She looks up from her book, and those pale blue eyes study my face with the wariness that never quite leaves her. “That sounds ominous.”
I set aside the rabbit and wipe my hands on a rag before turning to face her. “We’re running out of options here. The game is thinning out, and I’ve already foraged everything useful within a safe distance. Living off whatever scraps the forest provides isn’t sustainable, not for much longer.”
“So we move to a different location.”
“And go where? I know this territory well enough to find temporary shelter, but temporary is the key word. Thornridge scouts will widen their search eventually, and every day we spend running is another day we’re not solving the actual problem. We can’t keep doing this indefinitely.”
Caelan closes her book and sets it on the table. “Why not?”
“We need allies. Real ones, with resources and territory and the ability to protect us from an entire pack that wants us dead. I want to contact the Badlands packs. Grayhide, Ambersky, and even Llewelyn if they’ll have us. I have intelligence about Thornridge operations that could be valuable to them. Troop positions, supply routes, and the locations of hidden caches throughout the region. I know where Mordaunt keeps his emergency reserves and which lieutenants are loyal to him versus which ones follow out of fear. Information like that could save lives if another attack comes.”
“You want to trade secrets for protection.”
I pull out the chair across from her and sit down to bring myself to her eye level. “The packs in this valley have been fighting Thornridge for over a year now. They’ve lost wolves, and they’ve had their territories threatened multiple times. They would pay a high price for the kind of information I can provide, information that could help them anticipate Mordaunt’s next move and counter it before more wolves die.”
“And what makes you think they won’t just kill you the moment you show your face?” Caelan’s voice carries an edge that wasn’t there a moment ago. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was worried about me. “You’re Thornridge, Patrick. You might have defected, but that doesn’t erase what you were or what you did. These packs have been burned by Thornridge wolves before. Bastian infiltrated their exchange program and nearly destroyed the alliance they’d been building. Why would they trust another Thornridge wolf claiming to want peace?”
“That’s why I need you to vouch for me.”
“Vouch for you,” she repeats.
“You’re Sera Thornwick’s sister. Your family has connections to Grayhide leadership through her marriage to Reeyan, and your aunt is the matriarch of the Llewelyn pack. If you speak for me and tell them I saved your life and that my defection is real, they might be willing to listen before they attack. Your word carries weight in ways that mine never could.”
“And if I do that, I have to explain how I know you and why I trust you.” She stands from the table so abruptly that her chair topples over. “I have to tell them that I married you, Patrick. That I’m bound to a Thornridge wolf. Do you have any idea what that will do to my family? What it will do to my sister?”
“I know it won’t be easy.”
“Easy?” she scoffs. “My aunt is the matriarch of the Llewelyn pack, a position that requires the respect and trust of every woman in our territory. My sister spent months building bridges between packs that have been at odds for generations, and she almost died breaking a curse that had imprisoned our women for three hundred years. Sera sacrificed everything to give us the ability to feel again, and you want me to repay her by walking into Grayhide territory and announcing that I’ve married the enemy? That I’ve bound myself to one of the wolves who helped plan attacks against the very packs she’s been trying to unite?”
“I wasn’t involved in the attacks on Badlands.”
“But you were there. You were part of Thornridge when those attacks happened, and you wore their colors and answered to their alpha.” She moves toward the window as she speaks, putting distance between us with every step. “You followed orders and kept your head down and let other wolves do the dirty work while you looked the other way. Do you think the packs here will care about the distinction? Do you think they’ll listen when I try to explain that my husband is one of the good Thornridge wolves, that he only participated in some of the violence?”
“I’m not asking you to defend everything I’ve done.”
“Then what are you asking?”
I stand too and throw my hands in the air. “I’m asking you to help me survive long enough to make things right. I know what I was, Caelan. I know the blood on my hands doesn’t wash off just because I’ve changed my mind about who deserves to bleed. But I can’t undo the past, no matter how much I might want to. All I can do is try to build something better with whatever future I have left, and I can’t do that if I’m dead.”
“And I’m supposed to sacrifice my family’s reputation to give you that chance? My sister has worked so hard to create peace between these packs, harder than anyone else in the valley, and she’s finally happy. She has a mate who loves her, a role that matters, and respect from wolves who used to see Llewelyn women as cold and untrustworthy. If I walk in there and announce that I’ve married a Thornridge defector, everything she’s built could come crashing down around her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know how politics work. The other packs might question her judgment because her sister was stupid enough to get captured by the enemy. They might wonder if the whole Thornwick family has divided loyalties or if Sera’s been compromised somehow through her connection to me.” Her voice wavers on the last words, and I realize she’s not just angry. She’s ashamed. “I was reckless, Patrick. I was so desperate to feel something, to experience life without the curse dampening every emotion, that I didn’t think about the consequences. I snuck out to a bar in a foreign territory and spent the night with a stranger and acted like nothing bad could ever happen to me. Now those consequences are here, and they’re not just mine to bear. They’ll fall on Sera too, and on my aunt, and on every Llewelyn woman who’s trying to prove that we’re more than the cold, distant creatures the curse made us.”
“Caelan—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand to stop me. “Don’t try to make this okay. Don’t try to tell me that everything will work out if I just trust you. I can’t gamble my family’s future on that.”
“So what’s the alternative? We stay here until Thornridge finds us? We run from cabin to cabin until we starve or freeze or get caught?” I take a step toward her as frustration bleeds intomy voice. “I’m trying to find a solution that keeps us both alive. If you have a better idea, I’m listening.”
“Maybe there isn’t a better idea. Maybe we’re just trapped in a situation with no good options, and we have to accept that.”
“There’s always another option. Sometimes you just have to decide what you’re willing to sacrifice to take it.”
“And you’ve decided I should sacrifice my family.”
“I’ve spent sixteen years sacrificing pieces of myself for Thornridge. My conscience, my morality, and my sense of who I am and who I could have been. I watched that pack take everything from me and then convince me I should be grateful for whatever scraps they left behind. I’m done sacrificing. I’m done pretending that survival means accepting whatever the people in power decide to throw my way. For the first time in my life, I have something worth fighting for, and I’m not going to apologize for wanting to protect it.”
