Page 17

–Callum–

WHILE EVERY STEP that took me further from Storm hurt, I was eager to get to Mave, praying she was all right and no one had taken advantage of her yet. Granted, my sister was a fighter and wouldn’t make it easy, but she was sorely outnumbered.

It would all depend on Tadc.

He was the only thing that stood between Mave being abused by his pack and remaining untouched, and no concept was more terrifying. Something clearly seen when he had Ceara, highlighting no one was more ruthless with females, especially if they could breed.

I could only hope I was right when I told Storm I was a good trade because Tadc was nothing if not unpredictable. But I had something he wanted, so it was worth a try.

“Well, well,”

came his lecherous voice from the misty woodland ahead not long after. “I had hoped you might come to this decision, Callum.”

When I gestured at Mave’s warriors to keep their weapons sheathed, they did. They were brave souls for coming with me but going off the condition of Mave’s woman, my sister would need their assistance getting home. Tadc could cut them down now or imprison them, but I suspected, based on my offer, he would not.

“And what decision do you think I made?”

I said, keeping my voice deadpan and fists clenched at my side rather than around the hilt of one of my weapons when he appeared ahead of me. I hadn’t seen him since the night Ceara was returned, and it took everything in me not to kill him then and there.

As large and muscular as me, his brown hair was tied back, and his near jet-black eyes remained locked on me as several of his men fell in around us. There was no wariness in his steady gaze but a maniacal sense of triumph because, as I'd hoped, I was exactly what he wanted when he realized Storm and I were fully mated.

“I am here to make a deal to ensure Mave’s safety,”

I said darkly before he could respond because I already knew his answer. He wanted me. Better still, my wolf's undying devotion. I clenched my fists even tighter, fighting the overwhelming urge to whip a dagger into his windpipe. “Let her go, and I’ll be yours to control, and we both know that will benefit you greatly because of my connection to the pups.”

“My pups,”

he corrected, sneering. “Stolen from their rightful father. For that alone, I should cut you down now.”

“But you will not.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because I’m an exiled alpha king as powerful as you, now I’ve come together with my fated mate.”

I perked my eyebrows, tempting him. “Being my original maker, if my wolf swears fealty to you, you own me, giving you access to much. Information that will be invaluable.”

Unsure how true that actually was now I was mated with Storm, I shrugged and spoke with conviction, lying with ease if it meant freeing my sister. “Or, keep Mave to breed with and hope those pups are as powerful as the ones Ceara birthed.”

I could see the greediness churning in Tadc’s eyes as he thought about it.

“Why not keep you both?”

He shrugged in return. “Would that not make the most sense?”

“’Twould if you could force such a thing from my inner beast.”

I shook my head. “But we both know you can’t. It must succumb to your rule of its own volition.”

I narrowed my eyes in warning. “And ‘twill not do that until I know my sister is safe.”

Determined to show no fear, I kept my features even, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t dread the thought of his beast owning mine. Of being beholden to such evil. My only solace was in my connection to Storm because I knew it was untouchable.

And I knew he didn’t know the extent of it.

He might be able to garner a fair bit of information when he became my alpha, but not all of it because Storm’s inner dragon protected it. She protected it, and I was hers before anyone else’s. I knew she understood, too, when I implied it earlier, but she didn’t trust it because she was so new to everything, but I trusted it and her without question.

Tadc crossed his arms over his chest and eyed me for a stretch, debating what he should do. If nothing else, he knew he couldn’t force my inner wolf to his side without its permission. He also knew the only way to do that was a show of good faith.

I needed to see Mave set free.

“Will this deal depend on her current state?”

Tadc wondered, a wicked gleam in his eyes designed to incite me just for the pleasure of it, but I didn’t bite.

“’Twill depend on her being alive and safely back with kin,”

I clarified, working to calm my inner beast because it flailed at the unlikely idea she might already be dead. As to her state, if she were alive, it had to matter little if it meant getting her out of Tadc’s lecherous hands.

Tadc eyed me for another long moment, debating how to proceed, clearly not trusting me any more than I trusted him. He was trying to figure out how connected we all were now, not only because we had been with Storm during her True Moon Shift but because he’d been with us in our fiery nightmare.

So he had to know we’d all become interlocked in ways that revealed themselves more and more by the moment and would likely only aid him if I were his to command. He had lost the opportunity to expand his pack into the future, thanks to Naya and Bain, so this offer was undoubtedly tempting.

What he stood to gain from it was enough that he finally nodded, gestured that his warriors confiscate our weapons and escort Mave’s men and me, then strode back the way he had come. Though it wasn’t easy for me or the others to hand over our blades, we wanted Mave home safely, so we did.

The moment I stepped foot on Tadc’s territory, I got a bad taste in my mouth because everything about the woodland that would typically appeal a great deal to me felt tainted. Corrupted by the beast that had made it his. Yet again, it was hard to keep my emotions at bay when more and more enemy wolves fell in around us, and I realized how busy he had been expanding his pack. How many innocent souls had been bitten against their will if it meant building his army.

I looked into the eyes of as many humans and wolves alike as I could, trying to get a feel for their emotional state, but I only saw blind loyalty. Loyalty, they had no choice but to feel.

The heart of his kingdom was more of a melding of castle and den, with a crude but functional wooden building erected over a gaping cave I imagined led to several others in the heart of the forest. I had never gotten this close, and I was glad because it had a much different feel than the Wolves of Ossary’s kingdoms. Darker and less kempt, just like its master. I tried not to cringe at the sheer number of wolves outside and inside the courtyard. All the innocent souls turned into monsters.

I homed in on Mave immediately, sitting at the base of a tree with her hands tied behind her and her head hung. Outside of the blood smears on her clothing, I could discern little other than that she wasn’t in good shape. I felt rather than saw the anguish of the warriors behind me, eager to go to her.

Tadc’s darkly amused gaze went from Mave to me, and he shrugged. “I could not say if any of my pack enjoyed her overnight, only that I kept my paws clean of her if ‘tis of any consolation.”

“Only one thing will be of consolation,”

I ground out. “Let my sister go and take me.”

I shook my head. “If not, no deal.”

“But of course.”

Tadc eyed me again for a long moment before he gestured at his men to untie Mave and let her pack take her. “Follow them to the border and report back to me once they are with the others.”

The way he said the others told me just how much disdain he had for the Wolves of Ossary, but that was to be expected given he’d been exiled just like me.

“Only you do not feel disdain yet, do you?”

Tadc eyed me with the sort of slick cunning that made a person feel dirty inside and out. “You have not had time to feel the cut of Tréan’s blade. Not really. Mayhap some pain, but not nearly all of it yet. Not as much as I will soon show you.”

Some pain? I could hardly imagine feeling more, but something about the wicked look in Tadc’s eyes told me I soon would. I would feel the dark rage of my original maker and might never break free.

“Let me see her,”

I said, keeping my voice low and threatening as Tadc’s warriors untied Mave and handed her over to one of her men. “Let me feel the breath coming from my sister’s mouth and the heart beating in her chest. When I know with certainty she is alive and safely out of your hands, then and only then will I be yours.”

Tadc nodded and ordered everyone to keep their weapons in hand when I closed the distance and took in Mave’s state. Brushing her hair back from her cheek, I flinched at her swollen features. There could be no doubt she had fought with everything in her. She still breathed, though, and I felt her heart beating valiantly against all that thought to cease it.

“Sister,”

I said softly, trying to keep the anguish from my voice. “I am so very sorry.”

“No,”

she whispered hoarsely, managing to open her eyes enough to meet my gaze. When she did, there was no mistaking her fear. “Do not do it, brother. Go back and protect our pack. Your mate. The pups.”

She swallowed hard against a parched throat. “I will survive. I will—”

“No.”

I fought back emotion and shook my head when I finally caught why she hadn’t been there the day my former mate Ceara defected from my kingdom. She was too weak to hold it back from me now, so I saw why she had no choice but to leave Ceara unattended when I asked her to watch over her.

Just as Gráinne said, Mave had been there beneath the fiery waters of Storm’s nightmare, so she knew Tadc had essentially piggybacked on me via my dream state to be part of it. Piggybacked because he had been my original maker. He hadn’t known where Storm was in time or when she was coming, only that she existed and was powerful. Worth possessing. And the only way to get to that point, with three fated mate couples harnessing such tremendous power, was for the pups to come to be.

Something only seen in a vision by our former matriarch and only shared with Mave because she had the power to let it all begin. To turn away and not watch over Ceara when she defected and ended up with Tadc. A secret too difficult to bear but crucial to keep until everyone came together.

“’Tis me who should be sorry,”

she managed, understanding I saw the truth now. All had been revealed.

While tempted to agree, I didn’t, not only because of her condition but also because none of this would have happened if she hadn’t done what she did. However terrible and sad it had been for Ceara, the pups would never have been born, and Tréan and my brothers might never have made such important connections in our quest to defeat Tadc. As sad as it all was, there had to be a great sacrifice to have come so far, and Mave had carried that terrible weight for the greater good, even if it meant the suffering of her closest friend.

“You need not be sorry.”

I came close and squeezed her hand, understanding she needed forgiveness from not just me but Ceara. I also knew she carried the strength to do as I asked when and if the time came that I was fully Tadc’s, and darkness ruled me because that was the only path forward. “You have my forgiveness, sister. Might you fare well when you return and be the first to end me on the battlefield if I cannot...”

“I will, brother,”

she choked out, squeezing my hand in return, letting me know she would end me if it meant keeping everyone I loved safe. A tear trickled down her cheek. “You have my word.”

A shiver went through her, and she shared what else I needed to hear. “I wasn’t raped last night, Callum. They were too busy fighting over me.”

Those were her last words before she was carried away, and I waited by Tadc’s side, watching in my mind’s eye until she was indeed carried off our enemy’s territory and her pack fell in around her. More than that, I watched Tadc’s warriors pull back until they returned to the courtyard, signifying Mave was safe.

“’Tis time to keep your word, Callum.”

Tadc turned to me as more and more of his pack surrounded us as far as the eye could see. “If you do not, have faith I will reap retribution in ways you dare not imagine. Ways that will ensure your mate suffers above all others. Suffers despite being protected by a dragon because I am just as connected to that dragon as you and Storm.”

The corner of his mouth curled up, and his eyes grew darkly sinister. “If not through a fiery dream, then through Storm herself during her True Moon Shift.”

I had no way of knowing what he meant by that other than the look in his crazed eyes made a shiver of warning cut through me. A shiver that told me Storm was in peril because Tadc had some hold over Broderick, the very person I charged to look after her. A mighty alpha dragon, at that.

So, in the end, even if I had decided to renege on my promise, I could not because my only hope now lay in joining forces with pure evil and praying the unique bond Storm and I shared might help me defend my pack from it.

Either way, Mave was now free of Tadc’s clutches, so I had to try. I had to embrace the darkness to make my way back to the light. To that end, knowing what Tadc expected of me, I sank to a knee and lowered my head, bracing for impact because it would not be good.

“Now that is a matter of opinion,”

he murmured, following my thoughts and clearly unconcerned about my fated mate bond. “You may enjoy coming back into the folds of your true maker. You might find it satisfying in ways you never could have imagined.”

I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth when his hand landed on my shoulder, and I was thrust back to the day Mave and I were bitten. Thrust back into pure terror until my eyes snapped open, not to Tréan looking down at me but Tadc.

Not the monster who had exiled me but the savior who brought me back.

My inner beast tried to make sense of the switch and how one had seemed so bad and the other so good, but all it felt was the pain of Tréan turning it away. Tréan not being there for it in its darkest hour when it had no choice but to seek out its fated mate. Tréan shunning it for doing what he would have done had he been in the same position.

And heartbreak raked over it all over again.

A terrible sense of betrayal.

Then it raked over my human half, too. It seized hold of us both so strongly I wondered how I could ever love Tréan again. How I could ever forgive my alpha.

“You do not need to, Callum,”

Tadc murmured. “Because your alpha forgives all your misdeeds and welcomes you back to your proper pack. Welcomes you back to those who will never turn you away.”

I wondered at the octave of his voice and the pleasure I found in it. If he meant it, and I could come back to him. If he would let me serve him and never exile me like Tréan had.

“Never,”

Tadc vowed, his rhetorical teeth sinking deeper into me along with the tremendous strength he offered as he tilted my chin until I stared into the dark abyss of his eyes. “Swear your fealty to me now, and I will never turn you away, King Callum, and alpha in your own right. I will welcome your strength, my new brother, and we will defeat all who stand in our way together.”

His dark, wolven eyes flared at me, showing me what I could not see, but he could. How Broderick had embraced Storm and made her his the moment I was gone. How their nude bodies tangled, and he slipped deep inside her, making her cry out in pleasure because she had wanted him all along.

Not me.

Only ever him.

“And we can take the dragon and make him ours,”

Tadc said softly but firmly, gripping both my shoulders as his eyes held mine. “Swear your fealty, and we will make him pay, then we will enslave him and own him so he does our bidding, making us the fiercest pack in all the land.”

I could see it so clearly now as I gazed into Tadc’s eyes. See how I had misunderstood him all along. How strong he truly was and the wonders that would be ours. But best of all, I saw us taking Storm together and making her ours in all the ways that satisfied our beasts while the dragon had no choice but to watch.

“Ta,”

I said vehemently, swearing then and there, wondering how I’d ever thought Tadc was so dark or, even worse, evil. My wolven eyes flared, and I lowered my head again, never meaning anything so much. “I swear my fealty here and now. I am yours, Alpha.”