During their tour of the middle ring, Scout saw all kinds of people, but the thing that stood out to him the most was that they were very average. None of them had the fancy outfits and jewelry of the upper-ring socialites, and Scout thought that they didn’t really seem like shifters at all — they reminded him more of the human from their shows he watched on TV.
The middle ring lacked the haughty atmosphere of the upper ring, but in general they seemed more content than the shifters from the lowest ring. Scout couldn’t help but think of the wage gap between the rings and how much money made a difference in the happiness of the pack.
“Are you alright?” Killian asked quietly. “You’ve been so quiet.”
“Yeah,” Scout said, forcing back a sigh. “I’m just thinking about a lot of stuff.”
“Tell me,” Killian said. “It’ll help ease your mind if you don’t keep it to yourself.”
Scout smiled, but shook his head. “It’s not important right now. I don’t wanna ruin the tour. I’ll tell you later, okay?”
Killian nodded slowly. Their arms were intertwined, with Killian’s in the more dominant position. Killian tightened his grip gently on Scout’s hand to ease his nerves.
After almost two hours of touring the huge middle ring, Scout was exhausted. He was on his feet all day at his job — hisoldjob, he reminded himself — but that only involved standing, not walking constantly for hours on end.
One of the guards told Killian, with some hesitation, that it was time to move on to the lower ring. Scout wondered why the guard’s voice had taken on that tone. What was wrong with the lower ring?
Scratch that. Scoutknewwhat was wrong with the lower ring — it had its fair share of problems, being the home of the poorest caste in the pack. But hearing someone who wasn’t a part of it talk about it that way annoyed Scout. He tried not to bristle as the guard nodded to them and resumed his position at their rear.
Scout tried not to grimace as they descended the stairs to the lower ring. Even the staircase was old and rusted, but there were so many other problems here that the stairs were the least of everyone’s concerns.
“Tired of stairs?” Killian asked with a smirk. “Don’t worry, we take an elevator on the way back so we don’t have to climb all that way back.”
Scout blinked. “There’s an elevator?” He looked around, as if it was hiding in plain sight and he’d been too stupid to notice it all his life.
Killian chuckled. “Sorry, I meant there’s asecretelevator. Royalty only. You need a special keycard and everything to access it.”
“Oh.” Scout suddenly felt stupid.
“It’s built into the territory’s core and it leads directly back into the manor,” Killian explained. “It’s not in plain sight, so don’t worry if you didn’t know about it before. Not many people do.”
Scout didn’t even know there was acoreto the territory. The lowest ring was built directly on the ground and he had lived there all his life, so he didn’t really have a reason to think beyond that. He’d never thought about the logistics of the city’s infrastructure before. Getting by day to day was hard enough.
Scout was hit with the familiar smell of the lower ring. It wasn’t a particularly bad or offensive smell, just not the sunshine-and-roses of the upper ring.
Among the sparse crowd of lower ring shifters, Scout felt both at home and horribly out of place. His blood was low class, but here he was, dressed up in the finest outfit he’d ever worn, and on his arm was the crown prince himself.
Scout was born here, and had expected to die here - his crazy one-in-a-million idea of being chosen by the alpha prince had barely factored into it. All around him, the crooked old buildings and tattered unkempt shop signs were like neon lights reminding him of all he had left behind. He was hit with a strange wave of nostalgia.
“Are you alright?” Killian asked. “You’re being quiet again.”
Scout sighed. “It’s just… weird, being back here. I feel like I’m not allowed to return.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Killian said, furrowing his brows. “You’re my mate now. You’re allowed anywhere in the entire territory.”
“It’s not that.” Scout shook his head. “I just feel like I… betrayed the lower ring.”
“How so?”
Scout gazed out over the old shops. Some of the buildings were in shambles. Before, he’d had the privilege of living in the nicer part of the lower ring, but seeing the crumbling brick and debris around him made Scout feel terribly sympathetic.
“My life is better now, you know?” he said softly. “It feels… almost rude of me to come back here now, when I have more money and status. It feels like I’m spitting in everyone’s faces.”
Killian grasped his arm firmly and spun Scout so he was forced to make eye contact with him. “You listen to me,” he growled. “You aren’t some pity case I chose to spend the rest of my life with out of sympathy, Scout. There’s something about you — not your circumstances — that attracted me to you. Do you understand me?”
Scout blinked, wide-eyed, shocked at the intensity his alpha was radiating. His words were spoken cold and clear like ice, with the firm, commanding edge that he expected from royalty. As Killian’s blazing dark eyes bore into his own, Scout slowly nodded. “I understand.”
“Good,” Killian growled gently. “Now let’s get going. I have a surprise for you when we get back to the manor.”
