The Scarred Prince (The Wolf's Pet Book One)

by Rose, Aubrey

  “Come forward,” Damien said. His voice boomed across the longhouse.

  The man strode deliberately up to the table. His long black robes flowed as he moved, the end of his black scarf trailing behind him. He was tall, and even with the table up on the raised stage, he seemed to tower over us. The two security guards stepped forward quickly from behind the great table, their hands at their wolf bone knives.

  It was the first time I could remember feeling like my dad’s guards were not strong enough. I was afraid.

  The man’s eyes were a fierce blue. He glowered at my dad, and I realized the benefit Dad had in being blind. My dad couldn’t see the glare that the wolf was giving him; couldn’t be cowered by his size or demeanor. He could tell only what he smelled: that this man was dangerous. Past that, he was not afraid. Even blindness can be an advantage.

  “What is your business here?” my dad asked.

  “I am a messenger.”

  His voice was hard and low. His words had a strange accent to them, and the ends of the words were clipped off. His tone, too, was anything but reverent. As though he was not used to speaking to an alpha. Every wolf in the pack gave my dad respect, but this man… I didn’t think he respected anyone.

  “What message do you bear?”

  “To ask for your surrender.”

  The crowd burst into animated whispers. One woman sat down, her hand pressed to her forehead, as though about to faint. Another woman cried out in fear. The swirl of scents had turned in an instant. The warmth of the room had changed to a cold fear. I could smell them all twisting through the air. The fear of the unknown. A murmur of disquiet rose from the crowd.

  Then Dad held up one hand and the room went quiet.

  “Usually a pack must be fighting with someone before they’re asked to surrender,” he said. “We are not at war.”

  “If you do not surrender, you will be. The Scarred Prince is coming.”

  The fear turned to terror. In my pounding heart, though, there was an edge of curiosity. The Scarred Prince? I’d thought he was a myth, nothing more. But my Dad spoke to the messenger as though he was real.

  “You represent the Scarred Prince and his pack?”

  “That is correct.”

  “We have no quarrel that I know of with him, nor with you.”

  “Is that your daughter?” he asked, turning his body directly to me. My breath caught in my throat, and time seemed to stop as his piercing blue eyes locked onto me.

  “I am blind,” Damien said drily. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “She knows who I’m talking to.”

  His gaze was like a force field that penetrated through my defenses. For a brief moment, I thought that I smelled a strange scent coming from the messenger.

  “Yes,” I whispered, nodding. I couldn’t look at the man when I spoke to him.

  “What do you want with her?”

  “Nothing. But the Scarred Prince will want her. If you love her, you should decide to surrender.” The man who was a messenger for the Scarred Prince stood boldly and spoke in a voice that shocked me with its low anger.

  “If you don’t… he will kill all of your family, and then he will kill you.”

  Chapter Seven

  Terror gripped my heart. He had threatened to kill me and everyone if we didn’t surrender. My mother’s hand trembled as it held mine.

  Still, Blaise didn’t move. He was over by the cider barrels, and I avoided looking at him. I didn’t want the messenger to know that my brother was here as well. I thought wildly that he would come after both of us if he knew. I thought that the messenger would kill me right now. He could reach over the table, and with one strong hand crush my throat. His gaze seized mine with a ferocity that made my mouth go dry.

  Yes. His pack would win if there was a fight. I knew they would. How could we fight against a pack made up of warriors like this? The messenger was bigger than Francis and Erroll put together, and he was only a messenger!

  Instinct made me want to run, to flee. I wanted to shift into wolf form and escape, run like the wind away from here. But then the messenger looked away from me, and the feeling subsided. I was able to control my terror. Breathe, Kinaya.

  My dad spoke. It was the first time I’d heard him speak like this. His voice was strong, powerful. He never spoke this way to us, not even that one time Blaise had come home drunk from a party. It was scary to hear him now.

  “You know that by coming here to declare war, you are an enemy combatant.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t allow you to leave.”

  “Do what you must.”

  Damien nodded to the guards. They stepped forward and grabbed the man’s arms. He did not make any moves to resist as they tied his wrists behind his back. All the while he stared straight ahead at my father. It made me feel a little better to see him handcuffed, but his cool, composed demeanor made me uneasy still. The way he had looked at me…

  “Clear out the side storage cabin,” Damien said. “Keep him there.”

  “Am I a prisoner of war?”

  “Did you expect me to let you go?”

  “Just clarifying.”

  “Most alphas would slit your throat once you had spoken,” my dad said. Goosebumps rose on my skin. “Did you want me to kill you instead?”

  The messenger shrugged.

  “Do what you must.”

  I was awed by the man’s calm. His eyes burned blue. I could not see his hair; it was under the black scarf he wore across his head. I peered at him, sure that he would try to escape. How could he walk in here just like that? He didn’t seem scared at all.

  The message he sent was clear. Even the merest of messengers in this pack was a warrior. They could afford to expend this warrior without any difficulty. He was ready to fight and die right then.

  It was noble, I thought, to be so willing to die for your pack. It was a strange feeling, to look at this man and see him both as an enemy and someone to be… admired? Yes, admired.

  The messenger darted a glance over at me, as though reading my thoughts. I cast my eyes down to the table quickly. I didn’t want his attention.

  The guards waited for my dad’s command. I think they wanted to kill him. They smelled as scared as I felt, I realized. Neither one of them would be a match for the man between them. Even if he was in handcuffs. My dad breathed in and out calmly. I could tell he was smelling the messenger’s scent. Trying to see if he could get any more information.

  “What would you have me do?” my dad said.

  “I had hoped that I would be able to bring back a message of surrender,” the messenger said drily.

  “There will be no such message.”

  “Then I am very sorry. Your pack will be destroyed.”

  I swallowed hard, but my dad didn’t seem fazed at all.

  “You seem certain of that.”

  “The Scarred Prince will roll through your territory like a flash fire, burning whatever it finds.”

  My mom stood up suddenly, her eyes blazing.

  “Why this? Why now?”

  The man turned to her and bowed slightly.

  “You have been growing as a pack for some time. You present a threat.”

  “We are a threat to nobody.”

  “The prince doesn’t agree.”

  “You may tell him that we wish him no harm,” my dad said. He exhaled slowly, his calmness making everyone in the room feel more at ease. “We have no desire to fight. We will not harm him or his pack.”

  “I cannot think that he would believe that.”

  “Why not?”

  The messenger stared straight ahead, his shoulders squared. When he spoke, his voice was low.

  “You were the one who killed his father.”

  I shot a look at my father. No! He would never kill anyone!

  But he was nodding as though he accepted the statement. It was then that I remembered the story my mother had told me, of a shifter my dad had foug
ht before we were born. But that was self-defense. At least, that’s what my mom had said. Blaise had been more interested in the fighting than I had. I preferred other stories. Now, though, I wished I had listened to the story’s details.

  “Trax…” my father murmured.

  It was true. I looked at my dad as though he was a stranger. He seemed so sure of himself, always. Had he really killed the father of the Scarred Prince?

  Yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed it. But now, seeing him face down a man who was twice his size, I felt inordinately proud of my dad. He was a true alpha. He would protect our pack. He would protect me. And nothing, not even the Scarred Prince, could hurt us.

  “Then you won’t surrender?” the messenger asked. His voice was a growl that sent shivers through me. My dad ignored his question and spoke directly to the guards instead.

  “Lock him up in the side storage cabin. Bind his hands and feet.”

  As the guards led the messenger away, I kept expecting him to lash out. But with two wolf bone knives at his back, he made no move to escape or to fight. He let himself be led out the back of the longhouse. Inside, the guests stood silently, the gold floor scuffed black from dancing, the light of the candles flickering uncertainly.

  Chapter Eight

  The longhouse emptied out. The only people to stay were the council elders. Francis had run off to go find his mother, Mara, and bring her back. An emergency council meeting. I stood in the shadows, clutching uncertainly at the hem of my dress. Everybody was talking about what the message meant for our pack.

  “Someone get Dee,” my father said.

  “I’m already here.”

  I turned to see Dee walking in through the back door of the longhouse.

  “The prisoner is locked up,” she said. “I made sure of it myself.”

  “Thank you,” my dad said. He looked calm. That relieved me somewhat. Neither he nor Dee seemed to be too worried. It couldn’t be that bad, could it?

  The rest of the council members drew up chairs to the great table, and the plates were cleared away. The cream cake sat untouched on the side table. I hesitated, standing behind my parents. Council meetings were normally closed to the children of the pack. But I was no longer a child.

  “It’s the remains of Trax’s old pack,” Dee said, shaking her head. “I will never forget his scent.”

  “It can’t be? Can it?” My mother pressed a hand to her eyes. “It can’t be them again.”

  Mara sat down at her chair at the side of the table, breathless from hurrying over from her cabin.

  “Mara—”

  “Erroll filled me in. If it is Trax’s pack, they would be two days away from us at least.”

  “Our scouts out on that edge of the territory haven’t reported anything strange,” my father said.

  “They might have found another purebred to mate with,” Dee interrupted. “The messenger might have some of those genes. It would make him able to sneak by without a scent.”

  “Why would they send out a shifter who has purebred genes as a mere messenger?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or perhaps they’ve figured out another way to cloak themselves from shifter noses.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “If that’s true, their pack might be moving on us right now and we would never know it.” My mom’s eyes were frightened.

  “They wouldn’t send a messenger to warn us if that were the case,” my dad said, putting his hand on hers. “Don’t be worried. We’ll figure this out.”

  “You were part of his pack, Mara,” Dee said.

  Mara looked up, and an expression of sorrow passed over her eyes.

  “Not for long. Only until you rescued me.”

  “Do you have any idea what they might be planning?”

  She shook her head, and I thought I saw tears well in her eyes. Then they were gone.

  “Trax. I thought I was done with him forever.”

  “He’s not coming back,” Dee said. “But do you remember just after the fight Damien won?”

  “There had been rumors of a son,” my Dad nodded. “The rumors died out. The son must have survived.”

  “The one they call the Scarred Prince?”

  “That’s just a fairy tale!” I blurted out.

  Everyone turned to look at me, and I bit my lip. I shouldn’t have said anything.

  “Kinaya?”

  “I mean, that is,” I stammered, “I thought that was just a story.”

  “Sometimes stories are true, child,” Granny Dee said. “I’m afraid this one is true.”

  She must have seen the terror flash across my face. The story of the Scarred Prince was one of the only stories that truly scared me.

  “Most stories have a basis in reality,” Dee said. “I’m sure the details of the pack are wrong, but the general idea is right. They were an aggressive pack, with a penchant for fighting.”

  “They twisted tradition to fit their own ideas of what was right or wrong,” Mara said. “They kept females as slaves.”

  “The mutilation they performed as a ritual? Is that true?” another councilman asked.

  “I don’t know. They didn’t do it to me. Does it matter?”

  “The real question,” my dad said, interrupting the discussion, “is what do we do now?”

  My mom spoke up.

  “We could counter-negotiate. There must be something we can offer them in exchange for peace. Part of the land—”

  “We have little land as is. This territory is barely large enough for our pack,” Dad said.

  “Then we flee.”

  “Julia, this is our home! I promised you that I would make you a home to settle down in. This has been a home for us for almost two decades. I will not see it lost so easily.”

  I watched my parents debate, fear rising in my chest.

  “If the only other option is war…”

  “Then war it will have to be. I hope that it does not come to that, but we must prepare for it either way. There isn’t time to waste.”

  Blaise stepped up to the table. I hadn’t even seen him standing behind my dad, but now he had an angry expression on his face.

  “We should torture the messenger. Make him tell us what he knows.”

  Dee shook her head.

  “I talked with him already. He tells us that he has only the message to bring and will say no more.”

  “Let me at him and I’ll see if I can’t pry out another message,” Blaise said, seething.

  “Damien…” Dee said.

  My dad nodded.

  “Blaise, I want you to go home and go to sleep. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

  “What?!” My twin brother stared at my dad, agog.

  “Leave us.”

  “But I’m alpha now—”

  “You’re not alpha. Not with war on the winds. I cannot hand over your birthright at this moment. That is perhaps why they plan to attack now. We can’t risk that.”

  “But—”

  “Leave us. You too, Kinaya.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “But he was the one—”

  “It doesn’t matter. This is not your business.”

  I fumed. If Blaise hadn’t opened his stupid mouth, we wouldn’t have been kicked out of the council meeting. I stormed out of the longhouse, not even waiting to see if he was following behind.

  Chapter Nine

  Blaise caught me by the shoulder as I rounded the first curve.

  “Kinaya—”

  “Shut up!” I cried. I whirled around. “It’s your stupid ideas that always backfire! If you hadn’t said anything, we could still be in there listening!”

  “Listening? Is that what you want to do?”

  I stared at him.

  “What are you even talking about, Blaise?”

  “Look. I’m going to talk to other wolves. They’ll be sure to back me up. If there’s war coming, we should prepare.”

  “You’re not the alp
ha.”

  He frowned.

  “It doesn’t matter. If we’re going to fight, Dad isn’t going to be the one leading us.”

  “Really? You think he’s going to let you go fight the Scarred Prince?”

  Blaise puffed up his chest.

  “Maybe. Maybe I could kill him.”

  “Yeah, or maybe you could get yourself killed. Or hurt. Just listen to what Mom and Dad say, okay?”

  “Fine! I should have known you wouldn’t want to take any responsibility!” Blaise yelled. “You can just tuck yourself into bed and pretend like you’re still a kid who can’t do anything herself!”

  He stormed away toward the other cabins. I slumped down next to a large fir tree and put my head in my hands.

  Stupid. So stupid. How could we even avoid a war when people like Blaise were so eager to fight? He would run headlong into a war. I was glad my dad was around to keep him from becoming alpha. If the other warriors in the pack were anything like the messenger…

  The messenger.

  I looked up. He was locked away nearby. His scent still lingered in the air. If I breathed deeply, I could smell it—dark and musky and dangerous. I got to my feet slowly, carefully, as though I was not sure what I was going to do next. But my gut had already decided for me. I circled back, around the longhouse, and headed toward the storage cabin.

  One security guard stood outside the door. I knew him well; he was the younger guard who often joked around with us. Max. I nodded to him as I moved closer, into the light.

  “Hey, Max.”

  “Kinaya? What are they talking about in the council?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging casually. “They kicked me and Blaise out.”

  “Will there be war?”

  “I hope not,” I said, echoing the words of my dad.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Blaise wanted to talk with you,” I said, making up the lie as I went. At that moment, I felt invincible. I had decided what I needed to do—talk to the messenger. Now I would do it. It was as simple as that.

  “About the war?”

  “Yes,” I said. That part was true, anyway. “My dad said we needed to start preparing for the worst. If what he says is true.”