"Dev." I put my hand over his. "It doesn't matter if the scanner works in four days or forty. Rivik gave his word. Before the pack, before Karik's wolves. An alpha's sworn oath." I'd understood enough by now to know what that meant. "If he breaks it, he loses everything. His leadership, his honour, his pack's standing." I shook my head. "He won't break it and he won’t let us leave."
Dev looked at me for a long moment.
"Right," he said finally, and the word came out heavy. "Right. Okay…"
"Okay?" Nathan's voice cut across the cave. He'd been silent long enough that I'd almost forgotten he was there, which was unusual for Nathan. "Nothing about this is okay. None of this is—" He stopped, his anger getting the best of him. "We need to leave. Tonight, if possible. Tomorrow at the latest. The scanner is close, I can fix it on the way. We keep heading east.”
“You can’t go until the Full Moon, Nathan. Rivik gave his word. You’d be endangering the pack.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” spat Nathan. “They’re fucking cavemen, Ellie. They’re not like us. They’re primitive beasts, and we have a mission to complete. One that you are a rather important part of. Dev cannot hold the power alone. Losing Stephen meant losing some of the power we had already, we can’t leave you behind.”
I looked at Nathan. At the rigid set of his shoulders and the contempt carved into every line of his face, and I thought about Daska's hands applying salve to my arm with a gentleness that Nathan had never once managed in three years. I thought about Rivik standing between me and twenty wolves with nothing but his voice and his will, protecting people he'd sworn to lead even when it cost him everything. I thought about Kessa pressing food into my hands without being asked, and Vessa correcting my grip on the scraping stone with patient, weathered fingers, and Pym running toward me with that carved boneand his enormous gap-toothed grin. Granted, I also considered punching their so called alpha in the face, and kicking him hard in the bollocks too, after what he just agreed to, but that was beside the point, and I fought to keep my rage at Rivik inside. Instead, I focused on Nathan and the disgusting things he’d said.
Primitive beasts.
"You don't get to call them that," I said.
Nathan's eyes snapped to me. "Excuse me?"
"I said you don't get to call them that." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "These people sheltered us. Fed us. Healed Dev's leg and my infection. They gave us their furs and their food and their fire during their lean season, and they saved our lives.”
"They're holding us prisoner." He stepped toward me, and I felt Dev's hand shift on my arm, a small, instinctive movement. "Don't romanticise it, Ellie. That's what you do. You romanticise things until you can't see them clearly anymore."
"Nathan." Dev's voice was quiet. Warning.
"No." Nathan's jaw tightened. He was building up a head of steam now, I could see it, the particular flush that crept up his throat when he'd decided he was right and everyone else was simply failing to understand him. "No, Dev, someone needs to say it. She's been here six weeks playing house with these people, learning their language, making herself comfortable, and meanwhile we have a mission. A mission that people died for. That Stephen died for. And now she’s quite happy to let their overgrown alpha asshole sell her off as a broodmare for another pack. Seriously, Ellie. Was the bear not enough for you? Or are you actually wanting to be fucked by a pack of twenty wolves?”
This time Rivik didn’t force Nathan to submit. I hadn’t seen him enter the cave, but I watched as he walked straight up to Nathan and punched him in the face. Nathan staggered back as Rivik’s gaze fell on him, his hand flying to his face and the trickle of blood from his lip. Rivik's gaze settled on me, and forjust a moment, something flickered behind the wall of control he always kept so firmly in place. Exhaustion, maybe. Or regret. He completely ignored Nathan behind him, his amber eyes on me the whole time.
Then he spoke. His voice was low and steady, the cadence formal, each word clipped and deliberate. I didn’t catch every word, but I got enough to get the gist. It didn’t help the anger building inside me, and for the first time in weeks, I felt that spark of borrowed power deep inside, tempting me. However logical he was, I still pictured dipping into that power and using it to burn the fucker alive. He’d sold me out.
"Ellie," Dev said quietly beside me. "What's he saying?"
I swallowed hard and focused, picking out the words I knew, filling in the gaps as best I could.
"He's talking about Karik. About the law."
Rivik continued, essentially summarising what had gone outside. He didn’t need to. I was well aware he’d agreed to pretty much hand me over to be used as a sex slave for that pack in return for leaving his alone.
I translated slowly for the others though. "Karik has made a formal claim. He'll return in half a moon cycle, two weeks roughly. Guest-right alone won't protect me. The pack can't fight a full war right now." I paused, forcing myself to keep going. "But there's a lawful solution."
Nathan's voice rang out again. "Asolution? What the hell does that mean?"
I didn't translate that. Not yet. I was still listening. He was speaking about law now, about pack customs and mate bonds and protections that came with—
Oh.
Oh, no.
My breath caught, and I must have made some small sound, because Dev's hand closed gently around my elbow.
"Ellie?" he asked, his voice low and urgent. "What is it?"
Rivik finished speaking and turned his gaze on me, waiting.
I looked at Nathan. At Megan. At Dev. All of them watching me, expecting me to translate, to make sense of this.
I couldn't make sense of it. I could barelybreathe.
