Chapter 47

Roan

"She intends to reject us?"

Creed delivered the news over breakfast. We'd been served the most anaemic looking eggs with bacon that was burned to a crisp, but I was well used to soldier's rations, so it wasn't enough to turn me off my food.

Creed's words were, though.

Bile filled my mouth, acidic and harsh, burning my throat as Silas piped up.

"Of course, she is." I knew this expression. I saw it come out each time we were forced into a situation well beyond our control. His knife was in his hand, and he was caressing the back of the blade with his fingers. "Why on earth would she choose to accept us as her mates? The idea is patently ridiculous."

And the object of his ire then got those bright green eyes turned on him. Arik bore Silas' steady stare with equanimity, crunching on brittle bacon until his shirt was covered in shards of burnt meat. He brushed it off and then looked at the rest of us coolly.

"It's not as if we haven't taken on impossible missions before."

"This is not like when we were forced to take down an entire Lanzenian garrison on our own," Silas snapped.

"No, that was harder." We all glared at Arik then, trying to make him see, but he continued. "That was forty well-armed and well-trained enemy soldiers behind a doubly reinforced barricade, and this—"

"Is a woman that will never love us." Creed sank down onto his seat. "I didn't mean to go and find her. As soon as I relinquished control, the wolf took over and he…" My brother shook his head sharply. "She was kissing Jorah—"

"She was what?"

Who the hell growled that out? Everyone turned my way, forcing me to blink. My hand was wrapped so tightly around the hilt of my sword, the leather creaked in protest. I forced myself to let it go, although I missed the reassuring press of it in my palm, before schooling my tone into one that sounded far calmer.

"Apologies, brother, but what happened?"

"The wolf took me to Mother Marian's. I think he intended for us to sleep outside her door again, but when I got there…" I'd seen Creed pensive, quiet, or savage with blood lust, tearing his way through our enemies, but he'd never looked so… broken, that was the only word for it. "She was kissing Jorah—"

"Who is this bastard, and how much trouble will I get in if I kill him?" Silas asked. "If it's a lot, I'll just poison him, make it look like an accident."

"Hush." Arik's hand snapped up, indicating we all needed to listen to Creed.

"He's the one that told her he couldn't be with her until she rejected us."

"Yeah, he needs to die," I said, "Badly."

"It wasn't his words that damned us, but ours." Creed stared at each one of us in turn. "She was furious that I'd pushed myself into yet another situation and she said… She'd fight us the entire way. Work out what it took to reject the bond and then…"

There was a moment of silence where we considered what that meant. While human men weren't constrained the same way, this was Creed's only chance at happiness. If she rejected him at the mating games, he'd never be able to form a connection with Jessalyn again.

Or any other woman.

My heart felt like it was dropping through the floor. I'd never intended to go this long before finding someone. My sisters ribbed me about it every time I went home to visit. I'd brushed them off with tales of how hard it was for the wife of a soldier, but still. I could see glimpses, feel the occasional touches of all the women I'd been with in the last year, but I couldn't see their faces. I made sure I couldn't by shutting them out of my mind, not letting my heart get involved, but as I tried to think of any of them, each one looked like an impudent little princess.

It wasn't right, but all I could think about in that moment was never touching her again, never feeling the silk of her lips against mine, never being wreathed by the sounds of her sighs as I… My cock ached and so did my heart as I turned to the others.

"We need to find a way through this. What the fuck are the mating games, and what're we supposed to do during them? How will participating in them get us Jessalyn?"

"Seeing a way forward now?" Arik smiled slowly. The look in his eyes was a familiar one. You could almost see his brain kick into high gear. "Because there is a way. There always is. We've faced far tougher foes, and every time we've done it the same way. Scout out the battlefield, identify any obstacles, then work out a way to obliterate each and every one of them. Gentlemen…?" When he raised his coffee mug, we did too. "Here's to finding a way. She's just one tiny little princess."

I was with him right up until that point, but at his description of Jessalyn, my resolve faltered. If the commander thought that's all our mate was, this mission was going to be far harder than it needed to be, but when the others drank down a measure of their coffee, I did too. The hot, dark, bitter taste was a perfect counterpoint to the feeling deep inside me.

"I bring word," Elder Ford said, walking into the dining hall. "Missives have been sent across the breadth of the packlands. The date for the mating games has been set for three days hence." He beamed as he regarded the entire hall, males starting to mutter as the single females sat tall at their table with smiles like cats on their lips. "Males have two days to register your intent to participate or wait for the next year to prove yourself to your fated mate."

"Three days." Arik nodded sharply. "Three days to find out what's expected of us and what we need to do to get Jessalyn to accept what we know to be true."

The look he gave us was a familiar one because it was the same one we got when we were about to face down any other enemy on the battlefield. But what the commander didn't seem to understand was that the princess wasn't a Mattenite contingent or even a covert unit sneaking across the border. Being cunning bastards, or smart, or the fastest wouldn't stand us in much stead with Jessalyn. If anything, that was the problem.

We couldn't be bastards at all, and that was a whole skill set we'd never bothered to learn. I sighed and then stabbed a fork into my burnt egg and shoved it into my mouth and chewed, lest I tell the others just that.