Alpha's Audience

Chapter 3:

Kael's POV

Ruin had been howling for three days before she crossed my border.

I had not slept. I did not sleep much anyway, but this was different, a pressure behind my eyes and a drumbeat in my chest that matched nothing I had ever felt. I stood on the border ridge at dawn on the third day and told my wolf to be quiet. He answered with a sound I had not heard from him since I was a boy. Not rage. Want.

And then she came out of the trees, running barefoot through the dark, silver white hair plastered to her skull, and the whole world narrowed to a single, terrible word.

I had put my hand on her throat because it was the only leash I had left. If I had not held her, I would have claimed her right there on the border dirt in front of thirty warriors, and I would have become my father. I told myself that all night while her blood dried on my palm.

"Tell me you have lost your mind."

Marcus did not knock. He never did when he was angry. He came through the door of my study and planted both hands on my desk, scattering the border reports I had not read, and his scarred face was so tight with rage he looked carved from the same granite as the walls.

"Good morning, Marcus."

"Do not mock me." His voice was low and level, the voice he used before he did something violent. "Two days. She is still breathing, Kael. The daughter of Darius Ravenfell is sleeping in the east tower on silk sheets, and the warrior who put her on the ground sits in a cell, and I would like someone, anyone, to explain why."

I closed the book in front of me. "She is a peace bride…she deserves to be listened to at least..”  I said, coming up with a terrible reason why I still kept her alive. 

"She is a Ravenmark spy wearing a peace bride's face."

"Possibly."

"Then why is she alive?" He leaned closer. "Why is Dren in a cell? He did what any of us would have done. He stopped a hostile from running into our territory."

"He was ordered to restrain her. He cracked her skull." I kept my voice even. "She was unarmed, outnumbered, and bleeding, and she had not drawn a weapon. If I execute a woman who came here under a flag of peace, we hand Darius his war, and it would be enough reason for the Moon Goddess to be on their side. 

And If I reward the man who struck her without orders, I teach my warriors that I do not mean what I say."

It was true. Every word of it. It was also not the reason, and Marcus knew it as well as I did.

"That is the argument of a politician." He straightened slowly. "I do not remember you being one."

"Neither do I."

For a long moment he just looked at me. This was the man who had pulled me out of my father's hall when I was nineteen and covered in blood, the one who had stood at my shoulder when the council voted, who had buried two children four and six years old with his own hands because of my brother. 

Marcus Thorne had every right in the world to hate anything that carried my family's blood.

"Then tell me what you plan to do with her."

"She is heard tonight. Then I decide."

"And until then?"

"Until then, she is not to be  touched. By anyone." I let the words settle. "That includes you."

He stood there with a muscle ticking in his jaw, and I saw him make the decision to swallow whatever he wanted to say. It cost him. It always did.

"I hope you do not come to regret this," he said finally, and turned for the door.

The door closed behind him. I sat alone with the reports I would not read and the drumbeat in my chest, and I made myself think about my father.

Not as the man who taught me to swing a sword. As the thing he became. A hollowed shell with a witch's voice in his bones.

That was the cost of a bond like this one. I knew it. I had always known it.

So when they brought her to me at dusk, I stood with my back to the door.

"Alpha," said Vera, and I heard the pause in her voice. "The prisoner."

"Leave us."

The door closed. I counted four breaths before I turned around.

They had dressed her in plain grey wool, and her hair had been washed and combed and hung silver against her jaw. Bandages showed at her wrist and the collar of her tunic. She stood perfectly straight with her hands loose at her sides, and she looked at me the way a soldier looks at an executioner, without pleading and without flinching.

My body answered before my mind agreed. Ruin surged against my ribs. Every instinct I owned pushed me toward her. I stayed exactly where I stood.

"Sit."

"I would rather stand." She replied.  Her voice was firm, but the fear in her eyes betrayed the boldness she tried to portray. 

“Suit yourself.”  I walked to the window. It put the width of the room between us, and it was not enough. "You asked for an audience."

"You offered one."

I turned. She held my eyes without blinking.

"Then plead," I said.

"There is no plea." Her voice did not shake. Vera had obviously told her not to stutter, and she had taken it as an order. "I am Selene Ravenfell, daughter of Alpha Darius, and I came across your border carrying a letter, because my father told me it would end the war. That is all I know. That is all I have."

"You came alone."

"I was told to."

"By a man who loves you… That's stupid don't you think?” 

Something flickered in her face, quick and raw, and then it was gone. "By my father."

That was not an answer. I noticed it. I filed it away.

I crossed the room slowly. She did not retreat. When I stopped in front of her, close enough to smell cedar smoke and antiseptic and the wild, bright scent underneath that made my wolf go rigid, she tilted her chin up and looked at me.

"Why have you not killed me?"

I should have lied. A hundred answers stood ready. Because I want to know what your father is planning. Because killing you would start a war. Because it is the strategic thing to do.

“Well for one, it is rude to refuse a gift.  And I must say, even though you aren't exactly my type, you'll do well as a slave.. I could have you whenever I want and maybe even give you the privilege of bearing my pups. Besides, what gave your pack the idea that I needed a bride? I have all the companions I want if I ever get in the mood..”  

“That is—”  

She couldn't continue. I could tell she was surprised, but that didn't matter. 

“And also, I have not yet decided what to do with you.. and you should be glad.”  I said. 

"That is not true."

My hand was against the wall beside her head before I knew I had moved. The wall  cracked under my palm. She did not flinch. Her pulse jumped at the base of her throat, fast and wild and real, and the bond rose between us like a flood tide, hot and bright and impossible to ignore.

"You speak very freely," I said, "for a woman who has nothing."

"I have my life." She was breathing hard now. "You can take it. You have wanted to since I walked out of those trees. But you have not, and I would like to know why."

"Careful."

"Why?"

I could feel the heat coming off her skin. I could feel my father's hand on my shoulder, the old whisper of what happens to Alphas who let something in. Seraphina had begun the same way. A gentle pressure. An excuse. A girl who made him feel like a man instead of a king with countless responsibilities. 

I leaned in until my lips were an inch from her ear.

"Go back to your room," I said.

It came out rough, wrecked, nothing like an order. I stepped back before I could do anything I would not be able to take back, and the air that rushed between us felt like a wound.

She didn't do that, instead, she took a slow step forward, her back now inches away from the wall, and her chest rising and falling.  

The moment she stepped closer, my body betrayed me. The bond tightened in my chest, demanding a reaction I refused to give.

“This can’t be right,” I muttered under my breath, my irritation deepening into hatred.

I resented every feeling. My father, Aldric, had let his feelings destroy him and eventually led him to the grave, and I’d sworn never to make the same mistake.

“Why haven’t you killed me?” she asked, holding my gaze.

“Do you want to die that badly?”

“No. I’d prefer to know why you are keeping me alive when everyone here wants me dead.”

She seemed bent on the idea that she really was sent as a peace bride… that she was an anchor of peace and a bridge between the two packs.  I couldn't tell if it was stupidity or nativity.  But she seemed convinced and that was.. maybe something. 

I crossed the space between us and pinned her against the wall, my breath grazing her skin as I gripped her wrist. 

The bond flared between us, and her eyes flickered with fear and anticipation.

“Be careful what you ask for, Selene.”

She winced but held my gaze, making no attempt to pull away. “What exactly are you afraid of?”