Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FERAL
Victoria didn’t waste time with diplomacy. She turned to Bastian.
“Your attempts to solve this problem are a failure,” she said. “Not because you lack skill or dedication, but because you’re trying to complete a ritual that requires multiple participants with only one set of hands.”
Bastian’s face tightened.
She kept going, flipping her notebook open to a page covered in diagrams. “The bear shifter in the greenhouse told me he saw Feral’s father perform the ritual once.
Other alphas were present, positioned at different points around the seal site.
I don’t believe they were there to witness the ceremony, though he does. I believe they were participating.”
She traced the pattern on the page, her finger moving between points she’d marked.
“If my theory is right, the seal structure requires simultaneous anchoring from multiple locations,” she said.
“I’m confident one alpha alone can’t complete it, which means the duskburst can’t bind to a partial seal because the magical framework isn’t there to support it.
You’ve been pouring your magic and that of your poor pack members into gaps that shouldn’t exist, trying to be four or five anchors with only one body. ”
I slid my hand along the small of her back.
In a few moments, she dismantled thirteen years of Bastian’s work with the same careful attention she gave everything else.
Bastian noted the gesture, and his expression loosened. He’d been reading our marriage as a strategic alliance, useful for borders and politics but nothing else. He was updating that assessment right now.
“If I’m correct, the structure you’ve been trying to maintain is like a net,” Victoria said. “Except most of the binding points are missing. You’ve been filling a net with holes, and the effort has cost you. In fact, it’s cost both your pack and ours.”
She glanced at Acorn sitting on the table beside her and nodded, relaying his message. “Acorn says, when one hand cannot weave what five hands should hold, the net spills wide and the magic grows cold.”
Bastian’s gaze snapped to the squirrel. Irritation flashed across his face, the kind of reaction you got when something small and what you thought was insignificant made a point you couldn’t argue with.
He looked away.
I almost smiled.
Victoria tapped her notebook. “I believe that every time you’ve attempted the ritual alone, you’ve been creating magical pressure without proper distribution.
That pressure has to go somewhere. It’s been killing the duskburst you plant, and it’s been bleeding into the pack bonds, destabilizing the connection between shifters and their wolves.
Kirk described a hollow, muffled feeling.
That’s your magic trying to compensate for the missing alphas during the ritual. ”
She closed her notebook. “You’ve been making the shifting sickness worse, though by accident.”
The words hung in the air.
The defensive posture Bastian had held since we arrived dropped away. He suddenly looked older, tired in a way that went deeper than lack of sleep.
“I didn’t know,” he said softly. “I wasn’t alpha when your father died, though I was second-in-command.
I attended the last ritual your father performed.
I saw the duskburst placement and heard the binding words.
I thought if I did it the same way, one strong alpha would be enough.
” His gaze fell to the table, and his sigh rang out.
“A few of the other alphas reached out to me, asking if they should continue coming for the ritual each season and I…” His spine stiffened. “I told them I could handle it alone.”
The admission cost him. I could see it in the way his jaw worked and in the tension in his shoulders.
“The wolf who tends the fire all alone,” Victoria said, repeating Acorn’s words, “thinks the heat he makes is all that’s known.”
Grief curled Bastian’s posture forward. “I’ve made a horrible mistake. Many of them, actually, and I apologize. I didn’t know, but that’s not an excuse.”
If he hadn’t been so hardheaded, the others might have told him about their role in the ritual. He could’ve then reached out to me, and none of this would’ve happened.
But we’d fix it, and I suspected communication would be more open between us moving forward.
My father’s death must’ve cost him something too. My father had been someone who shared the same burdens. Possibly a friend.
Thirteen years of contempt suddenly looked more complicated.
“My father never told me either,” I said.
Bastian’s eyes met mine, and something passed between us that didn’t need words.
He’d been carrying the same weight as me, just from a different direction.
I’d spent thirteen years trying to prove I was strong enough to hold this territory without help.
Bastian had spent thirteen years trying to hold what my father left behind because he thought I couldn’t.
We’d both been wrong.
“I should’ve reached out to you for guidance,” I said. The admission felt like pulling splinters, but it needed to be said. “Instead, I tried to handle everything alone.”
Bastian almost smiled before smoothing his mouth.
“Acorn says the wolf who bends before the breaking saves himself the longer aching,” Victoria said. Her smile rose. “He said he’s been waiting to say that for weeks.”
I didn’t dignify that with a response.
“We need to repair the seals together,” she said. “Notify the other alphas and tell them how urgent this is.” She looked at Bastian. “Can you notify the other packs? We’ll need everyone present for this to work.”
Bastian nodded. “I can reach them. Most of them respect the old ways enough to show up if I explain what’s at stake. I’ll tell them how important this is, tell them to be here within a day.”
“Good.” Victoria tucked her notebook into her bag hanging off the back of the chair. “I have documentation of the seal sites in Feral’s territory. If you have similar records for yours, we can cross-reference and see if we can establish a pattern.”
“You’re smart,” Bastian said with a touch of awe. “Sharper than I gave you credit for.”
I slid my hand from her back to her hip.
Victoria’s mouth twitched, but she didn’t comment.
“You’ve done well, Feral,” he said. “Better than I thought you would when you took over at nineteen.” He kept his attention on the table. “I didn’t want to admit it. Pride, mostly. But you’ve held this region together despite everything working against you.”
The admission hit differently than anything else he’d said so far.
“If you tell anyone I said that, I’ll deny it,” he added. His laugh rang out, and mine joined in.
It had taken thirteen years and one afternoon with my wife’s notebook to get to this point. I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful for the speed of it or unsettled. I decided it didn’t matter. We were here now.
“We should celebrate,” Bastian said. “You two will be our guests. If you wish, you can remain here until the ritual can be completed. But I think we need to treat you to a proper dinner. My pack will want to meet the witch who solved what I’ve been failing at for over a decade.”
He called for his second, issuing orders for a feast to be prepared.
“Thank you for the offer.” I met Victoria’s gaze, and she gave me a slight nod. “We’d love to stay.”
Acorn chittered, and Victoria tilted her head, listening. “He’s asking if there will be pastries.”
Bastian’s laughter echoed through the hall again. “Tell the rodent there will be. The good ones, with honey.”
Acorn’s tail shot up.
The alliance between us had changed from something tense and political into something that might actually work.
Victoria caught my eye, her expression showing satisfaction mixed with exhaustion. She’d ridden into enemy territory and turned a potential fight into a functional partnership with observation and logic.
My wolf rumbled with pride that had nothing to do with dominance and everything to do with the woman sitting beside me.
In one afternoon, she’d done what I’d been failing to do for thirteen years.
I smoothed hair off her face, letting Bastian see exactly how much she meant to me.
Our political marriage had stopped being political the moment she’d walked into my life and started solving things I couldn’t fix alone.
I wasn’t sure exactly when that had happened. I’d stopped trying to pinpoint it.
Bastian’s staff began preparing the main hall for dinner. The spelled lights brightened, casting a warm glow across the polished floor.
Victoria rose and went over to examine one of the flowering vines woven through the ceiling beams, her notebook out again, her pen already moving.
I watched her work and felt the last of the tension I’d been carrying since we crossed into Bastian’s territory ease.
We weren’t done. The seals still needed repair. The ritual still required coordination and preparation we hadn’t started yet.
But for the first time in thirteen years, I wasn’t trying to hold everything together alone.
Bastian got up and came over to stand beside me, his arms crossed on his chest, watching Victoria with the same attention I was.
She pointed to the vines and spoke with one of the staff, and I’d bet anything her comment had something to do with the care of the plant.
“She’s going to reorganize everything, isn’t she?” Bastian said.
“Probably.”
“Are you going to stop her?”
“Not a chance.”
His mouth curved up on one corner. “Good. We need someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”
From across the hall, Acorn’s chittering reached us. Victoria met my eyes and smiled.
The squirrel launched himself toward the ceiling, catching one of the flowering vines and swinging across the hall.
“Is he always like this?” Bastian asked, cricking his head back to watch the squirrel.
“He’s usually worse.”
“Fates help us all.”
I almost said the Fates had already helped by sending me a wife who could solve problems and a squirrel who offered rhyming advice at critical moments.
Instead, I just watched Victoria work.