Page 16 of Traitor Wolf (Bonded by Fate Duet #1)

Chapter Eleven

' G et up!' Valkaryn roared in my mind, barely a second before the blade came for my throat.

My eyes flew open, and I rolled hard to the side, hitting the floor as steel sliced the air where my neck had just been.

“Magic her!” a strange male voice hissed behind me.

“It’s not working! She’s shielded,” a woman spat.

Shielded?

Valkaryn pulsed at my side, glowing with a violet light. She was protecting me.

Still half-dazed, adrenaline slammed through me like a jolt of lightning. I gripped her hilt and rolled onto my back just as a cloaked figure loomed overhead, blade raised .

“End her!” the woman shrieked.

I lifted Valkaryn between us, but I couldn’t swing. Only if he fell straight onto the blade would I have a shot at defending my life.

Then white fur blurred across my vision. A wolf hit the cloaked man mid-strike, taking him down in a snarl of teeth and fury.

No time to breathe.

I kicked myself to my feet as the female attacker lunged. Valkaryn lit up again, purple fire arcing through the air. It struck the woman mid-leap, revealing the bandana wrapped around her face as she stumbled back, stunned.

She hissed and dropped low, throwing out her left hand as a glowing orb of fire splashed across my chest, dousing me with heat.

I gave a bloodcurdling shriek as it dissipated, leaving me unharmed.

‘She shattered my shield. Prepare for contact,’ Valkaryn told me, and I held her up between us.

Prepare how? She can throw fire!

I braced myself, trying to recover from the shock of nearly being lit on fire, but Kaelric was already moving. He bounded over the now fallen man and slammed into the female with his full weight, knocking her into the wall so hard the stone cracked behind her as her head smacked against it .

Both attackers were down. One groaned. The other didn’t move.

My hands trembled around Valkaryn’s hilt, the rush of battle slowly fading, replaced by the dull, pounding weight of everything catching up.

Kaelric turned to me, panting. His white fur was streaked with blood, none of it his. His golden eyes found mine, checking me over, anchoring me to the present.

I gave a shaky nod.

'I’m okay. I think.'

His wolf padded forward cautiously, lowering his head. When he reached me, I didn’t move, and neither did he. We just stood there in the silence of what almost was.

Valkaryn’s presence hummed quieter now, a steady pulse against my palm. She didn’t speak, but I felt it. She was watching him. Waiting.

She was giving me the chance to decide if I could trust the wolf whose teeth had just saved my life.

I decided I might just have to. Tomorrow, my life was in Kaelric’s hands.

An hour later, the Watchers were dragging dead bodies out of our apartment.

All within the rules , they said, as if they didn’t want to bother with the paperwork.

That was two initiates down, and only five of us were left.

We hadn’t even started the first trial. It wasn’t lost on me that both initiates died in my presence.

The first one was when she tried to steal Valkaryn at the ball, and now these.

‘You didn’t kill anyone,’ Valkaryn assured me.

When the Watchers left, Kaelric and I ate a light breakfast in silence. I wanted to go see my mother before catching the train to the first trial. She was meeting me, and he knew that.

“I should never have let you take watch,” he finally said.

My fork clattered onto the plate. “I said I was sorry!”

He was never going to let me live it down.

Kaelric glared at Valkaryn. “She let him get too close to you. She’s capable of more.”

I could feel Valkaryn bristle at my side. ‘Tell him I know what I’m doing and he needs to mind his own business.’

“She said to mind your own business, and I agree.” I raised one eyebrow.

He groaned, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go meet your mother and then get on the train.”

“You don’t have to go with me,” I told him.

He barked out in sarcastic laughter. “I clearly do! ”

Ugh .

I was starting to regret this whole pairing.

“Considering you just saved my life last night, I’m going to let the attitude slide,” I told him as I stood and grabbed my packed bag.

He gave me a half-cocked grin. “Oh, is that right?”

I stepped closer, locking in his gaze. “Just this once.”

Mirth danced beneath his twinkling green eyes. “No one speaks to me like that back home.”

I matched his smile. “You look like you like it.”

He looked me up and down so slowly that heat coiled in my stomach and bloomed throughout the rest of my body. “Just a bit, little cub.”

I’d gone from little human to little cub. Was that a good thing?

“Cub? I’m a lioness,” I countered, crossing my arms against my chest for good measure.

He booped the tip of my nose with his finger. “That’s cute,” he said, and then turned and led me out of the apartment. I growled the entire way into the hall.

It was a ten-minute walk to the hole in the gate where my mother would be waiting. Halfway there, Kaelric revealed he’d filled an entire duffel bag with extra food for them. He didn’t make a big deal about it. Just tossed it to me and said it would go bad while we were gone.

We would only be gone not even two days, but I appreciated the offer, so I just nodded and thanked him.

As we turned the corner, I peered at the fence and saw… my sixteen-year-old little brother, Tyrus, waiting for me.

A stone sank in my gut, and I broke into a run. My mom would never send my brother. It was dangerous.

“Where is she? Is she okay?” I asked him as I threw myself at the bars, clutching them while I braced for bad news.

Kaelric peered from me to Tyrus as if in wild fascination.

“She said not to worry,” Tyrus mumbled, his voice barely audible, the swoop of his dirty blond hair hanging over his eyes, which were rimmed red. Had he been crying? Creator help me, he looked so much like my father right now, it was like a second punch to the gut.

“Tyrus. Why didn’t she come?” I wanted to reach through the gate and grab his ratty shirt collar and shake him .

“She’s fine,” he assured me. “She’s just got a little fever.”

I inhaled sharply. Fever.

“Rash? Cough?”

Tyrus shook his head, and I relaxed a little.

Okay… maybe that wasn’t so bad, though a fever could turn quickly in the Dregs with no doctors or healers to help.

I nodded. “I’ll skip the trial. Help tend to her and keep up her shifts.” I went to pivot and climb through the gap, but Kaelric reached out and yanked me back.

“Skip the trial? We aren’t skipping the trial!” he commanded. In one motion, he pulled me backward and yanked the backpack of food from my shoulder before tossing it through the opening.

“Food for your mother to help her heal. We will be back in two days’ time to check on her,” Kaelric told Tyrus.

My little brother eyed the wolfkin warily but nodded, bending down to pick up the pack.

I reached up and grasped the side of Kaelric’s beautifully chiseled jaw and glared into his wild green eyes. “You don’t tell him what to do. You don’t tell me what to do. Understand?”

As if watching a watercolor painting, his eyes went from forest green, bleeding through with color, until it was golden honey .

“Take your hand off my face if you want to keep your fingers,” he growled.

“Creator!” Tyrus hissed, stepping back a pace.

I wanted to challenge Kaelric’s threat, to squeeze his jaw harder, but the memory of my broken arm had me letting go.

“You want to get your family out of the Dregs?” He leaned in closer to me. “To raise them up to Elite status overnight? Then you have to get on that train with me right now and go to the trial.”

“I don’t want magic at the expense of my mother dying!”

“It’s a fever, Brynn. No cough, no rash. It’s just a fever,” Kaelric pleaded with me.

“Fevers take people in the Dregs. Fevers turn to blood sickness, and even if my mother survives, her jobs will replace her without a stand-in.”

“So make your brother go in her place.” He gestured to Tyrus.

I laughed. “He’s already going in mine!”

He sighed. “Who’s the next eldest?”

“Mira. She’s twelve . And my mother’s jobs are specific, Mira can’t handle it.”

“Didn’t you say you have a bunch of cousins and aunts and uncles?”

I wanted to throttle him. “They all have their own jobs, their own kids to feed. ”

He grimaced. “Fine. I’ll call in a favor. Someone to cover your mother’s jobs until we get back tomorrow night.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You know someone in Aerlyn who will take my mother’s day and evening shift? They will have to know how to run an industrial sewing machine.”

“Yes. But we have to go now ,” he warned.

I eyed my brother and the red rims around his eyes. “It’s just a fever?” I asked him.

He chewed his lip. “Well, and a little rattle in her chest I heard just before I left.”

Dizziness washed over me.

Rattle in her chest.

No.

Creator no.

That was worse than a cough. The death rattle, we called it.

I surged forward to slip through the gate and run to my mother, when two hands clamped my upper arms, yanking me backward.

I slammed into Kaelric’s chest, and he whispered into my ear: “You have to come now. Or this is all for nothing, we both lose. I can’t wait another five years, and I cannot lose everything.”

“Let me go!” I struggled against him, but he began to drag me backward .

Tyrus peered at me, panicked, clutching the backpack of food to his chest.

“I’ll send someone to help your mother and take her shifts!” Kaelric called out to my brother. “I promise!”

Tyrus looked so small, so terrified, that for half a second I envisioned grabbing Valkaryn and shoving it into Kaelric’s heart.

“You bastard. I hate you,” I turned and growled up into his face.

He peered down at me, sadness creeping across his features. “That’s not ideal, but it is what it is.”

He dragged me away from my brother. I felt so stupid to have trusted him. He told me day one that he would do anything to win, because it meant he got this sword on my hip. And now I knew that anything included the expense of my family.

But I knew a small part of what he said was right. If I wanted to save my family from a lifetime in the Dregs, I’d have to enter the trial. Still… I’d rather live life in poverty than lose my mother. But what could I do besides keep her hydrated and take her shifts? I wasn’t a doctor.

“If my mother dies, I’ll carve your heart from your chest,” I told him as I jerked out of his grasp and walked beside him. He released me, seeing that I was being somewhat cooperative .

“If your mother dies while we are gone, I’ll throw myself over your blade,” he vowed.

“What a stupid thing to say. I don’t believe a word out of your mouth,” I snapped.

His lips were set into a firm line as he ignored me and then began jogging towards the train. He didn’t even allow me a proper goodbye with my brother.

We barely made it into the back car before it started moving with a lurch. I fell forward, and Kaelric reached out to steady me.

“Don’t touch me!” I growled at him. I didn’t care if he saved my life last night. I hated him right now.

Some of the nearby initiates and their wolfkin snickered, and Kaelric let go of me immediately, his jaw clenching.

“You said you would get someone to help my family.” My tone was sharp.

He peered at the four others in our car. They were sitting in a luxurious booth, playing a card game. Kaelric’s gaze flicked to an open door. Pulling me into the private room with a sleeping bed, Kaelric shut the door.

“I will,” he promised.

“How can you? We’ve already left town? You didn’t speak to anyone or send a courier.

You lied to me!” I spat, rage flushing through my body hot and fast. I could strangle him right now.

He rushed us onto this train without barely giving me any time to think, and now I was going to lose my mother.

I eyed the exit, wondering if I jumped out now, how long it would take me to get back to my family.

Little patches of fur bloomed out of Kaelric’s skin as he glared at me through yellow eyes. I scowled back at the wild beast within him.

I laughed. “Aww, your little wolf is mad I’m yelling at you? Well, tough crap!” I pulled my blade, feeling at the end of my rope, thinking of my mother with a death rattle in her chest and a fever on her skin. “I’m mad too. My mother is sick, and you made me think you would go and get help, and?—”

The look in his eyes stopped me dead. The power I’d felt before washed over the entire room, so thick that I felt the urge to take a knee before him and bow my head. A whimper formed in my throat.

‘You insolent little human,’ he spoke into my mind.

‘I don’t need a courier. I don’t need to speak with words or send letters.

I have someone en route to your mother’s now.

Someone I trust. I did not lie to you, but if you ever pull that sword on my wolf again, I am not liable for what he does to defend me. ’

He spun and left the room, slamming the door so hard the casing cracked.

I staggered backward, falling on my butt as I hit the bed .

He must have spoken into the mind of one of his friends…

a magical gift I had forgotten he possessed.

I stared at the blade in my hand and knew I’d made a horrible mistake.

Cassian had said that in order to survive this next trial, Kaelric and I would have to trust each other. And we clearly did not.

I was probably about to die.

Awesome.