, but it felt entirely his own.
But then Anassa took Meryn.
Before, I could appreciate the ferocious glint in her hazel eyes from a distance. I could admire the swell of her hips while also keeping in mind that I fucking loathed her. It helped dull the aching attraction, reminding myself that my life was tied to hers and she was acting like an idiot.
That first day was torturous.
Cratos had no shield up. We crested the top of the summit, and the moment I saw Meryn standing next to Anassa, her hair turned that shining silver-white, something animalistic unleashed inside me.
I wanted to throw her over my shoulder and carry her back down the mountain myself.
No—I wanted to find a nearby cave and rip her clothes off with my teeth, teaching her how warm skin can keep you in the cold.
Cratos had to turn back around so I could throw myself into the snow, freezing out the pulsing, unreasonable desire that had taken over my every thought. It was painful, and it was a pain that could have no end.
She had a lover. She hated me. And I hated her, too—her undisciplined, chaotic lack of control drove me insane, even still. Cratos took sympathy on me and tossed up a wall on his mate connection to Anassa.
It’s stayed up. Her strongest emotions still burst through on occasion, but I’ve mostly kept my mind entirely my own.
Still, I carry the knowledge that this… feeling… is just a slim barrier away.
It’s helped that I’ve wanted to kill her half the time.
Now, heartache floods me, so intense that I almost double over on Cratos—a deep twisting in my stomach and chest.
Followed by physical pain. Jolts of anguish interspersed with short bursts of relief.
And I realize what she’s doing.
Not on my fucking watch.
“Go,” I command. Cratos doesn’t need to be told twice; he sprints out of the arena with little concern for the people still milling about, nearly trampling several Bonded.
Within moments, I’m at my office, and in the blink of an eye, I slide off Cratos’s wide back and slam the door open. The crack of the wood against the wall doesn’t mask the sound of Meryn crashing her fist onto the stone floor.
Her golden crown—the crown we fought so hard to find again—is discarded on the floor, forgotten. Meryn’s a puddle of fabric from that stupid gown she’s still wearing.
Her knuckles are split, and blood drips down her wrist as she raises her hand once again.
Frustrated helplessness bursts forth from my chest, just like at that inn back in Linsfall when I saw the crisscrossing silver scars on her thighs.
The scars she had given herself.
“Stop that. Now,” I snap. The compulsion to protect her is so ingrained—either from years of training to do it or from that fucking mate bond.
She glares up at me from the floor through tear-filled eyes and snarls, “Or what? You’re going to make me?”
It takes all of me not to snarl right back at her. She’s infuriating.
I’m used to being in command. I tell someone what to do, and they listen to me. And this headstrong, vicious woman might outrank me, but I’ve never let rank get in the way of doing what’s right.
“Yes,” I say, moving into the room.
As I near Meryn, the sweet scent of her washes over me so strongly that I almost stumble. My head spins, and I realize the walls between us are still down.
It takes every ounce of my control not to throw myself down next to her, pin her underneath me, and lick the blood from her wounds.
“Cratos,” I hiss, closing my eyes at another hot rush of desire and protectiveness. “You are killing me here.”
“Sorry, sorry.” There’s a hint of amusement in his tone, and I wonder how sorry he really is. But the wall goes back up, and I can breathe again.
Opening my eyes, I level Meryn with another glare. “It is my responsibility to protect you from harm, even if you are its cause.”
“Fuck off!” she screams at me, punching her fist down onto the stone floor again. Something in her hand cracks loudly.
For fuck’s sake.
Two steps forward and I’ve reached her. She dares to raise her hand again, but I catch her wrist. It’s so small in my grip, but there’s strength behind it as she tries to pull herself away.
“Stop!” I order again, jerking her to her feet. She fights back against me, her mouth set into a focused, petulant line. Meryn’s so fixated on causing herself pain that I don’t think I’m even getting through to her.
My grip only tightens further. If she’s so determined to hurt something, then fine.
“You want to hit something? Hurt someone?” I seethe. I yank her closer, and she stumbles into me. Then I take her hand—the one that’s not bloodied—and slap it onto my chest. “Hit me. Hurt me. I can take it.”
Her mouth falls open, and the fight goes out of her muscles. It’s like she’s finally been knocked right out of her own brain and back into her body. She relaxes against me, her surprisingly soft hand still trapped underneath my much larger one.
Heat burns right over my heart. Can she feel how hard it’s pounding?
My grip loosens, but I don’t let her go, concerned she’s going to collapse again. Meryn breathes shakily, the storm of emotion in her gradually subsiding.
I glance down to her bloodied, raw hand and watch as it heals. Anassa has used her magic on Meryn.
My eyes snap toward the direwolf’s knowing yellow-golden ones.
“Don’t do that again,” I say over the angry lump in my throat. “If she tries to hurt herself. She shouldn’t get the idea that your healing magic makes it okay.”
Meryn scoffs and finally pulls her arm out of my grip, a splotchy blush high on her cheekbones.
“I’m right here if there’s something you want to say to me,” she says, narrowing her hazel eyes. “You don’t need to give Anassa instructions like I’m some toddler who needs looking after.”
“Then don’t act like one. Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?” I growl, and her glower deepens. Good. She’s doing exactly what she needs to do—she’s getting mad again. Her fire is back. “You have a country to lead.”
“I’m done,” she says, wiping her bloody hand on her dress.
I watch her carefully for a moment, making sure she means it.
Then Meryn straightens her posture and presses her lips together in a way that looks slightly self-conscious.