Kele nodded. “Good. Benic told me he’d purchased them and sent them home. Peder and I were separated from the others. It took Benic more time to free us.”
Ahote cleared his throat and raised his eyebrow at Kele.
“And Ahote.” She grinned.
Tegrathe eyed Peder closer and inhaled. Her attention snapped to Kele. “By the dark Goddess, you mated an Apisi? Did the slavers hit your head too hard?”
Kele’s grip on his arm tightened.
“Kele! Peder!” A male voice shouted from across the den.
Peder startled as his name filled the uncomfortable silence.
The male seemed familiar as he jogged over. He hugged Kele hard. “I’m glad to hear of your escape.” The stranger slapped him on the shoulder. “And yours.”
Peder finally placed his face. He’d been a hunter taken with them by the slavers. He couldn’t recall his name. There had been so many in the compound.
“Were you harmed?” The hunter’s voice grew more serious. “I’ve been asking Tegrathe to let me return with others to kill Timothy.”
“He’s dead.” Peder went still as he recalled Timothy’s sightless stare. “I killed him.” It hadn’t been a pretty death, either.
“Kele is mated to Peder.” Tegrathe watched them with interest.
“I’m not surprised.” He set his hand on Peder’s shoulder with a familiarity saved for packmates. “Not after the way he took that beating for Kele.” He shook his head solemnly as if recalling that day. “Kele’s made a good choice.”
Kele leaned against Peder. “We’ll be entering the alpha challenges.”
The male blinked and searched Peder’s face then glanced at the other hunters. The Payami shifters’ expressions questioned the hunter. Peder could only assume it was because their packmate was the only one among them who had known Peder as a slave.
Peder braced for attack. He wasn’t sure by whom, but this moment would set the tone to the pack’s judgment, and his kind was known for attacking first then asking questions later.
“Peder…” The male swallowed visibly. “I’m honored. You didn’t seem to savor leading us when it was forced on you.”
“I didn’t.”
It was the wrong answer. He could tell when Kele let her hand fall from his arm, but it was honest. He would not start this journey by lying.
The hunter straightened his shoulders as if coming to a decision before kneeling at Peder’s feet and pressing his face to them. “I would follow you.”
His heart hammered even faster. He almost jumped away at his touch. In the slave compound, some of the shifters had touched his feet with their hands in submission after he’d won his first challenge but this hunter was claiming him as his alpha in front of his fellow packmates. Would that be enough for them to accept him as pack? He doubted it. He wouldn’t have accepted a stranger so easily.
Tegrathe’s eyes narrowed as the hunter rose and stood at his side. Peder could sense she wanted to pace but her injury kept her still. Her nostrils flared. “My leg keeps me from fighting.” She glanced at Kele. “Thanks for that.”
Kele chuckled. “You are my strongest competition. I won’t apologize for what I did.”
“You broke her leg?” Peder asked.
“The day before I left to meet Nahuel, we fought a challenge for dominance. Tegrathe won though.” Kele grimaced. “Like I said, you’ll have your chance to try again once you’re healed.”
Tegrathe shook her head. “I learned a lesson that day. Sometimes one doesn’t have to die or kill to show dominance. You could have killed me but chose mercy instead.” Unsteadily, she used her crutches to kneel with a scowl of pain and touched Kele’s feet with her hands. “You are the only female I would choose to follow.” When she tried to rise to her feet, Peder reached to help. She swatted his hand. “You still have to prove yourself to me.”
He grinned. She reminded him of Lailanie, a hunter in his pack. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Kele led him into the empty pack gathering room and sat at a table. Not long after an omega female appeared with a tray of food and drink. Without a word, she deposited it in front of them and left.
That was him not long ago.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so quiet in here.” Ahote joined them in their meal. “It’s eerie.”
“You don’t need to keep following us.” Kele handed him a plate.
“Yes, I do. The more support is shown of your mating, the better the others will accept him.” He nodded toward Peder. “I sent Gongi to speak with the other two hunters he’d been held captive with.”
Peder assumed Gongi was the hunter who’d just claimed him. A few hunters wandered into the room and sat a few tables over. They watched him and Kele in silence, which did terrible things to his appetite.
“You should remain here and speak to anyone who wishes to question you. When I’m done eating, I’ll go find out where the pack is in challenges and find out how many couples you have to beat.” Ahote shoveled his food into his mouth.
“I’m still not sure why you support me.” Peder picked at his meal.
“Being alpha isn’t about muscles, otherwise I’d be alpha. It’s about heart and head.” He pointed to both body parts. “I followed Kele’s father long enough to know he never had to step in a challenge ring to remind us he was alpha. Respect goes a long way in a pack. While I traveled with Benic, I had lots of time to think and realize that I didn’t want to follow any of our males. I feared what would become of our pack.” He pointed at them with his fork. “You two. You’re smart and you’ve got good hearts. You care about us.” He encompassed the shifters in the room. “That I respect and would follow.”
Kele wiped gravy from Ahote’s chin with a cloth napkin. “When did you get so smart?”
“Don’t say that too loud. I don’t want rumors spreading.” He winked at Peder.
Watching Peder among her pack warmed a part of Kele’s heart she hadn’t realized was cold. She leaned forward and rested her chin on her hand.
As they ate, more and more of the pack trickled into the gathering room until it was filled like when her parents lived.
Peder appeared comfortable speaking with whoever came to their table to chat. His disarming smile and open manner won over many of her pack from pups to elders, hunters to omegas. Maybe everything would be all right.
Ahote weaved through the crowded room. Word of her return with a mate had spread like wildfire and almost the whole pack had crammed the room to get a glimpse. Some even came to speak with them. Ahote knelt between them and spoke in a low voice. “The challenges started yesterday. The elders have agreed to allow you both to join in the next round this evening.”
She met Peder’s concerned gaze. They hadn’t fought together as a couple. “I think we need to talk strategies. We’ll go to my room.”
Peder’s smile grew sultry. “Yes, we should do this alone. Right away.”
Ahote punched him in the arm. “There’s plenty of time for that after the challenges. Don’t tire her out. I have a lot riding on your success. We’ll go to my rooms.”
“What do you mean?” Peder rose to his feet and helped her up.
“I’ve publically supported you. If someone else becomes alpha, they’ll remember that. My standing in the hunters will drop.” He leaned closer to them. “I have the others who were in captivity with you telling their stories.” He pointed to the branding on her hand. “Especially that one.”
She clutched it to her chest. “What are they saying?”
“How Peder supported you through the whole ordeal. How he didn’t even cry out and helped the others find their courage. They’re also telling the others of the pack about how he fought that hunter in the compound and how Peder took punishment for you.”
“What about Kele?” Her mate pulled her against him. “What are her stories?”
“The pack already loves Kele. It’s never been a doubt that she should be alpha after her pa
rents. We need them to love you so they’ll at least be willing to give you a chance.”
Peder scratched his chin. “And if we win?”
Ahote clapped him on the back. “You’ll both be alpha and I’ll be your new best friend.”
She laughed at the flash of panic in Peder’s eyes. “Pack politics are different in the Apisi?”
“Very. We’re much smaller, so I’d say politics doesn’t seem to exist.”
She slipped her arm around his narrow waist and guided him out of the pack room and toward Ahote’s apartment. “I don’t think you’re that naïve, Peder. Politics plays in all pack life. When Sorin chose to train you over the other omegas, didn’t that cause any issues within the pack?”
He shrugged. “Some of the hunters spoke to me more.” He turned his attention inward, recalling memories. He shook his head. “I guess you’re right. I just never thought of it that way.”
Kele’s father did most of the politicking for her parents and her mother handled the pack’s day-to-day issues. She saw herself in her father’s role. Peder would be a good match, especially since the pack warmed to him so quickly. He’d rule them with his heart where her mother ruled them with her fists. They had to win. They’d bring a new golden age to the Payami.
Ahote’s rooms were filled with thick fur-covered cushions. A large stack of books threatened to fall in the corner. Her favorite thing was a painting he’d done on the wall depicting his first deer hunt with the pack. It covered the whole main wall in the sitting area. A separate room held his bed. She didn’t care to ever enter that room of overindulgence. She’d heard enough stories to satisfy her curiosity.
Ahote plopped himself on the closest cushion. “You’ll have a choice. Start at the bottom with the weakest couple and climb your way up or fight yesterday’s winner.”
Peder and she took the largest cushion. He wrapped himself around her like a living blanket. His warmth and scent mixed with hers. “What are the consequences of our choices?” Peder asked.
She’d heard her father ask this same question hundreds of times.
“If you start with the weakest, you’ll have time to practice together and will most likely win, but it will also mean you have more fights to endure. If you fight yesterday’s winner, you have only one challenge but more likely you’ll lose since you haven’t fought together yet.”
She swore softly. The choices were difficult. If the last few days hadn’t been so physically and emotionally trying, she would have been more inclined to fight the weaker couples first and practice.
Peder rubbed her shoulders. “How many challenges have you fought and won since you learned to shift?”
“Many. I lost count.” She’d been focused since she’d escaped Benic’s castle. She’d wanted to prove herself worthy to her parents and climbed the hunter hierarchy. “I won them all except the last with Tegrathe. She’s right. I could have killed her and won but I didn’t see the reasoning behind destroying one of the pack’s best hunters just to prove I’m stronger and faster.”
“That’s why she submitted to you.” Ahote nodded. “Your reasoning is sound. She would have killed you without a second thought.”
“How many have died in the challenges so far?” She picked at a loose thread on her dress. Most challenges weren’t to the death, but these were different. It wasn’t about having a better spot in the pack. It was about having the best spot.
Ahote sighed. “Eight.”
She swore again. When an alpha died, it was a bad time for the pack, but usually the remaining alpha could keep the pack from tearing itself apart until a new couple was chosen through challenges. Both alphas had died though. Her pack was desperate. Maybe that was why they accepted Peder so quickly. He was young and strong. She twisted to look at him and he smiled. Handsome too. Being mated to the old alpha’s only daughter helped. “What do you think we should do?”
“I’ve only fought a few times but I won as well.” He ran a fingertip along her jaw. “What happens if we win today?”
“Then we have to fight the winners of the following days until only one couple stands undefeated. Isn’t that how your pack does it?”
His smile faded and she regretted her question.
“I guess the Apisi used to, but the last alpha wasn’t normal. He ruled alone until Sorin killed him. No one had the heart at the time to challenge Sorin once he’d won. It was too great a relief that the old alpha was dead.” He pulled at his ear as if thinking. “I think we should challenge the strongest couple. We’re both good fighters. You concentrate on the female and I’ll take care of the male. From there, we’ll continue to fight only once a day. It will conserve our strength and avoid unnecessary injury.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “I agree. How many challenges in total do you think we’ll have to win?” she asked Ahote.
He scowled. “I’d say three. They’ve been doing as many challenges as possible a day. Some are taking the opportunity to climb the hierarchy as well. They did ten challenges yesterday. You’re lucky the elders are not demanding you start from the beginning.”
Chapter Forty-One
Kele tied the ceremonial robe’s belt around Peder’s waist. The soft material contrasted strangely with the hard male wearing it.
“We don’t have robes for challenges.” Peder ran his hands over the material as if savoring the sensation. She wanted to give him everything he’d never had. New clothes, foods imported from Europa, cheese, breads made of the finest flour. Maybe they’d journey with the crafters next time they traveled to the vampire trading posts.
“Do they just wear their kilts to the ring?”
“No, they go naked.”
“Through the den?”
He chuckled. “It’s not like the others haven’t seen it before, Kele.” He stopped stroking the material. “Your pack didn’t always have all this finery. I’m sure there was a shifter or two who walked naked to the ring.”
She nodded and smirked. “It’s your pack now too.”
“Not yet.” He touched her hair. “Your hair is much softer than this robe.”
“You can’t wear it.”
“I beg to differ.” He slipped the robe off his shoulders and let it drop to the ground.
“Stop it.” She picked up his robe.
“I think I should walk to the ring as an Apisi hunter.”
She stared at the bruises and scratches still marring his perfect body. He appeared like a hunter of old walking out of the forest for the first time in civil form.
Ahote entered the room without knocking and stalled in the threshold. “There’s no time for fooling around.”
“Peder wants to go to the ring naked.” She tossed the robe on the bed.
A sly grin spread across Ahote’s face and he clapped Peder on the back. “A savage after my own heart.”
As agreed upon, she led Peder out of their room and toward the challenge ring area. The den’s corridors were empty and silent, only the torchlight greeted their journey. Her stomach fluttered. She could guess where everyone was. As they approached the area, the hum of conversation grew louder and she knew she’d been right.
Kele stopped and stared at the gathering of her pack around the ring and on the ledges of the walls, feet hanging over the edges, eyes peering at them. They lit the area with enough torches so it appeared as if the sun blazed upon the challenge ring.
Peder pressed against her. “What is it?”
“Everyone is here.” She swallowed with a throat gone dry.
“Is that bad?”
“No, it’s just unusual.”
Ahote leaned in. “There are just as many as when you fought Tegrathe.”
“There were?” It seemed a lifetime ago since that challenge. That naïve girl was just a memory now.
Inside the ring waited yesterday’s challenge winners, dressed in their robes.
Her stomach tried to turn inside out. She snatched Ahote by the ear and dragged him kissing close. “You didn’t t
ell me it was them.” Ahsen and Seh, two of the strongest hunters. The two of them brought down a bull moose by themselves this spring. Uninjured. Her mother trained and ran with Ahsen regularly.
Used to train…
She took a deep cleansing breath. Her mother had trained her as well. She’d clawed her way to the top of the hierarchy by herself. She’d proven she could fight.
A little push from Peder set her walking again.
The crowd went silent.
Peder took his place next to her in the ring. Not a blush on his skin. Perfectly comfortable in his nudity.
She noted a few admiring stares aimed his way from a group of females who whispered to each other. She snarled, running her hand over his arm. Mine, all mine. A lifetime of being outside the normal relationships of the pack because she couldn’t shift had left her a little bitter. She’d never been mistreated or abused, but she didn’t fit.
She would now.
And they knew it.
She dropped her robe and noticed Peder’s appreciative gaze. Unfortunately, she didn’t have Peder’s experience or confidence in baring all and a blush blazed liked a brushfire until sweat beaded on her skin. Before she could humiliate herself further, she grasped her trigger memory of rage and shifted to feral form. Her trigger emotion always had her ready to fight once the change was done.
The elders sat along the side of the ring. They didn’t have to attend regular challenges but for something this important, they had to be present to judge. The pack’s future lay in which alpha couple won.
Peder and their challengers shifted as well.
“Go,” the eldest ordered.
As soon as the word was spoken, Peder raced across the challenge ring, tackling the other male to the ground. He hadn’t bothered to test the other male’s weaknesses or anything. Just charged…
The crowd’s roar shook the den.
Something solid hit Kele square in the chest and she hit the ground hard on her back. Years of training had her rolling to the side before she could gasp for air.
Scent of Valor (Chronicles of Eorthe #2) Page 29
