Chapter One #2
“Oh, need will come,” Matthis said cheerfully. “But fair enough. Commander?” He tipped his chin toward Gerhard, needling him like a younger brother who couldn’t resist the tease, but who still looked at him for guidance.
Gerhard’s calm brown eyes, however, stayed fixed on me. “If he loses it, promise me you’ll run.”
“I will.”
“Your word, my lady.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Gerhard, Matthis, and I were all of an age, but Gerhard had always played the serious, protective, and even overbearing eldest when he thought it necessary.
It wasn’t often he pulled rank and asked me for my word as the Lady of the Pack–which I was, despite how my father and brother treated me. “You have my word,” I said then.
His sigh was comment enough, but he knew as well as I did that there was no other way forward.
There was a reason Matthis had brought the male to me, and now we needed to move things along “Matthis, you and Harkan,” Gerhard ordered, naming the other Prowler, “shift and flank me. I’ll remove the chain and shift after. My lady, remember your word.”
“Yes, Commander Ironfang.” Matthis gave a mocking salute, using Gerhard’s herd-earned moniker.
Gerhard didn’t dignify that with more than a glare.
“Yes, Commander,” I echoed, but mine came softened with affection.
Gerhard looked long and deep into Matthis’s eyes, then Harkan’s.
Then mine. At last, he gave the faintest nod and leaned down to unfasten the chain at the male’s neck.
There was the slightest hesitation, as if he waited for me to call this off, to find another way, something that wouldn’t put me in danger.
But such a thing didn’t exist. Besides, my father’s rule was more dangerous than this, not only for me, but for the entire pack. So I nodded.
In the next breath, Matthis and Harkan shifted, their powerful if slim wolves flanking the male on either side. Without their support, he crashed to the filthy floor with a heavy thud and a groan.
Gerhard bent, unlocked the chain around the male’s neck, and let it fall away just as his own great, muscular wolf took form.
I swallowed and waited.
Waited for the wolfsbane to loosen its grip on him.
Waited for him to regain enough consciousness to hear my words.
Waited for him to give me hope.
His labored breathing evened just enough to tell me he was coming to. The wolves knew it too; I saw the way they tensed, muscles ready to spring. Then, slowly, he raised his head. For the first time, he looked at me.
And everything in me stilled.
His eyes were golden, burning like live flame into mine.
Wolf’s eyes, feral with rage. His hair, unbound and wild on his broad shoulders, was black and streaked with ember-red at the tips, like charcoal kissed by fire.
A scar slashed across what would have been a regal cheekbone, running from the corner of his eye to his mouth—a mouth peeled enough to show elongated canines.
My wolf recognized the threat, sensed the lethal power, but she was not afraid, which was highly unreasonable. That male could snap my neck with very little effort. Still, I trusted my wolf and her instinct, so I steeled myself and squared my shoulders. I lifted my hands, showing I meant no harm.
It did nothing to soothe him.
A growl began again in his chest, low and terrible, vibrating in my marrow. And still my wolf didn’t bolt.
Gerhard and Matthis moved closer, ready to shield me. “Wait,” I stopped them. “It’s alright.” I hope.
I took one step closer, enough to bring me within his reach. A risk I had to take.
He lunged with a snarl that rattled through my blood.
Gerhard, Matthis, and Harkan launched themselves at him, but my power was faster.
I called fire into my hands, condensed it into a concentrated burst of heat, and slammed it into his chest like a hammer.
The impact was enough to send a lesser wolf crashing into the wall, but this one only staggered.
He would be on me within seconds, wolfsbane or not.
I needed more. I pulled the fire inward, heated the very air around him, locking his head into a closed sphere of heat.
Breathing turned against him as each inhale scorched his lungs, every scrap of oxygen consumed until nothing remained.
He gasped, choked, staggered in his fury.
Then his body gave way, collapsing unconscious.
It hadn’t taken more than a few minutes.
Yet I felt as if the weight of days–weeks–had slammed down on my shoulders.
I staggered back, throat tight, lungs straining for air I hadn’t lost. Matthis’ hand caught mine, his wolf gone, steadying me.
His grip was firm, but his eyes flicked to the male still smoking faintly in the shimmering air my magic had left behind, then back to me.
He hid the concern well behind his crooked grin, but I felt the tautness in his hold.
Behind him, Gerhard wasted no time locking the wolfsbane chain back around the male’s neck, the movement quick and precise, and I saw what others would have missed in the fraction of a pause before he straightened, the way his wolf still bristled even when the danger had passed.
He would have wanted to do a lot more to the male, but he asked me, “Are you hurt?”
“No. No.” I looked at his worried face and found my strength, smoothing my gown to compose myself. No harm, no foul, I reminded myself, forcing a smile. “I’m alright.”
Matthis planted his fists on his hips, one brow arched, his real half-smile curling back into place. “You’re the scariest wolf I’ve ever met.”
If only that were enough, I thought bitterly. But I inclined my head. “Thank you, kind sir.”
“So what do we do with him?” he asked, tipping his chin toward the unconscious male.
“He can’t stay here,” I reasoned.
“We can take care of him,” Gerhard offered, a wistful note threading through his mild tone.
“No. I still want to speak with him.” An idea began to take root. It was dangerous, but what about what we were doing wasn’t? “Take him to the oubliette beneath the castle.”
The oubliette was where hope went to die.
Those who spoke or acted against the Alpha or his son were dragged into the dungeon, their screams echoing through the stone while torture broke them.
And when that failed, they were cast into that forgotten part of the keep, left to rot.
Food and water were given in meager, sporadic rations meant to mock and torment.
Prisoners left here were rarely visited, save for the occasional guard tossing in scraps to keep them just alive enough to suffer some more.
Few didn’t bend to the Alpha’s will. Of those who did not, if taken in the oubliette, fewer still were ever seen again.
The Prowlers and the Commander all raised their brows at me in unison, and I huffed a laugh. “We’re not burying him. We’ll keep him alive, safe, and fed. When he’s calmed down enough, I’ll talk to him.”
“You still want to go through with this?” Gerhard asked.
I could see his point. But I also couldn’t walk away.
My wolf wouldn’t let me. She had seen his scars, his hardened body, the power banked inside him even at rest. He might be a nobody, a drifter.
Dangerous. And yet power radiated off him like heat.
So yes. I’d try. But to them I only said, “Yes. Matthis, try to find words on him. There must be something, anything, to help me understand how to get him on our side.”
And the wolves I trusted with my life bowed their heads.
“My lady,” Gerhard said.
I left them then, shifted into my wolf, and ran.