20. Token of Devotion #3
However, things became trickier when that farmer’s daughter was also mutilated to death.
The villagers claimed werewolves did it, and they attacked one of the werewolf villages.
Werewolf hunters were involved. It grew messy with lightning speed.
I spent the past three days in meetings with advisors, discussing how to handle this sensitive matter so we wouldn’t start another war with humans.
I watched those corpulent old werewolves who probably hadn’t killed a single enemy in their lives talking about throwing our soldiers’ lives away, wishing I was on the eastern frontline.
I could have handled this much more efficiently without all these old, privileged, pretentious fuckers interfering.
Not only did I have to deal with those meetings, but I was also obliged to attend one of those dinner invitations sent by the Marquess of Morridge to pretend I was still in the mate selecting market …
So that my mother wouldn’t give me another lecture for not giving the candidates enough chances to impress me.
It was during this party that I learned about what happened to Leif.
I was infuriated with Lovel and Allan Eclipse. What kind of monster would want to harm Leif, who was possibly the most soft-hearted, harmless being I’d ever met!
During the party, Lovel had the audacity to seek me out in the garden. I confronted him, asking him if he had orchestrated the whole thing. He denied it, of course. I still warned him that I would not tolerate such treachery.
I went to see Fenris afterward but didn’t find him in his chamber.
I tried to talk to Leif, but he didn’t want to see anyone.
I contemplated returning to my room, but then I remembered that Johnathan told me Fenris wanted to be enrolled in The Games.
At this hour, there could only be one place he would go.
I found him in his wolf form in the training yard, and we argued again, as we always did.
He told me he didn’t care if I married someone else, and it sliced through my heart with unexpected sharpness.
I let that hurt externalize into anger, and I tackled him down in my wolf form.
In the chaos of fighting for dominance, he snapped and admitted that he didn’t want me to do …
well, what we had been doing to anyone else.
That included marking another, I presumed.
It had been a blissful moment. My stubborn little wolf finally admitted he cared about me, to some degree, at least. It would have been perfect if the assassin hadn’t chosen to attack right at that moment.
It felt like instinct when I shielded that arrow for him. I didn’t think about death or hurt or anything, really. All I thought was that I didn’t want him to be hurt.
What happened next was chaos in my jumbled memory.
I could feel the poison gradually spread under my skin like an awful chill, and my shoulder felt numb.
We were trapped behind an obstacle by the assassin’s arrows, but Fenris managed to locate him with the reflection of my …
or his knife (my smart little wolf!) and fought him with unprecedented rage and fierceness.
Though in his wrath, he didn’t notice another approaching, stealthier shadow.
I gathered the last strand of my strength and transformed again, even though I knew it would make the poison spread faster. I must have gone into a frenzy because I didn’t remember how I killed the vampire.
Fenris found a Sacred Guard’s sigil ring from the werewolf assassin, a ring I didn’t wish to see …
I still couldn’t believe Valerian truly wants me dead. It wasn’t like him … but then, the kind of grief he had been through could change a person … I just … I just hope there are still ways to fix it.
Then everything grew blurry again. I vaguely remember Fenris getting me onto a horse.
My body felt cold, so cold that it was severing me from the rest of the world, and the only remaining warmth was from Fenris’s chest. The fast thumping of his heart tethered me to life, making me want to fight to stay.
And when he promised me that he would do anything I wanted if I stayed alive, my will to live had never been so strong.
I lived, obviously. I woke up in Alma’s house, to Fenris kissing me ardently as if his life …
or my life, depended on it. I thought I was in heaven.
The way he looked at me, cared for me, fussed over me …
Oh Great Wolf, can a man be even happier than I was?
There was no more hesitation or feigned indifference in his pellucid blue eyes, and I was finally sure he cared about me deeply.
I’d gladly take another ten poisoned arrows without hesitation in exchange for this.
He even gave me his knife when I tried to return it to him. I could tell it was important to him, and yet, he gave it to me willingly.
The first token of devotion from my incredibly beautiful and strong and brave and dutiful mate.
I was the luckiest man in the world.