Chapter 11
“Are you sure we are going the right way?” Vallie whispered. The sun had disappeared over an hour ago, and while the moon was half full and the stars aplenty, there were several clouds drifting across the sky, drenching the landscape in pure darkness at uneven intervals.
“Yes. In about half an hour, we’ll hit some trees. It’ll be a good place to rest.” Another reason it was great having Lambda: he wasn’t kidding when he said he could see in the dark. He could not only see—he could see miles and miles away.
“I can keep walking,” she insisted. “I’m not tired.” Her skin itched with anxiety. She wanted to get this over with. She wanted to be at Balaur, already facing the danger. She was tired of waiting for something horrible to happen. It was like a lead block in her gut.
“You’re not now because your adrenaline is working hard. We’ll keep resting so we don’t crash when we finally get to Balaur. Or on the way home. The worst would be if your body shuts down when we’re almost at the wall. I can carry you and Verona, but I doubt I could run like that.” He paused. “Once we get to the trees, we should sleep, or at least try to.” Lambda put his hand on Vallie’s back. “Careful, there are some uneven rocks here.” She leaned into him as she walked over the loose landscape, then straightened once she was over it.
“Thanks,” she mumbled. Her stomach cramped uneasily. The closer she got to Balaur, the more real it felt. Rescuing Verona, yes, but also the chance that the three of them would never see Luven again.
She felt awfully guilty that Lambda was here.
Wouldn’t it have been lovely to have met him after she returned? He was away for the week somewhere, didn’t see her at the ritual. He wouldn’t have known anything about her until they happened upon each other on the street one day. Then she wouldn’t have to worry that…
“I need to tell you something. Before we get any closer.”
“Do you want to stop walking?” Lambda asked.
She shook her head. “I think it’ll be easier to say if I’m moving.” She took a deep breath. Was she really going to tell him? He was her mate, after all. “It’s a big story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He wasn’t. That much she knew was true. If this wolf had followed her over a wall that almost killed him, he definitely wasn’t running away when a story became difficult.
“Before Balaur, when I was in Maidenhead, I had someone. His name was Elias.” When was the last time she had spoken this aloud?
Years.
“We weren’t married, because that really wasn’t a thing available to us. And we were still kind of young. I met him when I was sixteen and we were together until I was twenty.” She stopped for a moment, trying to judge his reaction, but Lambda only walked on, his eyes intent on her.
“I loved him. I know that seems like a bitchy thing to say to you, seeing as you’re my mate and you’re in dragon territory with me, but I did. He was my person for four years. We didn’t have any kids together or anything, but it was the three of us. Verona, Elias, and me. Verona never held onto a man for longer than a couple nights. She didn’t want forever.” She laughed. “Elias never left me, though. The three of us against the world and all that.” She felt a bubble in her throat but pushed on. She was going to get through this.
“When the dragons came to Maidenhead, they were expecting more women on the trip. Usually, people sold their neighbors, daughters, cousins, sisters—whoever they could for a bit of money or food. It really is a terrible place to live. Well, they found us one night, huddled in the building we’d been living in. They tried to get Elias to sell Verona and me. As if we weren’t in charge of our own fates. Like he owned us. He refused, of course, told them to go to hell and find some other man willing to trade people for things. They didn’t like that. Verona and I tried to run and…” She inhaled sharply. “They killed him. It was awful. Claws in his belly. I screamed and screamed. They wouldn’t let me go to him or hold him, even though I begged. I had to watch him die as they chained me to Verona, watch his eyes slowly lose all life.” Vallie scrubbed her eyes hard. She hadn’t let herself cry over Elias in years, but now it felt so damn fresh. “It didn’t seem fair not to tell you about him.”
Vallie twisted her hands together and looked at them. Now, it would come. Jealousy or anger. She was supposed to be his, and she knew wolves were crazy territorial when it came to their mates. Vallie hadn’t just slept with someone else. She’d loved someone else. And she’d told him.
“Shit, Vallie. I’m really sorry. That’s terrible.” Lambda opened his hand to her. She looked between his palm and his face. His skin creased between his brows but his eyes…They were kind. Empathetic. Caring.
That? That was how he would react? No seething jealousy, no building up walls? No yelling or painful silence? She set her hand in his and let him wrap his fingers around her. “You see now. You can’t tell me to leave you behind. Because I was forced to do that before. And I don’t love you like I loved Elias. How could I? We’ve just met. But after talking with Tella and Phaebe, I think I probably will, once I’m given the chance to get to know you. And I won’t abandon a future of love. I’m not going to leave you just like you’re not going to leave me, ok?” She looked up at him, trapping her bottom lip between her teeth. She couldn’t do it again. The dragons had taken so much from her. They weren’t allowed to have her future.
He squeezed her hand. “Ok. Partners. We go in together, we get out together, with Verona.”
“That’s the plan,” Vallie answered. Domitia’s warning of plans going sideways echoed in her brain for a moment, but she silenced it. Their plan wouldn’t go sideways. They’d succeed because they had to.
“I’m with you, Vallie. Through whatever we might face.”
They stopped and stood there, hands intertwined, staring at each other. There was an unspoken vow between them now—either they both made it out, or neither of them did. And this new pact weighed heavily on Vallie. She couldn’t pretend everything was going to be fine. She and Lambda might die. She needed to start acting like it.
*
Vallie’s strength had floored him. She’d faced the dragons, watched them kill the man she loved, lived in their prisons for eight years, and still she ran back. And she could drag his heavy body away from the wall when he needed her most.
She was truly a goddess.
Lambda felt no animosity toward Elias, the dead man his mate once loved. He was glad she’d had someone to watch over her, while he was hundreds of miles away in Luven. He only wished she could have been spared the heartache of losing someone so close to her.
Lambda didn’t remember his mother, but he still felt the ache of her absence as he grew up. He wrestled with her not wanting him, with having a monster for a father, being born out of something that wasn’t love. There were times he worried he would never find a mate—that he wasn’t allowed one after what his father had done.
“We’re almost at the trees,” he said quietly. He pulled her a bit closer.
“Are you all right?” Vallie asked.
He nodded. “I’m so glad I’ve met you, Vallie.” He brought her hand up to his mouth and pressed a kiss against it. “I wish I wasn’t walking into a fight with you, but I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
“Thanks for coming with me. I don’t think I’d have made it back without you, truly. As much as I wanted to.”
“You’ll make it back,” Lambda promised. He would do everything in his power to make sure Vallie, no matter what, had a happy future in Luven.