Chapter 14, The Blood We Share
Varg
The air near the rowan grove was stagnant, poisoned by the iron-thick scent of the sentinel’s blood. I stood just inside the treeline on the Night-Stalker side of the border, my feet planted in the patch of dirt where the laws of the High-Ridge pack ended and the sovereign land of Ember-Fell began.
Beside me, Rhys stood as a silent shadow. He didn’t need the shift to look lethal. He simply leaned against a trunk with his arms crossed, watching the opposite treeline with the cold, calculated patience that made him my Gamma. He knew the weight of the man currently walking toward us.
A massive wolf stepped out of the undergrowth on the opposite side.
Alaric. Even in his wolf form, he was a titan, an enormous golden-bronze Lycan that radiated heat I could feel from across the line.
He didn’t just walk. He moved with the gravity of a mountain.
I didn’t shift to match him. I didn’t need to.
Alaric let out a low huff before he transitioned back into his human form. He stood tall, muscles corded and eyes still glowing with the fading amber of the shift.
“This is the location?” Alaric’s voice was a rough growl as he surveyed the carnage Silas’s men had left behind. He leaned down, his nostrils flaring as he caught the copper tang in the air.
“What a mess. Silas’s men have trampled half the evidence, but there’s a scent here that doesn’t belong to High-Ridge or your Night-Stalkers.”
“Rogue?” I asked, my voice level.
“And not just one.” Alaric looked up, his eyes narrowing with a sharp, dangerous edge.
“How did your scouts miss them?”
I glanced at Rhys. My Gamma didn’t flinch. He bowed his head just enough to acknowledge the King’s rank, his voice calm and steady.
“There have been no signs of new scents on our side of the border, King Alaric. If they had stepped an inch into the Dead Woods, I would have known.”
Alaric stepped closer to the line, his presence an oppressive heat.
“From now on, even the gray area is to be checked. Do your job all the way through, Gamma.”
Rhys bowed deeper, accepting the scolding without a word of protest.
“Be nice to my Gamma, brother,” I said. The word cut through the tension like a blade.
“Don’t call me that,” Alaric snapped, though there was no real bite in it, only the exhaustion of a man who had carried the crown too long.
“But you are,” I replied, stepping out of the deepest shadows so the moonlight hit my face.
“Technically half, but we share blood nonetheless, Alaric.”
Alaric huffed, a sound that was almost a laugh. He sat down on a fallen log right at the edge of the border. I sat beside him, two men watching the frantic lights of the High-Ridge village in the distance.
“They will want revenge,” Alaric said, nodding toward the village.
“I know.”
“Are you prepared to give it?”
I looked at the dried blood on the leaves and thought of the girl screaming on the training mat.
“I am not paying for a kill I didn’t make. My Night-Stalkers are many things, but we aren’t sloppy.”
“Who then?”
“Let Silas waste his strength hunting the rogues,” I said.
“Let him think he’s solving the problem.”
Alaric stayed silent for a moment, sniffing the air again. His head tilted, his gaze moving toward the village that was huddling in fear.
“There’s someone else too,” he whispered.
The air between us charged with a sudden, electric frequency.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Truly?” Alaric asked. The King was gone. For a second, it was just a man asking his kin a question he’d waited a lifetime to hear.
I gave a small, slow nod.
Alaric reached out and bumped his shoulder playfully against mine, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Well, it was about time, little brother. I was starting to think you’d never find one that could survive your climate.”
I rolled my eyes, but I didn’t pull away.
“I suppose I should go see what all the fuss is about on their side then,” Alaric grunted, standing up. He looked toward the village with a predatory glint.
“Try not to get yourself killed before the moon reaches its peak, Skarde. I’d hate to have to tell our mother I lost you in a border squabble.”
“Go do your job, King,” I muttered. “The High-Ridge is waiting for their savior.”