When the last of the Wolves has fallen asleep, the alpha stands.
Up, he mouths, gesturing with his head.
He holds out his hand. I frown, but cautiously, I take it. I wince when the sharp stones dig into my already sore feet. The alpha’s eyebrows dip. He puts a finger over his full lips, then scoops me up again.
This time, I do not protest for fear of waking the others.
He takes me to his horse, tied to a tree a short way from the sleeping pack, and puts me in the saddle before mounting behind me. Before I can ask him what’s going on, we’re riding away from the others.
I look over my shoulder. Only Ryan stirs, but when the alpha pushes his finger to his lips, he nods and settles back down beside Becky.
“Where are we going?” I ask when the camp is a small dot on the other side of the loch.
“We’ll be making the rest of the journey back alone,” he whispers roughly against my cheek. “I won’t have them threatening you.”
“You can’t just tell them to leave me alone?” I say. “I thought you were supposed to be the big bad alpha.”
He lets loose a quiet laugh. “Aye. I suppose I am. But what did you notice about their kilts?”
I think of the different patterns the eight men were wearing—some blue, some green, and only Ryan’s red like the alpha’s. “You’re from different clans,” I say. “You’re not their alpha.”
“No, I’m not. And while some respect my status, others. . . less so.”
“Like Magnus,” I say bitterly.
“Aye,” he agrees darkly. “And if he were to directly challenge me, I couldn’t let it stand. But when I’d killed that despicable prick, it would really damage what we’re trying to do here in bringing the clans together. It’s for the best that we make our own way.” He pauses. “Because I really want to kill that despicable prick.”
Something warms in me at that—though I realize it’s not very ladylike to revel in the idea of someone being killed.
“Where are we going?” I ask, my chest feeling a little looser.
His arm tightens around my waist. “I’m taking you to the Wolf King.”
A spark of panic ignites inside me. Curiosity pulses through me, too. “Who is the Wolf King?”
“You’ll see.”
“And what? You’re just going to hold me for ransom for something you think Sebastian has stolen from you?”
“Aye.”
“What do you think he has?” I sigh, and my breath mists in the darkness before me. “What exactly is going on?”
Chapter Eight
“Do you know the story of the Elderwolf?” the alpha asks.
Away from the camp, the night is black as pitch. I can barely see, but I can hear the wind stirring the water of the loch we ride beside, and smell the rain-drenched evergreen trees and the masculine scent of the man behind me.
“The first wolf?” I say. “Yes. Everyone knows about that.”
He lets the silence extend, waiting for me to fill it.
“He conspired with the Moon and betrayed the Sun and the first men,” I say. “He was cursed to roam the earth on four legs, and live in a manner as beastly as his actions were.”
The word “beastly” slips out. It is the word the High Priest always uses when he tells this story. With the alpha as my only audience, alone together in an unfamiliar kingdom, I wonder if I should have been more careful with my word choice.
“Aye. I suppose you would tell it that way in the Southlands.” He merely sounds pensive. “It’s true, we were cursed. But that’s not quite the way the story goes.”
He shifts behind me on the horse, and his thigh brushes against mine. I sit straighter.
Even if I bring valuable information to my father when I am free, he will disown me if he ever finds out I’m sitting with a wolf’s arm resting on my lap.
The alpha gently nudges me back again.
“The Elderwolf lived here long before the first men arrived,” he says, “when all kinds of ancient dangerous creatures roamed the earth. The Moon—or Ghealach as we call her—would watch him as he endured. Impressed by his strength and his will to survive, she fell in love with him. Now, some say the Moon herself was a wolf, while others say the Wolves were merely her favored ones, but whichever is true, she would send her creatures to protect him.”
The alpha’s voice is low and soothing, and I find some of the stiffness in my limbs softening as the darkness wraps around us.
“He began to leave her gifts and offerings, to thank her. And so began a secret courtship that lasted many years. They fell deeply, and irrevocably, in love.”
No one has told me a story since my mother passed, and I relax against his chest.
“When the first men invaded the Northlands, the Elderwolf was gravely injured. The Moon left her post in the sky to come to him—though it was forbidden. She shared her wild and dangerous power with him, and he was able to transform—to heal, and to seek vengeance on those who had tried to kill him.” I hear the smile in his voice. “It was a blessing.”
“A blessing? You said you were cursed.”
“Aye, we were. But the ability to transform into a wolf was not the curse.”
“So what was the curse?”
It is fascinating to hear this story from the alpha’s perspective. In the south, our religious texts tell us the power to shift was the punishment for the Elderwolf’s betrayal and the story ends there.
In the north, it seems, there is a whole other chapter.
“The Elderwolf embraced his new power,” he continues. “You see, it felt as if the wolf was part of him all along. And perhaps it was. Perhaps that was why he and the Moon were drawn to one another in the first place. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Because the Sun is a jealous and vengeful goddess.”
I flinch. If I am honest with myself, I have had blasphemous thoughts about the Goddess of the Southlands. Usually while being made to repent for my sins by the High Priest.
But to voice those thoughts aloud. . .
“When the Sun found out, she set out to punish them both. The Moon was banished. She was given to the God of Night to be locked within his prison in the sky. And the Elderwolf? Well, the wolf inside him was caged—only ever able to break free of his chains when the Moon was the closest and her power could reach him.”
“On the night of a full moon.” The wind rustling through the trees almost swallows my words.
“Aye.”
My eyebrows knit as I piece together what he’s telling me, and why he’s telling me.
“You’re saying the Elderwolf was once able to change whenever he wanted,” I say. “That the curse wasn’t that he had to transform into a wolf, but that the power was taken away from him.”
“Aye.” The alpha’s voice comes out low and dark. “But the Sun had underestimated the power of the Moon’s love. So distraught to have been parted from him, to see him suffer from her prison in the sky, she ripped out her own heart. She cast it down to the earth so he could keep it, and he could always be close to her power.”
I frown. “And he found it?”
“He did. It landed in the center of Glen Ghealach, high up in the Northlands, and created the valley itself. And when he found it, he kept it close. Until one day, the Sun led the first men to him. Though he fought bravely, though he protected the heart that had been entrusted to him, there were too many of them. He was slaughtered, and the Moon’s heart was stolen.”