Stealing the Heiress

by Saranna Dewylde

  “He’s taken care of. Just trust me on that,” Warner replied.

  “I figured. His head started screaming and then it turned to ash,” Lenore said.

  Another surge of bile rose in the back of his throat.

  Blake gestured to the unknown wolf. “We’ve been honored today with the presence of Luchtaine.”

  Holy fucking shit. It had to be serious. Luchtaine was a story, the monster under the bed. The oldest living wolf, if he was who he claimed to be. Older even than the Rommulus and Remus Alphas.

  Maybe he was the answer to the darkness blooming rancid inside of him.

  Luchtaine nodded at him, but then cocked his head to the side appraising him as a fellow predator. He seemed for a moment as if he would speak, but he didn’t.

  Blake nodded to Lenore. “All present and accounted for. I’ll give you the floor.”

  Lenore stood and braced her arms on the table and made eye contact with each of them in the room.

  She was quite the magnificent creature for a hunter. In modern terms, a badass. He wasn’t ashamed to admit he admired her. He admired all of the women who were part of the Woolven pack. They were fierce, devoted, strong and powerful. His heart surged with love for his pack.

  “So, you all know I accepted the Council’s contract to hunt down my brother. Our plan worked, as evidenced by the remains I brought back with me. In short, with an immunity to silver I had to find another way to neutralize him. Luchtaine was strong enough to fight him, but he could match him blow for blow. It would’ve been an endless battle. We utilized the bone fairy’s Watcher to liquefy his bones. It worked on all of his body except his head. I had to use a blessed blade to sever his head.” She turned to fix Warner with a hard stare. “And you and I need to speak with later about how you finally killed him. Nothing worked. I even tried dropping his head in acid. The fucker was almost invincible.”

  “Which brings us to the real problem,” Luchtaine said.

  “Fuck. That wasn’t the real problem?” Tirigan groaned.

  “It was the beginning of the real problem,” Lenore said. “He infected others before we could take him out. He started his own pack of creatures just like him.”

  Tirigan sighed. “Well, at least this won’t be boring.”

  “Goddess fuck.” Drew shook his head. “If it took all of that to take down Breslin, and granted he was an Alpha, what’s it going to take to deal with this pack?”

  “There’s a snowball’s chance in Hell that they won’t be a danger. We need to determine that their infection is the same as Peter’s. Because Marchessa Rommulus was infected similarly, but she has no madness. And David is working on a serum to replicate her immunity to silver for us,” Blake said. “We need to send a scout.”

  “That needs to be you, Warner.” The witch pointed at him.

  “You know I’d do anything for the pack, but I can’t in good conscious agree to this without presenting all the facts. I’m not—”

  “—going to talk about this now,” Westwood interrupted him.

  War didn’t usually argue with Westwood. He questioned her now and again and together they’d wrought brilliant strategy with their Alpha that had seen the Woolven pack through the worst of times.

  But Warner couldn’t think of anything worse than this.

  “Yes, I am.”

  The room seemed to have gone dead silent. As if no one had dared breathe after his declaration.

  Westwood sighed. “You’d think you little shits would’ve learned to trust me by now. But fine.” She shrugged and sighed again.

  “Keep sighing like that and you’re going to deflate just like a tired old balloon,” Parker teased.

  “I’m sick, Blake. I’m in no position to represent the Woolven pack.”

  “What do you mean?” Blake prompted.

  “I think you’re going to have to put me down.” He looked down at his hands. “For the pack.”

  “Berserker?” Blake’s face was solemn, his jaw set.

  This time, Parker didn’t have anything witty to say. Instead, he said, “Like hell.”

  “There’s something wrong with me, boy. Something dark came back with me.”

  “Is it my fault?” Parker looked to Westwood.

  “Of course not. The runes say differently. The runes say a dark champion will rise and I think that champion is War,” the witch countered.

  “Some champion I am. Do you know how I dealt with Peter’s remains? I fucking ate him.”

  Parker’s snark was back. “The runes did say “dark.” He coughed and ate another cookie.

  Luchtaine stepped in. “Maybe you’re the dark champion. Maybe not. The facts we have to go on say that whatever has happened to you, you are the only one who can kill them. I would take that from you if I could, Warner Woolven. But that gift didn’t choose me. It chose you. If it brings you any comfort, you don’t smell like Berserker to me.”

  Warner growled. “No, it doesn’t bring me any fucking comfort. At least if I was going Berserker, then I’d have the relief of forgetting. Of being consumed by the rage and the hunger. Whatever has happened to me? There’s no forgetting. There’s only a need I can’t control that puts everyone around me in danger. What happens when I run out of bad things to sate this cursed hunger? Huh, what then?”

  “One thing at a time, Warner. The pack needs you,” Westwood whispered the magic words that had driven him for the whole of his life.

  He looked to Blake. His nephew who was more like a son. His Alpha.

  “Please, Warner.”

  “Of course.” He scrubbed a hand over face and then through his hair. “If that’s what you think is best.”

  “We’ll figure this out, Uncle. We won’t leave you alone in the dark. I swear it.” Blake’s words carried the irrefutable, undeniable promise of an Alpha. The words might as well have been carved in stone.

  “Where am I going?”

  “You know where,” Westwood said.

  “Minnesota was where we took Peter,” Lenore offered.

  And Minnetonka, Minnesota was where he’d been dreaming of blood and death.

  He didn’t say anything else. Instead, he left the war room and headed straight for Den Hollow Cemetery and Arianna Woolven’s grave. He asked her advice on raising her sons often. Of course, the only answer he ever got in return was silence, but it made him feel like he was doing the right thing.

  Even if it was stepping in shit.

  He’d done his best for the boys and the pack. His chest puffed with pride at the thought.

  Warner had buried her and Sterling together beneath an old oak on small hill that overlooked the Hollow and had a straight view to Aphelion.

  The sun shone down, still bright and warm. The sky somehow was still clear. The air smelled of green growing things. Nothing seemed to betray that fact he’d fallen down the hole to Hell.

  He sat down at the foot of their graves.

  “I’ve done my best,” he began.

  But had he?

  “Blake’s a strong Alpha, Sterling. He’s more than you or I could ever have been. You’d be proud of him. I’m sure he’s come to talk to you, what with Randi round with pup. He led us to war and negotiated peace. He did it for all the right reasons.”

  Warner stopped and inhaled deeply.

  “Drew. Goddess, Drew is the kind of Beta that all Alphas need. Parker is ever the little shit, but he makes my heart swell with pride. They’ve all been matched with mates we’d never have expected, but who make Woolven that much stronger.”

  He looked at Arianna’s side of the stone, as if he were talking to her. “I know I swore you a promise, I’m not sure if I can keep it this time. At least not in the way you’d want me to. They’ve got so much faith in me, and Goddess, if this were anything else, it wouldn’t be unwarranted. This is different and I just don’t think I can fight this while I’m breathing.”

  “Warner?” Mari’s soft voice interrupted. “I don’t mean to intrude, but Westwood sai
d you needed me.”

  His first instinct was to say that Westwood was mistaken, but that would’ve been unnecessarily cruel. He did owe her an explanation, if nothing else.

  She sat down next to him. “Is this where she’s buried? Your mate?”

  Warner studied the delicately beautiful woman sitting next to him. Everything about her seemed so fragile, so breakable. From her fey features, the high cheekbones, the large ice blue eyes and her white-blond hair to the grace with which she moved. Her fingers were slender and seemed to have been made for magic, not the earthy paws they became when she Changed. Even her voice was melodic and soft, but he knew she had strength and fire.

  He didn’t know if he would be so calm and curious if the situations were reversed. If she had a True Mate who’d never claimed her, who died, and he’d found her sitting at the foot of his grave, talking to him about things she should’ve been talking to Warner about. After all, he’d taken her to mate. They were partners now.

  She didn’t deserve any of what had happened to her. She deserved a True Mate. She deserved everything good the world could give her.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said.

  “Sorry, Mari. I was lost in thought.”

  “If you’d rather be alone, I understand.”

  He should tell her to go back. He should tell her to stay far away from him. He should tell her that she’s free.

  But he couldn’t make the words come out of his mouth.

  Instead, he said, “I don’t want to be alone. But it’s probably best if I am.”

  “That seems to inform all of your choices, Warner. You are always alone, but you don’t have to be. You have an amazing pack, but you spend all of your time on the fringes.”

  “Is that how you see it?”

  “How do you see it?” she asked.

  No one had ever asked him that before. “Doing my duty. I stay on the fringes so Blake can be the best Alpha he can be. I guard the pack in ways no one else does. I’m always watching so my pack and my family are safe.”

  “That means staying in wolf form? Sleeping in the woods?”

  He didn’t expect her to understand. They were cut from very different cloths. She never Changed, unless she had to. She spent all of her time as a human. Warner preferred the wolf. At least he had, until the darkness came.

  Now, he didn’t know if his wolf could be trusted.

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she said, “Westwood says you’re going to Minnesota. Wasn’t that the same place you’d been having nightmares about?”

  “Yeah. It’s also where I met Arianna. The boys’ mother.”

  “Tell me about her. How you met.”

  “Why?” He’d never really talked about her. He left those stories for Westwood to tell the boys.

  “Why not?”

  “Okay. I mean, you’re right. Why not?” Why not? Because talking about her was still like ripping open a half-healed wound. Except he found he wanted to rip that wound open. Maybe just once more. “I was sent to investigate reports of a rogue wolf who’d been terrorizing the pack there. It was a fall evening and the leaves had turned crisp. The moon was high overhead, a witch’s moon with three blood-red rings. I was patrolling the woods when I saw her. She was naked, singing the songs of invocation and dancing around a fire.”

  Mari sighed. “That’s pretty perfect. Then what?”

  He found himself laughing. “Then she took me down.”

  “You?”

  “Well, I let her.”

  Mari crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s not romantic. I would never want a man to just let me take him down. Gross. I’d want to do it on my own.”

  “Really?” He tried to imagine her taking him down and it just didn’t happen. The images wouldn’t form in his brain. Not even a little.

  “You say that like it couldn’t happen.” She pursed her lips.

  “I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but the likelihood…” He realized his mistake. “Listen. It’s not that I think you’re not capable. I know you are, but physicality doesn’t seem to be your strong suit.”

  “Is that why you won’t complete the mating?” Her voice was small, as if she had been afraid not only to ask the question, but of the answer.

  The question punched him in the gut. He prided himself on duty. On loyalty. By not completing their consummation, he realized he’d done her a great disservice. Whether she was his True Mate or not, she deserved more than he’d given her.

  He supposed he knew that.

  “I didn’t think you wanted to. I figured you already got the shit end of the stick being forced to marry me.”

  “Hold on. I wasn’t forced. You asked me if you could bite me after you stole me from the limo. You think I couldn’t get away? I have teeth and claws just like you, War. But I said yes.”

  “I have to ask why you said yes. Duty?”

  “For being the great Warner Woolven, you’re really not as bright as I expected.”

  “Ouch. Damn, woman.” He clutched his chest.

  “Well, I’ve been as obvious as I can.” She took his hand. “Come back with me to the cabin before you leave.”

  Her invitation was sparklingly clear.

  His cock surged at the thought of taking her. Of burying his nose in the champagne and strawberry scent of her hair. Of being given the care of something so precious as Maribella Woolven.

  But he couldn’t.

  It wasn’t safe for her.

  If he hurt her, he’d never forgive himself.

  “Mari, I can’t.”

  “Because you don’t want to? Because of Arianna?”

  “No, that’s not it. I…” he struggled for the right words. She was right, he wasn’t very bright. At least not when it came to things like this. Talking about his feelings. It wasn’t that he’d been taught feelings were bad, but he’d pushed them down for so long because his feelings didn’t serve the pack.

  So he drowned them. Smothered them. Hid them away. Now that he was trying to bring them into the light, he didn’t know how.

  Although, it didn’t matter.

  He had to do the right now.

  “This can’t happen. You’re not safe with me, Mari.”

  She put his hand on his face. “I’ve never felt safer than when I’m with you.”

  Her words were the arrow he needed.

  “That’s changed. I’ve changed. Something’s happened. I’m not right. It’s not just you who isn’t safe. It’s everyone.”

  Looking up into her wide, guileless eyes, he knew what he had to do.

  “I release you, Maribella. From our marriage, from our bond, with no dishonor. The fault is mine. You’ll still have access to all things Woolven. Especially your accounts.”

  And that was when he realized he’d seriously misjudged her physical abilities.

  The hand that had been resting so lovingly, so reassuringly on his cheek had become an anvil.

  She slapped the feeling out of the right side of his face.

  3

  “What the hell was that for?” Warner rubbed his cheek.

  Mari was furious. More than furious, she was hurt. His words had wounded her in a way like she hadn’t let anything cut her since she was thirteen.

  She knew it was wrong to hit him because it sure as shit wouldn’t have been okay for him to hit her.

  “I have done nothing but what was asked of me. I haven’t asked you for much. Nothing beyond what you owe a mate. I nursed you after you healed. I tried my best to be your partner. I’ve even come up here while you worship Saint Arianna, and have I judged you or asked you to be anything other than who you are? And this is what I get? I release you? Are you fucking kidding me?”

  Warner seemed genuinely confused. “I said you’d still have your accounts—”

  Which was precisely the wrong thing to say. “Do you think I give two bits of a damn about money? I have my own. I’m a freaking heiress. HEIRESS. Even wi
thout the mineral rights my father granted the Woolven pack, I could buy Woolven ten times over.”

  Her fury fizzled as quickly as it had ignited because it gave way to sorrow. To pain. To the ugly truth that no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, she was never going to be good enough.

  Not for her father.

  Not for her pack.

  And not for Warner Woolven.

  She sank back on the ground. “I did everything right, didn’t I?”

  “Of course you did,” War reassured her.

  “And you still don’t want me. Still too pretty to be of use?” She threw his previous words back at him.

  “Oh hey. That was a two way street, if you’ll recall. You said I was too old to be of use.” He eyed her with obvious censure.

  She swallowed hard. “I guess you’re right there. I didn’t mean that. You just made me angry.”

  He leaned forward. “I didn’t mean it either. I didn’t know what to do with you.”

  “What to do with me? Like I’m some sort of present you didn’t want?” Then she wilted. “I guess that is what I am.”

  “Mari, no. You’re young. You’re beautiful. You look like you should be a fairy instead of a werewolf. And I’m… old. Scarred.” He shrugged as if that word encompassed all of their problems.

  “I like scars.” She hated herself for admitting it to him. For giving him that leverage by admitting she liked how he looked. Although Mari supposed it didn’t matter now.

  “Why?” Warner seemed genuinely perplexed.

  “Because scars show you’ve fought a battle and won. You’re strong. You’re fierce. All good things to have in a mate.”

  “And so are you, but I’ll hurt you.”

  “You’re already hurting me.” She pressed her lips together. “But you can’t help how you feel. I was going to ask you to take me with you Minnesota. Let me help. Let me be your partner in all ways. I thought I could convince you that I could handle it. That we could handle it.” Tears burned behind her eyes and it was hard to swallow, but she wasn’t going to beg. She may not have a mate, but at least she could salvage a remnant of her pride.

  She got up, but he grabbed her hand again.