Chapter 7 - Rowan #2
Mavis’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “Political prisoner. Her pack and ours had a… treaty. Exchange of hostages to keep the peace.” His tone turned bitter. “Lot of good it did anyone.”
“What happened?”
“Winter Wind pack thought they could trust Denraider’s word.” He shook his head. “Sent us their eldest daughter when she was five or six, took one of ours in return. Supposed to be a symbol of good faith between the packs.”
My blood chilled. Freya’s sister had been torn away from everything she knew as a child. She probably didn’t remember her parents any better than Freya did.
“The treaty didn’t hold?” I pressed.
“Not when Denraider learned the Winter Wind pack was harboring mages.” Mavis’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “Slaughtered the whole pack. Mages, wolves, children, everyone. Sold the girl as a slave — couldn’t exactly send her back to a pile of corpses.”
The casual way he described the massacre made my stomach turn, but I kept my face blank.
“They said she shifted late?”
“To most of the pack, that just confirmed she was worthless. By Denraider pack law, she should’ve been exiled or killed, but…” He shrugged. “Her owner kept her anyway.”
“Despite pack law?”
I recalled very well how the excuse of “pack law” had demanded my exile at the age of fifteen. So far, I wasn’t sure whether to consider Valkyrie lucky for not suffering the same fate.
Mavis’s expression darkened further. “She’s not pack, so pack law doesn’t protect her. Not even omega rights — she’s property.”
Property. No pack bond to anchor her, no protection from the worst of Denraider’s brutality. My wolf howled silently at the injustice of it.
“She seems…” I searched for the right word. “Unbroken.”
“That’s what pisses them off most,” Mavis said with something that might have been admiration. “She still won’t submit properly to alpha commands. Still fights back when she can get away with it. Drives them crazy, but it’s up to her owner to decide how to punish her.”
She’d been here all this time, surviving through sheer force of will.
“How does her owner feel about her defiance?”
Mavis’s expression went carefully blank. “Don’t know him, myself. Some say he enjoys the challenge of breaking her spirit slowly. Others think he’s just biding his time until she’s no longer… useful.”
The euphemism made my skin crawl. I wanted to ask more, but Mavis had already said more than was probably safe. Around us, the mess hall continued its usual chaos, wolves coming and going, the constant undercurrent of violence and dominance games.
But no Keith — he’d disappeared while I was focused on Mavis, which bothered me. As much as I disliked the alpha, part of me felt better when I had my eyes on him.
Through the faint warmth of the Bonded link, I could sense Freya and the others’ presence. The contrast between that connection and the cold brutality surrounding me made my current isolation even more stark.
“Word is they might be relocating,” Mavis said suddenly, his voice carefully casual.
“Why?” I asked gruffly. “Surely nobody thinks pack war could reach this deep into established Denraider territory.”
“Depends how the war goes. The ones we’re up against next… I hear they’re hybrids, not just mages or witches. Abominations, according to our top alphas. Scary motherfuckers according to anyone else.”
I stifled a grin, wondering what Freya, Zak, and Brielle would think of that description. But then my mind caught up to what he was implying.
My pulse spiked. “When?”
“Soon. Maybe tomorrow. Hard to say.” He stood, gathering his empty bowl. “If you’re smart, you’ll keep your head down and focus on earning your place here. Don’t go looking for trouble where it doesn’t concern you.”
But his eyes held a different message entirely — a warning that time was running out.
As Mavis walked away, I sat alone with the weight of what I’d learned. Valkyrie was here, alive, but trapped in a hell that made my own childhood exile look like mercy. I was so close… if they moved her, we might never find her again.
I slipped away from the mess hall, finding a quiet corner behind one of the storage buildings. I took a steadying breath and lowered my mental barriers just enough to reach through the Bonded link.
“I saw her,” I said into the connection, my mental voice tight with urgency. “Freya’s sister. I found Valkyrie, and I have a chance to break her out. But it has to be today or tonight. I might not get another opportunity.”
Gage’s response came back immediately, sharp with authority and concern. “No, Rowan. That’s not the mission. The risk is too great.”
“Good thing you’re not my pack alpha anymore,” I shot back, letting my defiance bleed through the bond.
Freya’s worry and appreciation bled through in equal measure, but Gage commanded, “Don’t go getting yourself caught.”
Without the pack bond and over this distance, Gage’s order didn’t even ruffle my fur.
I started to respond, but footsteps approached. I slammed my mental barriers shut and straightened, adopting the casual posture of someone taking a piss break.
Keith emerged from behind the storage building, and I nodded casually as if I’d simply been relieving myself. His eyes narrowed on me, and I got the sense he’d been looking for me. Though he grunted and walked off, his eyes lingered on me with calculated interest.
I waited until he was out of sight before making my decision. Gage’s orders be damned — I wasn’t leaving Valkyrie in this hell for another day if I could help it. Time was running out, and this might be my only chance.
I kept my mental barriers locked tight as I moved through the camp, cutting off any potential distractions. They’d try to talk me out of this, and I couldn’t afford the distraction. My survival instincts took over, cataloging every detail as I navigated the maze of tents and temporary structures.
The small town followed a rough hierarchy — the most dominant wolves claimed houses closest to the center near the pack house where the regional alpha normally held court, while conquered and converted packmates circled them next, leaving the lowest-ranking members to the outer edges as the least-protected if pack war broke out.
If Valkyrie was property rather than pack, she’d be housed with her master, and there was no telling how close to the center that might be. Still, I’d caught her scent from the mess hall. If I could just catch it again…
I kept my movements purposeful but unhurried, nodding to wolves I recognized, avoiding the clusters where dominance challenges were brewing. The key was to look like I belonged, like I had every right to be where I was.
A raven cawed three times, and I scanned my surroundings, remembering Tor’s promise from the dream.
“You there! New meat!”
The angry voice cracked like a whip behind me, and I turned to see a massive alpha stalking toward me.
He was built like a tank, all muscle, with the kind of swagger that came from never being challenged.
I noted the dark Denraider pack tattoo on his right wrist. His wolf radiated dominance — stronger than mine, older, more experienced, and clearly looking for a fight.
“You’ve been asking a lot of questions,” he said, circling me like a predator. “Getting ideas above your station.”
Several other wolves began to gather, sensing the potential for entertainment. In Denraider, refusing a challenge was worse than losing one — it marked you as weak, unworthy of even the lowest position in their hierarchy.
“Just trying to learn the lay of the land,” I replied carefully, letting my own wolf rise enough to show I wasn’t cowering.
“You have an important lesson to learn, rogue,” he snarled, his alpha power slamming into me like a physical force. “Submit.”
The command hit me with the weight of his dominance, trying to force my wolf to his belly. In the past, I might have struggled against it, might have been overwhelmed by the sheer force of his more dominant alpha nature, might have found my face in the dirt, my throat bared.
But somehow, I easily shook off his command.
Freya’s desperate fear and determination reached me through the Bonded link alongside something that should have been impossible.
Power. Clean and bright and utterly foreign to my Lokiswolf heritage.
“No,” Freya’s words echoed in my mind alone as she secretly answered the alpha who challenged me. “My mate does not submit.”
Her magic poured into me across the distance. Odinswolf strength reinforced my spine, her resistance to alpha commands becoming mine.
“My amazing pupil,” Zak’s awe struck me. “I never thought you could share your Odinswolf power with the rest of us.”
The dominant alpha’s eyes widened in shock as I remained standing, his command sliding off me like water off stone.
“Impossible,” he breathed.
Then he lunged.
I let him come, using his momentum against him as we crashed to the ground.
The watching wolves erupted in cheers and howls, hungry for blood.
More power flowed through the Bonded link — not just Freya’s magic, but Zak’s healing energy, healing my existing bruises and preparing to mend whatever new damage I was about to take.
I growled out a challenge and shifted, destroying my clothing in the process. My attacker shifted right along with me.
The other alpha was bigger, stronger, and maybe even faster, but I had advantages he couldn’t see. Every time his fangs found flesh, the wounds began healing even faster than normal wolf shifting ability.
Through the Bonded link, I felt Freya gathering power and pushing it my way.
“My ravens will find her sister while you handle this threat,” Tor’s voice whispered through the bond, calm and confident.