Chapter 109

Creed

A darkness threatened to swallow me, its jaws opening wide, and as I stared into that maw I knew. If I let its jaws snap tight around me, I wouldn't survive. I'd lose all that made me who I was, my family, my brothers, but most of all, her.

Jessalyn.

A light formed in the darkness at the thought of her name and that's what I clung to.

But that was so damn hard.

My body felt like it was made of lead, my limbs too heavy, too hard to move. It was as if something shoved my head back under the tide of darkness every time I tried, right up until this moment.

The wolf had been scratching at me since I found Jessalyn again, his patience with all of the things that preoccupied my mind gone. All we needed was our mate, he insisted. Wars could be fought. Humans were always squabbling over increasingly more complicated fights, unable to resolve issues of dominance cleanly like we wolf shifters could, but her… No one and nothing would ever know the bright burning love I felt for the tiny princess, and when the wolf and I focused on that, we were wrenched free.

"Creed—!"

I jerked myself upright. No, we did. The wolf and I had an uncomfortable relationship. His savagery didn't sit well with the other half of me, but right now it was the only appropriate response.

"Jessalyn…"

My eyes jerked sideways, seeing the moon shining down on the walls of the capital, and finally, I saw it for what it was. Humans loved to put animals in cages, to corral them into spaces, but that came from a need to create a cage for themselves first. They built these massive edifices and then hid behind them, thinking they'd keep them safe.

But we knew.

"My mate was taken!" My roar had people jerking their heads up off beds, the fact this was the infirmary tent made clear now. The wolf shifters I'd chosen to keep by my side and protect Jessalyn each came back to consciousness. "The Raven…" No, not that, I thought. I couldn't explain the vagaries of human politics. "The king has taken my mate from me!"

That's what this was about the entire time. I cared nothing for crowns or thrones or even gold, but they did. Arik and Magnus were two surly alpha wolves stuck in the same pack, unable to resolve the question of who should rule.

But I had the answer.

"Master Creed." James, the Duke of Fallspire, rose to his feet. I watched his hands go out, like he could ward my fury off, but that point was well past. "You're saying that the king stole Princess Jessalyn?"

I didn't have time for this, to justify or explain what I was about to do. He could follow or not, him and all of his tin clad knights, because rather than answer his question, I threw my head back and howled.

All my pain went into the sound, along with the haze of confusion, the feeling of having everything I'd ever wanted, only for it to be torn from me all over again. Most of all though, was that searing need to protect. Jessalyn was mine. My fangs had sunk into her neck, my claim burned into her flesh. She was mine, and I would kill any and all that sought to get in my way when I went to retrieve her.

The first answering howl had my heart swelling. We couldn't put into words what we felt, but this. There was fury, disbelief and complete outrage that was both a salve to my own fury, while also fanning the flames of anger higher. Then more howls came, filling the tent, filling the entire camp spread about us. Humans started to chatter furiously, knowing on some instinctive level what this meant, but perhaps they did not expect it to happen so quickly. My claws flexed, the wolf and I manifesting right now. My sensitive wolf nose tested the air, searching for a sign of my mate before leaping forward to go and find one.

In the half form, we had a powerful stride. The wolf's haunches had me flying across the ground between the camp and the city wall, but not alone. The earth shook with the thudding steps as more and more wolf shifters joined us, stampeding towards the perilously high walls of the capital.

But they weren't tall enough.

Bricks made of baked clay, mortar made from concrete, they all shattered as we punched our claws into the walls, each puncture allowing us to swing our bodies higher, only to draw a claw back and stab it into the next brick. The voices of human guards, no doubt stationed at the parapets, grew more and more high pitched. It was the squeaking of mice, and I could imagine the lot of them scurrying around in a maze they created for themselves.

But I was a wolf.

Life only made sense when I was with my pack, my heart settling when I formed those bonds with my brothers. If I thought that brought enough feeling to crack open my heart, it was nothing compared to the way I felt about Jessalyn. This king, this Magnus, who set himself above others not due to his superiority, who had done nothing to prove his worthiness, he might have been left to sit upon his bloody throne, if he hadn't done this.

Taken her.

The wolf and I burned, a bright red haze colouring my view of the wall as I climbed higher, each one of my fellow shifters turned the same hellish colour. It masked the blood that fountained from the guard's neck as my claws drove themselves into his throat. He sought to drive me back as I swung over the top of the parapet, but that was never going to stand. Other guards were dispatched in a similarly brutal way, but it was our roars that threatened to shake the very foundations of this wall, that had the rest backing away. Spears held out, swords pointing from behind shields, we noted that this had become a defensive thing rather than aggressive.

"Where too, brother?" Kern, the shifter I'd met at one of the first garrisons, asked.

"There."

I stabbed a finger at the shadowy shape of the palace, rearing up on the rise it'd been built on, the rest of the city in rings around it. "In there lies a monster. One that tears apart women. The one who dared to bring knights onto the packlands. In that palace is my mate, and if she dies, she will only be the first, your own mates following soon after."

I didn't know if that was true, because I'd never been able to understand the king. There was a wanton, useless cruelty in him that had no analog in wolves. We heard the screams of our prey when we hunted in fur, tasted their blood as they scrabbled to get away, but none of this was done for the thrill of it. We killed because we must, to survive, and that's what we'd do right now.

"With me!" I shouted. "With me, and we will tear this false king's head from his neck. He thinks we are but dogs to be ordered around for his amusement, but we are no tame pets. We are the wolves of Khean and we will avenge this insult in blood!"

"In blood!" came the cry of the other shifters.

The guards were left to cower behind their weapons, because we jumped off the parapets and down onto the stones below, barely even registering the impact before sprinting on. Down streets emptied by the night, anyone who dared to still walk them threw themselves out of our way, sitting in the bushes to stare in wonder as we ran past. Rich houses and poor ones, we ignored every one, racing faster and faster as we went up the rise. Our howls filled the air, making clear our intention. The guards at the palace obviously could not interpret it though, as they moved en masse to try and form a blockade in front of the gate as it was slowly swung closed.

"What're your directions, alpha?" one of the wolf shifters asked me through a panting smile. "What do you want us to do with these soldiers and their tin suits?"

"Remove the obstacle," I replied, the wolf replied, looking past the gates to the palace beyond. "My mate is inside and…"

"Jessalyn is inside?" Silas, Arik and Roan came melting out of the shadows. Their eyes went wide as they rushed over, but not before Arik's fingers sank into my chest fur and jerked me closer. My muzzle to his face, few humans would've dared to do such a thing, but he did. "I told you to protect her! I told you to keep her safe!" Fear turned his scent acrid as he stared at the palace. "She cannot be inside that palace."

"We'll get her out, brother," Silas told him.

"Before what?" Arik shoved me away before turning on Silas. "Before he touches her. Before he…" His voice broke as Arik fought to get the words out. "Before he fucking tears her clothes from her, though he might break her fingers first. He does so like to listen to them cry before he rapes them. Nothing permanent, nothing that will completely incapacitate her. That comes later."

"No, it won't." My word was absolute, because I'd been living with the spectre of Arik's trauma the entire time we were joined together. "You saw things you shouldn't have. Survived things that perhaps it would've been better if you hadn't, but your experience means nothing here. You were a powerless boy before, but now…" I nodded slowly. "You are the Bastard Prince and we are your band. The lad that saw his lover mutilated and killed died the same day Ariel did." My hand slapped down on his shoulder, my claws pricking the skin beneath his armour. "You are not the man you were, but only you can decide who he is going forward."

I watched Arik's focus shift, and I thought it was to meet my eyes, but instead they trailed over my shoulder. I wasn't sure what he saw, but whatever it was, it had him nodding slowly.

"You've brought an army, brother." Arik noted the shifters at my back. "But we'll need the whole thing if we're to win this."

"You won't be getting into the castle, bastard!" one of the guards shouted out as more and more came rushing through the gates. "You'll have to get past us."

"It's almost like they want to get torn limb from limb." Silas cleaned his thumbnail with his knife point casually. "Curious." When he focused back on us, I saw the keen intelligence in his gaze. "It feels like we've been on this path since the moment we met, so how about it? Make mincemeat of those idiots there." His eyes narrowed as he inspected the guards. "Especially that idiot, Masters. That sadistic prick deserves to go down."

"I'm in," Roan said, offering his hand. My claw covered it quickly, then so did Silas', the three of us staring at Arik.

"This is your opportunity to right the wrong of Ariel's death, of all the princesses' deaths," I told him. "History doesn't have to repeat itself. We can create a new path, a better one."

"You really believe that, don't you?" Arik had said things like this before, but never with any kind of hope in his voice and that was what had me standing straighter now. "Right, well, if this is the path we're taking, did any of you think to bring a horn with you?" His gaze scanned the lot of wolf shifters, but Silas slapped a horn into the commander's hand. "How did you…? Never mind."

He weighed it in his hand, staring at it as he considered what would happen if he blew it.

"When I send up the alarm, the forces beyond the gate will mobilise. All of the leaders of the different factions in the camp know what this will mean. This will have soldiers massing at the capital gates, but it'd be beneficial if there was no obstacle to them entering the city."

"Alpha?" Kern asked me, all of the wolf shifters moving restlessly.

"Humans think they understand what our dominance fights are, but they don't," I told him. "They are too fractious to allow the results of one fight to settle things and too fond of power not to try and stack the deck in their favour. That's what this so-called king has done in stealing my mate. Go back to the gates, clear the way, allow our host into the capital. Take the ground as quickly and peacefully as you can. Pack doesn't fight pack."

"Pack doesn't fight pack," the other shifters repeated back with a nod.

"We will retrieve my mate and then mount this usurper's head on a pike, to make clear what happens to those that seek to get between a shifter and his mate," I snapped, watching the human guards shuffle back instinctively.

"Happy hunting, alpha," Kern said before turning to the others. "You heard the alpha. Move out!"

I caught the moment the guards started to relax and so did my brothers.

"They think they've got a chance, just tackling the four of us," Roan said with a snicker, drawing his sword. "They might've managed it if it was just the one person."

"But that's never how this fight would go," I told him. "We are strongest together. We are pack."

"So then let's show them what this pack is capable of," Arik said, breaking into a run.