by Haley Weir
“New?” he asked. “Like the ones that came from that rival pack before I took it over?”
“No, newer than that.”
“No,” Theo answered. “Why?”
Holly went on to explain to him about the unknown shifter that sat alone in the tavern. She described his dark hair and striking blue eyes, and as much of his build as she could remember.
“No, definitely not a shifter that I know,” he said. “Weird. There are never wolf shifters that just ‘pass through.’ If there were any travelers, I would have known about it. The packs would be talking about a stranger in the forests. Are you sure it’s not one of Rubius’ pack members? Maybe you just don’t remember having seen him before?”
“I don’t think so,” Holly said as she shook her head. “I’d remember this guy’s look—and those eyes.”
Theo chuckled.
“Don’t tell me that a man has finally caught my sister’s eye now that she is queen and needs to focus on other things,” he teased.
“He didn’t catch my eye in that sort of way,” Holly lied defensively. “It merely caught my eye that he was a stranger and sitting all alone.”
“Sitting alone isn’t strange; you do it all the time.”
Holly ignored her brother’s remark and instead wondered more about the man.
“Is there such a thing as shifters who don’t belong to a pack?” she asked. The gears in her mind were turning, and she just couldn’t seem to let the subject of this man drop. “Ones who just keep to themselves and stay on their own?”
“No,” Theo answered with certainty. “There’s no such thing as rogue shifters. They wouldn’t survive on their own without a pack.”
“Why not?”
“Because being in the pack grants you the ability for enhanced senses, resources, and protections. Not only would a rogue shifter be defenseless against any pack that wanted to harm it, but it wouldn’t have the combined ability of an entire pack of shifters,” Theo answered.
“I can see how that would make things more difficult,” she said. “But it still sounds survivable.”
“I don’t think so. Besides, I’ve never even heard of or seen a shifter that hasn’t been a part of a pack. If such a thing existed, and shifters could survive on their own, then some of the members of the pack I took over would have just left. They stayed because they needed to be part of a pack.”
Holly thought about it and figured that Theo was right. He knew more about the pack system than she did, especially now that he was an alpha himself. They finished training, although Holly was more distracted now than before, which let Theo get a few good shots in. Then, after they were done, Holly went to shower off.
Inside her bedroom, there was a stone shower with a rustic, copper bathtub that had clawed feet at the bottom of it. After she showered, she filled the tub and sat in it, laying her head back against the side and wondering why she was having such difficulty not thinking about the man from the tavern. She needed to think about her new royal duties and about how she would win the hearts of the townspeople. She also needed to think about what she was going to do that would calm her nerves more so that she could look more the part of regal queen, and less the part of scared child.
When she was finished with her bath, she dried with a towel and went to stand in front of her open window to look out at the forest. She didn’t mind the cool breeze against her damp skin, nor the fact that she was naked in front of the opening for anyone to see. Her bedroom was on the side of the castle that faced out toward the forest and not in toward the city center. So if there even was anyone to see her, it would be from a distance. She was very much like her mother, loyal and committed to doing what was right for those around her, but also wild at heart, and she carried the constant burden of wanting to rebel and run at a moment’s notice.
She had been the one to want to rule, and now she had it. She had to turn it into something that would make her happy. But as she thought about her plans as queen, she also continued to think about the shifter at the tavern.
“I’ll go back there tomorrow,” she whispered to herself as she leaned her hands out the window to touch the cold bricks of the castle wall. “I’ll see if the shifter is there, and if he is, I will talk to him and find out who he is and what he’s doing here.”
Contented with her plan for the next day, Holly turned to walk back into her room and put some clothes on. By the time she finished dressing, her brother showed up to knock on her door.
“Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve asked around about your mysterious tavern friend,” he said once she had pulled the door open. “Not a single person knows who he is. Don’t you find that strange?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I do. That’s why I want to go back and talk to him and find out what he’s doing here. I’m going to go back to the tavern tomorrow to see if he is there.”
“Want me to come with you?” Theo asked protectively.
“No,” Holly chuckled. “Thank you, big brother, but I’m more worried about the humans than I am about a mysterious shifter hurting me.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry about the humans anymore, either. Rubius and I read them the riot act and threatened them with a very unpleasant demise if they ever disrespect you again.”
“My hero,” she said sarcastically.
“I’ve always got your back, sis,” Theo said before winking and then heading back down the hallway.
“I know you do,” Holly said aloud. She stood there in her empty bedroom for a minute, her wet hair dripping down the front of the nightgown she had just put on after her shower.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was almost winter, and both the humans and the shifters alike were starting to prepare for the festivities. The humans in the kingdom celebrated the start of the season with a big festival, complete with a feast, ice skating on the frozen lake, and a lantern lighting that ended up turning into a joyous night of drinking and dancing. The entire city would be decorated for the festival. The shifters also celebrated winter with a Yule ceremony that lasted for days. They, too, decorated the forest with garlands of pine and berries and candles nestled into dug holes in the ground away from the trees. There would be a feast of meats and mushrooms and nuts, and of course, the special sweet wine that Rubius’ pack was renowned for making each Yule season. There would be dancing, and revelry, and howling that echoed through the woods as the wolves took wild runs throughout the nights. Winter was Holly’s favorite season because it was rich with festivity and ripe with the sights, sounds, and smells of celebration.
She decided that the winter events would be the perfect thing for her to focus on as her first act of queenly involvement. She would help both the humans and the shifters with their feasts and decorations and add her personal touch to the joyful time of year. She would go out of her way to make sure that everyone had everything they needed to make it the most enjoyable winter season yet. Surely then, the humans would see that she was a kind and involved queen that wanted to treat the people in her kingdom as if they were her own family. That should help ease their fears of illegitimacy and abuse of the powers of the throne. Besides, Holly would enjoy every minute of preparation for her favorite season.
This time, she had a valid reason for actually going to the tavern. She went to put in an order of food and ale for the winter feasts. The tavern keeper was all but ecstatic to be asked to provide the food and ale for the festivities. He scribbled down every item that Holly requested onto a piece of parchment and assured her that he would have it all ready in time. He remarked about some hunting parties of men that had been going out into the woods almost every night as of late and bringing back deer for venison cuts and rabbit for stew. If she had been listening more closely, the thought of human hunting parties in the woods every night would have sent up a red flag. But it just so happened that the stranger was sitting in the same corner of the tavern again, and her eyes had just landed on his prese
nce. This time—he saw her too.
“I’m sorry,” she said to the tavern-keeper as she politely and quickly stood up and removed herself from the conversation to walk over to the shifter. But as soon as he saw her trying to approach him, he got up and headed straight for the door, leaving a small pile of coins on the table to pay for his ale. Holly thought it was strange that the man would get up and leave so abruptly. There was still a half a glass of ale left. That seemed suspicious. She stood there for a moment, staring at the table that he had just been sitting at. The coins in the pile had the Grenvich seal on them, which meant that he wasn’t from somewhere else—he was from there.
She began to wonder if maybe she had been wrong about the man being a shifter, although she had never been wrong about that before, and she could definitely feel the shifter energy emanating from him. Holly walked back to the bar to where the tavern keeper was standing and still holding the piece of lead in his hand to complete Holly’s list.
“Who is that man?” she asked him.
“What man?” he asked as he looked around the tavern. He was confused because they had been right in the middle of making the list when Holly shifted focus.
“The one who sits by himself in the corner there,” she said as she pointed at the now-empty table.
“Oh, I don’t know who he is,” he answered. “He just started coming in here a couple of weeks ago; always orders a cold ale and sits in that same spot, not talking to anyone. I tried to talk to him once, felt bad for the guy because it didn’t look like he had any friends. But he wasn’t very social and all, so I gave up.”
“What did he say to you?” Holly asked with a pressing curiosity.
“Well, let me think,” he said as he rubbed his bristly beard with his thumb and index finger. “He told me that he liked my ale, and I asked if he’d had ale in other places before.”
“Had he?” Holly interrupted.
“Yes, he said he’d been around here and there, although I’m not sure what that even means, to be honest. Then he told me to leave him to his thoughts and his ale.”
“Really?” Holly asked. It seemed like a rude thing to do, to tell the tavern keeper to leave you alone to drink.
“Yep,” he laughed. “But I didn’t take any offense at that at all. Some people are just very blunt about things. If you ask me, it’s a much more honest and upstanding way to be,”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said as she mused over the fact that none of that was particularly helpful information. “I need to get back to the castle. You’ll have all that food and ale ready on time?”
The tavern keeper nodded and smiled as Holly dropped a pouch full of coins on top of the bar for him.
When she arrived back at the castle, Cassandra and Marquette were already knee-deep in decorating. Marquette was balancing her baby boy on one hip while helping Cassandra decorate with her other hand.
“Where’s Theo?” Holly asked her. “He should either be helping to decorate, or at the very least, holding onto his son while you put up decorations.”
“I’m here,” he called from the doorway. “Don’t start to hound on me before I’ve even gotten the chance to put down my weapons.”
Theo laid a sword down on the table and reached for his son, who Marquette gladly handed over.
“Why were you armed with that sword?” Holly asked. It was a battle sword, and one that Theo usually only carried when he expected to be meeting with a threat.
“Rubius and I were in the woods following some of the human hunting parties. They were harmless, just trying to hunt some game for their winter feasts. But lately, they’ve been getting rather close to some of the pack dens, so we needed to make sure that they didn’t have any sort of malicious intent or any indication that there could be something else in the forest, besides deer and rabbits, that they should be hunting.”
Cassandra’s hand still as she was hanging an evergreen, and she stopped to look at him.
“It’s all fine, Mother, I assure you. Rubius and I watched them for hours, and they weren’t doing anything out of the ordinary, nor anything too close to the packs. Fortunately, the game steers clear of the shifter dens, so the hunters have no reason to travel that deep into the woods.”
Theo looked down and smiled at his son in his arms and then pretended to fly him in the air like a bird as he walked out of the room.
“Do you think the human hunters will ever be something to worry about again?” Marquette asked.
It was clear to Holly why she was asking that particular question. All three women remembered a hunter had accidentally killed Marquette’s human mother as she was trying to protect Theo.
“I am very confident that Rubius and Theo will keep an eye on the situation,” Cassandra assured her. “And, you know me, I will want to have a look over the hunters’ activities in the forest myself within the coming days. Would you like to join me?”
Marquette nodded her head eagerly. If there was one thing that these women shared in common, it was that none of them wanted to sit back and let the men handle things. Holly, Cassandra, and Marquette were all as fiercely protective of their families as Rubius and Theo were.
CHAPTER FIVE
When Holly and Theo went into the forest to deliver some things to Rubius and the packs for Yule, she spent some time talking with her father while Theo mingled with the shifters and checked on his pack.
“You seem distracted today,” Rubius said when he noticed Holly sigh for about the fourth time. “I’m curious,” she said.
“About what?”
“About a shifter that I saw in the city.”
“One of mine?”
“No,” she answered.
“One of Theo’s packs?” her father asked.
“No. That’s the part that I’m curious about,” Holly said. “I asked Theo about it, and he said that there are no such things as rogue shifters that don’t belong to any pack. Is that true?”
“Not necessarily true,” Rubius answered.
Holly’s interest was immediately piqued.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, although they are uncommon, rogue wolf shifters do exist without a pack, and in fact, I used to be one myself,” Rubius said.
“What? Really?”
“Yes,” he chuckled. “Long before I met your mother, and long before I joined a pack, and then ended up eventually leading a pack, I was completely solitary and on my own.”
“But why?” Holly asked in amazement. “Theo said that without a pack, a lone shifter wouldn’t survive. I knew he was full of crap about that part, though. It didn’t seem to be a matter of survival, just maybe a matter of things being more difficult.”
“Oh, they were definitely more difficult,” Rubius smiled as if recalling a fond memory. “But also much more rewarding. It’s not easy being on your own without a pack, that’s for damn sure. But there are advantages and disadvantages to everything.”
“Did you choose to be alone?”
“Yes.”
Rubius stopped unloading the provisions that Holly and Theo had brought to him and took a seat down on a fallen tree trunk next to his daughter.
“When I was your brother’s age, I belonged to the same pack that my mother and father did. There was a lot of strife in that pack, constantly a new alpha, and frequently a challenge to whomever was the current one. When my father ended up being the alpha, our small family was put under tremendous scrutiny. It got to the point that my mother felt as if she couldn’t even breathe without being watched. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore, and she ran off. I never heard from her after that.”
“I’m so sorry,” Holly said. “That’s terrible.”
“No, actually, it wasn’t.”
She looked at her father in utter confusion, not understanding how the loss of a mother could possibly be a good thing.
“For a hot minute, I was furious with my mother for leaving me behin
d, and then after that, I was hurt. But not long after those emotions had passed, I realized that she was showing me something. My mother was showing me that I didn’t need anyone. I didn’t need my parents or my pack; the only one I needed was myself. Shortly after, I left my pack.”
“Your father just let you?” Holly asked.
“Oh, no,” Rubius laughed. “He wasn’t the kind of man that would just let me do anything. I waited until he was off with a group of pack members, and then I ran as fast and as far as I could. When I eventually stopped running, I set up my own den and I began to forage and hunt. At first, it was difficult. There is a very steep learning curve to having nothing and no one to depend on besides yourself. But once I had figured out shelter and food, I was pretty much good to go.”
“Did you ever get lonely?”
“No, never. I was so happy to have freedom that I cherished every moment of my days as a loner.”
“Then what made you go back to pack life?” she asked.
“That was a bit more difficult of a decision. I had heard word in the forest that my father had been killed and a new shifter had taken the role of alpha. Had it been that alone, I likely wouldn’t have gone back. But word had reached my mother as well, and for whatever reason, she couldn’t stay away without coming to see with her own eyes that it was true and that my father really was dead. When she returned, merely to see that her mate was no longer alive, the new alpha killed her. There was no reason for that, aside from cruelty and a wicked heart. I struggled with it for a day or so, then I realized that I couldn’t let my parents’ deaths go in vain, and that I couldn’t let the other pack members that I had grown up with live beneath the rule of such a cruel alpha. So, I went back, challenged the alpha, and killed him. That became my first pack.”
Holly’s mouth hung open in astonishment.
“Did any of them ever try to challenge you?” she asked.
“Yes, all the time,” Rubius answered. “But as you can see by the fact that I am still alpha, none of them ever succeeded. After a while, they stopped trying to challenge me altogether. And since then, I have ruled with a fair hand and kept peace within my pack.”
