I wanted to cry, but that was a weakness I couldn’t afford right now. I needed to go out into this crowd and look as strong as possible. And so I sucked all of my storming emotions down and traversed the hallways, making my way outside. The second I approached my pack’s tent, I felt my knees go weak.
“Zara!” Oslo ran for me and then crashed into my stomach, wrapping his arms around my middle.
No. Not him. My gaze searched the crowd of people now in front of my tent to see that Dorian, Amara and nearly the entire pack had come.
No.
Oslo pulled back and looked up at me. “Are you surprised to see us?” he asked, giving me a huge smile.
I was in shock, my heart fluttering as I imagined my little brother watching Dorian rip out my throat.
I couldn’t speak.
Dorian saw me then and grinned. “When I heard you’d made it to the final fight, I had to be here.” He stepped over and lifted me into the air. Normally I would smile, or say something snarky but again, I was speechless.
Dorian sensed it then, something restless in my soul. He set me down, frowning, and met my gaze.
“All well, little wolf?”
I swallowed hard, glancing around at my packmates nervously.
“Let’s give them some space,” Amara said and the pack cleared the firepit area, clapping me on the back as they passed.
When it was just Cyrus and Dorian, I looked my alpha in the eyes and held his stare.
“You heard I brought one of the girls into Mud Flat pack to survive?” I asked him.
He nodded. “I felt it. Still do.” He tapped his chest.
I figured. “Axil tried to break the bond this morning and take her back. He couldn’t. It’s too strong.”
My brother let a curse word fly and rubbed the back of his neck in anxiety but Dorian just nodded. “I see.”
Did he? Did he know what I was about to do?
He opened his mouth to speak when I heard my name called and turned. One of the elder wolven advisors was standing behind me with two guards.
It was time and Dorian would find out my plan soon enough. Best not to worry him.
I turned back around and pulled the big alpha in for a hug. “You’re a good man, Dorian, and you were a great alpha,” I whispered into his ear as his arms tightened around me.
When I pulled back, he looked surprised at my words, his eyebrows knotted in the center of his forehead in confusion.
I walked over to my coach, my big brother, and pulled him in for a hug next. “Don’t let Oslo see. Keep him in the tent,” I told him and he nodded against my shoulder. Cyrus was clueless to my plan as well but he knew I was protective over my little brother and probably just thought I didn’t want him to see me get injured or kill Eliza.
After turning from my pack, I followed the guards to the fighting ring. I had barely slept, I hadn’t eaten and nausea rolled through my stomach as the crowd chanted my name. I looked up to see Axil sitting on his throne: today he wore the sharp-bladed crown of the king wolven. His brother Ansel stood beside him, glaring at me with his wife Jade at his side.
This would please his brother, to see that we would not end up together. His little brother and king would not marry Mud Flat trash after all.
I turned my attention to the center of the dirt circle to see Eliza, standing tall and beaming at me.
“No rules for this fight! Anything goes!” the elder advisor shouted behind me.
I walked right up to Eliza and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Be good to him,” I told her and she frowned in confusion at my words.
The bell rang and I spun, giving Eliza my back.
I tipped my chin high and raised my voice for all to hear. “I have no doubt I am the strongest wolf in this ring. But Eliza Green is my packmate! We forged a bond so strong even the king himself could not tear it away.”
There were shocked gasps from the onlookers and even howls as people stepped closer to me, knowing what I was about to do.
“And even though I’ve loved that man since I was fifteen,” I pointed to Axil, “I cannot hurt my pack sister.” Eliza crashed into me, wrapping her arms around me from behind, sobbing.
“No,” she said but I ignored her.
“I, Zara Swiftwater of Mud Flat pack, for—”
“I step down as king!” Axil cried out, cutting off my words and my entire body went limp. I could barely hold myself up as shock ripped through me. The crowd shared my sentiment as they wavered on their feet, gasping, booing and screaming.
Dorian was so bowled over by the king’s comment that he spun his attention away from me and we both faced Axil.
“The law states that the Queen Trial must end if a king ever steps down from duty and hands his crown over,” Axil said and then walked down from the throne and strode over to his brother and his brother’s wife. Ansel was as still as a snake before it was about to strike. Axil faced him and took in a deep breath. “I’ll give you back the title of Alpha King if you let Zara and I run away together. You will never see me again,” he told him.
I knew then that he’d planned this all along, that if it looked like I might lose he’d always been ready to do this. His voice didn’t shake, he was so calm, like he’d planned it for months.
The crowd’s boos got louder and I didn’t know if it was because they never liked Ansel and didn’t want him as king again, or if they hated Axil’s weak act of stepping down. As wolves we fought for dominance, we didn’t give it away. But as a king within the royal bloodline and no heir, at least two of them needed to stay alive until Ansel had a child.
“I give you my word,” Ansel said, looking to the royal wolven advisors who nodded one by one and relief washed over me.
The two brothers shook on it and then Axil took the sharp-bladed crown from his head and sliced his arm with it.
Ansel did the same and they shared blood on the blade. I knew in that moment that the power to control every other wolven had just passed to Ansel. He was now king.
Ansel grinned as he took the crown and placed it on his head. Axil nodded to him, walking away from his brother as if he hadn’t just given away an entire kingdom and birthright!
I peered at Dorian, wild-eyed, wondering if he would let me walk away from this. He must have known what I was about to do: to forfeit as a coward. And to run away with Axil meant I’d be leaving his pack. I’d need permission for that.
There was a softness in Dorian’s gaze, one he usually lacked. With one curt nod from him, I rushed forward into Axil’s arms and he lifted me off the ground, spinning me around.
The boos got louder and the crowd pushed in closer. They wanted their fight, not a forfeit and loss of their strongest king.
Ansel was a decent enough king but he now walked with a limp, which was seen as a weakness, and he was kind of cruel in my opinion.
“We need to get out of here,” Axil whispered to me. “We can go to Thorngate. Lucien will hide us.”
Lucien Thorne? The fae king?
I just nodded, trying to process it all as we pushed our way out of the crowd with Eliza, Cyrus, Dorian and my other packmates keeping the mass at bay.
“We don’t want Ansel as our king!” someone yelled.
“You coward!” another spat.
“King coward!”
“Queen coward!”
Queen coward, I’d earned a nickname before even becoming queen. That might be a record.
But the crowd seemed split because as many people who’d tried to rush us and attack, that many or more pushed them out of the way.
“Let them go!”
“They have honor!”
“She was loyal to her pack sister!”
“They’re mates!”
I absorbed everything going on as we made our way to the edge of the forest and the uncertainty that lay beyond. Flee to Thorngate? Leave our kind and the lands of Fallenmoore forever? It felt so wrong and yet when Axil slipped his fingers into mine, it felt so right.
I’d not really forfeited. Eliza wouldn’t be harmed. Axil was no longer king but we would be together. Then why did something feel off: like I was leaving something important behind?
Just as I thought of him, Oslo screamed my name.
I spun, pulling free from Axil as my little brother crashed into me and I wrapped my arms around him.
“Take me with you. Please, I beg you,” he pleaded, tears in his eyes.
I looked up at Axil, unsure what he would think of all this. He knew my brother was almost like a son to me, and that I’d raised him after my parents died.
Axil simply nodded once and relief rushed through me. I glanced at Cyrus and Dorian who flanked us, keeping the crowd back and they both dipped their heads in agreement as well.
“Okay, you can come,” I told Oslo and he pulled back from me with a grin, wiping at his leaking eyes.
I loved that boy too much. Axil would have to toughen him up for me because my heart was too soft when it came to him. He reminded me so much of our sweet mother.
Eliza pulled me in for a final hug. “Goodbye, sister,” she whispered, her throat clogged with emotion and then I felt her, through our bond and all of the love and respect she had for me.
“What are you going to do?”
She shrugged. “Go live in the Mud Flats and marry one of your cute single packmates?”
I laughed at that and everything felt a little bit brighter. I’d have to find a way to get word to her. I never thought this would be a possibility, that Axil would step down as king and run away with me.
I could sense Axil’s urgency; the crowd was getting restless and we needed to leave before there was an altercation.
With that, Axil grasped my hand once more and I held Oslo’s with my other hand and we walked into the woods and our unknown future together.
We were about ten steps into the dense forest when my muscles suddenly constricted and it felt like I’d slammed into a wall. I stopped abruptly, gasping as an unknown power seized control over my limbs. I knew by the shocked inhale of breath beside me that the same thing had just happened to Axil.
“No,” he breathed, slowly craning his neck to peer over at me wide-eyed.
My little brother looked up at us in confusion and I swallowed hard. “Run,” I told Oslo and dropped his hand.
“Did you really think I would let you go?” Ansel’s voice boomed behind us both and then without any effort of my own, I turned around to face him.
As a dominant wolf, being controlled by another person was literally my worst nightmare. I growled, fisting my knuckles and snarling, but it was no use. He had complete power over me.
The broken-up crowd suddenly loomed behind Ansel, my brother Cyrus included and my gaze frantically searched for Eliza and Dorian.
Why weren’t they there? Did they try to fight the king and …
Relief rushed through me when I saw them waving Oslo over to them as they snuck worried glances at their new king. Oslo wisely bolted from my side and King Ansel let him go. A small mercy.
“I gave you what you wanted,” Axil growled beside me. “Let us go.”
Ansel’s eyes sharpened. “You think I wanted you to hand me my crown?” he seethed.
My heart raced in my chest and I pulled against the invisible force holding me captive to no avail.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance, brother,” Ansel whispered, and I growled.
Ansel’s head snapped in my direction and he grinned, sending a chill down my spine. The thing that scared me the most was that his eyes lacked humanity.
“You gave me your word!” Axil roared as pelts of fur rippled down his skin but he was forced to remain upright.
Ansel tipped his head back and laughed, a hollow and empty sound. “You were a fool to believe me.”
The new wolf king then turned to a line of Royal Guards and tipped his head to them. “Bring my brother and his lover to the dungeon.”
Axil and I shared a look. Axil appeared void of all emotion then, likely retreating into the dark memories in his mind of his two years in imprisonment.
This was bad, so bad. Could Ansel do this? He’d given his word in front of the wolven advisors. Yet they just stood behind him with their heads down. Was he controlling them too? If so, it was forbidden. The advisors kept the king from making bad choices: they were never to be controlled.
Eliza, Cyrus and Dorian all glared at Ansel as he passed and then my feet were thrust forward. I was like a puppet, putting one foot in front of the other as I followed the king. Eliza growled low in her throat as Ansel passed and he stopped to look at her. “Kneel,” he taunted and Eliza bowed her head and fell to her knees forcefully.
He was abusing his power. This wasn’t what the king’s magic was to be used for. It was to break up fights, and command troops in time of war so that we could fight as if we were one being. Not this.
I wanted to scream, I wanted to tell Ansel what a monster he was but I knew Axil’s life was in his hands, as well as my own, so I kept my mouth shut.
This was not how I expected this day to end.
