Chapter 45

Creed

"The woman chooses."

I heard my own words echoing around in my head, mocking me with every iteration as I stood on the outskirts of the dining hall. Because their content remained true, the elders had worked hard to make that clear. A female wolf shifter could fight like the devil himself—the tales of them protecting their children from invaders were legendary—but even one of our females could be overcome by a group of determined males. So the importance of consent was impressed on us boys from when we were young.

And what happened to all those worthy lessons once I met my mate?

The sense of guilt and shame wracking me at what I had done was what kept me pinned to the spot, but all that control shattered when I saw that bastard, Jorah, lay hands on my mate. The wolf lunged forward, fangs bared, dying to burst free. Fur prickled across my skin as a low growl trickled from my chest. I had just told Silas that we needed to prove ourselves worthy of Jessalyn, yet there was I, snarling like a dog on a leash.

"Now you're seeing things right." Roan shot me a look. "Who's that big fucker, and why the hell is he touching our girl?"

"Jorah…" was all I managed to force out.

"More like Worm Food." Silas gripped the hilts of his knives tight. "Roan, you circle around and distract the bastard. I'll slip in behind and—"

"Do what?" Arik wasn't sounding like our brother right now. Those were the crisp clipped tones of the commander. "What will you do, Silas? Kill a wolf shifter on pack land, starting a goddamn war between humans and shifterkind?" His words were a slap to the face, helping me see sense, and then he turned back to stare at the other two. "And in front of at least a hundred different witnesses." He crossed his arms as he watched that prick draw our girl closer. "If we've learned anything, it's not to get caught doing what we must."

"So we draw him out and away from Jessalyn?" Silas' tone changed with each word as he warmed to the topic. "Down one of the laneways and then I can—"

His words washed over me, making less and less sense as the wolf pushed at me. Jorah was getting closer and closer to Jessalyn, and his body was swaying into hers. His hands rose, and I knew why. Because he wanted to run them down her curves, learn the geography of her body, then claim it for his own. And rather than flinch away or spit with anger, Jessalyn turned towards him and smiled.

This was the way it was supposed to have been with me. I was moving, hearing people's shouts but unable to respond to them. The wolf was savage, with me, with Jorah, wanting to bite everyone and everything as he paced back and forth, and all I could do was storm forward. It wouldn't help. That thought maddened the wolf because he couldn't accept that there was no way we could be with our mate. Mine, that's what he insisted, over and over. Mine, mine—

My legs slammed into a chair, and the high-pitched skid of it across the floor was like a red rag to a bull. As my hands clasped the back of it, Jorah's went to Jessalyn's shoulders in the dance. As I heard the wood creak, he turned her towards him and away from me, and that made it worse. She smiled up at him in a way I'd never seen her look at me, and that meant the end of the chair. I sent it hurtling through the air. When it crashed to the ground, it shattered to pieces, just as my heart did the same.

Why wasn't it me there? Why weren't those my hands on her shoulders? Why wasn't I pulling her close, smelling her sweet scent? Why didn't she smile for me?

Instead of being close to my mate, I was forced to revisit all the looks she'd given me. Anger, fear, pain, or the haze of lust induced by a drug, none of which I wanted. I sucked in a breath, then another, feeling the shame coming rushing back in.

"Is there a problem here?"

Wren, one of the elders we'd consulted with, stood before us. There was no warmth in her expression now.

"No problem, Elder—" Arik replied as he appeared beside me.

"Dispense with the titles." She waved her hand in irritation. "Especially when you have been far from forthcoming." Her focus shifted to me. "I expect humans to lie about what they do, but you, Creed…" Her chiding tone, coupled with that disappointed look, hit me much harder than it should've. My own family was giving me the cold shoulder, but Elder Wren… She'd been a constant in my life, always taking time to answer my questions and ask how I was. "Did we not teach you better than this?"

She knew. The cool expressions, the baleful looks. Everyone in the pack knew what we had done to Jessalyn, and I flushed, realising we deserved every kind of censure. The wolf whined inside me, pulling back, knowing he had no chance to leap forward now. Disapproval helped me regain control where willpower had failed.

"You did, Elder." I dropped my head down to save myself from seeing the mess I'd made, both of the chair and Jessalyn. "And I fear I forgot every word when I…" The confession, caustic as acid, wanted to come bubbling up, but the elder had not asked for this, so I swallowed it back down again. "When I acted in a way that went against our teachings. For that, I am sorry."

"You'll need to save those apologies for another," she said with a sigh, "but for now, you must go."

"Go…?"

I shot Roan a dark look, willing him to silence.

"Go, now." The alpha bark in her voice had me taking a step back in a way no human general could match.

"The chair—" I said.

"Others will clean up your messes." She said that as if I was a child of two, not a man grown. "But you must be prevented from making any more."

I stumbled backwards at the implication of her words. My eyes were drawn back to Jessalyn, and I saw again how she was happy in a way we had never made her. I didn't want to see it, didn't want to acknowledge it, but I had to. My previous exhortations that we prove ourselves worthy of her seemed pointless now. I'd barely managed to watch her dance with another before I was trying to snatch that moment from her. I shook my head sharply and then dropped down on one knee.

"I hear your words, Elder Wren." As I said it, I recognised that the act of obeisance, of lowering myself to the ground, had eased something in me. "I apologise for destroying the chair, and I will make another to replace it."

"Tomorrow, Creed, son of Saffron, but not today. You have been long from our lands, and I think this has been to your detriment. Your wolf has always been difficult to control, but you learned to. Show me that you can again."

There was a note of confidence in her voice, almost erased by her displeasure, but not quite. I gripped it like a drowning man might a lifeline, using it to haul myself upright and to meet the elder's gaze.

"I will, Elder. I will, I promise I—"

"Not now, Creed."

I was dismissed as surely as if by one of the human generals. I turned on my heel and walked out of the dining hall, my pack at my sides, but a contingent of older wolf shifters followed our progress, to make sure we didn't backtrack.

I didn't take a full breath until the music faded. When the sounds of night birds singing and crickets calling had replaced it, rage dissipated and the wolf settled back down. We were home. No matter how we'd gotten here, that remained true. And, back on the packlands, perhaps I could find a way to make up for the sins of the past.

"Well, that went fucking terribly." Silas pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the ground, shaking his head as we looked at the four beds set up in the large bedroom.

"We got permission from the elders to court Jessalyn, thinking that was the next step." Roan sat down heavily on the bed. "And I thought it would be all smooth sailing from there."

I wanted to snap at him why would he think that? What on earth would make him think such a thing? Instead I kept my mouth firmly shut, lest a whole lot of other words come out.

"Self-recrimination and doubt won't do us much good tonight." This was a familiar speech from Arik. He delivered it each time a situation seemed dire. "Let's get some sleep. None of us have slept well since we took on this mission. We'll all be thinking more clearly in the morning."

Arik didn't allow for argument, just moved over to extinguish the lamp. In the darkness, we all stripped down and slid under sheets that smelled of lavender and sunlight.

My eyelids felt heavy, and my breathing slowed and evened out. Arik was right, we'd all barely slept since the moment we'd met the princess. On top of that, the wolf hadn't permitted me a moment's rest while Jessalyn had been unconscious in her sickbed. My body wanted to fall into sleep, but, as soon as I let go, the wolf pushed forward.

He was usually kept locked down, tamped into some corner of my soul and only allowed to come forth to tear the king's enemies apart. It seemed he was done following orders.

Our paws hit the wooden floorboards, but my wolf was no pup. He knew just how to land to prevent his claws from clicking, and he padded from the room, nosing the door open and then was out into the cottage's living room. Almost as if he sensed I wasn't planning to stop him, he let go a little control so that we could work together. We paced back and forth on seeing the bar across the front door, but the windows had been pushed open to let in the night air, so we leapt through one of them, landing in the garden.

"Don't go looking for her."

He'd managed to avoid our detection, and it wasn't the first time, which was why the prince had the wolf's respect. Arik leaned on the fence, a small cigarillo curling smoke from the tip. His eyes gleamed in the darkness, and not for the first time, we wondered at his heritage. All humans in Khean had some wolf shifter blood, but he seemed to have more than others. He took in the wolf with a long look, then moved his focus away, dragging in a big lungful of smoke.

"She doesn't want us." He shook his head slowly. "Can't say I blame her. I worked real hard to make sure she didn't. I'm sorry for that. If you can make that clear to Creed, I'd appreciate it."

Smoke billowed around his face as he exhaled in a long stream.

"I thought I was doing the right thing, protecting us from a reality…" Our ear pricked up at the sound of pain in his voice. We watched his throat work, which made it seem as if whatever he had to say was physically clawing its way out. "One that threatened to crush us all. I wanted us to survive this, Creed, because I know…"

This was the problem with forming a pack with humans. The elders had made clear my mistake privately, trying to dissuade me from this direction, but I'd stood firm. I couldn't imagine binding my soul to any other men. But despite our connection, forged through a ritual few human men saw, if survived, Arik had secrets.

How had the bastard prince of the old king ended up in the army with a bunch of misfits like us? It wasn't just the murder of the previous king that weighed on his soul.

"I know what pain it is to want someone with every breath in your body. There's a particular kind of horror to have that torn from you. So…" His focus returned to me. "Don't compound my mistakes by seeking Jessalyn."

The man and the wolf lived differently, the truce between us sometimes an uneasy one. The wolf had control right now, so he turned and trotted off into the darkness. He didn't heed what Arik, our alpha, had said, nor did he pay attention to me. Instead, he passed house after house until he reached his destination.

We'd tamped down the grass under a tree outside Mother Marian's cottage. When she'd forced me to leave, telling me to have a bath, I'd instead taken fur and curled up here. Right now, we turned around—once, twice, three times—before plopping down on the flattened greenery, the scent of it and the soil rich in my nose as we watched the laneway.

Time meant nothing to the wolf, so I couldn't have told you how long it took for Jessalyn and Jorah to arrive. All I knew was as soon as they came into view, our whole body stiffened. Our nose drew in the night air, catching the traces of white flowers and the wind, then we jumped to our feet.

Arik had instructed us not to search for Jessalyn, but he would only ever be able to understand things from the perspective of a man. The wolf saw things entirely differently. Jorah leaning in close, claiming her attention as though he had a right to it. That alone was enough to have us leaning forward, a growl brewing, but before we could utter a sound, they'd stopped and he cupped her jaw in his hand, bending down to kiss her.