Chapter 4 #2
If he were smart, he would’ve accepted his alpha’s help while she was offering it. But he let her walk away, and now she would shun him, just like everyone else. Until he made things right with a woman who didn’t seem to have any intention of respecting him or his rituals.
He crouched down to gather his weapons—if he took them back to his room to work, he’d at least get a little bit of peace before the storm.
Eventually, he’d have to face Boada, but he really didn’t want to have to explain to her why he was back so soon…
not yet. Not until some of the shame had subsided.
Something hard hit his back, just missing his spine.
“Docile lover,” came a hushed jeer. Wound on top of wound—as if the woman who’d claimed him suddenly throwing him out hadn’t been shameful enough.
His nose wrinkled with an annoyed growl, and before the Warrior could take another step, Argos snatched up the ankle of the foot that had kicked him.
He was met with active growls from a pack of three Warriors.
As if they thought their numbers would intimidate him—they were all definitely younger and physically weaker.
The boy whose ankle he held remained balanced on his other foot, but drew a large knife.
Argos could’ve laughed. He only bothered using weapons with truly formidable foes.
They should have stuck to their petty glares and silence.
Before the boy could do anything with the weapon, Argos bit down on his calf with a quick release—no tearing, no mess, all fangs. Then he shoved the Warrior away from him, letting his venom do the work. Instantly, the boy fell to the ground, gripping his useless leg in pain.
He’d delivered just enough venom to elicit a few minutes of searing agony without the neurotoxic side effects—or, at least, without anything too permanent.
He wasn’t interested in the headache Boada would give him for killing one of his fellow Warriors, though this did occasionally happen.
Besides, he needed that venom to hunt, and if he used too much it would take another day for his body to manufacture more.
None of his peers were worth that sort of effort.
Anyway, if the bitten Warrior didn’t stop writhing on the ground soon, he might just trigger the prey drive of the Warriors around him, and then it would be them dealing with Boada instead of him.
The other two in his pack stepped forward with active growls to challenge Argos.
“Cease!” came the command over the ruckus. Argos halted, his muscles twitching with the urge to disobey, even if he knew he wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
A few seconds more and he could have released his pent-up magic, instead of swallowing it back. He needed to kill something, badly…but not at the expense of disrespecting Boada.
“Yield,” she said before she’d even reached them, and they and all the Warriors around them dropped to their knees. “Reva,” she added, “take that tiresome boy to his sleeping quarters.”
Her second obeyed without question, dragging the boy Argos had bitten to his feet.
Boada halted before Argos and his two remaining opponents, a picture of power and grace.
“I step out for ten minutes and it’s suddenly anarchy,” she said, looking at the three of them from over her glasses. “Out with it.”
“He challenged us first,” said the troublemaker.
“And you provoked him first. You think I don’t know you?” She crossed her arms, raising a brow at him. “Well?”
“I don’t know what’s worse,” he said, glancing at Argos in disgust, “dishonoring his marriage bed by leaving his wife, or being claimed by a Docile in the first place.”
There were some quiet scoffs, all silenced by a look from Boada, before she turned back to the boy she was chastising. “And that’s your business?” she asked.
Finally, the Warrior looked at least a little ashamed. “No, ma’am.”
“Well, then. Go to your prayer corner and meditate on why you find it so easy to judge your fellow Warriors.” She turned to Argos. “Anything to add?”
Insults. Accusations. Throats to tear out. But Boada’s magic shoved those desires to the back of him like stifling them with a pillow—they were still there, but struggling. Faint. “No, ma’am,” he said, his voice a quiet growl.
Boada sighed, clearly unsatisfied with his response. “Argos, to my office. You’re both dismissed.”
All the Warriors stood at once and went back to what they had been doing. The offending Warrior shot Argos one last glare before heading toward his sleeping quarters to do as he was told.
Argos followed his handler to the office, dreading every step. He sat in the chair in front of the desk, wishing he could disappear rather than have to explain.
Boada sighed, giving the giant Warrior crowding her average chair a disappointed look. “Still can’t get along with anyone, huh?”
Argos crossed his arms, an agitated growl rolling in his chest.
“I know that growl’s not for me, Warrior,” Boada said sternly.
He silenced it immediately, looking at his lap instead of at her. “It’s not me pushing them away this time.”
“Yes, I can see that.” She crossed her arms. “What are you doing here, Argos?”
“She threw me out,” he growled.
There was a heavy pause before Boada rushed to shut the office door. “Why didn’t you come to me immediately?”
Argos hesitated. “This is humiliating enough without running to you for help.”
“I’m your handler, that’s what I’m here for.” She sighed at the Warrior’s silence, leaning on her desk again to face him. “Theora knows what’s at stake here. Did she give a reason?”
“She’s afraid of me.”
“Why?” Boada asked, her tone shifting from concerned to chastising. “What did you do?”
Argos shrugged. His handler was the last person who needed to know that he’d been intentionally giving their queen a hard time.
But then, with his reputation over the past year, Boada would never believe he hadn’t provoked Theora at all.
“She’d never been within ten feet of a Warrior before yesterday. ”
“True, but she doesn’t scare easily.”
He shrugged again, wishing this conversation were over. “She said she wants to…get used to me.”
Boada huffed, rolling her eyes. “She’s been getting her way since she was a little girl—though I suppose it didn’t help that she was never allowed to have openly romantic relationships.
Anyway, she’s not that little girl anymore, and if she can take responsibility for an entire colony, she can do so for a two-week relationship. ”
Boada looked at Argos thoughtfully, expectantly. “Does her voice still soothe you?”
He suddenly wished he had never confided in Boada about something so…
vulnerable. To have someone’s voice pull at his soul the way Theora’s did had felt more like an obsession in the beginning, one he could easily blame on the fact that he’d listened to her records too many times to count.
He’d listened to Boada speak for his entire life and had never felt connected to her voice in that way, as much as he respected her.
No…the way Theora’s voice put his magic at ease was uncanny. Unnerving.
Comforting.
“A siren song to a Warrior’s magic is a rare thing, Argos,” said Boada, “and nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a gift in the right hands. And, believe it or not, Theora’s are the right hands.”
“I highly doubt that,” he grumbled, “with the way she’s been behaving.”
“Don’t you like a good challenge? In that aspect, she’s the perfect match for you.”
Argos smirked but shook it off quickly. She wasn’t entirely wrong, but still.
An enchanting voice didn’t erase a multitude of flaws.
And besides, there was still the issue of…
“I almost killed her last night.” When Boada was silent, he finally looked at her.
“When we were arguing about where I would sleep. I kept control of myself, but…my magic lashed out, and she didn’t even notice.
She couldn’t tell. How is she going to command me if she can’t read the signs of magic use? ”
“She’s…new to this.”
“New to what?”
Boada sighed. “Did you point it out to her?”
He scoffed, sliding farther down into his chair. “I didn’t think the sudden urge to tear out her throat would help my argument for sharing a room.”
“You did well, Argos, as you always do. And she’ll do better—I’ll speak with her this evening.”
He shook his head, a foul taste building in his throat. “I don’t want to go back.”
Boada looked at him sternly. “You will complete your mission, Warrior. That’s an order.”
Argos gripped the arms of the chair, the shift of cracking wood beneath his hands. “You ask so much of me,” he said, feeling as foolish as he did justified. “You never ask it of anyone else.”
Boada was silent for a moment. “When reinforcements arrived the day of the attack, do you remember what you were doing?”
“No,” he said quietly. Avoidant.
“Shielding your wife’s lifeless body with yours.”
Argos felt his chest beginning to tighten.
He remembered everything from that day, down to Izzi insisting he eat extra eggs for breakfast that morning.
Down to the stupid joke she’d told before the landmine went off in her face.
Down to the moment more explosives erupted and the entire caravan of cars they’d been escorting—full of dignitaries, including the former queen—came to a chaotic halt. Down to his wife dying in his arms.
It was the day he decided he hated queens and all they stood for—all the carnage they left in their wake, and for what? He still didn’t know what had prompted the attack, why the war had started in the first place.
All he knew was he’d had no reason to hate the Vespulans before that day.