by D. Brumbley
I was thinking of you too. I don’t break the promises I make. Especially not to my mate.
Her whole body shook at the emotion behind the word, and the connection that was so powerful between them that nothing in the world could match it. Not for her. I love you, Coren. We’re going to win this.
I won a long time ago. As soon as you became mine.
As soon as she heard that, time stopped, and she drowned completely in the experience of him. All she could think about was being with her mate, and all of the emotions she felt for him. The connection she had made over the time with Nick and all his people had made her exponentially stronger than Coren had ever experienced from her, but he could feel it, her strength, her energy, in a way that only a mate would ever be able to feel. Her web of influence had turned so massive that it made every touch between them, every kiss, that much more intoxicating and incredible.
Hours passed with them there, underwater for most of it, and even when the interlude came to an end, they could both feel how much they each wanted it to continue. They knew, though, that their time was running out. I can’t go back. She felt so wrapped in him that it would be painful for her to go back, but she knew that she had to.
You can. He laid there beneath her, just under a sheet of water that was the only barrier between them. You’re more powerful than almost any wolf I’ve ever heard of right now. There is nothing you can’t do.
Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she continued to hold tightly to him. Being away from you tears at my soul. I’m not the same without you.
I wouldn’t want you to be the same without me. He sat up with her, brushing the hair back over her forehead with a gentle touch. Just come back to me when all this is over. That’s all I’ve ever asked of you.
Slowly she forced herself to get up off of him, but it was painful for her to even be away from his touch. I will always come back to you. You are the one that my heart belongs to.
You are the only heart I have. His words resonated through every drop of water clinging to her skin. Coren and Zara were so entwined that even the moisture in the air was infused with emotion.
She leaned in once more and ran her wet fingertips across his face as he sat up out of the water. I love you.
“And I love you.” He kissed her fingertips, then looked away up the river she’d traveled down. “But I hope you’re ready to be hated some before we allow the Ironborn to wake up.”
Zara turned her head to look in the same direction and she sighed. “I’ll heal. It has to be done.”
He stepped behind her for a moment, kissing her shoulder as the ripples played around her legs. “We’ll be on the other side of this before the year is out. Don’t forget that. Or me.” He kissed her neck and stepped back away from her, becoming the man that always stepped before the Council, the man she had watched lead the European world of wolfkind for longer than she ever cared to admit. In just a few steps, he went from Coren her mate to Coren her master, and though she knew the man she had taken as her partner in life was still there underneath, the difference was always a little painful at first, because it involved him distancing himself from her. “Captains?!?” He called out to the trees around them.
She shivered at the chill that ran through her at his distance, both physical and emotional, and it even made her eyes burn with tears that fell down her face quickly and into the water below. It took a few moments, but before she knew it, there were guards lined on both sides of the river, waiting for a command.
“The former voice of the Council has taken oaths against us. Oaths of loyalty to the Ironborn.” Coren announced, with despair in his voice, and anger. “She’s chosen her side, with the other animals. And she’s been given a message by me to take back to the so-called Ironborn Prince.” He looked up at the Forestborn that swarmed around them in the shallow water. “But even a broken messenger can deliver a message. Beat her and the Ironborn who accompanied her within an inch of what’s left of their lives and leave them where they’ll be found.”
Zara didn’t even attempt to reach for her clothes that drifted to the rocks by the time they were finished with their lovemaking, since she knew that it would look even worse for the Ironborn guard to find her body naked and broken. The guards let out a growl around her that made her shiver in a way that was perceived as fear, but was actually a shiver of pleasure at their unified hatred of her.
It didn’t matter what people felt as long as it was strong. Hatred or love, it all felt good to her. It gave her strength they would never understand. A few of them splashed quickly into the water to take her like a doll and drag her out by her arms and her hair. She struggled so that it would make them even angrier, but nothing would stop them now.
As they dragged her away, she caught one last glimpse of Coren’s eyes watching her go. I love you. He said without a trace of pity or remorse in his eyes.
She whimpered and looked away as they dragged her through the sticks and the grass, scratching up her body every which way that they could. Once they had dragged her back to where they had first seen her, where Lea was just waking up from the first beating, they threw her down next to Lea.
Lea tried to get up, she tried to defend Zara somehow as soon as Zara’s body was close enough, but both of her legs felt broken, and she could hardly move without being in blinding pain herself.
It was more than an hour that the Forestborn spent picking at the two of them, mostly by way of the thorns and vines that they brought cascading down from the trees all around them, pummeling them both and leaving Zara bloodied from head to toe. She had one arm broken in several places, and was lucky to have been left with only that. Her hair was mangled, she had splinters over every inch of her completely-exposed skin, and Lea wasn’t much better off, though she did manage to kill two of the guards near the end of the abuse. Even with their friends dead, though, the Forestborn were under orders not to kill the two of them, and so at that, they took a few last slices at Lea for good measure and then retreated into the trees.
* * * * *
Zara slipped in and out of consciousness several times as the two of them laid there, clinging to what little life they had left. It felt like an eternity before she was awakened by noise, by people yelling something that she couldn’t quite make out. It could have been the Council guards back for more or the Ironborn guards. She wasn’t sure who she wanted to see more.
As it turned out, it was a mix of Ironborn, Stoneborn and Earthborn eyes that she could see through the red haze that clouded her vision, but it was the Ironborn that were actually trying to get her situated as gently as possible, and William, the elder Guardsman, that covered her with his own long jacket. “Lie still. It’s alright. We’ll get you back inside and cleaned up in no time.”
They were the last words she heard before she passed out again, only to wake up on a bed that was much softer than iron, or at least it felt that way. If it was under the control of an Ironborn, it could have felt like water and she wouldn’t know the difference until she saw it. She coughed a few times from her throat feeling so dry, but she tried to call out, and her words just came out as a raspy whisper. “Nick?”
Right here. She could feel his voice in her mind as his fingers took hers and closed her good hand around a tin cup that was cold to the touch with the water inside. Slowly. His voice was calm, but there was enough fire raging beneath them that she felt for a moment as if she was talking to a Fireborn.
She took a few drinks and coughed some more before she turned her head slowly to look for his gaze. “Nick.” She said softly. “I…they…Lea. . .” She whimpered softly. Is she okay?
Don’t try to talk. Lea has healed from worse. Don’t worry about her. She’s alright, and well cared for.
We hadn’t gotten to the river. Just outside of it when they attacked Lea. She shook as she tried to hold his hand, hot tears running down over her wounded face. Council guards. All of them. And my former master…he found me. He knew you took me, that I swore
myself to you.
Coren was here? Himself? Why? It was the closest Coren had gotten to their compound since the troubles began months before, and it was far too close for Nick’s comfort.
Because of me, because of all the information he knew that I would have. She trembled as she thought of Coren, and Nick could feel the pain, but he didn’t know it was because she already suffered from the emptiness she felt from being apart from Coren. But then he saw that I gave you an oath. He called me out as a traitor and threw me to the guards, saying that I had a message to send to you.
The fire beneath Nick’s thoughts was one that she knew, just from her brief acquaintance with him, would not stop burning until it had shredded its object into bite-sized pieces. What message is that?
That he won a long time ago. And that soon you would be out of the way and forgotten.
Will I? He said in a tone that wasn’t really a question, and leaned down and kissed her cheek. We’ll see. Very soon. You just rest.
Zara looked up into his eyes a moment longer as a few tears leaked out of the corners and slid down the sides of her face. Everything will be okay, won’t it?
Yes, it will. He stared down at her with his intricate hazel eyes that seemed to look right through her, into a future where he stood over the bloody pieces of her mate’s corpse. His hatred was so strong, growing stronger by the moment. It was intoxicating. I’m going to make it okay.
IX
Ever since Lea and Zara returned and suffered through their painful recoveries, the Ironborn mentality had switched from slow and steady to a burning desire for the destruction of the Council and anyone loyal to them. Zara and Lea had healed considerably, but they both wore scars on their bodies that would forever be a reminder of what the Council had done.
Every time Nick looked at Zara, he could see the scars, faint as they were, across her face. One of the Council guards had left three lines across her cheek, underneath her right eye. The blood from the wound made her think that she had lost an eye at first, but eventually it all cleared up, leaving her with just the marks. Even when they were together, ever after, Nick traced over the marks on her otherwise back-to-perfect body, as though he needed a constant reminder of what the Council did to whoever they thought deserved it.
In the two months that followed, Candra and Orlando remained on the outskirts of the compound after the event that had turned a fight into a war. The packs that came to visit weren’t allowed to see Orlando and Candra, mainly to keep them safe, but also to keep strangers wondering.
The people who saw them walk amongst the Ironborn, and the Ironborn fighters who had witnessed Orlando destroy the Council fighters with Candra at his side, were the ones to perpetuate the stories. The fear. The legendary nature of the Shadowborn and the Lightborn together. The more wolves they had on their side of the fight, the more likely it would be that packs would join them, and stories, at times, did better than any example that Candra or Orlando could give of themselves.
After Candra saw what happened to Lea and Zara, she hadn’t been the same. Death and abuse like that were different to her, since death seemed merciful and abuse of that magnitude seemed nothing but cruelty. When she was told that the abuse was by Coren’s command, it was days before Orlando could get her to open up and talk to him again. Slowly, but surely, Candra was learning that the world she lived in was nothing like her books had described. Learning that the wolves she had trusted, followed, and obeyed, were not who she believed them to be.
Aura and Ziem spent most of their time together if he wasn’t helping with house construction or out training with the fighters. It was an alternating routine for nearly all the adult Ironborn, and whoever else from the packs loyal to the cause. Aura wanted to have a more active part in it all, but every time she tried to get involved, people remained unforgiving. The more they loved Nick and Zara, the more they hated her, and the more reason they had to snub her completely. Zara, a wolf that wasn’t even Ironborn, had nearly died standing up to the Council. Aura had simply been a liability, and that was only after she had willfully turned her back on her own people, her own kind, by not choosing Nick. She remained in the compound only by Nick’s allowance, and no one felt bad reminding her of her place.
The only happiness that she could find was in her puppies and in Ziem. Ziem loved her and she loved him, and the further along she got in her pregnancy, the more she loved the little lives inside of her. She could feel them respond to her touch on everything in her house, so she knew that there had to be at least one Ironborn inside of her, if not more. What others might exist, she had no idea, but she was excited to one day find out.
She received a visit from a Guard one morning, a few days before the Fulness, after Ziem had been gone all day. It was longer than usual. The visitor was William, whom some had taken to calling Sir William, as a nickname to go along with Nick’s supposed royal status. Many of the Alphas that came to join them over the last two months, Earthborn, Oceanborn, Skyborn, even a very small pack of Fireborn with twenty members, had taken on the joke as well. Nick’s standing as a Prince was beginning to be more reality than rumor, by popular acclaim.
She felt William’s knock on her door and could see him outside the single window in the front of her house, stern-faced and stoic as always. With a sigh she went to the door and opened it slowly to step out, since she never invited anyone in. She found that they weren’t particularly interested in entering the house of a traitor anyway. “Yes?”
“There’s been an incident with your companion, Ziem.” William said in a voice that dripped with disappointment. “He’s unharmed, but I cannot say as much for the two Skyborn he nearly killed.” The Skyborn pack arrived only the week before, under the guidance of a female Alpha, the only one of the new Council so far, who went by the name of Kit. She was, however, a far cry from being as cute and fragile as her name suggested, and her people were not the stereotypical flimsy-minded Skyborn either.
“What happened?” She looked around as though she would see Ziem, but he was nowhere in sight. Aura wasn’t sure what she could do to rescue him from a fight. “Where is he?”
“He’s being held by Princess Kit’s people.” William said with the first shred of sarcasm she’d ever heard from him. “The Prince has negotiated his release, but Kit’s stipulation is for Ziem to be kept away from all involvement with the central units.” The central units of the force had been Nick’s idea, units made up of fighters from all the different packs under their own commanders. Ziem had been a part of them since the beginning.
“What? Why? He’s one of the best fighters they have.” Aura was shocked to hear his removal, and she couldn’t understand why Nick would remove such a competent fighter.
“He also has one of the worst tempers of all the gathered fighters. And the least discipline of almost any I have ever seen.” William added sharply. The wolf was as much a liability as an asset.
“Well, how do you know that they didn’t start it?” She sighed in frustration and then placed her hand on the side of her extended stomach, wincing in a little bit of pain. Whenever she got extremely agitated, the puppies inside of her did not respond well to her elevated heart rate and fuming anger. “Do I need to go get him from somewhere? Can you take me to where they’ll release him?”
He was silent for a moment before he answered, looking at her sadly. “I know they didn’t start it because I was the one supervising the exercises.” He spoke calmly, without anger, but with heavy condescension in his voice. William was a servant, and had been all his life, but he had been born in an age where elders demanded respect. “You should be mindful of the danger he poses to you and to your pups, Aura. Even if he is their father.” William said just as calmly, then started walking away, not even waiting for her to follow him.
She followed after him quickly, glaring at him from behind. “What danger could he possibly pose to me? Or the pups? He would never hurt any of us.”
“People always say that.”
/> “What, do you see bruises or scars on me that I don’t see, William? Do you really think I would stay with someone who would hurt me or my puppies? You’ve known me almost all my life. I wouldn’t tolerate something like that.” Aura wasn’t weak by any measure, and though she was an outcast, she wouldn’t tolerate anyone thinking that she was incapable of taking care of herself.
They walked in silence for a little longer before he spoke again, and even then it was without looking back. “You were raised to be a princess among us, Aura. Not to throw in your lot with a drunk and a criminal.”
“He loves me and I love him. He is the only one who gives a damn about me in this place. The only one. It doesn’t matter what I was raised to be, because I’m not that. I’m not a princess. Zara is your princess now. You and I wouldn’t even be talking if you didn’t have to talk to me and Prince Nickel hadn’t so graciously allowed for my stay. My puppies deserve to grow up in a place where they never have to hunger and they never have to hide what they are. I’m here for them, and I’m here with Ziem.”
“Zara will never be our princess.” William said with a single look back at her, then kept walking into the area of the compound that had been given to the Skyborn’s delegation.
When they walked further in they were met by several guards, and she looked at all of them with anger at the way they glared in disdain. They knew who she was. “I heard that my husband is here.” She wore a ring, but they still hadn’t mated or even had an official marriage ceremony. They had plenty of time to do that once she wasn’t carrying pups inside of her.
“Your husband,” one Skyborn answered with an almost-smile, “throws a hell of a right cross. My cousin’s gonna be eating baby food for a week on his account.” Even so, the guard was moving to escort her in the direction of their main building, which looked more like a barely-framed house than anything else.
“Yeah, well, maybe I need to wear him out before I send him out in public or something.” The Skyborn’s almost-smile had largely deflated her anger.
