2. The Rose
Chapter 2
The Rose
“ P rincess, I’d love to see you try to make—” The gurgling sound that escaped his mouth as my hand locked around his throat brought a small grin to my face even as a weight settled in my gut. No matter how many times we did this dance, he still chose the wrong steps. He insisted on forcing me to prove that, between the two of us, only one could control the other. It wasn’t him.
It shouldn’t have had to be this way.
I didn’t regret taking the Beta Luna position from him. I was stronger than him, faster than him, and I needed to prove that even if I couldn’t fully shift, I was not a liability to this pack. At least, not for that reason. My stomach dropped as I considered the one secret that could put me–us–at risk, but it would stay buried where I left it–in the ashes of a town long forgotten.
I wished it didn’t have to be that way, but it did. I didn’t revel in putting Logan of all people in his place, but I’d be lying if the smallest spark of satisfaction didn’t flare inside me each time I proved I was anything but weak. Maybe he hadn’t thought so before he’d left, but I’d proven it a thousand times over in his absence.
Each dig, each snide remark, each chuckle in the corridors grated against my nerves. I grinned and bore it all, and the knowledge that I was the stronger shifter was my reward. Maybe it came from the demon in me.
“It would seem,” I said slowly, “that the night air has muddled your mind, Logan, or maybe it’s too many shifts on patrol.” His hands batted at my forearm, but I didn’t release him. Instead, I descended my claws and let them dig into the stubble-studded skin of his neck. I didn’t draw blood—yet.
“Maybe you need to take a break from guard duties and spend some time in the stable clearing your head, or perhaps the kitchen.”
His eyes narrowed. His face grew redder until the shade bordered violet, and yet he refused to submit. I could have let him struggle. I could have tightened my grip and taken his breath until he slipped into unconsciousness.
Letting him struggle would only lead to more time being lost than had already been wasted. Rendering him unconscious would mean tasking a second Enforcer with staying behind. I did neither. To him, what I did instead was likely much worse.
I forced him to fall in line.
“Stop struggling, Enforcer,” I commanded. I infused each syllable with the power my rank held over the other members of the pack. It left him no choice but to obey. “You will sit on this stump until the Alpha and Luna arrive. You will bring them to us, and you will do so swiftly. Do you understand?”
I watched him struggle to fight the order, but even if I hadn’t earned the Beta Luna title, my level of dominance would always outrank his. It always had, I’d simply let him believe otherwise. I’d let everyone believe otherwise.
I loosened my grip on his throat to allow him to answer. I sent a quick prayer to whatever goddess was listening that he would fall in line. It’d barely been six months since his last challenge, and I didn’t relish defeating him again.
“Do you understand me?” I repeated slowly.
“Yes,” he gritted out between his grinding teeth.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Beta.”
“Good.” I let my claws score his neck as I released his throat. I moved past his hunched-over, coughing form. Any marks would heal by the night’s end—they weren’t nearly deep enough to scar—but they’d sting for at least the next hour. Sometimes pain delivered a clearer message than words.
I’d tried words. They weren’t enough.
“I wish you’d never come to this pack.”
And sometimes there was a pain that only words could inflict.
I should have kept walking. I should have pretended not to hear the half-whispered wish. I definitely shouldn’t have turned back to kneel by his side, but I did.
“We cannot go on like this, Logan,” I said low enough only the two of us would hear. “I won this position from you fairly and through the customs of our people. You have to let it go, both for the sake of the pack and yourself.”
He said nothing in response, but lifted his gaze to meet mine. I thought I saw a flash of something akin to regret in them, but it disappeared as quickly as it came.
“It was luck,” he said in a voice just as low. “You were lucky to beat me. I know I’m the stronger fighter–the stronger leader.”
I knew my next words were cruel. For a moment I considered keeping them to myself, but if clarity only came with a tinge of cruelty, it was a price I’d have to pay.
I paused, then said in as gentle of a tone as I could manage, “You may believe that to be true for the first Pack Rite, but I didn’t simply win the first battle between us. I also won the second, and then the third.”
I shifted my weight to block him from the other Enforcers’ view. Logan deserved to be put in his place when he stepped out of line. He didn’t deserve for the others to see his expression crumble.
“You’re still a leader in this pack. Its members look up to you–trust you,” I continued, “so be better for them.”
There were only twelve Enforcers appointed amongst nearly two hundred pack members. To be selected for the role was an honor in any pack, but to be selected in the Othniel Pack–the largest, strongest on the continent–bordered on prestige.
When he offered no response, I rose to my feet and left him where he knelt in the grass.
“They’ll never fully accept you, you know. Not with what you are.” My back tensed at the half-taunted truth. He had no idea what traits made me what I was. Latent was the least concerning among them. “ He will never claim you as his mate. No self-respecting shifter will.”
“And yet I’ll still outrank you without one,” I called without turning back. I kept my eyes fixed north as I strode past the waiting Enforcers toward the border.
If my lack of prospects for a mate was the only insult he could think grasp onto in a moment of desperation, I chose to consider it a compliment. At the very least it was a change from the usual, “She can’t even shift,” though I suppose he’d used a variation of that too.
Disappointingly unoriginal.
I didn’t need the Alpha heir to claim me as his mate. The days of a female taking her rank from a male mate had long passed. Despite what some chose to believe, a Luna rose to her position the same way an Alpha rose to his–by earning it.
Before she and Lucas were anything more than friends, Ivy challenged her predecessor for her position and won. One day, when it was time, I’d do the same.
A Luna and an Alpha didn’t need to be a mated pair to lead together, but most–really, all–chose to become one. The nature of their roles nearly forced it into existence. What else could be expected when two people worked together day in and day out? Each had an equal voice to the other. No decision, ruling, or plan could move forward if they were at odds. Beyond the requirements of their position, it was only natural they’d be drawn to one another. Power attracts power. Strength attracts strength.
“It’s just ahead.” Fenrir’s deep tenor pulled me out of my head and back to the scene in front of me.
At first glance the woods were as usual: a compilation of bushes and trees accompanied by the smell of dirt and freshly crinkled leaves. But then there were the finer details, like the half-snapped branch hanging by its bark, the leaves clustered around a small patch of dirt, and the faintest hint of something else—something wrong infesting the usually fresh air.
“Can you catch a scent?” I asked. Brody’s sense of smell was unmatched in the pack, courtesy of his wolverine. It made him an invaluable tracker, and having him around made hiding my own heightened senses easier.
“It’s faint but it’s there,” he confirmed, walking between where we stood and the border. “It’s stronger in the brush than by the border. Whatever they did to try breaking through, they did it quickly.”
He crouched down to the patch of dirt, picking the soil up and lifting it to his nose. His eyes closed as he sniffed it, and a crease began to form between his brows.
“It’s strange,” he said as he opened his icy blue eyes, “the scent is sour, putrid almost, like a gutted carcass left in the sun, but there’s a hint of something earthy underneath.”
Fenrir’s face turned to stone.
My breath was stolen from me as panic’s inky tendrils wrapped themselves around me from my head to my toes. It wasn’t possible, I reminded myself. They were gone. There were hundreds of other explanations for the odor to be here. I was being paranoid—on edge for tomorrow’s impending journey.
“Great imagery,” Mia grumbled under her breath. “Next you’ll be smelling vomit left on the ground.” Hers and mine both, though admittedly for different reasons.
“Any sign we’re dealing with more than one intruder?” I asked.
“Hard to say. The smell of rot is overpowering. It could be covering the scent of one or many.”
“Can you follow it?” If he couldn’t, I’d have to think of a reason to suggest heading northeast myself. The longer we waited the less likely we were to find anything of note. We were already losing time.
Brody stood, and the dirt fell between his fingers to rejoin the earth below. He turned to look east, deeper into the woods before saying, “The trail is faint, but it’s there.”
He looked at me, awaiting the order.
“Go,” I told him. I nodded my head at Mia. “Go with him. If it’s a rogue, they’ve likely fled from the area by now, but I’d rather we stayed in pairs beyond the border. The threat we know isn’t always the only threat amongst us. We’ll canvas this area once more, then meet you.”
“Yes, Beta.” They departed. Then it was just Fenrir and I, alone in the woods.
“You handled Logan well today,” he praised, one corner of his bearded mouth raising. “We’ve let him rebel for quite long enough. He needs to fall in line or fall from the ranks. He’s behaving like a petulant child.”
“I think I recall it was your idea,” I reminded him, “to make that petulant child an Enforcer, was it not?”
I’d planned to offer him the position myself before Fenrir approached me. As the pack’s Head Enforcer, he was entitled to nominate which shifters filled the ranks. Everyone was confirmed by the Alpha and Luna, but a dispute was rare —if not entirely unheard of. I was happy to let him think it was solely his idea to appoint Logan, especially given the man’s recent behavior.
“I prefer not to relive follies of my youth.”
“Your youth?” I scoffed, “It’s been less than two years' time!”
His eyebrows drew in as his eyes narrowed as he said, “Yes, my youth. I hadn’t reached my fourth decade yet. A man learns a lot when he reaches that kind of milestone. I’ll thank you to leave my mistakes in the past where they belong, unless you’d like to revisit a few of your own. I seem to recall an incident at Summer Solstice with an ancient urn you thought would make the perfect?—”
“Alright,” I cut him off, “Message received. No more trips to the past.”
I refrained from pointing out I’d been nine when I tried to use that urn to heat the cider in the fire. He’d been thirty years older when he appointed Logan.
He chuckled, but the sound died as he scanned our surroundings. Concern was etched in each line drawn by his down-turned lips.
“You know where these signs may lead.” He leaned and kept his voice low. Brody and Mia may be out of earshot but there was no guarantee Ivy and Lucas wouldn’t arrive at the most inopportune time. If they overheard something they shouldn’t, it would spell disaster for us both.
“That the rogues have begun basking in the blood of their prey to cover their scent?” I quipped, ignoring the sinking feeling in my chest. “Yes, and I find it a bit disturbing. It’s at the very least unsanitary. Imagine how many pots of water they have to boil for their baths. I doubt they’ve discovered the joys of a water system yet.”
I would forever thank any god or goddess who listened for the day they discovered how to distribute a vat of water heated by the fire throughout the compound. I’d choose a steaming bath over the wash basin every day if I could.
“This isn’t a joke,” Fenrir’s words bordered a growl. His hand came down atop my shoulders, and I let him pull me toward him until our faces were less than a foot apart. “If you’re discovered, I won’t be able to save you this time. I won’t even be able to save myself.”
“It’s not them.” But it could be. “You know it’s not. The demons were pushed to the Wastes. The elemental shifters are extinct.”
I prayed my words held more confidence than my heart. The word demon had been plaguing the back of my mind since the putrid odor entered my senses. It could be something else–something foul, but not as foul as them, or they’d returned. I didn’t know which was true. I only knew that if demons had surfaced among the Hidden realms testing borders, I’d be delusional not to think they could be coming for me. I’d spent a decade wondering if they would, but what good would it do to send Fenrir into a panic alongside me?
I was leaving tomorrow. If they knew I was here–if they were watching me, then any immediate danger would leave with me.
“Even if they weren’t extinct,” I continued more seriously, “you wouldn’t need to save yourself. I would never reveal you know what I am. Ever. They’d have no reason to suspect otherwise. If the Alpha and Luna haven’t discovered me over the years, no one would think you would have observed what they did not.”
I’d never seen a grin full of sorrow until one appeared on his lips.
“And I’d never watch them execute you in silence. Ever,” he promised solemnly. “So your secrecy would be for naught.”
“You would have to. You’d lose your life, Fenrir. You’d lose Isaac. You’d lose the respect of every member in this pack and beyond.”
As the heads of the realm’s strongest pack, Ivy and Lucas sat on the Hidden Council amongst the leaders of the other courts. Treachery discovered under their rule would not go unnoticed.
“I’d lose the respect I have for myself by doing nothing, and Isaac would know in his heart what I did was right.”
Stupidly stubborn, honorable man.
“Or we’d be forever immortalized. Me as an abomination, and you as a traitor. Isaac would live a life under scrutiny and be executed if he gave any indicator he knew the truth. Which could easily happen because he does .”
“Or that.” He dipped his head in a slow nod.
The thought of Fenrir and Isaac had my world tilting on its axis. I’d conjure a pillar of open fire with a hundred witnesses, expose myself a thousand times over, if it would mean saving them.
It would doom them instead.
When I first came to the pack, I had far less control over my power. I was more emotional, more volatile then. I tried so hard to suppress it, but I was terrified of being caught. That fear only amplified the fire inside me. One day, one of the other children had made a particularly hateful comment about my inability to shift while we were running the obstacle courses. He’d hinted that maybe I’d been cast into the woods by my parents from the shame of having a latent child. So I did what any kid who felt like they could never belong did, I ran away.
They thought it cowardice, but I saw it as saving his miserable little life. I’d already woken to the destruction of one community. I would not be responsible for another.
Fenrir found me in the woods shortly after. I’d been sobbing, struggling to quiet the flames rolling up and down my arms. No matter what I tried—burning piles of leaves, shooting fire into the stream, plunging my ever-scorching hand into the mud—I couldn’t stop. I was terrified. Terrified of being discovered and exiled, or worse. Terrified of hurting someone.
And then I saw him.
He stood maybe ten yards away, bracing himself on a nearby tree as his mouth hung open in shock. Looking back, it was miraculous really, that he didn’t recoil in disgust at seeing me for what I had to be: demon born.
He didn’t report me to the Alpha and Luna as protocol demanded, didn’t attempt to drown me in the stream or tell me to leave pack lands and never return. Instead, he soothed and comforted me until the flames fell dormant.
And every day since, he risked his life by helping me keep mine.
“It’s good then,” I said, ignoring the tremor in my voice, “that they’re extinct.” And if they’d returned, I’d put them back in the ash-trodden graves from which they’d risen.
Fenrir looked at me from head to toe before his eyes landed on my hands. They were dotted with embers I hadn’t felt come to the surface.
“Except they’re not.”
A knife to the heart would have been less painful.
“Extinct,” I amended as I closed my hands into fists, quelling the fire on their surface, “with the exception of one, lone, elemental who means no harm.”
“That we know of.”
“We’d know if there were more.”
“How?” Fenrir scoffed, “As easily as someone would know about you? If you’ve stayed hidden, do you think others would not be just as capable?”
Because if any had remained in the decade since I’d survived, after what I did, they would have come for me. Not that I could tell him that. Asking someone to keep one deadly secret was selfish. Asking them to keep a second would be unforgivable, and I had enough sins marring my soul without adding another.
“We just would.” He opened his mouth, but I was quicker to speak. “It’s not them. Our secrets are safe. Our biggest issue right now is figuring out why the rogues keep returning. It could all be unrelated, but that feels too coincidental to be true.”
Maybe one or two attempts could be attributed to rogues looking to ransack an unsuspecting pack, but this was the third attempted breach in as many months. Previously, the intruders had left nothing behind; no broken branches, no trampled leaves, and certainly the scent of death to follow. Even thinking of the smell set me on edge.
But why break the pattern?
“They’re trying to make us uneasy,” I realized.
I straightened and looked around the scene again, my gaze lingering where Brody and Mia had disappeared only minutes before.
Damnit .
“Fenrir,” I said with more force, “They’re trying to make us uneasy. Uneasy enough to make a mistake.”
“Mistakes like separating outside of the border.” The blood drained from his face, his usual olive complexion turning pale.
I pulled my knife from its sheath, and then we were running.