15. Phaedra

PHAEDRA

A fter, I cuddled into Asher's side, pressing my nose into his neck. For the first time since I'd experienced my shift, I didn't feel the constant twinge of being in heat, nor was my wolf pacing or making noise. She was blissfully silent.

My body and mind felt at peace. I'd never known anything like it before.

"Thank you," I whispered, nuzzling him. "That was amazing."

"I'm glad." He kissed my forehead. "And you were wonderful."

I giggled from the sheer happiness bubbling inside me. I'd been claimed. For five years, I hadn't believed it would ever happen to me. But Asher had given me the best gift. I didn't think anything could bring me down… but then that spark of doubt returned.

What if Asher was right? What if neither of us chose this path ourselves? What if it was the fated make mark pushing us toward this?

My wolf started to growl. It was the only time she was dissatisfied when I was around Asher, and her annoyance was directed at my thoughts and my doubts. Her reaction should have proven that I'd made this decision on my own, that I'd done something to make myself happy without regrets, but the thought lingered.

"Do you think you could introduce me to your pack soon?" I asked, testing him. It wasn't fair, but I asked the question anyway.

Asher shifted uncomfortably next to me. He didn't answer right away, and the longer he took to respond, the more my doubts turned over in my brain and took root.

"I could," he said slowly. "Not right away, though. We're not…" He paused, frowning slightly. "My pack isn't ready for me to introduce a mate."

Dread spread into my veins like ice, cooling my blood. I didn't need my gut to tell me he was giving me another half-truth—he was barely hiding the fact.

The voice came again, even more venomous. You've let a man you hardly know claim you. A man who keeps secrets from you, who is probably using you just like Connor, just like your parents, and just like your old friends.

I didn't know where the voice came from, but even my wolf's discontented growling couldn't convince me it was wrong. Maybe it, too, was just another form of my intuition, protecting me from people who wanted to hurt me or use me.

Skin prickling with unease, I sat up.

"Phae?" He touched my back. "What is it?"

I ignored him. Feeling exposed and raw, I left our warm little nest and went back into the cave. I found my shirt and pulled it over my head.

Asher walked up behind me. "Do you have to leave?"

I should have made up some excuse, but no lies came to mind. "No."

"Phaedra, what's wrong?"

My heart twisted. I looked back at his tanned, golden body, his thick, messy hair, and was stunned at the worry in his eyes. Despite my confusion, the sadness in his voice made me want to forget it all and curl up with him again.

Part of me wanted to tell him what I was feeling, let him know why I was so upset, but even after we'd made love, he didn't trust me enough to tell the truth. I just didn't know what to believe anymore.

"I'm feeling conflicted," I said slowly. "I think I should try to come up with the money I need to get off this island anyway."

He was quiet. When I looked at him again, he looked about as upset as I felt.

His response came slowly, as if it were painful for him to speak. "If you want to leave, we'll need to break the mate bond, which will be harder now that I've claimed you."

I wrapped my arms around myself. "I'm not saying I want to break the bond. I just?—"

"Just what? Phaedra, do you regret what we've done?"

Those moments of tenderness? The wholeness I felt after giving myself completely to him? The peace I felt in his arms? Did I regret those things? The immediate answer was a resounding no , but what if the bond was controlling the way I felt about it?

"I'm saying I want to keep my options open," I said.

"What a diplomatic response," he spat. He snatched his pants from the ground. "Do they teach you to be so tactful in high-wolf society?"

I winced. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"Too late." He pulled on his pants. "I can get you the money, but I want something in return. Before Connor ascends, you need to help me get into his manor."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "So you can kill Edgar?"

He met my glare. "That's right. It's the only way to break the curse."

"Yes, you've said that before." I shook my head. "You and I can complain about the way the Wilcox pack runs all we want, but killing another pack's alpha is dangerous. Edgar has never been seen as anything but cordial to the people he meets. Even when he met with people from Den City, he was magnanimous. He's the best leader we've had in recent memory. The Wilcox pack will retaliate."

Before Edgar, the alphas had kept large harems. They claimed any woman they liked and killed those who got in the way, including parents, mates, and children. Edgar's own father had married a woman who was fifteen, ten years his junior. Compared to them, Edgar was a saint.

"We can prepare for that eventuality," Asher said. "We don't have another choice. When Edgar killed my father, he gained the ability to control my pack's shifting. I have to get it back. When they retaliate, my pack won't have the curse weakening us anymore."

"But you said he doesn't know he has that power. You'd be killing someone the people see as a good man and a good leader."

"Why are you advocating so hard for him, Phaedra?" he asked. "He did nothing when his son rejected you."

I opened my mouth to respond, but I didn't have anything to say. Edgar hadn't stuck up for me, even though I'd thought he saw me as a daughter. When I thought of my parents, I had a lot of negative feelings, but when I thought of Edgar, I didn't have the same negativity. Why was that? I'd never thought about it. My own father was hard on me when it came to my studies, and he refused to answer questions I had, directing me to look the answers up in the library. Edgar didn't treat me that way.

When I said nothing, Asher sighed in annoyance. "The fact that Edgar has power over my pack is the problem, Phaedra. If you can't understand something so basic, I don't know why you think you're ready to meet my pack."

I looked at him sharply, hurt filling my chest. He'd insulted my intelligence and my worth as a mate in a single sentence. He knew exactly how to poke me right where it counted, and I was sure he knew exactly what he was doing. Allowing things to go this far had been a terrible mistake.

I wasn't sure what kind of face I was making, but whatever it was made the angry furrow in his brow smooth into something more like irritation than fury. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed. I looked away. Damn him for looking so beautiful, even now.

"This is getting us nowhere," he said. "Let's just change the subject and cool off."

It surprised me that he wasn't leaving, and what surprised me even more was that he didn't raise his voice or try to crowd my space. If I'd made Connor angry, he wouldn't be nearly as reasonable as Asher. But that didn't mean I forgave him for what he said. But why wasn't I leaving? Was it because I was drawn to him even though he'd hurt me? Or maybe I didn't want to leave things so contentious between us.

"Okay," I muttered. "Changing the subject might be good."

He glanced at me. "Maybe… you'd like to hear more about my pack?"

I did want to hear more. The Dagger pack was so different from what I was used to, and I liked hearing about new cultures. And some part of me, a part I was trying to ignore, really liked watching the way his eyes shone when he talked about his pack.

"Sure." I didn't want to sit on the boulder where we'd had most of our cuddling sessions, so I chose to sit on a rock closer to the entrance of the cave.

Asher elected to stay standing. He crossed his arms and leaned against the cave wall. "One of the elder members of the pack is in charge of preserving a portion of the kills we bring back when we hunt. It's one of the most valued positions in the pack because it concerns our meals, and it's quite difficult because we're forced to shift so often. It might be less difficult if he had more incentive to preserve the meats well."

He'd put a slight emphasis on the word "incentive," and I was pretty sure I understood what he was implying. "You mean he could give other people more meat to get favors or goods from them. Unless they betrayed him, it would be hard to prove he'd done anything wrong."

He nodded. "You catch on quick. I know there are a lot of people out there who wouldn't blame him if he did want extra perks from his job. He's served in this role since before I was born, so I can't say he never took a bit more than his share or helped other people get more than their share in the entirety of his time in this role. And because of that, when I took over as alpha, I decided to monitor the old man to see if he was doing anything underhanded."

I nodded again because I thought I knew how this story would end: Asher followed the man and saw him doing something bad, then threw him out of the pack and replaced him with something better.

"At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, until our supply of fresh meat dwindled, and we needed to dig into the preserved rations. Turns out he'd been giving bits of it to the children in the pack. When I asked him about it, told him we could discuss it if he felt the kids weren't getting enough, he laughed at my question. He said ‘I don't want to redo how our pack rations, it's just that I know my share is better served to the youth. I just want our pups to grow as strong as they can.' That kind of kindness is unheard of in this world, even in my pack."

Shame settled like a heavy weight in my stomach. I was so quick to judge. "It sounds like you care about this old man quite a lot."

"Yes. And I care for the others in my pack just as much. Even the ones who challenge me for my right as alpha. I would do anything if it meant I could ensure they lived for even one more day."

I was reminded of the day we met. He'd begged the goddess to return his pack's ability to control their shifts. I could recall the words he'd said as if he'd just repeated them: " You can take my wolf, you can take my life. Take anything, but please save my pack. " He was wholly devoted to them, and I felt the truth of his words. I was still holding myself, but I relaxed my arms and my shoulders. Some of the tension inside me eased.

"Thanks for explaining that a bit more," I said. "I can see you love your people very much."

My words seemed to calm him. Even the muscles in his forearms relaxed. "Thank you for listening. I know you have some history with Edgar, and to tell you the truth, it's not his fault he has the power to control my pack's shifts. It's my father's."

My eyebrows flew up. "It is?"

He sighed and nodded. Read his expression and the rigid set of his shoulders, I could tell he was gearing himself up to tell me something painful. "My mother and my twin brother died in childbirth, and my father went mad with grief. He shirked most of his responsibilities, and my uncle had to pick up a lot of the slack. He was a good replacement for my father, but it wasn't the same."

"Why didn't someone challenge him to be the new alpha?" I winced as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Just as some of the awkwardness was gone, I asked that? What the hell was wrong with me? "Sorry. That was probably a really rude question."

It put me at ease to see him smile. "No, it's a good question. I think everyone assumed he would snap out of it one day. Up until my mother and brother died, he was a great alpha and a great strategist. Under him, the Dagger pack really thrived, and he and Edgar were perfect rivals. From what my uncle and other older wolves in my pack have told me, it was a time of prosperity. They hoped that by letting him live in his grief, he would get better, but that didn't happen, and we suffered because of it."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "What happened to your father is awful, but leaving your pack to suffer is such a tragedy too." I tried to rack my brain to find the connection between his father's failing mental health and the Dagger pack's supposed curse. "Did the gods curse your pack because of him?"

"In a way." He pushed away from the wall and came to me. I made room on the rock I was sitting on, and he sat next to me. It was such a natural sequence of events, even though we were fighting just a few minutes ago.

"The goddess came to visit my father," he said.

I nearly fell off the rock. "I'm sorry, what? Holo herself came to see your father in person?"

"That's right. I was only three at the time, but I saw her."

I blinked, disbelief warring with the fact that I didn't detect a single lie coming from him.

"What did she look like?" I asked.

"I remember thinking she was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. I think she had blonde hair in a similar shade to yours, but other than that, I can't remember specifics."

"I guess with you being so young…" I trailed off, not needing to finish the sentence. What he was saying was ridiculous. Unbelievable. The gods didn't exist. They couldn't exist. Right?

"I don't know what they talked about specifically, but I remember her asking my father for help in exchange for access to Emrys. I'm sure you understand that she was offering the pack something incredible—a way to get to the promised lands of the gods."

"What was he meant to give her in exchange?"

"Shelter, I think. When I think about the scene now, I get the impression she was running away from something or someone, but now I wonder if it was all just a test. Either way, he didn't follow through. The day after she arrived, he shifted and bit her. She shrieked and disappeared from our home. After that, he had the power only a goddess of her stature was meant to have: the ability to control the shifts of everyone in the Dagger pack. That power transferred to Edgar when he killed my father in battle, and now we can't maintain our human forms for very long."

His story stunned me. I didn't want to believe it, but again, he wasn't lying. Unlike when Jean and Beatrice had been telling me a lie that they believed, Asher was reaching into his memories of the event, and there were no mistruths or misunderstandings. Somehow, his story about the goddess had actually happened.

This put everything I thought I knew on its head. If Holo was real, if she'd escaped from his father's attack, what had stopped her from giving me a wolf all this time? And as a matter of fact, why didn't she answer the prayers of the others who came to visit her statue? If she was real, had she abandoned us because of Asher's father? Out of all the other deities, Holo was the goddess who treasured us wolves the most, but the act of one man was enough for her to turn her back to us?

" Who cares? " That was my wolf speaking for the first time in a while. " I am here now. "

Her words were a balm on my feverish thoughts. She was right. Asher, his pack, the Wilcox pack, and everyone else on Isle Royale were in the same boat. We all had issues that could be solved with the goddess's help, whether it was getting a new sewing machine or being able to shift. I wasn't any worse off than any other wolf on the island.

If the Dagger pack was cursed, I needed to find a way to help out. I couldn't do anything on my own, but now that I'd been invited back to high-wolf society, maybe I could work on finding a solution using the vast resources it gave me access to.

I turned to Asher and found he had been watching me think things through. He flinched in surprise when I suddenly took his hand, but to my relief, he didn't pull away.

"Asher, maybe we could put a pin in my leaving the island."

He blinked in confusion. "Are you… sure?"

I nodded. "After hearing your story, I'm not sure that I want to go. I want to help you instead."

He placed his free hand on top of mine, sandwiching it between his palms. "Phaedra, are you saying you'll help me get access to the alpha manor?"

"In a way," I said. "I'm going to take advantage of Connor's offer to accept me back into high-wolf society."

He started to growl at the mention of Connor, but stopped when I touched his cheek.

"Asher, listen . I'll have access to a huge library with tons of old knowledge. There has to be information in there that can help you get rid of your curse. Maybe even something that will keep you from having to kill Edgar. I'll pretend like I'm going along with being reintegrated into the pack. No one will know you've claimed me."

He'd started to looked hopeful, but his expression darkened again. "But I thought you said Connor was letting you back in to give you to Randall."

I made a face. "Thanks for the reminder, but you don't have to worry. I know how to get access to those books, and no one will stop me because I'm only supposed to know that Connor is reconsidering my position in his pack. If I'm careful not to run into him and Randall, I can ferret out the books we need to study."

He thought over what I'd said, then squeezed my hand again. "Why would you do all of this?"

I pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. Even though we'd had sex and had seen each other naked dozens of times, kissing his cheek still felt like such a bold thing to do. "I want to help you, and I want to help your pack," I said. "And if you'll have me, I'd like to be part of it, too."

He smiled. "I'll consider your application."

We laughed a little together, but then became serious again.

"When you talk about this plan, it sounds like it has promise. I agree that we should see what happens, but we can't waste any time. We need to come up with an alternative plan by the time Connor ascends. Otherwise my pack is doomed if I don't kill Edgar."

It was a sobering reminder, but a necessary one. I needed to make this work, or I'd be condemning the Dagger pack to the curse Holo had put upon them.