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It was unthinkable.

Which meant…

“Yes,” he said, sliding down off the window ledge to stand upright, at his full height. He realized, absently, that Bjorn was the only person in the room taller than him, now. Somehow, unnoticed, he’d caught up with and then edged out Erik by a half-inch. “I would take him.”

Erik looked disappointed. He sighed. “Leif, we’ve talked about–”

“No. You have told me you don’t like or trust him, and I have heard you. But you still don’t understand what it means to be a wolf. To be a pack.”

“Leif.” A teacup thumped down on the desk. “The disrespect you’re showing your uncle and king is unacceptable,” Revna admonished. “This isn’t like you. You aren’t–” She fell silent when he shifted his gaze to her, and it was an ugly, squirming feeling in the pit of his stomach to realize that he frightened his mother these days.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” he said, stiffly, “but I’m behaving exactly like myself. Myself as I amnow.” Back to Erik, while Revna gaped at him, he said, “Understood, Your Majesty.” Although nothing was understood between them. He pressed his fist over his heart, and gave a quick bow, before striding from the room.

“Wait a moment, lad,” Birger said.

Bjorn tried to grip his sleeve – but Leif was too fast, and was through the door and out into the corridor before any of them could take a proper hold of him. The last face he glimpsed was Oliver’s, writ with a worry unlike that of his blood relatives: the worry of someone standing on the shore watching a ship founder at sea. An observer of a disaster.

Leif found that left another growl bubbling in his chest.

He’d nearly reached the stairs when he heard rushed footsteps trying to catch up to him. Had it been the thump of a man’s heavy, booted tread, he would have kept going. But he recognized the whisper of his mother’s soft, lambskin indoor booties, and he halted, and turned, reluctantly. “Mother,” he began…and then caught sight of her face as she drew up before him.

She was breathing hard from the jog down the corridor, gripping her skirts in one ringed hand, and her face was pale, and drawn, expression nauseated. Tears glimmered in her eyes, ready to spill over at any moment.

“Wait,” she said, breathless, and lifted her free hand in an attempt to stay him. “Leif, darling, just – wait. A moment. Please.” She bent forward and braced both hands on her knees, gasping.

“Are you all right?” He reached to touch her, but hesitated, unsure if it would be welcome. “What’s–”

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” she said in a strained voice. “Only…trying not to be sick all over your boots.”

“Oh.”

He could sense the babe; a slight shift in her scent, a slow-blooming sweetness that hadn’t been there before. A tiny heartbeat that could have been dismissed as a distant fluttering of moth’s wings, if he hadn’t known better. He found it disconcerting, this evidence that his and Rune’s mother was about to become someone else’s mother, too.

Finally, she blew out a last vocal breath and straightened, even paler, sweat shining on her brow. She smoothed her hair back and gazed at him with a forced sternness that quickly melted into desperation.

“Leif. Sweetheart.” She took one of his hands between both of hers, her palms clammy. He’d thought her touch would be hesitant, but it was as sure and firm as ever. He didn’t expect to find any comfort in it, now that everything was different, but found that he did. At least a little. “I know,” she started, and shook her head, squeezing his fingers in her cool, damp ones. “No, that’s not right, Idon’t knowwhat it feels like to be you right now. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be able to shift into awolf. You’ve changed, and I don’t blame you. Anyone would have.”

“Mother–”

“No, let me say this. Please.” Another squeeze of his hand; she clung to him as if afraid he’d slip away. He couldn’t say it was a fear unfounded.

She looked down at their linked fingers a long moment, and drew an unsteady breath. When she lifted her face again, her tears had receded, and her jaw had set at a stubborn angle very like her brother’s. “Erik loves you dearly – never doubt that he does – but he doesn’t have children of his own. There are layers to the bond between a parent and an offspring that he cannot fathom. He held you and Rune as babes, yes, but always with the knowledge that you weren’this. Not in the most immediate and intimate way.

“I know it isn’t the same, the bond that you and Ragnar share.”

All the air left his lungs in a rush, surprise like a shove against his breastbone.

“But I know that…the way you’ve been acting…the way you want him kept close and won’t cast him aside the way Erik wants you to…there is some sort of…” She made a face. “Ownership there. He bit you, and birthed you into this new life that you lead–”

“He’s not my father,” Leif rushed to say, perhaps too quickly. “I don’t see him that way.”

“I know.” She smiled, small and sad. “But that doesn’t change the fact that he’syours.” She lifted her brows in silent question, and Leif could only swallow, which was answer enough. “Erik doesn’t understand that, but I think I do. It doesn’t mean I like it – but sometimes things like that are unchangeable. We all must grow used to the idea.”

His throat and face felt warm. In truth, he wasn’t sure he wanted her acceptance. It seemed better, somehow, to remain an outcast amongst his family, rather than be loved for the eccentric, pitied fool ruled by the changing of the moon and the pull of scents from the forest.

“But Erik isn’t wrong that you should be careful,” Revna continued. “Bond or no bond, Ragnar is and will always be a liar and a trickster. Betrayal is woven into the very fabric of him. Erik’s also not wrong when he says he wants you to wait and march with the army. This is no border skirmish or clan war: this is the most powerful, terrible enemy anyone on this continent has ever faced. If we’re to go to war, we must do so wisely.”

She tucked her chin and looked up at him through her lashes, trying to drive her point home.