Chapter 25
SAPHIRA
The view from my balcony was as spectacular as I remembered it as I sat on the stone table, munching on a strip of crispy bacon and sipping tea while staring at the whole of Falkyr town stretched below me and those rolling plains beyond the high stone walls that still beckoned me.
I hadn’t been gone long, and so much had happened in the time I had been away, but I had missed this place that felt like home.
That was home.
It offered comfort that soothed me and provided an escape from my heavy thoughts and the pain that engulfed my heart whenever I dared to remember what had happened.
Or tried to sleep.
I had woken from terrible dreams that had replayed every moment of my time at the Hunt Pack, tormenting me with them and how I had failed my parents, and some of my pack too.
My pillow had been damp with my tears, and my cheeks had been rough with the dried salt of them, and gods, my eyes were still gritty. My heart still sore.
But beside my bed I had found a note from Kaeleron, a handful of silly words about my love of meat and indulging ‘my little wolf’, and a promise to find time to spend with me later that had lifted some of that weight from my heart.
Together with the silver tray I had spotted on the wooden table near the double doors that opened onto my balcony.
The mound of bacon, fluffy eggs and buttery toast had coaxed me out of bed when part of me had wanted to stay in it all day.
And then I had seen the view of the half-timber houses of Falkyr and that winding broad cobbled avenue I loved to watch people coming and going along, and I had been drawn out of my bedroom and onto the balcony.
And here I sat, savouring this gift of breakfast and sweet tea, a blend I hadn’t tasted before and one I felt sure had been picked with cheering me up in mind as I sipped it, enjoying the mild hint of spice.
Thinking about what came next.
Settling the pack. At least those who had come with us.
Finding Lucas, and Everlee and Danica. I hoped they were all in the same place—that the negotiations for this better price that Lucas wanted would take long enough for us to find them all. But to do that, we had to do something I really wasn’t looking forward to.
Questioning Braxton. That wasn’t going to be fun. But I wanted to be there when Kaeleron’s necromancers worked their magic on him. I had questions I needed to ask him.
Questions like: who were the seelie who were looking for me?
I knew I needed to tell Kaeleron what Lucas had told me, but I wanted more information first. I didn’t want to worry him, not when he was busy still clearing up after the battle in the Forgotten Wastes, reviewing reports from the forts and garrisons along his borders, and taking stock of his losses.
When we questioned Braxton, I would ask the wolf about it, and hopefully Kaeleron wouldn’t overreact and try to keep me caged here in Falkyr, safe and protected, when I wanted to be part of the party who were going to investigate the Hunt Pack to find clues as to Lucas’s whereabouts.
My tea empty and the mound of bacon depleted, I slipped from the stone table and carried the tray back inside.
Step one. Get the pack settled.
I dressed in my usual black leathers, boots and a blouse, wrapped my under-bust corset around my waist and fastened it, and strapped my dagger to my hip. All ready.
I pulled down a deep breath and strode from the room, along the black-walled corridor beyond it and down the sweeping staircase to the ground floor of the castle.
The courtyard was busy, with fae coming and going between the building and the area near the garrison where my pack were going to set up camp as Kaeleron’s men teleported them in groups to the Shadow Court.
When the green came into view, my steps slowed. Half the tents were up already, and it looked like all the pack who were coming were here. How long had I been sleeping? I had wanted to be here to greet them and help them when they arrived, and instead I had slept through it all.
When I had arrived with Kaeleron yesterday, and he had sat with me near the lake, keeping me company while I had struggled with everything that had happened, and spilled more tears—some out of frustration but most from grief—he had said my handmaidens would wake me when the pack began arriving.
I had thought I had awoken before they were due to come.
I glanced at the twilight aurora-kissed sky, familiar enough with it now that I could tell it was the afternoon and not the morning.
And it hit me.
Kaeleron had let me sleep in, because he had seen my tears yesterday and the ones I had spilled while I had been sleeping, and how tired I was, and that I had needed the rest. He had seen what I had refused to—that if I didn’t get the sleep I needed, I wouldn’t be strong enough to keep going and would only fall deeper into depression, weak to the influence of my grief and my anger.
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to stab him or kiss him for that.
“You just missed your somewhat intimidating fae king,” Chase said without looking at me when I approached him.
“That’s probably a good thing,” I muttered and Chase looked across at me as I stopped beside him on the broad swath of green near the imposing stone garrison in Falkyr. I shrugged. “I wanted to be here when the pack arrived. He swore he would wake me in time. Instead, he let me sleep in.”
My cousin wrapped his arm around my shoulder and gently squeezed. “Intimidating and wise. A good catch.”
I glowered at him.
He sighed and his pale blue eyes scanned the pack as they finished setting up large heavy canvas tents with the help of some of the Shadow Court guards.
“You need the rest, Saphi. What you’ve been through…
I’ve been there. Losing dad… It was hard.
I wanted to just bury myself in work. No sleep.
No rest. Just nonstop work to keep my mind off what had happened.
” He rubbed my arm and glanced at me. “Your dad took me aside and marched me back to my cabin, and told me to get some sleep.” He chuckled, smiling slightly, his gaze warming as he shook his head.
“Well, his words might have been more along the line of ‘you look like shit, and I’m ordering you to get some sleep, kid’ and I did what he commanded. ”
It sounded like my father.
“I miss him,” I whispered, tears threatening. “I miss both of them.”
“I know.” Chase rested his cheek against the top of my head as he tugged me towards him and my cheek met the softness of his dark flannel shirt. “It’ll take a while. Just… let whatever comes come and don’t try to run from it or push it down inside. It’s better that way.”
I nodded. Sure that it was, even as part of me didn’t want to mourn. I didn’t want to grieve. I didn’t have time for it. I pushed the voice that whispered those things to me away, unwilling to listen to it.
“How are they doing?” I watched the pack instead, the looks on their faces as they went about finishing setting up the camp sitting like a weight on my chest. So many wore looks like I did. Eyes red and puffy. Gazes empty. As if someone had just snuffed out the light behind them.
Lucas.
Lucas had done it.
Not me.
“They’ll settle in soon enough. It was a good idea.” Chase’s words didn’t lighten my heart as I watched the wolves settling into their new temporary home.
Some of the pack had refused to come with us, blaming me for the deaths of their loved ones.
Those barbs remained lodged in my heart.
Not even Kaeleron had managed to loosen their hold on me. They were buried too deep, and only sinking further, working their way deeper into my heart with every passing moment. I had given everything for my pack, and had risked everything to save them.
I had lost people too.
My grief was as deep, and fierce, and dark and crushing as their own.
But as angry as I was, as hurt as I was, I understood why some of them had turned down the offer to relocate here.
My rash actions had placed everyone in danger and I was responsible for what had happened, and it was something I would live with for a long time to come, but I refused to let it destroy me.
“You’re sure about this?” Chase shifted his ice-blue eyes to me, a concerned crinkle to his dirty blond eyebrows.
I nodded, aware of what he was asking, because he had asked the same question ten times already.
When I had told him about the offer Kaeleron had made, he had told me it was a good idea, but had said he wasn’t the Harper alpha. It wasn’t his decision to make. He was still our beta.
I had known then what he wanted, but it wasn’t what I wanted.
I wanted to keep my pack safe, but I didn’t want to lead them.
Eventually, the pack would return to Canada and our territory there.
I looked around the forest, taking it all in, letting my eyes drift upwards to the jagged peak that towered protectively over Falkyr and that striking aurora sky.
And I breathed deep of the air, faintly laced with the tang of magic, and felt that warmth sink deep into my bones, welcoming me home.
I didn’t want to leave this place.
Never again.
I didn’t want to be an alpha, bound by even stronger chains to my pack.
I wanted to be happy, and the only place I could be that was here, in this strange and beautiful land.
With its strange and beautiful ruler.
A king I was missing terribly as he dealt with court business and I dealt with getting my pack settled.
Chase would be a good alpha. The pack already loved him, and if his offer to change pack dynamics so I could be an alpha was anything to go by, under his leadership, things would change for the females of the pack.
“I’m sure, Chase.” I lowered my gaze to him and smiled. “I’ve never been more sure of anything. Including the fact that Morden shouldn’t be allowed to put up a tent unsupervised.”