Chapter 55 #2
“Indeed,” Ragna said. “We offered him the stables to sleep in or the forest outside the village. He isn’t welcome in our home.”
Eldrick shook his head. “I’m sure that angered him.”
“Bjorn was born angry,” Asa whistled between her teeth.
Eldrick laughed, uneasy. “Do I have your vote, then?”
Asa and Ragna shared a sad, silent conversation. Ragna addressed him first, and Asa grasped her mate’s hand and gave it a comforting squeeze.
“Yes, but there is something you must know first,” Ragna said.
“Tell me,” Eldrick said.
“My Time has come,” she whispered.
The statement jarred Eldrick in his seat.
With his father’s once ailing health, he’d heard it before, but it was a rare phenomenon.
Time was when a werewolf’s magic and wolf began to fade.
Their soul wavered between the land of the living and the Otherworld, leaning closer and closer to the latter.
It was the gradual descent of old age, though the signs were less external, and felt from within.
“But I don’t understand . . . you’re . . .” Eldrick failed to find the right words.
“I’m one of the oldest werewolves in the Vadon Mountains,” Ragna said.
“Though she doesn’t look it.” Asa’s gaze shined with pride and sorrow.
“How much longer do you have?” he asked, his tone gentle.
“Somedays it feels as though it’s my last and others feel like I have another six months,” Ragna said. “If the war to come doesn’t take me first.”
Eldrick weighed his next words carefully. “Does Siv know?”
Ragan nodded. “Our entire pack knows. That is why we need your support once I’m gone.
Since Asa and I are mated, her Time is weaved with mine.
We’ve always known, seeing as I’m older, but we didn’t prepare for our succession.
After our Time has passed, the Drabeks will be left without an alpha to lead the pack. ”
“What of Siv?” Eldrick asked. “I know she is your adopted daughter, but the land will choose her, no? She is a firstborn after all, right?”
Ragna and Asa sighed, their clasped hands tightening. “Siv doesn’t want to become alpha.”
Eldrick’s inner wolf rose to the surface, and he fidgeted at the word want, like the foreign weight of it pressed down on him. “Then your planned successor?”
“It’ll be left to a vote within the Drabek Pack only,” Ragna said. “But that’ll result in our village being vulnerable in the meantime.”
“Do you think Bjorn will interfere?” Eldrick asked.
“I have no doubt,” Ragna said. “He’ll argue our pack needs protecting and secure the territory under the Johannes name. If he succeeds, he cages both the Drengrs and the Thorns. Skau is already in his back pocket, and Lindstrom and Alland are far too small to face five packs under Bjorn’s command.”
“He’ll start a civil war,” Asa said.
A growl rumbled through Eldrick’s chest, and he ran his hand through his hair. “Moons. You must convince Siv to accept the title.”
“No,” both Asa and Ragna said at once.
“There is no want when it comes to duty,” Eldrick said through gritted teeth.
Ragna tilted her head. “Aramis and Nadia may have raised their children to think that way, but we have not. Siv has made her chose, and we have made ours: to accept her wishes. Our pack has as well. Siv wishes to be a warrior, and as her mother, I see that she is her truest self with a sword in one hand and axe the other.”
Choice. The word groaned in Eldrick’s ears like a village’s warning horn. It was foreign and chilling and jealousy-inducing all at once.
“Why not host the vote now, let a pack member ascend?” Eldrick said, trying to think of another option to avoid Bjorn’s pursuit of power interfering.
“A transition of the title would leave us just as vulnerable,” Ragna said. “Bjorn threatened to take our vote for Earl away if we didn’t sign the decree. This close to the vote, there’s no telling if Bjorn will suggest the same.”
“Bastard twists anything to get what he wants,” Eldrick muttered.
“Which is why we can’t give him anything to twist,” Asa said. “All we must do is make it to the Earl vote, and all we ask in exchange to vouch for your name is to assist the Drabeks transition once we are gone.”
Transition came with more than just assisting the votes.
It came with protecting the Drabeks from Bjorn’s pack leering down their necks.
Eldrick tightened with frustration. They shouldn’t have to worry about facing their own kind, not with Riven’s hold on darkness casting farther across Sorin.
Tovi had an army. He had the Drabek’s vote.
But who knew when the prince would strike again.
Eldrick had to lead the Vadon Mountains as Earl and unite with Tovi, Drystan’s queen. That was how they followed their duty.
Eldrick rose from his seat, tipping his head in both Asa and Ragna’s direction. “You have my promise and future support.”
“Good,” Ragna said. “Thank you, Eldrick. Now, will we see you in attendance at the Dísablót Festival?”
Eldrick smiled. “I wouldn’t dare miss an evening to celebrate the Vadon Mountain’s shield-maidens, and if my mother ever learned I skipped the holiday, she’d have my hide.”
Asa laughed, almond-shaped eyes glinting with a tease. “Perhaps you can celebrate another warrior, too, hmmm, a certain queen from the north?”
Eldrick’s nostrils flared. “Perhaps.”
“Let him go, Asa,” Ragna whispered. “He’s practically running from the subject.”
Eldrick nodded, not feeding into either of their bait to discuss Tovi.
He descended the tavern’s steps and strode back into the village.
With each step, he didn’t envision celebrating Tovi, he dreamed of worshiping her.
With his tongue, fingers, lips, and cock.
A festival wasn’t enough to honor the strength, poise, and bravery Tovi embodied.
She deserved a scattering of stars across the heavens, to join the constellations of gods—
A hand grasped hold of Eldrick’s wrist, and he was dragged into an alley and thrown behind a stack of barrels, sweet and sticky from aging gourd ale.
The ethereal beauty Eldrick had lost his thoughts to stood before him. Panting. Rosy cheeked. Tovi’s eyes darkened with want.
Eldrick answered, stepping towards her, and their lips clashed in a frenzy. Tongue, lips, and teeth clanged as a desperate hunger claimed them both.
Tucked behind barrels and in the shadows of the alley, their kiss was hidden from those on the street, but not their sounds. Eldrick stilled his rising wolf, fighting the urge to growl through their frenzied kiss.
Stars above, Tovi tasted of salvation and ruin all once, and he didn’t care. He loved it. Loved her. He was kissing her, tasting her exquisite lips, feeling her silky strands between his fingers, and relishing in her taut body pressing flush against his.
Tovi moaned as his hand grasped around her throat.
Eldrick planted a thumb over her lips. “Shh, dove. We can’t have the village hearing the beautiful sounds you make.”
Something flashed in her jade eyes—a challenge?
She raised a brow, and Eldrick’s hackles rose.
She found his belt buckle and unclasped it without breaking their intense stare.
She peered up at him, and Eldrick stifled a curse as her hand dropped into his trousers and fisted his length.
He moved to kiss her again, but Tovi reared back, taunting him with her blissful expression.
Tovi dropped to her knees, attention falling to his length that she pulled free into the morning air.
The sight was Eldrick’s undoing. He loved and hated it all at once.
Stars above, he was a male after all, and Tovi was beyond beautiful as she stared up him, but moons, she was a goddess in her own right, he should be on his knees for her—
“That isn’t where you belong—”
“Do you want me to suck your cock or not?” she whispered.
“Godsdamnit, dove,” Eldrick hissed, tilting his head back and shutting his eyes.
Tovi didn’t wait for his response. She licked his length base to tip, teasing him with the attentive promise of her wicked tongue.
It swirled across his tip next, and as she ran circles over it, driving Eldrick closer and closer to the edge, the village fell away, and Tovi brought him near oblivion.
Eldrick almost roared with need when she took him inside her mouth. Fully. Deeply. Tightly. One hand gripped his waist, nails driving into his skin while her other fisted the base of his length, pumping him as her lips sucked. Up and down.
He was going to die today, Eldrick realized. Right here, right now. He opened his eyes, daring to peek at the glorious sight he found himself in, and moons, he was nearing his end.
Once, he’d believed Tovi an enchantress.
Now he knew it, had seen it. Her reddened cheeks, determination and heat glinting in her eyes.
She enjoyed this, making it all that much better and worse, and Eldrick didn’t just know from the eagerness thrumming from her being, but the scent of her heady plum-and-violet need pooling between her legs.
Eldrick sat at the edge of release. Morning turned to night because he saw stars. He had to warn her, beg to find his release deep inside her—
His length popped free of her mouth, meeting the cold air, and Tovi vanished.
A breeze whooshed past Eldrick, and he stumbled back. He searched for Tovi, and found her, standing at the end of the alley. She wiped her wet lips with the back of her hand, a triumphant smile splitting across her face.
“Tovi,” he hissed, guttural with his beast a hair below the surface. “What the fuck?”
She shrugged. “Consider us even.”
Even.
Moons, because he’d edged her all the same. Of course she had no intention of letting him get away with that. Smug, Tovi winked and fell into the current of werewolves walking the street. She disappeared into the village, leaving Eldrick stunned, his cock hard and aching with need.
“Eldrick?” Bétar’s voice boomed down the alley. “What in the stars above are you doing down there?”
He cursed, shoving his length into his trousers and adjusting himself to appear somewhat put together.
Bétar rounded the corner, and his pinched brows shot up. “For the love of gods, you reek of—”
“Don’t,” Eldrick grumbled, storming out of the alley and leaving his friend and bruised pride behind.
He needed a goddamn shower.