Chapter 40

Arik

"So, revered elders, what do you propose?"

I'd said those words as if those assembled would present us with a simple strategy, almost a fait accompli. As if it was perfectly reasonable for us to sit around this well-worn table and eat our fill, then sensibly plan out how we'd steal a princess from my brother. The rest of my pack turned to the elders, waiting to hear their wisdom, but I knew that there could be nothing simple in planning how to manoeuvre past the pitfalls ahead.

Nobody took anything from my brother, Magnus, King of all Khean, not without his permission. And if they did manage to steal from him? They'd quickly discover the error of their ways.

"Don't ruin this," Roan had said, so I kept my mouth firmly shut.

"We have not renegotiated the terms of the treaty between our peoples and the crown in this king's lifetime," Ford observed, the tiny twist of his lips saying more than his words did. The brief smile that followed was tight at the edges, more a grimace, as there was no mirth in his eyes. "But it is a key part of our agreement with the crown." A small shake of his head, barely perceptible. "We are not vassals, beholden to the king, but a sovereign nation that operates within the Kheanian border. Our treaty with the crown tells us what can bring the king to the bargaining table, and a wolf shifter's fated mate is one of those things."

But they didn't want that. They didn't want that fucking bastard anywhere near the packlands. The thought of Magnus coming here, bringing his poison here… I glanced out the window at the pastoral idyll beyond. Rich fields brimming with crops and the woods that spread out after that. Neat cottages, each one with a lazy spiral of smoke curling from the chimney. My hand went to my chest, scratching at my breastbone without thinking, as if that would make breathing easier.

He'd ruin it all, all of this. The elders thought they could rely on the fact that the wolf shifters made up the most effective branch of the royal army, that Lanzene and Matteau largely avoided invading us for tales of the wolf shifters's ferocity, but… I pulled in a breath, then forced myself to keep doing so, just focusing on the way the air whistled in and out of my nose. Better that than listen to what was being said because I knew that if I did, I would not be able to follow Roan's directive.

There was no reasoning with Magnus.

He was incapable of negotiating. His administrative staff did the majority of that part of the king's duties. They had been forced to, lest the country end up in flames, because Magnus couldn't accede anything to anyone. The thought of making an allowance for someone was like a needle in his side, a goad to his flanks. He simply could not conceptualise the idea of giving ground to someone for mutual benefit—nor even the idea of mutual benefit—because in his mind, all that mattered was what he might lose.

In truth, each one of my pack knew that, on some level. But for the moment, everyone was pretending.

I held my tongue as I watched them discuss the way forward, trading thoughts back and forth and debating their merits. They resolved on the idea of calling a conclave of different shifter packs from across the entirety of the packlands to provide a united front when meeting with the king. And I wished with my entire heart that it could work.

But there was a reason why I was the naysayer, the one who pulled others' ideas apart as soon as I saw the slightest chink, the smallest sign of weakness.

Don't hope, don't dream, don't want anything, that had been my mother's directive as I tried to survive my first battlefield: the royal playroom. My father had shoved us together, the legitimate son and the one that was bastard-born, thinking that with familiarity some kind of fraternal bond would be forged, tying us to the other. Instead, I became Magnus' first victim. My tongue flicked out, finding the scar my brother had left there when he'd repeatedly smashed a wooden horse into my face, continuing to do it over and over until my mother was forced to step in.

And she'd been beaten summarily by the queen's equerry, her bloodied and battered form left on my father's bed like a cat might do with a bird it'd caught.

Don't ruin this, Roan had exhorted, but he didn't realise that it would be ruined without any intervention on my part. Magnus would do so all on his own, and then I'd… My throat became so dry that I had to swallow hard but then felt I might gag, the feeling of choking on my tongue. It would not stop until I swallowed down an entire cup of water.

"I will send out word to all the different pack leaders," Elder Wren said with a decisive nod. "They are all preparing to come this way for the mating games. This just brings things forward slightly."

"So, we have your permission to pay court to the princess?" Creed asked, acting more puppy than wolf.

"We only ever step in if there's too large an age gap or it seems like it's not in the best interest of the woman," Poppy said, with a gentle smile. "And that does not seem to the case here."

"You still have to get the girl to agree to this mating," one of the other elders said with a long look at all of us.

"That's half the fun."

Chuckles went up around the table, then the elders started to reminisce about their paths towards their fated mates, supplying us with advice and having a laugh at our expense. I just sat in the background, waiting them all out, until my pack finally rose to their feet.

"What now?" Roan asked Creed.

For once it was to him the pack turned to for leadership, not me.

"We break the news to Jessalyn." The joy on Creed's face, and the way his eyes were shining, was an image I felt I would store away forever. "We try to make amends first, but…"

For the first time since we'd met Jessalyn, he was really smiling. It made me remember the dark impulse which had driven me to push the two of them together that last night we were in Stormare; our first night with her. Something inside me had wanted to see Creed fracture and put his ideals aside for once because then he'd be down there in the dirt with me. But instead of debasing himself with a princess who he was supposed to protect, he… I shook my head. He'd found the one woman in the world for him.

I knew what it would be like if we found a way for the princess to accept the bond. Creed would love her until his dying day with the kind of unending devotion that would surely warm even the coldest princess' heart, let alone a passionate woman like Jessalyn. Roan and Silas would take a little longer to make their devotion clear, but they were halfway in love with her already and waiting to make that final step.

Waiting on me.

That's what Roan meant when he'd told me not to ruin things, I realised in a rare moment of clarity. Because I'd been ruining things all along. It was my anger at being forced to go to yet another pisspot country and fetch another poor, unsuspecting princess that had tainted my every response to Jessalyn. I'd channelled my fury at her, rather than at my brother, the one who compelled me to perform this repulsive role.

In his attempts to get rid of me, Magnus had forced me to join the army. He couldn't even manage to have me killed on the battlefield, because me and mine had survived every insane mission he'd sent us on. In the process, our daring, our luck, had turned us from a group of raffish teenagers into the legendary Bastard Prince and his band. When those machinations failed, Magnus had decided to focus on a strategy to destroy my soul, to tear me apart in a much slower fashion. He demoted us to palace guards and then ensured that we were there to watch all the despicable things he did. Then he'd sent us on all those missions to procure each new victim, playing with their lives as he dared me to say no.

Both he and I knew that ‘no' would mean a charge of insubordination; ‘no' would mean I was declaring myself to be above his authority; ‘no' would mean I was accepting my father's decree—that his bastard son become the next king of Khean, not Magnus—and that I was prepared to make another move against my brother to topple him from his throne. I'd been struggling to breathe since we'd reached the pack house, but as I came to a realisation, my chest freed up. Air as sweet as wine was sucked into my lungs, moving in and out without impediment. For some reason, the gods had seen fit to allow us to survive, through one suicide mission after another, year after year. And it was only now that I'd realised that this latest mission was just the latest one.

"Jessalyn will have reservations." They all looked at me. "She'd have to. The girl's not stupid."

"No, but we've been pretty fucking obtuse," Silas said.

"We haven't treated her well." I shook my head. "Me least of all." It wasn't my admission of guilt that had their attention. I was falling back into a familiar role. I took command of our pack, led us into terrible situation after terrible situation and managed to get us out safe, and that track record was what built their confidence in my words. "I'll make sure to apologise for every infraction."

"I'd like to see that." Roan smiled as his arms crossed his chest.

"But even if I fall on my knees before her," I said, "that doesn't mean she'll forgive me, or that she'll forgive all of us."

"That's not how it works here," Creed said. His smile softened slightly. "Because the males have all the certainty about our fated mates and the women have none, we have to show her now, in word and deed, that we see her, hear her, and will provide her with whatever it is she needs." He looked us over, the wolf pushing forward to make clear how important this was. People said I was the brain of the unit, but he had always been the heart. "She has to truly understand that she is our highest priority."

"As if that wasn't already the case." Roan rolled his eyes. "Silas here was falling over himself to show her how to defend herself."

"While you kept ‘protecting' her, as if you were a gallant knight of yore," Silas shot back. "And Creed followed her around like a lost puppy." Unfortunately, with three of the four now having been critiqued, everyone's attention then shifted to me. "Whereas Arik tried so very hard to convince us she meant nothing to him at all." He smirked. "Something you shouldn't have had to put any effort into, if it was true."

He was so very perceptive, my brother-in-arms, but even he couldn't see into the dark depths of my soul. Especially when I forced myself to laugh along with everyone else at my expense.

"Well, are we going to stand around here and argue who's the most besotted with the princess, or are we going to find her and fall on our swords?" I asked.

"Finally, a worthy mission to complete," Roan said, grinning as we walked across the square, past the houses in the centre, and down a lane that led to the healer's cottage.

The smile was still on his face when he stopped to take in a deep breath, bending down and plucking a bright-blue cornflower that grew along the dirt track, then a red poppy, and finally a yellow daisy. Creed stepped in to collect a handful of delicate white blooms that left a sweet perfume in the air. Then Silas approached some women who were working in their gardens and wheedled some grander flowers from them to add them to the mix, critiquing our pack's efforts at making a posy before taking over the entire process, arranging them to his satisfaction. Each bloom was cast in gold by the midday sun, and I knew I'd remember this moment just as I would that image of Creed touched by joy.

I just hoped I'd never regret it.

Roan tried to snatch the flowers out of Silas' grip and march up to the healer's cottage, but while they were squabbling, Creed took control of the posy and held it close to his chest. I'd seen him face howling enemies, men who would like nothing more than to spit in his face as they drove their sword into him, and his nerve hadn't faltered for a second. It did now. He drew in a breath, the others finally falling quiet as he knocked on the door. I'd expected Marian to open it with that same spark of irritation, but instead it was her.

Princess Jessalyn Pearl Yasmina Tennesley stood in the doorway, her blonde hair tumbling over her shoulders in a loose mass, the more casual dress of the wolf shifter women suiting her. She was beautiful, seeming to soak in every bit of radiance, but that wasn't what made my heart clench in my chest.

"Princess…" Creed's voice broke on her title. "Jessalyn, we did everything wrong." He glanced over his shoulder at us, but only the other two moved closer. "We didn't tell you who we were when we met, and each one of us took advantage of a girl who was desperate and not in her right mind. There was an opportunity to right that wrong when we met formally, and we didn't take it."

The posy dropped a little and she tracked its movement, preferring to stare at the wildflowers than us.

"We could've taken you to the border to Lanzene or Matteau or even down river like you wanted. We could've disregarded the king's orders…" He paused then, seeing a string of other princesses, I was willing to bet. "As we should've a long time before. We should've made you feel safe and protected, and instead you thought we were marching you towards certain death. And when you sought help from other men…"

When his hands went to claws, I half wished mine could do the same, exorcising that hot spiky feeling I'd felt when I realised Jessalyn had been taken.

"We should've understood why you did that."

"Instead, we just thought about what we felt." Roan tried to shoot her a sheepish smile, but it faltered under her steady gaze. "How worried we were."

"How furious we were that someone else had taken a woman we'd come to think of as ours." Silas's voice cut through the tense mood. "When we'd done nothing to earn the right to claim you at all."

"We did everything wrong." I watched Creed's head drop, his brows crease. "Everything. When I think about what we put you through…" His eyes jerked up to meet hers. "I'm sorry, Jessalyn. I don't know how else to say it, but…"

His voice trailed away as she wrapped her hand around his, and right then I wondered if his heart stood still at her touch. Mine was still beating, I was aware of that dimly, but only just. His big, sunburnt hands and her much more delicate ones made a pretty picture of contrasts, but she touched him only long enough to squeeze his fingers and then take the posy. Pink stained her cheeks as she bent her head to breathe in their perfume and, just for a minute, I could trick myself into thinking she was just a wolf shifter girl and we were her pack, begging for her attention.

But she wasn't.

"Thank you for the flowers, Master Creed." Her tone was soft but devoid of any real warmth. Using his title made her words polite, removed. This was a brush off. I knew it because I'd done the same with other women often enough, though I never expected to be on the receiving end. "But I—"

This was my fault, what was about to happen. She was going to reject him, reject the others, before they'd even had an opportunity to make their case. Creed would be doomed to never touch another woman again. Silas and Roan would lose themselves in the arms of whores, never finding satisfaction but always looking for it. We'd fracture, shatter, break, all due to a small girl whose power was such she'd be able to sunder pack bonds that had withstood everything my bloody brother had thrown at us.

And I couldn't allow that to happen.

I relived once more the memory of my father, gasping on the throne room floor with Magnus' knife in his chest. Father's heart's blood had kept seeping out, even as I tried to stem the flow. My eyes ached anew with unshed tears as I remembered my brother's expression—one of perfect triumph—as he clawed back the title of king, the one my father had tried to bestow upon me.

My reasoning for keeping Jessalyn at arm's length was sound, but I didn't like the consequences. I hated the shadow of hurt haunting her eyes and how she kept her emotions locked behind a cool mask. Because that's what you did if you lived within a royal court. Never complain, never explain, just stuff it all down. But I knew I'd have given anything—anything—to see Jessalyn's eyes flash again, with anger, with passion, with something beyond that artificially cool politeness.

And I knew just how to do that.

"Blame me." I was moving forward, my lips forming the words before I'd even thought them through. "If you've anything to complain about, lay that at my feet."

She didn't want to talk to me or even look at me. I saw that in the way her knuckles clenched white. But she needed not to react to me if she sought to avoid my attention. That perfect mask cracked, just for a second, as her gaze met mine.

"I'm the commander of this unit. I chose to follow my king's orders. I knew who you were when I ‘rescued' you in the hallway. I brought you to the bar and ordered my men to come and meet us. I'm the one who took you to our inn, knowing who you were, what you were, and I did it anyway."

I straightened to my full height, not looking away for a moment.

"If you're angry with how you were treated, put that on me." I stabbed a finger into my chest. "Put that on me." I had their full attention, but for once I didn't really want it. "I gave the orders. I told them what to do. I decided we'd take you to the capital and present you to the king, because…"

My gaze dropped from hers, though, strangely, not from shame. It seemed as if, in admitting my wrongdoing, I was finally free to see a way forward. I paused, for longer than I should have done amid owning my guilt, staring at the ground, my eyes flickering back and forth with my thoughts. And when I finished what I needed to say, my tone was filled with neither remorse nor self-loathing, but with a sense of hopeful possibility.

"Because I didn't have the balls to imagine a world where I could refuse that order."

But now, it seemed, I did. My mind raced, cataloguing every connection, every alliance we'd made since the moment my father had been murdered by my brother. I would need to call upon each one to do the thing that people had urged me to, over and over, in whispered conversations in ballrooms, inns, or the army barracks.

For Jessalyn Pearl Yasmina Tennesley, I'd need to bring down my brother and take the throne of Khean.