Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Agnar

Prairie Rose entered the small cabin without wrath or anger but drenched already in sorrow. There was only one bedroom in the back and a living room, kitchen, bathroom that were all basically one room, the bathroom with a thin wall and a door between the rest. Someone had hastily thrown wood into the metal stove in the kitchen, and it was slowly warming up. He could no longer see his breath in the air.

It was midday, but a storm was howling outside. The weather was brutal, but not nearly as difficult as their journey north.

Crystals of snow clung to her long white-blonde hair, gleaming like hundreds of stars in a dark night sky. She had a thick black jacket on which went all the way down to her knees. It stabbed him in the already aching pit of his chest that she'd thrown it on over one of those long dresses she always wore. When she moved, he saw a flash of her black leggings underneath as a concession to the cold. Impractical, but still as beautiful as one of those desert flowers he'd never hold in the palm of his hand again because that land was lost to him.

She paused, taking in the state of him before she flung herself across the room. Her hands hovered at his face, and he wondered how mad he must look with the dried blood, the scrapes and cuts, the bruises, the black eye, and his broken nose. Her fingertips stayed just out of reach, shaking.

"Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god." Fat tears rolled down her cheeks and her voice grew hoarser with every word, shredded by her frayed emotions.

He needed to say what he'd planned to tell her and leave. Get out before the sight of her and the scent of her was too much for him. He inhaled too sharply, his lungs pressing against his battered ribs. He'd probably cracked a couple, but so what? He was alive when others were dead.

The realization had slammed into him after he and the other men fought until they were sure that whoever could escape already had. He'd let his men retreat and he'd covered them. He should be dead, but he wasn't.

They'd let him live. Alexander wanted him alive. For the rest of his years, he'd live with what had happened. The deaths. The blood. The failure.

He stepped back and away from his mate's shaking hands. She studied him with shimmering eyes. A question burned in those depths. Why? Why won't you let anyone help you? You're hurt. You need to be treated.

"I asked for you because I have something I need you to promise me."

She tensed, her hands dropping to her sides. They flexed there and then balled into fists. He imagined her digging her nails into her palms to try and compose herself. She didn't speak. Didn't give her word before she knew what it was, she was putting her vow to.

"I need you to look after my sons. I know they'll be loved here. I might have mated you for peace, but a fate I don't believe in chose you. It was the kindest thing that has ever been handed to me. You're a good woman. You have a soft heart. I scoffed at that before, but I know now that you were made this way because my sons have to follow a different path. Because of you, they'll live and thrive. They'll grow into good men. You can choose their path now. You'll guide their future."

Her face collapsed. "What? I don't understand. You're here. You're going to stay here."

"No. I won't stay. I can't stay. I have nothing left of my pack. I'm no longer alpha. I'm a beaten man." He finally raised his hands and let her see. She didn't understand. She couldn't, because all she could see was the blood. He'd refused any aid along the way. He'd seen the remainder of his pack to safety, but he didn't need aid. He wouldn't wipe away or wash away the evidence of his sins.

Her eyes were smoky and wet, fire burning on water. "I don't understand."

"They let me live. Alexander wanted me to endure this. He wanted me to know that I was the alpha who lost. Who failed. A warrior emasculated. He wanted me to spend the rest of my days purposeless, knowing how unworthy I am. He wanted me to know that I led my pack straight to their slaughter. That through mercy and softness, I dug their graves. They set on me and I fought them off until I couldn't stand any longer. I would have died fighting, an honorable death, but they let me go. Not before they chewed through the tendons in my hands. They know I won't go to any hospital. It's dangerous for a shifter, there will be no surgery. I'll never hold a weapon again. They took the pack from me, our lands, our home, but they took this from me too. I can no longer defend and protect my family, let alone anyone else. I have lost everything. I am an unfit mate. You need to reject me so I can leave."

He'd expected disgust, and an immediate rejection when Prairie Rose found out how emasculated he'd been. He was no longer anything at all. He was unworthy to even stand here and look her in the eye, but he did so because she deserved that respect.

Instead of condemning him, she burst into a fresh round of tears. She cried so hard that she choked on it, hiccupping and gagging. She cried like her heart was broken for him because it was part of him, but that was impossible. She couldn't own his heart. He couldn't give what he didn't possess.

She surged forward, grabbing his blood-stained, tattered shirt. Her fingers curled through the fabric, and she tilted her head, practically snarling at him while he took another ragged breath, wishing he was dead.

"No! You're in shock. You've been through the worst kind of hell and it's broken you. A man can only take so much. You're just a flesh and blood person under that armor of courage you throw on." Her palm shoved up against his heart. "You're alive and whatever reason they didn't kill you, you're here. I'm not letting you go. I'll never renounce you. If you leave, I will find you. You have two sons here who love you more than anything in the world. I refuse to raise them alone. They need you."

"They don't need a father like me."

"Yes." She backed off and picked up his broken ruined hands. The healing had already started, the shifter in him working what would be considered a medical miracle, but the tendons would heal all wrong. Even now he had little use of his fingers. He couldn't feel the damage, but then, he couldn't feel anything. He'd numbed out after he'd been left to flee with the others.

He'd promised himself he'd get his pack north, take them to safety, and then he'd go off somewhere. Disappear. Go back for vengeance and die in the process. He deserved nothing.

She traced his bloody fingers carefully. "We have a good healer. She's excellent. The best in the country, likely. She could help you. I don't know that she could make your hands how they were before, but she could do something. Or, or…fuck!" The word tore through him like a bullet as she spun and paced the cabin. "We have money. Our pack. I'll force my brother to get a doctor. A surgeon. If we can't find a shifter, we will… I don't know, kidnap someone and force them out here to do it."

She spun back around, frantic. He'd seen men like this before a raid or going into battle. Filled with too much adrenaline. Dangerous. On edge. Barely holding it together. He'd seen men like this in the aftermath of battle. Clinging to what little sanity remained. He'd pushed a good woman to this, but why? She owed him nothing. Nothing for a man who was nothing.

"I'm going back," he said flatly. "Soon. I'm going back and I'll die fighting them as I should have done. It's only right."

Her hand shot out and pressed down hard on his mouth. A deep cut on his lip opened up, flooding his mouth with salt and metal. "No. No, Agnar Phaethon, you're not leaving. You sent us away and that act spared our lives. You were spared as well. I won't let you waste this breath still in your body. You'll heal here if I have to tie you to a bed and make you do it. Vengeance and violence, all they breed is death and pain. It's endless. Up here, we don't live by the sword, and we don't die by it. I'm not going to let you go and I'm not giving up on you. You're my mate, and I'm still going to stand by your side no matter what happens, and we'll get through this together."

How could he make her understand this wasn't a matter of wounded pride? It wasn't his ego that suffered? That there was no coming back from what he'd endured. He was an alpha who had, through his actions for years, sentenced almost his entire pack to death and extinction.

The only thing he craved now was an end to that knowledge.

He'd been wrong about not having a heart. He did. He had one. He had to, because he felt all the pain in the world. He had to have a soul too, because the blood of his packmates stained it.

"There is no together," he barked. "I have no body. I have no heart. No soul. I am a ghost. There is nothing to hold onto."

She took his face in her hands, and he almost wanted to curl his cheek into the warmth. Almost. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep and find out that none of this was real.

"I don't care. You're not a ghost. You're not nothing. You're mine and I'm yours and I'm holding onto you right now. I'm not going to let go. Ever."

"I'll contaminate my sons. I'm cursed. Everything I have turns to ash. My real family. My wife. My pack. My lands. My position."

She was wild. She looked like she was going to raise her hand off his cheek and slap him. Hard. Repeatedly. She thought he was in shock. He wasn't. This wasn't a physical reaction. She tipped his chin up instead and made him look at her out of his one good eye. Even that image grew blurred. She was no longer crying. She looked furious and deadly in her own right. An angel sent blazing down from some other world to do battle for him.

There was something wrong with her. She was no saint. Prairie Rose was just a woman. Shifter, yes, but flesh and blood. Any woman in her right mind would find him repulsive. A normal woman would wash her hands of him and gladly. Why was she looking at him like it mattered more to her than anything in the world that she save him? It wasn't love. She couldn't claim that madness. When Castor first proposed his plan of peace between them to bind them through marriage, he'd heard she volunteered. Why? Why wasn't she fucking sorry that she'd ever said yes, that she'd ever set eyes on him? She'd gone through the sacred ceremony with him in her woods, on her lands, but she had every right to break that oath and reject him.

"I'm worse than nothing. I've been transformed into a monster. A beast. I'm no longer wolf or man. I'm just a thing who longs to shed blood. Who is ravenous with it. My own. Alexander's. It doesn't even matter anymore."

"Stop it." She crushed her lips to his without warning. She kissed him wildly, like an animal would. She matched his ferocity with something he didn't know she had in her. He didn't move or respond, and she pulled back, chest heaving. Fear flashed in her eyes, but she was afraid of herself. Of what he'd unlocked in her. "Don't say you have nothing to live for. Your sons are not nothing and they need you. I am not nothing and I need you."

Fuck, it was too much. He laughed straight into her face. She blinked in confusion and even though he'd numbed himself inside to anything but death and the violence that would see him there, he felt a fissure open up and ache. Prairie Rose was too kind and good to hurt. That's why he needed to leave. He was destroying her goodness already.

"I need you," she repeated stubbornly, with venom. "I need you and you need to heal. Give me six months, Agnar. Six months here with our pack. If you still want to leave at the end of that time, then I'll let you go. I'll reject you. I'll swear that oath to keep your sons and raise them. You can go and seek whatever glorious death you think you need to find. But, in these six months, I will fight for you. I'll show you that life can be good. That you are capable of so much more than you could ever imagine. You'll be safe. You'll be warm. You'll be cared for. Blake and Levi love you. They would never blame you for what happened. No one would. My family will grow to love you like you're one of theirs and from this day forward, I will love you as well. I won't hold back. I'll give you everything. You think someone like me isn't equipped to do battle, but I'll prove to you that I am. In six months' time, you won't want to leave, I can promise you that. In six months, you will be my mate in every way, and in every way a part of this pack."

He'd been wrong about being at the peak of the mountain, at the top of how much pain a man could feel, and a body could take. He thought everything else had to be a slow and painful descent down from that pinnacle, but there was still more to find. Still higher to climb. Still more shards that could dig their way under his skin, shrapnel to explode and tear at his chest.

"No."

"You aren't hearing me."

"I'm hearing you. Don't you think I know the reason you agreed to take me as a mate was to escape here? To get away from the boring, bland, plain existence that was driving you insane? You came to me expecting me to be your last hope. To give you children and a family and the life you were too scared to claim here. You were raised with this fantasy that you could save someone, but there isn't going to be a redemption arc for me. You think you'll uncover some kind of prince beneath the beast, but all I am is what you see. A broken man who has been destroyed and who has nothing left to give but destruction. I will leach the good out of you until there's nothing left of you if I stay. I'll do the same to my children. That's why I have to go."

She wasn't hearing him. She was going to push through whatever pain she felt and whatever insults he tried to cut her with to get her the hell away from him. He needed her to give him up. This tenacity that she displayed was frightening. It was unsettling. He wasn't worthy now and she'd never find anything in him that was. Those days were gone, those parts of him stripped away.

At last, he finally understood what bottom felt like. He wasn't lying to her about being broken and fearful that all those jagged, sharp edges would cut into her and anyone else who came into contact with them.

"You want to give yourself to me, everything you have, but there's nothing left to reciprocate. You will get nothing in return."

She still didn't back away. She remained willfully blind, yet looking at him directly, challenging him, and if he had anything left, he'd show her exactly why it was such a bad idea to look a wounded wolf in the eye. As it was, his chest was an empty cage where he'd been strung up and left for the ages and the elements, his bones bleached to a stark white.

"You won't hurt me," she protested. "You won't hurt the boys. You'll find yourself again and you'll heal. I promise." She gently touched his wrists, encircling them in her small palms, lifting his broken hands up to the light. "Starting with these."