Page 16

–Storm–

“YOU NEED TO come,”

Gráinne said into our minds, jolting us awake after making love more times than I could count in a small cave in Mave's Den of Dens. “Especially you, Callum. Straight away.”

Trying to get my bearings after a lustful night in my mate’s arms, I frowned when he pulled me up from our grassy bed and chanted us back into clothing. I could tell by his expression he was back where he’d been last night, worrying about his sister and frustrated he had fallen asleep when Mave was out there somewhere.

“What is it?”

Callum asked, alarmed, but Gráinne gave no response.

“It’s not the pup,”

I assured him as he sheathed the Viking blade. I was surprised by how much more connected I felt to the pup this morning.

“I know.”

He sheathed more blades, not just on himself but on me. “I feel it, too. All who were with you during your True Moon Shift do.”

Brushing a finger along my jaw, he clearly cherished me even as he feared Gráinne’s call. “’Twas a powerful thing for all of us being in your presence during such a monumental shift.”

Though I had been concerned last night when he told me how vital everyone would be to me and my wolf, I had become too consumed with soothing his worry over Mave to broach a scary truth. “Tadc was there too, Callum, as were many of his pack members. Too many.”

“I know,”

he said softly, taking a moment to cup my cheek when a shiver of dread raced up my spine, and I swallowed hard. His inner wolf flared as he gazed into my eyes, showing me the strength I needed to see. More than that, lending me strength as only he could. “’Twill not matter in the end, though. Not once he is defeated.”

When I hesitated with uncertainty, he prompted me to respond. “You understand that, ta? You understand he will be defeated, and you need never fear him again?”

I managed a shaky nod because I knew he needed to see it. More so, he needed me to believe it, and I would for him. I had killed for the first time last night and would again when the time came...when war came because it was close, and I was never more certain of it than I was at that moment. Never so certain, one way or another, that things would happen very quickly now. Just as quickly, if not quicker, than Callum and I coming together.

“I mean it,”

Callum vowed, his steady gaze never leaving mine. “He will be defeated if ‘tis the last thing I do, and you will be safe. I promise you that. Promise you...”

I didn’t need to ask him why he trailed off when I felt not just Gráinne’s insistence that we come but Uncle Conner’s and Broderick’s. The pup was safe, but something bad had happened.

We wasted no more time talking but headed back into Mave’s main den to find it mostly empty, save Broderick and a handful of warriors standing guard over the pup.

“What is it?”

Callum looked from the exit to Broderick. “What’s happening?”

“Someone comes.”

Broderick’s narrowed eyes remained trained on the mouth of the cave. “We dinnae know if ‘tis a ruse, but someone comes, and everyone is at arms.”

“Understood.”

Urging me to stay with my Scottish friend and the pup, Callum nodded once at Broderick and headed outside.

When Broderick arched an eyebrow at me in question, wondering if I would heed Callum’s request, I shook my head and followed my mate. He might have considered hiding me away to protect me, but again, I was no coward. I stuck by those I loved and protected them the best I could.

“’Tis Mave’s warriors,”

Gráinne said softly, her eyes trained on the forest ahead when I joined everyone. The rising sun ignited low-hung woodland fog drifts, making it hard to see. “Not all, but some.”

“And you have not approached them because you suspect an ambush,”

Callum deduced based on what Broderick had said.

“’Tis best to assume given what we protect.”

Callum was about to ask more, but he seemed to sense something, cursed under his breath, and bolted forward when the distant figure of Mave’s woman became visible through the drifts.

“Oh, God,”

I gasped, my chest tightening in fear when I realized blood dripped down her face.

“Rally around the pup,”

I said, ordered, everyone, racing after Callum. “Now.”

I didn’t need to linger to know they listened despite wanting to protect Callum and me just as much. They would do whatever I asked because our bond was growing, and I was right. The pup had to take priority above all things and be protected above all others.

“They might listen, but not me yet, peanut,”

Uncle Conner grunted, sticking by my side. “I haven’t watched over you this long just to back down now.”

While tempted to be a little more firm in my order because I knew my inner beast could do it, I allowed him to stick with me. My fear for Mave’s woman grew when she staggered into Callum’s arms, and he scooped her up, ordering us back inside, including a few pack members who had returned in slightly better shape.

“’Tis just Mave’s pack that I can see,”

Callum said to Gráinne when we went back inside. He nodded thanks to everyone for putting the pup first when it wasn’t an easy request, especially for Mave’s pack members who were already here.

“Take a moment,”

Callum said softly, sitting in front of the fire with Mave’s woman on his lap. Tilting a skin of water to her lips, he encouraged her to drink before he wiped away her tears, manifested a warm, wet cloth, and gently cleaned her face of blood. His tenderness and concern were admirable, considering how worried he was about Mave—not just worried but terrified.

“When you are ready,”

he went on, “tell us what happened.”

Clearly trying to rally her emotions, Mave's woman offered a jerky nod before finally replying.

“They got her,”

she managed hoarsely, clenching her jaw against not just her external but internal pain as more tears slipped down her cheeks. “They took Mave, and they killed our men...”

Feeling her pain as if it were my own, I bit back tears, swallowed hard, and crouched in front of her. Perhaps I should have held back and appeared a stronger leader because I sensed more and more that’s how everyone looked at me, but that wasn’t how I worked. Not when someone was in so much pain.

“I’m so incredibly sorry.”

Trying not to get overwhelmed by the fear spiking through Callum for his sister, I wiped away another tear from her woman’s cheek and looked at her with all the compassion and sadness I felt for her loss. “I promise you we’ll see your loved ones properly mourned, but first, we need to get Mave back and anyone else they might have taken. Anyone else that—”

“There was no one else,”

she said softly, her voice broken as she looked at Mave’s pack members who had remained with us. “Those with me are the only survivors outside of Mave who...”

I didn’t blame her for not being strong enough to finish her sentence, given she had lost her entire family in one fell swoop. Both men and Mave. All gone, or so most would conclude, despite Mave being taken because there was no worse fate for a wolf in heat, never mind one of Tréan’s top alphas. I didn’t need to ask what would happen to her to know it would be horrific before Tadc used her as leverage.

“’Tis all right,”

Callum soothed, stroking her hair as she wept. His expression was fiercer than I had ever seen it when it swept around the cave at all who shared in the sorrowful moment before settling on the fire instead of me, telling me all I needed to know.

Our tender moments coming together as fated mates would have to take a backseat to who he was at heart, and it returned with a ferociousness that explained why he’d become an alpha king. That fierceness, at the moment, was a calm, level mind despite his intense inner turmoil. A level mind coming to conclusions that formed a pit in my stomach before he even put voice to them.

I started to shake my head no, but it was too late. Callum looked from Gráinne and Uncle Conner to Broderick and the pup, who sat eyeing Mave’s female with sad droopy ears, to me, his tone gentle yet commanding enough to let me know his mind wouldn’t be swayed.

“I will be going to Tadc.”

His gaze lingered and softened on me before it hardened, and he spoke to everyone again. “My queen no longer holds the appeal she once did to our enemy now we are mated, but I still do. Having been exiled, I will be worth more to Tadc than Mave. Of this, I have no doubt.”

Though tempted to deny him aloud and at the top of my lungs because my heart was already breaking into a thousand pieces at the thought of what he was about to do, him calling me his queen stopped me...stilled me. I realized, though we weren’t married, so I wasn’t technically his queen, we were well beyond marriage to a place born of fated mates. To a union that encouraged my inner beast to behave as I would want him to if our situations were reversed.

A place made of strength and respect.

Of standing by each other’s side no matter what, even if it took us away from one another.

So, somehow, some way, I found the strength to bite back tears, straighten my back, and nod in return that he had my support even though I was crumbling inside. I nodded because everyone who had supported me, us, last night needed to see we supported each other whatever might come. They had put their faith in us, so they deserved only the best.

And the best, sadly, was Callum’s sacrifice.

“Surely, this is not the only solution,”

Gráinne fumed not long after as we sat alone in a small cave preparing for Callum’s departure, trying to come up with a solid strategy when, in all honesty, given the monster we dealt with, there wasn’t one. Callum had decided to leave at noon when Tadc and his pack were at their weakest, so we were down to a few short minutes.

“Yet it is the only solution,”

Callum said softly, scratching behind the ear of the pup curled up on his lap. His gaze rarely left me where I paced before the fire, much like Adlin was in the habit of doing. “While Mave might be valuable for her rank in the Wolves of Ossary as Tréan’s sister and most certainly because she’s in heat, I am Tréan’s exiled brother, which leaves me especially vulnerable.”

“Right,”

I muttered under my breath. “Because you’ve been shunned by your maker and returned to the wolf who first bit you, you’re more susceptible to doing his bidding. Not just that, but you’ve bonded with your fated mate, so you’re more powerful than ever.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Power he could harness against the Wolves of Ossary, by the way.”

“All speculation, peanut.”

Uncle Conner gave me a look that was half worry, half get it together. Stop thinking with my heart but my head. “What’ll happen, and we’ll damn sure see it done, is Callum will give himself over. Then, once we get Mave back, we’ll attack.”

He shrugged. “Plain and simple. No need to overthink.”

“Yet there is,”

Broderick said, eyeing Callum with a new level of respect, saying things as he saw them because they needed to be said. “I might not know much of your enemy, but I’ve garnered enough to know Tadc will not be that foolish. When Callum offers himself up, he will want assurances. Deals struck.”

“I imagine he would,”

my uncle grunted, acknowledging he came from that sort of world too, in the mafia, but had hoped, for my sake, it might be more black and white.

“What sort of deals?”

I asked tentatively, pretty sure I didn’t want to know.

“Callum’s sworn devotion to Tadc,”

Gráinne replied grimly. “Now he’s exiled, that means more than you might think.”

“There won’t be any swearing loyalty without truly meaning it,”

I realized softly, searching Callum’s eyes because they rarely left my face. “Your inner beast would be beholden. He would become your new alpha.”

I could hardly believe it, given Tadc had bitten him first. “How fucking ironic.”

I didn’t curse as a rule, but the moment more than called for it. If that weren’t enough, I knew Tadc might just as swiftly kill him.

“Or castrate him,”

Uncle Conner muttered under his breath, pulling all of our frowns his way. Even the pup whimpered and tucked his tail between his legs protectively.

“What?”

Uncle Conner shrugged, blunt as always. “Sorry, but that’s not a long shot if you’re the enemy and you want to send a real message to your adversary about what you’re capable of, given he’s the head alpha’s brother.”

He gestured at me. “Or maybe even if you still want to get the girl in the end because you’ve got the power to breed, and her fated mate no longer does.”

“Not cool, uncle.”

I frowned at him. “Seriously?”

“He’s not wrong,”

Callum murmured, setting the pup aside. He stood and said everything I needed to hear, whether I liked it or not because I had no choice. He, we, had no choice but to face this together.

“As you know full well, Tadc is the most evil, corrupt, sinister person any of us has ever encountered, so ‘tis best to treat this situation realistically.”

Callum closed the distance and cupped my cheek, honest in a way I needed him to be. “Whilst I think your uncle tends to look at the worst-case scenario due to his years in organized crime, anything is possible, but I suspect ‘tis more probable Tadc will want to make me his own.”

He gave me a pointed look with a strange little twinkle in his eyes I didn’t understand. “Yet it could very well work against him in the end, ta?”

“No, ta,”

I managed, fighting back emotion because I didn’t like any of this, and neither should he. I didn’t want him anywhere near that monster. Sure, him possibly getting castrated was unthinkable but survivable. I would stand by him and love him always. Him becoming Tadc’s or, worse yet, losing his life? Forget it. My heart couldn’t handle that. Refused to.

“What do you mean work against him?”

I shook my head, increasingly angry at his casual acceptance of all this. Yes, he was doing a good thing, and I would do the same in his position, but still. “I don’t understand. I don’t—”

“Shh, anamchara,”

he said softly, reeling me close and putting a finger to my lips, his pale amber gaze pulling me even closer in a way his physical body never could. “There’s no need to fret because I am not gone, nor do I intend to be.”

He searched my eyes. “Not when I have the power of my fated mate inside me. Not when her strength is my strength and mine, hers.”

I hated I didn’t feel as strong as he needed me to be, so I rallied it to the best of my ability when I realized what he meant. What he alluded to. Rallied it forth like I would time and time again as long as he needed me to in this life and every one to follow.

“You’re especially valuable because you have me in you,”

I said softly, seeing it clearly, however much I might not like it. “As I have you in me.”

“Ta.”

He brushed his lips across mine and offered a soft smile, making my heart flip because I adored his smile. “And I love you too, Storm,”

he murmured, having caught my thoughts. “More than you can imagine, and that—”

he rested his hand over my heart— “will keep me alive.”

Though I hated what he was doing, I understood his reasoning and would have done the same, but it didn’t ease the ache in my heart when we walked him outside a short while later, with the grey pup leading the way.

Not surprisingly, understanding the sacrifice he was about to make and that Callum might never come back, all awaited us in the small clearing beyond Mave’s cave. I bit back tears yet again when all fell to a knee and lowered their head whether Mave’s pack or not. When all showed Callum the respect due him.

“Rise, my friends,”

he implored. “While I appreciate your devotion and thanks, we are all equals here. What I do now brings us closer to defeating our enemy.”

He looked at each and every one of them, undoubtedly an alpha king, no matter what happened to him going forward. “I task you with one last thing. Might you see it through even though you owe me no fealty.”

He gestured at me and the pup. “See them back to my castle and safely into the hands of our alpha, above all alphas and maker, King Tréan, and his mate, Queen Kaia. You are not exiled yet for being in my presence, so there’s still hope. And in that hope, I need you to find courage and bring them back. Keep them safe.”

I had no idea I was shaking my head until Callum sank to a knee in front of me, lowered his head in supplication as was the way of the wolf, and held out the Viking sword on the flat of his palms. “I pray you take this and protect all with it in my absence, my fated mate and love. My soulmate, anamchara.”

He raised his head and met my eyes. “My queen, if you but say yes now so I can hold onto—”

“Yes,”

I managed hoarsely, falling to my knees in front of him. “Of course, yes, so come back to me, husband.”

I pressed my forehead to his and whispered, “Please come back to me.”

“I will, Storm,”

he promised, tilting my chin until our eyes were aligned, swearing it with everything in him. “You have my word.”

Before I could tell him I would hold him to it or else, he closed his lips over mine and kissed me gently, lovingly, before pulling away and helping me to my feet, ensuring I had a solid hold on the blade.

Next came Gráinne, embracing him tightly before she held him at arm’s length, scowled fiercely, and ordered rather than asked. “Save your sister and come home safe.”

Uncle Conner nodded once at him, pride in his eyes. “What she said.”

Broderick clasped Callum’s arm, hand to elbow, looked him in the eyes, and nodded once as well. “Stay strong, friend. I’ll keep them safe.”

Knowing he referred to me and the pup and having conquered his unease with my Scottish friend, Callum nodded in return. “I will hold you to that.”

Next came the pup, handling himself rather adult-like when he didn’t race over but lowered in submission, acknowledging Callum’s rank before rubbing up against him affectionately.

“You take care of her too, little one.”

Callum scratched behind his ear before he reeled me into his arms one last time, kissed me soundly, and then strode into the woodland alongside a few of Mave’s stronger pack members without another word or a backward glance, which was probably for the best so he wouldn’t see my tears.

“’Twill be all right, my friend.”

Broderick rested a hand on my shoulder as I watched Callum fade into the misty woodland. “He is not only strong but determined to get back to you, so fear not.”

Yet I did with all my heart and soul and with good reason, as it turned out.