Page 46 of Ascendant King

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Cade examined the vista of trees in front of him. He and Heather had spent too long going back and forth over the maps, the ones online and the old ones he had recreated from memory.

The trees in front of us looked normal, no sign of dryad intervention. This close to the road, they were sparse.

Cade had a vague idea of the dryad village location, but his original plan had been simply to walk into the woods and start shouting until the dryads either showed up or got annoyed andkicked us all out. I had been the one who insisted we see the village, insisted we check on the pups.

Heather and Gabe both approached, and I gave them their marching orders. Nia still seethed beside me, but she didn’t make any moves to counter my directions in front of the other wolves.

“We have to do it this way,” I told her after Gabe went to check on our visitors and Heather went to secure our escape route.

She gave me a flat, annoyed look but turned back to her own car, pulling out a hiking backpack.

When everyone was ready, I counted eight of us: me, Cade, Nia, Emilio, someone from Three Lakes East, Three Lakes West, Pineridge Springs, and Dos Lunas.

The representative from Dos Lunas looked around, frowning. “Are you sure this is enough to go up against dryads?”

He tried for gruff, but his voice rose in fear at the end.

“We aren’t attacking them,” I said firmly.

“They are my allies.” Cade looked at him coolly, then glanced at me, and the corners of his eyes turned up, just slightly. I was sure I was the only one who noticed. “Ourallies.”

“If you’re sure.” The Dos Lunas member shrugged. “Are we shifting or what?”

“Not yet,” I said. “In the past, the dryads have been accommodating, but I have no desire to show up to their front door naked.”

The wolf shrugged again, clearly not minding the nudity, and we began walking. At first, the trees were further apart, brush connecting them, the undergrowth so thick that we had to carefully pick our way through the forest using a path made by much smaller game.

I could hear the other wolves whispering; the other pack members seemed familiar with each other, greeting each otherby first name. Based on what I heard, they were high-ranked within their own packs.

My hackles rose. They might trust each other, but I didn’t know them yet, and I was letting them at my back, letting them guard me and my mate. I forced the natural wariness down. The best way to make enemies was to be so suspicious of allies.

“Do you know him?” one of the Three Lakes East members asked.

“Yeah. Kind of. He interrupted Gracie’s wedding when he and the mage were on the run. The only reason we didn’t kick his ass was because a mage house showed up.” The Dos Lunas wolf laughed briefly.

“House Bartlett?” the Three Lakes West member asked.

There was a pause, and then the Dos Lunas wolf said, “House Morrison.”

The wolves murmured to each other, trying to make sense of the politics. Nia brought up the rear, and I strained my ears to listen. Emilio was with her.

Like most people, when faced with her deafening silence, he felt compelled to fill it with his own words. He was telling her what had happened in Flores after my mother had been killed.

It was almost identical to what he’d already told me, but it was strange hearing him frame it for an outsider, for someone who hadn’t lived under my mother’s rule.

“You’re going to let your own people literally talk about you behind your back?” Declan scoffed. He leaned against a redwood tree up ahead, eyeing me with distaste.

“We might be walking for a while.” Cade looked around us.

The trees blotted out the sun, shading out the underbrush, leaving us with fallen logs and leafy ferns. As a group, we clumped closer together, walking side by side rather than in a narrow, single-file line.

“Do you think the dryads might not talk to us?” I asked.

If we had to actually track down their town without their help, that would be a problem. Their swath of forest was enormous, thanks to the land gifted them by House Bartlett when they had been asked to clean it up after the magical war against House Doyle.

“Theywilltalk to us.” Cade looked up at the trees again, inhaling deeply. “It just depends on when. And I’m afraid that when is going to be a while from now.”

I admired the long line of his neck, the stillness of his face when he closed his eyes. His smooth skin was painted gold by the filtered light falling from the canopy.