The Alpha's Concubine (Historical Shifter Romance)

by Claudia King

  "I have heard your people are hurt more easily?" the girl said.

  Netya gazed in wonder. Either she had slept for days, or the wound had healed overnight. "How did you do that? How do you do any of the things you do?"

  "It is just the way we are. I can forgive your friend. He did not hurt me badly."

  Netya edged closer to the fire. "Your people must have very powerful magic."

  The girl seemed amused. "We would not call it magic. And if it is, even the wisest of us do not understand it. Besides, I think you would know more of such things than I."

  "Me?"

  "Your hair." The girl moved closer, setting her bowl to the side as she reached out to touch the long black braid that hung over Netya's shoulder. "Only the wisest leaders and seers have hair the colour of yours. It means you were chosen for a great destiny. I think it is why our alpha decided to bring you here."

  The idea that she was wise or destined for great things seemed absurd to Netya. She knew several of her people who shared her dark hair, and none of them had ever struck her as particularly great. Still, she did not want to offend these people. If they treated her with respect, even if it was only because of the colour of her hair, it could do her no harm to embrace it. The comments about some of them wanting to kill her were still fresh in her mind.

  "Why did he bring me here?" Netya said. "This is your home, isn't it?"

  The girl nodded, her eyes sparkling with excitement as the initial tension between the two of them began to ebb. "Our alpha has not taken a female for many years, not even our den mother. He spoke of finding one of your people before, but I never expected it to happen. When he saw you he must have desired you very much, you and your pretty hair."

  "As a female?" Netya frowned. "You mean as his woman?"

  The girl looked down suddenly, as she had done the night before when the alpha reprimanded her. "He will not take you as his mate. It would not be proper. I can't speak of what he truly desires from you."

  "But can you guess?" Netya pried. This was not what she had expected at all. She'd not felt treated like a prisoner, but if not a prisoner, then why had the Moon People taken her with them?

  "You must ask him yourself," the girl said, then she glanced to the tent flap and lowered her voice. "But the others say he will take you as his consort. As his concubine. They think he hopes you will give him a strong, dark-haired heir."

  A strange twisting sensation grew in Netya's stomach, her heartbeat quickening. She did not know what being a consort to a great leader—or anyone, for that matter—would entail. As a man, and her elder by several months, if Layon had asked her to be his woman she would have been obliged to say yes. Then she would have gone to his bed and lived under his roof, and borne his children if the spirits were kind. It was a future she had often envisioned over the past year, and yet it had been just as fantastical and beyond her comprehension as the legends of the Moon People. The way he had touched and kissed her the night before was the clearest glimpse of that life she had ever gotten. Would it feel the same way to be touched by the alpha?

  She called back the image of him from the previous evening, remembering the way his voice had sounded how his long hair stirred in the wind. Something tickled her beneath beneath the knot of anxiety in her belly.

  "I would not know how to be his consort," she said at last, her head swimming as she began to feel overwhelmed. She put a palm on the floor to steady herself as she wobbled.

  The girl's smile took on a bemused quality. She picked up her wooden bowl again and handed it to Netya along with the smooth mixing stone. "Here, eat. You must be very hungry."

  She was. The bowl contained a paste that tasted of mashed nuts, made palatable by a sprinkling of dried berries. There was little flavour to it, but it was not unpleasant. After swallowing down the whole bowlful and drinking from a waterskin the girl offered, Netya began to feel a little better. Her bladder was still full, and the knot in her stomach still remained, but at least she was no longer as giddy.

  "Have you been with a man before? Or a woman?" the girl asked once Netya was done eating.

  She shook her head.

  "Why not? You are old enough. Some girls of my people are mated younger than either of us."

  "No man chose me yet. I only came of age a few seasons ago."

  "But you should know how to be with a mate when they do choose you. Have you not learned?"

  "How would I learn without a mate to teach me?"

  The girl crossed her legs and turned to face Netya properly, eyes twinkling once more as she explained. "Every year, during the celebration of the summer fires, our pack come together to share our pleasures for one night. For all those who have come of age, it is a time when we can choose freely who to lie with. Even those who are mated join in, and the ones who are not often find their partners on that night."

  "My people have nothing like that," Netya said. The idea intrigued her, even though it sounded wild and bestial, just like all the other tales of the Moon People. Perhaps that was exactly why she found it so compelling.

  "Then I think our alpha will show you himself. Many of the young females will be envious."

  "Why would he want me over one of them?" Netya said.

  The girl's eyes fell, and she bowed her head in that same gesture of deference again. "I cannot speak for him. If you are lucky, he may tell you." She looked back at Netya suddenly, gripping her by the hand. "But do not ask him directly. It would not be proper."

  The warning in the girl's eyes unnerved Netya. It was frowned upon for a woman to question her man in public, she knew that much from the customs of her own people, but it made her wonder whether the Moon People had any other expectations of her that she would need to learn. As one of their enemies, and a clear outsider, her fear crystallised her thoughts into something sharper and more practical than she was used to. If she wanted to survive among them, she would have to learn their ways. If their alpha wanted her as his concubine, she was in no position to refuse. If it was as great an honour as the girl had suggested, perhaps she had no reason to feel apprehensive at all.

  "And... how long will I stay here?" she said at last.

  "For as long as our alpha says you must. He has told the others to treat you as one of our own, but they will be watching closely. You will not try to leave, or hurt any of us, will you?" She added the last sheepishly, as though it was a question asked out of obligation rather than desire.

  Netya shook her head. How could she hurt people who transformed into wolves and healed their wounds within hours, even if she wanted to? And the thought of making the journey back across the open plains by herself was even more frightening than staying put.

  "What is your name?" the girl asked.

  "Netya."

  "I am Fern." She smiled. The bright and eager sparkle in the young woman's eyes did much to put Netya's fears to rest. Aside from the tone of her skin and the sound of her voice, she could almost have been a girl from back in the village.

  "Come," Fern said. "I will show you where you can wash, and then he will want to see you."

  "The alpha?"

  "Yes."

  Netya shielded her eyes from the sun as the girl lifted the flap of the tent and led her outside. She prayed to the spirits that the alpha would be as welcoming as Fern.

  —4—

  A New World

  The place the Moon People called home was not quite a village, not quite a camp. Could it be called a den? Tents of various shapes and sizes were nestled between the rocks, none of them looking as though they had been made with any particular design in mind. Some were tall and propped up by crisscrosses of long poles, others were short and squat, and some were little more than lean-tos beneath which the Moon People lounged in the evening sun. Others had built earth lodges not dissimilar to some of the dwellings in Netya's own village, but there was not a single house of logs to be seen.

  The whole encampment was set atop a raised outcropping that overlooked the land
for miles around. It was roughly the size of a small hill, and farther up the slope more and more rocks broke through the surface of the earth until a large stone peak capped it off, a natural monument that Netya suspected looked quite beautiful from afar. Among the rocks higher up, she could see wide crags that she suspected led to caves. If the Moon People had not made their home here, packs of wild animals surely would have. It seemed more than fitting.

  Fern led her around the edge of the raised outcrop, avoiding most of the tents. A large fire burned midway down the slope in an area surrounded by a cluster of tents, and it was from there that a mixture of strange voices reached Netya's ears, all speaking in the tongue of the Moon People.

  The land stretched away for miles around them. It gave Netya the same giddy feeling she'd gotten every time she looked out from the edge of the forest over the plains beyond, except this time there was no promise of safety at her back. The home of the Moon People was an island amidst a sea of endless land. To the south and west the ground finally gave way to mountains, so far away they seemed unreachable. In the north she could glimpse a few trees on the horizon, but the easterly direction from which they'd come held nothing but the sight of rolling hills and open grassland. Itdidn't know that back was almost as if the place she'd come from had been swallowed up by the horizon entirely.

  Netya could have stared at the new world around her for hours, but her fascination was interrupted by the looks and voices of the people around her. While Fern did her best to take a quiet route, they still passed by a handful of dwellings on their way. The huge, brown-furred bodies of wolves slumbered outside some of them, but more often than not they were accompanied by people tending their cooking fires as they prepared their evening meals. All of them shared the same bronzed skin, their hair coming in sandy blondes and browns, often braided and hung with beads or talismans carved from wood and animal bone.

  The Moon People stared at Netya unashamedly as she walked past. She had never before felt so interesting, or so different. The colour of her hair and skin, things that had just a day ago seemed no more special than the grass and the sky, were suddenly all she could think about.

  In the rare moments she chanced to lock eyes with one of the Moon People she found herself looking for signs of fear or hatred. She was, after all, their enemy.

  Most regarded her with obvious discomfort, but rarely did she feel threatened. Any animosity they might have felt for her seemed restrained by a veneer of courtesy. It was far from reassuring, but some of the tension in her stomach loosened. She had been expecting snarling wolves and bared fangs, but these people were no monsters.

  It only took a few minutes for Fern to lead her around the edge and down the side of the outcropping, back to ground level where the sprawling sights of the land around them were hidden by the natural slopes and hillocks in the terrain. A clear, slow-moving river trickled its way around the edge of the encampment. Further up Netya could see a small group of people bathing. Their laughing voices reminded her, with a tug of homesickness, of her own summer evenings spent bathing with the other girls of the village.

  Fern knelt down and dabbled her hands in the water, gesturing for Netya to join her.

  "Come down to this end of the river when you need to relieve yourself. For washing and bathing we usually stay further up." She waited patiently for a moment, but when Netya didn't join her she rose to her feet and began to help the other girl off with her clothing without being asked.

  "You should make yourself clean and beautiful for our alpha. He will appreciate that," Fern continued. "If you leave me your clothes I will wash them and find fresh ones while you bathe."

  Netya nodded, allowing Fern to unfasten the wooden pins that held her fur wrap in place, before bending down to do the same for her insulating leggings. The evening was warm, and she was glad to feel cool air against her skin as she untied her girdle and slid out of the woolen shirt and undergarments she wore, finally stepping out of her boots to stand naked on the riverbank.

  Fern guided her into the gently flowing water, before bundling up the pile of clothes and tucking them beneath her arm. She left Netya alone then, giving her time to see to her private needs and wash.

  Even though they had only just met, Fern's absence brought an uncomfortable feeling of tension to the tranquil river. Netya's eyes flitted back to the group bathing upstream. She glanced at the rocky path she had come down, wondering whether anyone else would chance upon her while she was alone. It was unusual for her to be among so many people and yet feel so threatened. Perhaps threatened was the wrong word. They had treated her well enough so far. It was just that they were different, and different things were hard to understand. It was easy to assume the worst.

  And yet, despite all of that, the sense of wonder she'd felt when riding on the back of the wolf and staring out across the foreign landscape still remained. She was in a new place. A new land with new people. Back in the village such possibilities had simply never existed.

  Netya leaned back in the cool water, floating for a moment while she unfastened the wooden clasp from her braid as it lay across her breast. She untwined her hair and dipped her head below the water, closing her eyes as she floated to the surface and drifted on her back.

  The consort of a powerful leader.

  Back home Netya's uncle spoke for the village when there was no consensus to be reached, but he was an old man, impatient and endlessly perplexed by his duties. Nobody bowed their head in deference to him. Nobody spoke of him in hushed tones, with the kind of respect that only power and dominance could command.

  A shiver rippled through her body. Was she foolish not to fear the alpha? Of what he would do with her, perhaps that very evening, when he desired to claim her as his concubine? A familiar tickle of warmth returned to her belly as she thought of him. She was afraid, yes, but her fear was not enough to overpower the possibilities opening up before her. Her future, that had once seemed so orderly, was now a burning tangle of people and places and emotions that seemed so endless it made her giddy. The part of her that had always wanted to go and see the wolf skulls on the wall felt like it was finally free.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone approaching, and she jolted upright with a splash. It was only Fern, returning with a bundle of fresh clothes and a reassuring smile. Netya relaxed and allowed herself to sink back into the water again, but the other girl's presence spurred her to continue washing and brushing the dirt from her hair. She did not feel as though she had earned the right to indulge herself yet.

  Once she had bathed Fern helped her out of the river and handed her a woven blanket to dry herself with. It was rougher than the soft wool she was used to. As Netya sat on a rock drying herself off, Fern knelt behind her and brushed the tangles from her hair with a comb made from fine animal teeth.

  "What happens next?" Netya asked.

  "We'll let your hair dry by the fire, then make sure you are as beautiful as we can make you. Once the sun goes down, the alpha should be ready for you."

  "Will he want me right away?"

  "I don't know." Fern squeezed her shoulder. "Try not to be worried. It may be difficult the first time, but soon you will enjoy it. Sharing pleasures with another person is a wonderful thing."

  Once Netya was dry she dressed in her new clothes. They seemed tailored for comfort rather than work, and were not practical for everyday wear. A soft animal skin gown came down to her thighs, leaving her arms and most of her legs exposed. With no undergarments she felt only half-dressed, but the gown was comfortable and fit her quite well. She tucked her clasp back into her hair and put on the pair of fur slippers Fern had brought her, then followed the other girl back up the path between the rocks.

  Most of the people they had passed on their way down seemed to have retreated inside their tents or migrated to the central fire as the sun dipped beyond the horizon. Their muted voices and laughter filled the air, and Netya found herself thinking of home again. Was this place her
home now? For the time being, it seemed it was.

  She caught herself staring at the flames of the large fire as they licked up into the darkening sky, so enthralled that she didn't notice she was about to walk into someone until Fern put out a hand to stop her. She looked forward, and almost jumped in surprise as she stared up at a figure so striking they took her breath away.

  Before her stood a woman as tall as any man, with skin the colour of ivory and a mane of raven black hair flowing from beneath a headdress made from the full pelt of a fox. Her eyes were as blue as the clearest crystal lake, and she had painted them with charcoal to make her appearance even more powerful. She was by far the most beautiful woman Netya had ever seen.

  But her eyes, as striking as they were, did not sparkle like Fern's. They pierced Netya with a look so cold it paralysed her. The woman's elegant lips looked as though a smile might break them.

  Fern immediately bowed her head, muttering something in the language of the Moon People. The older woman stared at Netya for a moment longer, before turning to Fern and responding with a comment that sounded as frightening as her expression.

  Fern shook her head, looking in the direction of the caves above them agitatedly as she mumbled out a response.

  The woman glared at her, not saying a word, then turned her attention back to Netya and took a step forward, lifting a lock of damp hair from her shoulder to examine it.

  "You do not belong here," she said at last in Netya's language, then added something else in her own tongue before turning away.

  Netya shivered as she watched the woman walk up the slope and disappear into one of the highest caves, a huge crag in the rock decorated with animal skulls and painted with strange markings.

  "She is Adel, our den mother," Fern whispered without needing to be asked. "The senior female of our pack, second only to the alpha. You must always obey if she asks something of you, and when she speaks, you must listen. She is the wisest of our seers, and she knows the ways of the spirits better than anyone."