You Owe Me Your Life

Ilse Castellano

"I've been gone for seven years in the war, and she was three when I left. How can she possibly recognise me?" I yelled throughout the entire hall, and everyone was looking at me like I was a clown or something.

"You? On the battlefield?" Gareth cocked his head to the side, looking at me menacingly. He sized me up, and then shook his head. "Or did you roll around in the nearest mud you found and caked your body with red paint to come and make your twisted story believable in front of my people?" He looked towards the guards, disappointment etched all over his face. "And how much do I pay you to keep this from happening, huh?"

Some of the guards who hadn't had any contact with me were already readying their spears and moving towards me, while those who I fought before didn't move a single muscle wherever they were, which only made Gareth mad with rage.

"Are you so scared of her?" He yanked one spear out of the guard's hands and rushed towards me. "How can you be scared of this filth? This fraud who claimed to be my ex wife and the mother of my wife's servants."

"Alpha —" One of his elders stopped him. "Let the guards handle it. Today is supposed to be a day of celebration after we've won this war. Don't let anything taint this day." Several other elders and guests agreed with him. "Guards, please, take her to the dungeon and have her locked up. After the feast is over, she will be brought in front of all the packs and sentenced to death for treason."

The guards behind me were so ready that they rushed to grab my arms and follow the instructions given to them.

"Get your hands off me before I remember I still know how to break fingers." The guard's grip only tightened, dragging me backward through the hall while Winnow sobbed into Nadia's skirts and the whole pack watched.

I hated that my wolf had disappeared again. I hated that I was now weak again... that after the battle, my strength would come and go at odd times. Ever since the battle was over, I lost my greatest strength and I never cared because I believed there wouldn't be any need for it. That I would be with my husband who would protect me... And now...?

I tried fighting really hard until a fist caught the side of my jaw hard enough to send stars across my vision, and then I was being dragged face-down through the dirt, past the gate, past the wall, thrown into a cold and damp dungeon, and the metal gates were barred shut, and all I could see around me was darkness.

*

I didn't know how long it had been when I heard keys turning against the lock of the dungeon doors, and I heard a small groan as the doors were being opened. The light from outside revealed a small figure I would recognize anywhere.

"Winnow!" I shot up from the floor and held on to the bars, but she didn't give me any response as she came towards the iron bars and stretched out her hands to put the key into mine. She stared at me for a few seconds, and I could see the glistening of tears in her eyes before she turned to leave. In that split second, I saw the numerous scars on my daughter's body, and I was filled with so much anguish I almost screamed.

"Winnow, no, wait! Wait!" I fumbled the keys in my hands, trying to open the gates and run after my daughter, but by the time I rushed out, she was long gone. I couldn't scream her name again, lest they found out that she freed me.

These people had taken everything from me, my dignity, my life, my daughters, and they deserved to burn in hell. I was going to do that, but I was weak, and I needed to save my daughter first. To save her from the clutches of these vile people. My knees sank to the wet grass as I cried out my heart in helplessness. This wasn't the woman on the battlefield who could destroy three beasts at the same time. That same woman could destroy this pack in one night, but she was gone. Now broken and drained from the war, hollowed out, and she couldn't even protect the one person who mattered so much to her.

I was so pathetic! My wolf had disappeared to goddess knows when, and I had no lack to say I could invade—

No, wait!

I don't remember the walk to Kastellan territory. I remember guards grabbing for me at the throne room doors, voices shouting for me to halt, and then a single word cutting across the hall before they could drag me back out.

"STOP!" I looked up, and there he was, his eyes narrowing when he recognized me. "Let her through."

The guards released me so fast I nearly fell. I stumbled forward into the firelight, filthy, bruised, barely standing, and he studied me with an intensity that made something in my battered chest go unsteady.

"You're alive," he said quietly, his dark eyes roaming my body. "I knew you would come back alive."

"You remember me." I breathed out in relief, letting the free tears flow down my eyes that I didn't need to explain who I was to him.

"I'll never forget the woman who saved me during the battle, after a group of people were sent to hunt me instead of the beasts." Malakai stepped down from the throne which he sat. "I remember my promise to you and I will always keep it, and all you need to do is state your claim. Whatever brought you to my door, say it plainly, and it will belong to you."

"I need your help." My voice cracked on the words, and I hated it, hated how weak I sounded saying something that mattered this much. "I need your help to bring down the Castellano pack and save my daughter. I need the help of your soldiers to invade the pack, kill Gareth and just..." I didn't know how best to describe my rage to him.

"That's... That's a lot." He said quietly, and I thought he was about to back down.

"You owe me your life." I reminded him at once, in case he forgot.

"I know what I owe you." He studied me for a long moment, something unreadable moving behind his eyes. "But I was scorned the same as you... Sent to that war myself, same as every highborn fool who crossed the wrong person, and I have been stripped of so many things like the fact that I don't have the men or the coin to march against a pack for sentiment alone."

"Then what good is a debt I can't collect?"

"I didn't say I couldn't help." His voice dropped, careful now, deliberate. "I said it would have to cost something from both of us."

"Name it."

"Marry me."

The words hung in the air between us, so plain and so sudden that for a moment I thought I had misheard him.

"Marry you..." I repeated, locking gaze with him so maybe he could hear how stupid he sounded.

"A union between our both of us gives me grounds to move against Castellano without it looking like petty revenge... it gives you a crown with power. You'll become the Luna Queen who can command any of the packs to bend to your will and do your bidding. No one really knows that you are a highborn who was sent to war, do they? From the news I gathered, you're the woman who stormed into the Castellano estate today and the Alpha turned you away..." His eyes didn't waver. "People may not listen to me, but they would listen to you because you are their queen."

I should have hesitated. I should have asked a hundred questions about a king who could offer marriage to a stranger inside a single conversation, but I was too tired, too furious, too far past caring about anything except the one thing this offer actually gave me.

"Done," I said. "That is a deal..."

Something in his face shifted... relief, and it was gone again so fast I almost thought I imagined it.

"Guards." He didn't look away from me. "Fetch the maids and tell them to draw a bath, find her something clean to wear, and send word to the chapel... we'll need it ready by morning."

"By morning?" I stared at him, stunned despite everything. "You want to marry me tomorrow?"

"I want it done before anyone has time to talk either of us out of it." He finally looked away, toward the servants already hurrying to obey him, and something tired crossed his face for just a second before he mastered it. "You're hungry and exhausted. Go, we'll discuss the terms once you've slept."