by Haley Weir
“Dex.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Holly’s eyes were so fixated on the man in front of her that she was speechless. The fact that she had nearly been murdered by a pack of human hunters now seemed like a far-off memory. She knew that she should say something else to him, but her mind was completely blank of any cohesive thought.
“It’s getting dark,” Dex said. “And there are more human hunting parties in the woods tonight. I saw them on my run back here to you. You should just stay here until morning when it’s safe for you to return to the castle.”
“Stay here?” she asked, not knowing quite what here meant.
“You can stay with me,” he said.
Immediately, Holly remembered how small and cozy his den looked. Between that recollection and the image of his nude and visibly excited body, Holly felt a wave of heat rush over her. She nodded in agreement, knowing that he was right. She didn’t want to run into any more hunting parties tonight. So, she followed Dex back to his den. The walk back was silent, and he had shifted back into wolf form to walk beside her, which she found much less distracting than his engorged human form.
When they returned to his den, Dex shifted back again and pulled on a new change of clothes. He didn’t say much of anything to her at first, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Holly. There was such palpable sexual angst between them that it hung in the air like a heavy mist. Dex started a fire, and Holly watched as he cooked some meat and brought out ale for them to drink. There was something about this mysterious man that she was so drawn to that she couldn’t explain it even if her life depended on it. She sat down beside the fire with him. The warm flames felt good against the cool prickle of the winter air. Fortunately, shifters had a higher body temperature than humans, even when they were in human form. So although they may have been cold, they wouldn’t suffer the harmful effects of the cold as a human would. The meat Dex cooked was delicious, and he pulled tender pieces off the branch skewers to hand to Holly. Venison was one of her favorites, and although she enjoyed eating it back at the castle, the food that was prepared in the kingdom was no comparison to the rich and juicy chunks of venison that Dex had cooked over the open flame. The edges of the meat were charred and crispy, and the inside was rare and melted in her mouth. It was honestly one of the most delicious meals that she had ever remembered having, and all it required was a deer and a branch over an open fire. She took a swig of the cold ale, which Dex had kept vats of buried in the snow, to wash it down.
“Is this the ale from the tavern?” she asked, finally breaking the silence between them.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s my favorite ale, so that tavern keeper and I have an arrangement.”
“What kind of arrangement?” she asked curiously.
“He gives me vats of ale whenever I want them, and I bring him fresh venison whenever he wants it.”
“That is an amazing arrangement,” Holly smiled.
She thought that she heard Dex chuckle under his breath, but she couldn’t be sure because his face seemed to stay the same. She watched his eyes as he stared into the flames and the shadows danced across his orbs. She thanked him for a delicious meal, and then Dex got up and refilled their cups. Although at first, the evening had been nearly silent and awkward, the ale began to loosen both of their tongues after a bit and they started to talk. They slouched up against the side of a tree and began to enjoy each other’s company enough to ask a few pertinent questions.
“Why did you want to be a loner without a pack?” Holly blurted out bluntly.
It wasn’t exactly chit-chat, but it was something that she wanted to know.
“Why did you want to be a queen?” he asked in retort.
The ale made them find each other’s questions amusing, and they laughed for a moment. But then they stopped and were more thoughtful about the questions being asked.
“I asked you first,” she said gently. “I really would like to know.”
“I was not free to do what I wanted to do in my previous pack,” Dex answered. “There were too many rules and too many things that weren’t acceptable. I felt stifled, and I wanted to be free. So, I left.”
Holly was a bit apprehensive to know what kinds of things Dex could have possibly wanted to do that weren’t allowed in a pack. She hesitated to ask but figured it would be better to find out now if there was something shocking that Dex was hiding.
“What kinds of things weren’t you able to do?”
He sighed and looked up at the sky before answering her.
“I wanted to be able to run as far as I wanted to go without being told to return. I wanted to catch and cook my own meat without having to portion it off and share it with those who didn’t try to hunt at all. I wanted to be able to walk nakedly as a man and make love with whom I chose to. I don’t think those sorts of things should have rules or need permission.”
Holly agreed. Obviously, there were rules in her pack about such things too, and even in her kingdom. Men couldn’t go around nude and humping women in the streets. Pack rules meant that the wolves didn’t run wild without recourse. But Holly agreed with Dex that there was a part that called to her wildness too, and she didn’t think those things should have to be accounted for.
“Why didn’t you join another pack after you left?” she asked. “Some are more liberal than others.”
“That is true,” he said. “And I had planned on finding another pack initially. But then time passed, and I got comfortable and happy with being on my own. I enjoyed the solitude of freedom, and I no longer wanted to be ruled by anyone.”
“And you don’t find it more difficult to be a loner?”
Dex laughed.
“It is definitely more difficult,” he said. “But all the best things are.”
Holly took another long sip of her ale. It made sense to her what Dex was saying. It was as if he could put into words the thoughts that she had buried in the back of her head somewhere just out of reach.
“Now,” he said. “It’s your turn. Why do you want to be a queen? You seem to like freedom too. But being a ruler is, at times, even more restricted than being ruled over. Being a queen and wanting freedom seem like two opposing forces to me.”
“They are,” Holly sighed as she put the cup to her lips again. “I wanted to be queen simply because my brother didn’t want to be king, and I wanted him to be happy. I saw how miserable the prospect of ruling over Grenvich made him, so I took that misery from him.”
“That is stupid,” Dex said.
Holly looked at him in surprise.
“Well, it is,” he said as he shook his head. “Taking someone’s misery just so that you can be miserable yourself doesn’t change the amount of misery in the world. Your family should have found a better way.”
“No, I don’t think I’ve explained it properly,” Holly continued. “I am a good leader, at least I think I can be. I am not averse to being queen. I am only averse to being queen under the rules that currently exist. I want to do things differently. I want to make new rules and innovate new ways for humans and shifters to thrive alongside each other.”
“That sounds ambitious,” Dex said.
“I guess so. But it will likely never happen.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You saw what happened tonight,” she answered. “The humans hate me.”
“No, that’s not true,” Dex said as he shook his head. “The bad humans hate you, and that is a sign that you are doing something good. Do not let those fools dissuade you. You must continue on with the vision that you seek to bring to the kingdom and to those around you.”
Holly stared at him with glassy eyes.
“What are you looking at?” he asked as he stared back at her.
She wanted to lean forward and kiss him so badly. Even more so, she wanted him to lean forward and kiss her.
“You are very wise,” she said. “I wouldn’t have known th
at if you hadn’t started talking.”
Dex laughed, and he set his cup down to stand up.
“And you are very drunk,” he chuckled as he picked Holly up and carried her into the den.
He laid her down on his soft pile of blankets and curled around her to sleep, keeping his hands to himself as they both drifted off.
CHAPTER NINE
At the first light of morning, they awoke to Rubius having found them. He reached into the den, past Dex’s sleeping body, and poked Holly in the side. When she flinched, Dex was jarred awake, and he was surprised to see Rubius standing over them.
“It’s okay,” Holly said quickly. “Rubius is my father.”
“I know who he is,” Dex said. He laid flat on his back so that Holly could crawl over him to get out of the den, and then he walked out himself.
Before either Dex or Holly could say goodbye, Rubius pulled her gently by the arm to come with him back to the castle, leaving Dex behind in the forest in a bewildered state.
“How did you find me here?” Holly asked as she walked next to her father and tried to keep up with him. “It’s so far.”
“We were all worried about you last night when you didn’t return to the castle. I spent the night searching for you, and this morning, I reached the farthest edge of the forest and found you there,” he answered.
He didn’t sound mad, just relieved that he had finally found her.
“Was that the mysterious rogue shifter you told me about?” he asked.
“Yes,” Holly nodded. “His name is Dex.”
Rubius didn’t say anything in response to her answer, so Holly wasn’t sure whether her father was in approval or not. It didn’t really matter, considering nothing happened between the two of them.
“What happened? How did you end up at the farthest point of the forest last night, and why didn’t you come home?” he asked her. “Your mother was worried sick. With the sparks of unrest in the kingdom, she thought that something might have happened to you. Theo and I were out looking for you all night. I searched the forest while your brother searched the city.”
“I’m really sorry,” Holly said, feeling bad for having worried them and causing them all a sleepless night. “But Mom wasn’t wrong.”
Rubius gave her a concerned look and Holly explained what had happened with the group of human hunters in the woods.
“If it hadn’t been for Dex, they would have killed me. I have no doubt of that.”
The look on Rubius’ face was one of pure and unadulterated fury.
“It was those same men that Theo and I addressed during your crowning ceremony. We should have killed them then.”
“Well, that probably wouldn’t have made a very good impression on the rest of the townspeople,” Holly said sarcastically. “Besides, Dex said that he had seen other hunting groups in the forest last night too. I imagine that they are preparing for the winter feasts, but there are several groups of men who hide behind their titles as hunters but would be better named as assassins.”
“Yes, that’s what Theo and I have feared all along. We need to figure out how we are going to deal with them before something else happens. You are lucky that your rogue wolf was there to save you that time,” Rubius said.
The way in which her father said, “your rogue wolf,” made Holly feel warm in the deepest parts of her stomach.
“You must be extra careful now,” he warned her.
Holly nodded.
“And you must also be careful of Dex.”
“What? Why Dex?” she asked. “I don’t think he would ever hurt me.”
“Nor do I,” Rubius said. “But let me give you a bit of fatherly advice. I know the temperament of rogue shifters. I was one, remember? And I know that they tend to care solely about themselves. Just be careful to protect your heart.”
“But you don’t care only about yourself,” Holly said. “You care about Mom and Theo and me, and your pack.”
“Yes,” he nodded. “That is true. I do care about all of you—now. But during the time of my life that I was a loner, I cared only for myself and nothing else. It’s a way of survival when you are all alone without a family or a pack to hold onto.”
Holly was a bit dismayed by what her father said. She felt as if Dex might have actually cared about her. Not only did he save her life, but there seemed to be something between them. And not only the physical desire which she could see was obvious, but something else—something that lingered just behind both of their eyes when they looked at each other. Then again, the moments that they spent were either amped up with adrenaline after having dealt with the humans or altered by the intoxication of good ale. She didn’t know whether to put stock in what Rubius said or not, but she kept it in the back of her mind as a precaution just in case.
After their return to the castle, Holly returned to her royal duties. If she had been distracted before, she was even more so now. She thought about the conversation that she had with Dex by the fire, and it made her think even more about what she wanted her queendom to look like. She started to daydream during her routine tasks about what her non-traditional rule will look like. The trick was going to be getting everyone else to buy into it with her. The humans in the kingdom had clung to their rote traditions for so long, and just like Cassandra had told her, the humans feared and disliked change. She would never be able to wrap her head around that or understand what an irrational mindset that was. All of life was change, literally every single moment. What a dull existence to want things to always remain the same.
She thought that her mother would probably stand beside her desire to want to change some rules and reconstruct some of the old ways. Cassandra had the same rebellious and wild streak as her daughter, and she was not one to cling to the past if the future could be changed for the better. Theo would likely not care what she decided to do with her rule, as long as it didn’t negatively affect the packs in the forest. And although Rubius was a bit more overprotective and likely to be resistant, Holly also knew that he would usually go along with whatever Cassandra thought to be best. It wasn’t the royal family that she would have the hardest time convincing, Holly thought. It was the humans.
When Holly went out into the market square, she talked to some of the townsfolk and asked them what they thought of the forest. She asked them if they would ever consider having a picnic or a festival in the woods and was surprised to find that most of them were against the idea. Most of the humans were scared of going into the forest, except for the hunters. When she asked them what they were afraid of, many of them began to talk of old stories and tales of beasts that lurked within the trees and would tear them apart limb by limb. Upon even further pressing, Holly was able to get some of the humans to describe what they thought the beasts looked like, and to her horror, they described wolf shifters. Men that turned into giant wolves and tore people apart with their bare teeth.
It was all such an inaccurate and unfair depiction. No wonder the past hunters who had still believed shifters to exist were on a mission to kill them. The humans were afraid of something that wasn’t accurate. And she was determined to bring the truth to light. When Aeron was alive, he had tried to keep the peace between the humans and the shifters, even going so far as to arrange gatherings where the two species of people would be together, albeit not knowing they were anything other than all human. As crazy as the idea seemed, especially after countless years of keeping their secret as if their lives depended on it—which, at the time, they did, Holly wanted to do something drastic and unheard of. She wanted to reveal the existence of the shifters to the humans, and she wanted to show them that there was nothing to fear. She wanted to bring Aeron’s vision full-circle and do something that even he never dreamt possible. She wanted shifters and humans to coexist together.
CHAPTER TEN
“Disastrous” would have been an understatement in describing the royal family's reaction to Holly’s idea. As soon as she told t
hem, not a single one of them supported the thought. Not even Cassandra.
“But it is time for the shifters and the humans to coexist in peace,” Holly pleaded. “It’s achievable. I know it is. We just need to remove the fear from both sides.”
“It’s a horrible idea,” Theo said immediately. He couldn’t believe his sister would even consider such a thing. “Did you forget about how a human is responsible for the death of Marquette’s mother? And that if not for her sacrifice, I would not be standing here with you now?”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten that,” Holly said. “But that doesn’t mean that things cannot change and move forward now. Wouldn’t you like your son to grow up in a world where he doesn’t need to fear hunters?”
“Of course I would,” Theo scoffed. “But that world will not exist. And doing what you are suggesting that we do will only result in our annihilation before my son reaches adulthood.”
“Your brother is right,” Cassandra said.
Holly was surprised that her mother was so quick to shut down the idea.
“It is much too dangerous a risk. Even on the slight possibility that some humans might accept us, there will still be those who will not. It is those that will cause fear to spread and death to follow.”
“Then we will take down the ones who are the bad seeds until they are weeded out and only the peaceful humans remain,” Holly said.
She was frustrated. She wanted to make decisions of weight and merit on her own, and she didn’t understand what good If was to be queen if she couldn’t decide what to do in the best interest of the kingdom.
“Aeron would have wanted this,” she said in a last attempt to get them to hear her out. “He would have wanted the humans and the shifters to coexist, just as he had tried to do when he was alive and king.”
“Yes,” Rubius said. “But Aeron attempted to bring unity in a safe manner. There was a reason that he never revealed the shifters to the humans, and that was because he knew what would happen. He attempted peace and unity within the constraints of what needed to be done to prevent carnage from ensuing.”
