Chapter 8
STELLAN
Ishould give her space. Instead, every meal, every gathering, every moment where she might be present—I am there. Watching. Waiting. Letting her feel the weight of my attention like a hand pressed between her shoulder blades.
She keeps her eyes down. Sits at the far end of the hall. Angles her body away as though distance might protect her from what we both know is coming.
It won't.
The avoidance only confirms what the kiss already told me. She wants me. She hates that she wants me. And every time she refuses to meet my eyes, she is thinking about what happens when she finally does.
I can be patient. I have been patient for years. But patience is not the same as mercy, and she would do well to remember the difference.
The taste of her still lingers on my tongue.
Not the blood from where she bit my lip, though that wound has long since healed.
Something deeper. Something that burrowed into my chest and made a home there, warm and aching and impossible to ignore.
I have waited years to touch her. I had not anticipated that a single kiss would leave me hungrier than all those years of watching combined.
But patience is a discipline I mastered long ago. She will come to me when she is ready. Until then, I will be everywhere she looks, a reminder that avoidance is not the same as escape.
This morning, that discipline is tested by something other than her silence.
"The northern scouts returned an hour ago.
" Torben's voice is low as he falls into step beside me in the corridor outside my chambers.
My beta rarely seeks me out before dawn unless the news warrants it.
"Korren's men have been spotted at the border.
Three separate patrols in the last week, all pushing closer to our territory than they have any right to be. "
Korren. Alpha of the Blackridge pack to the north. We have history—a border dispute that ended with three of his wolves dead and his pride in tatters. He has wanted this territory, and my throat, ever since.
I keep walking, my pace unchanged. "Probing for weakness."
"Or testing response times." Torben's jaw is tight. "There's more. One of my sources in his pack says Korren knows about the omega. About her designation."
That stops me. I turn to face him, and whatever he sees in my expression makes him take a half-step back before he catches himself. Torben has been at my side for fifteen years. He does not frighten easily. The fact that he flinches now tells me exactly what I am barely holding back.
"How?"
"Unknown. Could be a leak in our pack. Could be that Korren has had eyes on her longer than we realized—maybe since before she arrived." Torben pauses. "If it is a leak, the most likely source is Ragnar. He has been vocal about his opinions regarding your choice of mate."
Ragnar. The name settles into my chest like a stone dropped into still water.
I have tolerated his grumbling because dissent, within limits, keeps a pack honest. An alpha who silences every voice of opposition breeds resentment that festers in the dark.
But there is a difference between disagreement and betrayal.
If Ragnar has been feeding information to Korren, that line has been crossed.
"What has he been saying?"
"That you are distracted. That your obsession with a human omega has made you weak.
That the pack deserves an alpha whose priorities are not divided between leadership and his cock.
" Torben delivers the words without inflection, but I can see the anger simmering beneath his calm.
"He has gathered a small group of traditionalists who share his concerns.
They meet in the eastern barracks after evening patrol. "
"How many?"
"A small group. Not enough to challenge you directly. But enough to cause problems if Korren decides to test our borders with force."
I resume walking, my mind turning over the information like stones in my palm.
Korren has wanted this territory for years.
The mountain passes, the hunting grounds, the strategic position between three major pack territories.
He lacks the strength to take it by force, but if he believes internal conflict has weakened my hold, he might be foolish enough to try.
And now he knows about Iris.
An omega is valuable. In Korren's hands, she would be a weapon turned against everything I have built.
I will not allow that to happen.
"Increase patrols along the northern border.
I want to know every time one of Korren's wolves so much as sniffs in our direction.
" I pause at the entrance to the great hall, where the pack is gathering for the morning meal.
"And have someone watch Ragnar. Do not confront him yet.
I want to know exactly how deep this rot goes before I cut it out. "
Torben nods and disappears into the crowd. I stand in the doorway for a moment, scanning the hall until I find her.
Iris sits at a table near the windows, her back to the room, her shoulders tense with awareness.
She knows I am here. She always knows. The awareness between us is a living thing, pulling taut whenever we share the same space.
The rigid line of her spine calls to me, and I imagine pressing my mouth to the space between her shoulder blades, feeling her shiver, hearing her breath catch the way it did when my hand closed around her throat.
Two more days. I will give her two more days of avoidance. Then I will remind her that running only makes the chase sweeter.
The pack gathers for dinner in the great hall, as we have done for generations.
Long tables arranged in rows, benches worn smooth by decades of use, the massive hearth throwing heat and light across the stone floor.
It is a ritual as old as the pack itself, a time when hierarchy is visible and reinforced, when the alpha sits at the head of the hall and his wolves arrange themselves according to rank and favor.
Tonight, the air carries an undercurrent of tension that prickles against my skin like static before a storm.
Iris enters late. She has been taking the majority of her meals in her room since the kiss. Tonight, for whatever reason, she has decided to test the waters.
I watch her pause at the entrance, scanning the room, calculating the distance to the empty seat at my right hand. Her place. The one I have kept open every night, a silent reminder that avoidance has its limits.
She never makes it that far.
Ragnar steps into her path before she has taken three steps.
He is not alone. Three wolves flank him, their postures aggressive, their eyes bright with the particular cruelty of men who have found a target they believe cannot fight back.
The hall goes quiet in stages, conversations dying like candles snuffed by a sudden wind, until the silence is absolute.
"The alpha's whore should eat with the dogs," Ragnar says, his voice pitched to carry. "Not at the table with proper wolves."
Iris stops. I can see the tension lock through her body, the way her hands curl into fists at her sides, the slight lift of her chin that tells me she is preparing to fight even though she is surrounded and outmatched. My fierce omega. She has no idea how beautiful she is when she refuses to bend.
I set down my cup and rise from my seat.
The hall is large. The distance between my table and where Ragnar has cornered Iris is perhaps fifty feet.
I cross it in silence, my boots making no sound on the flagstones, my pace unhurried.
Every wolf in the room is watching. They know what is coming.
Ragnar should know too, but he is drunk on his own daring, on the small power he has gathered by whispering poison into willing ears.
He does not turn to face me until I am close enough to touch.
When he does turn, the color drains from his face.
"Alpha." The word comes out strangled. "I was just explaining to the human where her place is in the pack hierarchy."
"Were you." I stop an arm's length from him, close enough that he has to crane his neck to meet my eyes. The wolves flanking him move from foot-to-foot uneasily, their bravado evaporating in the face of the violence I am not bothering to hide. "And where, exactly, do you believe her place to be?"
"She's not one of us." Ragnar's voice wavers, but he presses on.
Perhaps he believes that backing down now will cost him more than standing his ground.
He is wrong. "She's human. Weak. An omega, yes, but not a wolf.
The pack deserves a luna who can stand beside you in battle, not a fragile thing who hides in her room and refuses to take her mate. "
I let the silence stretch. Let him hear how absolute it is, how completely the pack has withdrawn its support from him. Then I reach out and take his wrist.
The first bone breaks with a sound like a dry branch snapping. Ragnar screams. His knees buckle, but I hold him upright by his shattered wrist, letting the pain radiate through him while I address the assembled pack.
"This woman is your luna in all but ceremony.
" My voice carries through the hall, calm and conversational, as though I am not currently grinding broken bone against broken bone in my grip.
"Her word is my word. Her protection is my command.
" The second bone breaks, and Ragnar's scream cuts off into a wet gurgle as he chokes on his own agony.
"Touch her, and I will take it from your flesh piece by piece. "
I release his wrist and he collapses to his knees, cradling the ruined limb against his chest. The joint is bent at an angle that nature never intended.
He will heal, as wolves do, but not quickly.
Not without pain. And every time he feels that ache in the months to come, he will remember this moment.
I crouch in front of him, gripping his jaw and forcing his head up until his tear-streaked face is level with mine.