Chapter 2
Rowen
I watched them limp in just as the moon dipped past its peak.
Four of them, one missing. I saw their cuts and bruises, and the way they didn’t meet my gaze.
I met them at the edge of the clearing, boots soundless on soft grass, my shirt unbuttoned at the neck, my fingers raw from another round of damage control.
The integration between Wolfe’s two packs wasn’t as smooth as Wolfe pretended it was.
Or maybe he was oblivious to the tension.
Goddess knows he seemed immune to it when he lay beside me at night.
Gordon had a shallow cut across his shoulder. One of the younger males was not bleeding but quiet and pale.
“Three rogues,” Gordon reported before I could ask. “None of theirs down. One of ours.” He looked down at his feet. “They knew the border line.”
I nodded once and stepped forward to examine his wound. “This looks deep.”
“Just a scratch.”
It wasn’t. But Gordon wouldn’t let anyone say otherwise. I didn’t push it. Pride was a brittle shield—mine, his, everyone’s.
“Still, you should shift to heal it,” I said. He grunted. Which, for Gordon, meant ”fine.” I looked past him to the others. “Simon?”
“He didn’t feel it,” he said gruffly, and I bit back my tears.
“Tell me everything.” I listened as they told me what happened during their patrol, how we lost a pack member.
How the change in patrol hadn’t happened, and I knew they were looking for my response when Gordon told me that Cale had said I changed the route.
I didn’t defend my command; instead, I listened and shouldered the burden of blame they looked at me with. “I’ll speak to Sherry.”
I clasped each of their shoulders, told them to shift to heal, and get food and rest. I felt my shoulders sag as I watched them walk away.
As they dispersed, I moved to the edge of the clearing and took a slow breath. The trees were quiet again. The kind of quiet that always came after blood had been spilled. And underneath it—deep and constant—the bond hummed.
Distant. Heavy.
I didn’t reach for it.
Wolfe was out there somewhere, probably already checking the perimeter, probably angry, probably pacing. The pull between us was weaker than usual, stretched taut like a bowstring held too long. Maybe that meant he wasn’t reaching for it either.
Or maybe it meant he was waiting for me to break first. I was tired of being the one to bend.
A rustle behind me pulled me from the thought.
“Still standing?”
I turned. Cale stood a few feet away, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
He was in his usual attire—black shirt rolled to the elbows—forearms still smudged with dirt and dried blood.
A large gash curved near his jawline. Probably from the same ambush that had cost us a pack member and lit Wolfe’s temper like a fuse.
“You’re hurt,” I said. “How?”
He touched the cut absently. “It’ll heal.”
“Not what I asked.”
That earned me the ghost of a smile. “You sound like him when you talk like that.”
I didn’t answer that because I wasn’t sure if it was meant as a compliment or a warning.
Cale let the silence stretch, then spoke again, quieter this time. “You did good with them tonight. The Blueridge wolves—they listened.”
“They were bleeding and hurt. It’s easier to listen when you’re scared.”
“No,” he said, voice firm. “It’s easier to listen when someone makes sense.”
That did catch me off guard. I looked away, toward the tree line. “The merge has been difficult for all of us. The attacks haven’t helped with that.”
“True. But packs adjust, and they don’t need to agree; they just have to follow. And they are.”
“For the most part,” I added and failed to hide the bitterness in my voice.
The bond tugged again—sharp and sudden this time. Wolfe must’ve reached out. Not consciously, maybe. Just a reflex. Like the way pain echoes when you bump an old bruise.
I didn’t reach back. The less we felt the tie to each other, the better it would be for us both. “I should sleep,” I said to Cale, already turning away.
Cale didn’t stop me. He’d only been here a few weeks, one of the new ones from Stonefang Pack, but I didn’t find him as abrasive and rough as some of the others.
He was capable and confident but not overly confident.
He was a welcome change from some of his packmates.
He didn’t scoff at our ways or mock us for our traditions.
As I walked, I heard him say one last thing—soft, almost too quiet to catch. “You’re carrying it alone. Just don’t forget you don’t have to.”
I made my way to the pack hall, intent on sleeping there again.
I knew Wolfe wanted me in the house at his side, but lying beside him at night was torturous.
While I fully intended to stay away from him, my body betrayed me every time, and I would wake up curled into his side after having slept like a baby.
I don’t even think he knew, which was the only thing I was grateful for.
And then there was the…longing. The insatiable want to be doing a whole lot more than sleep with him.
I knew it was the mate bond, and I knew we were making it worse by not having sex, but he’d come in and taken over everything.
My pack, my home. He didn’t get to take my body too. Not until I was ready to accept him.
Yes, he was my alpha. Yes, he was my mate.
But I needed time. I needed time to grieve the loss of my dad and the loss of my pack.
They weren’t the same. Some were struggling with the changes, some were adapting way too quickly, and I was struggling with the fact that more than half of my pack weren’t struggling at all.
Killian appeared at my side, and I hadn’t heard him approach at all, which pissed me off. Most things about Wolfe’s second-in-command pissed me off. He may look like a gift from the Goddess, with his muscles and youthful face, but his eyes were as hard as his nature.
“If I were a rogue, you’d be dead.”
See? Absolutely no redeeming qualities at all.
“Why are you here?” I’d lost all sense of courtesy whenever this male was beside me.
“Where are you off to?” he asked, and I could tell how much it pained him to sound casual. I knew the feeling well of forcing myself to be nice to someone I didn’t like.
I stopped and turned to face him. “Cut the BS. Save us both time and energy, okay?”
He shrugged like my honesty didn’t bother him at all. “You need to go home.” I gaped at him. Killian didn’t care. “Your mate is at home, and you should be too.”
Asshat.
“My home was the pack hall before your alpha walked into my pack and ruined it,” I hissed at him, seething at his audacity.
Killian didn’t react to my anger. At all.
“You see, that’s the operative word, right there.
Was. It was your home before our alpha walked into this pack and took control of it as his right by named succession and the Goddess’s blessing.
” He looked me over. “This pack will always be fractured if it sees the mated pair not able to co-exist.” Steely blue eyes bored into mine.
“He isn’t asking for miracles,” he added, his voice firm but low, “but you say you care so much for this place—”
“I do care, I don’t say,” I snapped at him.
“Yeah? Well, one thing a leader does is lead, even when it isn’t what they want.” He took a step back. “Be the leader you keep telling us you are.”
I didn’t know how to respond. He had quite literally struck me dumb. It took me a moment to find my voice. “You came to tell me to lead my pack?”
He shook his head as he looked away from me. “No, I came to tell you to suck it up and stop being a petulant child”—he glanced at me—“but I thought I’d try a subtler approach.”
I blinked. “That was your idea of subtle?”
He shrugged. “Would you prefer if I picked you up and took you there myself?” He once more scanned me from top to toe, and I took a step back. Killian actually looked like he was contemplating it.
“I can walk by myself!”
“Then what are you waiting for?” he asked with narrowed eyes. “You don’t have to say I’m right, you just have to walk home.”
I really, really wanted to keep walking to the pack hall, but his words had resonated with me.
He was right…in a way. The pack was still very much identifying as two packs because Wolfe and I were firmly on two sides.
My whole life, I’d concentrated on bringing my pack harmony, and now I may be one of the reasons they were struggling.
But I was also my father’s daughter, and I didn’t want to admit he was right, especially to Killian.
“I don’t see your feet moving,” he grumbled.
Can I kill Killian?
Wolfe answered me immediately; he sounded faintly amused. I’d prefer you didn’t…what’s he done?
He’s… I sighed. What did I tell him? He served some home truths I didn’t want to hear? He’s infuriating.
I could feel the rumble of laughter through the bond. If I killed him for every time I felt that, he’d be dead at least twenty times by now.
Killian was watching me, arms crossed like I was a disobedient puppy and he was one step away from carrying out his threat of carrying me to the house. I saw his eyes narrow, and I knew Wolfe must be talking to him; he gave me a look of such disappointment I felt chastised.
“Can’t live with him, but no problem running to him when you don’t like hearing the truth?” he growled as he walked past me, narrowly missing shoulder-bumping me. “You’re not the shifter they told me you were.”
He left me standing there in the dark, wondering what the hell the last five minutes had been.
I told him to leave you alone. Better?
I jumped at the sound of Wolfe’s voice in my head. Was I better? No. I think it was worse.
Thanks. It was all I sent, but a few moments later, checking over my shoulder several times, I turned and made my way back to the house.