Chapter 7 - Rowan #3
While I fought, Tor’s magic spread across the town, his birds taking flight to search where I couldn’t.
Through our connection, I experienced something unprecedented — the weaving together of different magics, different strengths, all focused on a single purpose.
Freya’s power anchoring us, my fellow alphas’ strength bolstering me, Zak’s healing flowing through me, and Tor’s surveillance spreading wide.
My attacker caught me with a vicious swipe across the ribs, and I let him, crying out as if the wound was worse than it actually was. Blood flowed freely, satisfying the crowd’s bloodlust, but the gashes were already closing.
“He favors his left side,” Heath noted, and with a start, I realized they could all somehow see through my eyes.
This was what Freya was meant for. Not just leading a pack, but connecting us all, allowing us to connect like this even when separated by the distance.
I retaliated and landed a few blows, but nothing that might permanently disable him. The fight needed to be convincing, but I couldn’t afford to call too much attention to myself.
Still, I needed to end this decisively.
“Feint,” Flint suggested as the two of us circled one another.
I did so, and the alpha fell for it, leaving me an opening.
“Now,” Gage growled.
I lunged, knocking the alpha off balance and then catching his throat in my jaws. With a snarl, I demanded he yield.
He wasn’t a fellow rogue — if I killed him, there would be consequences.
The watching wolves erupted in approval. The defeated alpha tilted his head down, baring his throat and acknowledging my victory.
I released him and immediately shifted back, as did he.
“Good fight,” I said, offering him a hand up.
He growled, then turned his back on me, getting up on hands and knees before walking away without so much as a backward glance. I snarled, my wolf bristling at the slight. The crowd around me laughed and congratulated me, respect earned through violence in the way Denraider understood.
As the crowd dispersed, so too did the magic inside of me. I felt drained and shrunken as Freya and the others’ magic slowly faded from my system.
The immediate crisis was over, but the demonstration of what we could accomplish together left me shaken. If Freya could do this across such great distances…
It left me reeling more than the fight itself.
A slow golf clap cut through my thoughts.
“Impressive.”
My brain caught up with what my eyes had seen, and I realized Keith had been in wolf form during the fight. He’d shifted from wolf to human form after my attacker had stalked off, and now stood watching me with barely concealed jealousy and malicious satisfaction.
“Just proving I belong here,” I said, wiping the sweat from my brow.
“Oh, you’ve proven that well enough.” His smile was cold. “Proven it so well that I felt I had to mention your… talents to someone who might appreciate them.”
My blood turned to ice. “What do you mean?”
“I told Lydell about you.” Keith’s eyes glittered with spite. “He was very interested.”
The world seemed to tilt around me.
Keith’s next words confirmed my worst fears: “Lydell wants to see you. We’re going back to the border.”
I’d hoped for more time to find Valkyrie’s location at the very least. And to stage her rescue if possible.
Through the fading connection to Tor’s ravens, I caught a glimpse of a small building on the camp’s edge, a flash of ice-blue eyes through a barred window. Valkyrie. So close I could almost reach her.
But Denraider didn’t operate on my timeline.
“C’mon,” Keith told me over his shoulder.
With a gesture for me to follow, refusing wasn’t an option. Around us, other wolves watched with interest.
“Lucky for you, it means you’re about to receive his pack bite and be welcomed into the pack.”
“Get out of there,” Gage demanded, startling me by how easily he broke into my thoughts. I hadn’t reported the news to him — but he’d seen through my eyes during the fight. Maybe he still could?
Behind us, the ravens settled into watchful positions, the eyes that could follow where I couldn’t go.
“What about the other recruits?” I asked Keith, trying to understand if I’d been singled out.
“They’re coming, too.”
As I fell into step behind Keith, one thought echoed through my mind: I wasn’t ready for this. But ready or not, I was about to come face-to-face with the past that had forged me and the man who’d destroyed my childhood.
I dropped back behind Keith so I could think without my scent or expression giving anything away.
“Don’t let that jackass bite you,” Heath echoed Gage’s reaction.
“Torsten?” Gage surprised me by asking for our future packmate’s input. He hadn’t even met him yet. My eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“It’ll bring him closer to my position,” Tor said. “But… if you can break free, Rowan, my ravens can show you the way back to Valkyrie.”
“That’s nowhere near the border, though,” Flint cautioned. “He’d have to convince Valkyrie to go with him and then fight his way through the heart of Denraider territory.”
“But they’re moving her,” I pointed out.
“And my ravens will tell us where.”
“I thought you’d be excited,” Keith tutted from up ahead, noticing my long silence.
“I’ll be excited when I’ve joined a decent pack,” I growled.
That seemed to appease Keith as he rounded up the other recruits.
“New orders from Pack Alpha Lydell,” he announced at the barracks. “We’re headed out for the big Christmas celebration, and you’re the main event. Lydell plans to kick it off tomorrow night with a pack bond ceremony.”
“We just got here!” one of them protested.
Keith laughed. “You’re welcome to stay a packless slave if you’d like.”
“I’ll take the party and pack bite, thanks,” the grumpy guy’s friend ribbed him.
I shifted with the group as everyone started piling into a trailer towed by a pickup truck. My stomach churned, uneasy, as I waited my turn.
What had Keith told Lydell, really? If Lydell was as impressed as Keith suggested, he might choose to send me to the front lines to face off against the very hybrids the pack had been whispering about.
Freya. Zak. Brielle.
“You,” Keith pointed at me. “You’re in the truck with me. Switch back to human form.”
I sighed, knowing he wanted to keep an eye on me. That killed any chance I could leap off the back to find Valkyrie. I pulled a set of spare clothes from my sling bag, careful to leave the spell stone from Zak at the bottom.
“I’m coming back,” I told them through the Bonded link, my heart heavy.
Once Lydell bit me, he’d be able to command me without fail. He could make me break cover and reveal all my secrets. Anything could happen. And if Keith watched me like a hawk the whole way, I had no chance of escape without bringing the whole pack down on me.
“Torsten, go get him,” Gage ordered.
“I’ll meet you there, Rowan,” Tor promised me.
“What—” I sputtered.
“Torsten will extract you,” Gage informed me.
“But Valkyrie—”
“My ravens will track her.”
“Tor will let us know where they take my sister,” Freya said. “Right now, we need both of you with us.”
Cold fear slipped into the Bonded link, putting my arguments on the back burner.
“Gage,” Tor warned. “Denraider forces are heading for Moonblessed.”