Luka’s expression turns slightly wary, and I know I must look murderous because he tilts his head slightly—less in a submissive way, but more as a gesture of bewildered apology. He clearly has no idea what my problem is, and neither do I.
Finally noticing the tense silence that has fallen over the rest of the group, Aurelia swivels around, her eyes finding mine in the firelight. “Oh, hello,” she says, her voice casual.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” I ask, still not exactly sure what I’m so pissed about.
“Making friends,” she replies.
“Come back to bed. Now.” My voice comes out harder than I mean it to, and I watch as several wolves around the fire stiffen at once, their bodies responding to the command even though I wasn’t talking to them.
Aurelia just blinks once at me, her chin tilting up. “Why?”
Beside her, Luka coughs, and I know he’s covering a laugh. I turn my head and let a growl rumble up from my chest. He falls silent immediately.
Aurelia seems to think the growl was directed at her. “Am I supposed to be intimidated?” she asks, lifting her chin.
My eye twitches. Intimidated? No. I’d settle for reasonably agreeable, but I don’t know what I was expecting. The only time Aurelia is ever willing to submit to me is when I’m fucking her. Otherwise, she’s always stubborn as hell.
As if reading my thoughts, she says, “You should know by now that barking orders at me isn’t going to get you anywhere. I’m not ready to go back to bed. You can join us if you’re so worried.”
The blood roars in my ears and I take a deep breath through my nose. I’m vaguely aware that I’m acting insane—that none of this feels normal.
Aurelia turns back to the red-headed woman, resuming their conversation as if I’m not even standing here, towering over her.My hands twitch at my sides. I fight the urge to throw her over my shoulder and drag her back to our tent. I know if I touch her right now, my self-control will crack.
“Move,”I tell Luka silently.
He shifts over to another log and I drop into his spot beside Aurelia. I stare into the fire for a second, still feeling jittery, my entire body coursing with adrenaline. Sitting here isn’t good enough, I have to touch her. Somehow I’m sure that will make me calm down.
Aurelia is so small that I can reach over and lift her onto my lap with barely any effort. I position her sideways across my thighs, just like we were in the tent. She turns her gaze to mine, her eyes narrowing slightly as if we’re having one of our silent conversations again.
I know her so well, it’s like I can hear her in my head. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Pretending,” I think back as if really answering her.
She nods once, coincidentally seeming like she agrees with me, and turns her gaze away. She doesn’t actually say anything, but she doesn’t stand up either. I let out a long breath, my shoulders relaxing. I do actually feel better, but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.
The conversation stalls, everyone watching us with nervous anticipation. Aurelia goes back to speaking to the red-headed woman, who I now recognize as Kai’s tent-mate, Inga. I didn’t know they’d even met, let alone that they get along so well. It must have happened while I was gone.
I don’t say anything else for a while, waging a silent war with myself inside my head. Eventually, the tension eases as I remain still, and their voices gradually rise again around us. I try to listen, but I can’t focus on anything but fighting the urge to drag Aurelia back to the tent.
Luka slides over to sit next to me again.“Today was fucked,”he says by way of greeting.
I glance up, understanding we’re not going to talk about the strange aggression I’m throwing off in waves. Instead, we’re going to focus on the real reason everyone is out here tonight. The wolf who died on our mission, Joran, was clearly well-liked. Deaths are common in the camps, but it’s always worse when it’s a friend, and Joran seemed to be a friend to many.
“Yeah,”I reply, grateful to him for distracting me even if the topic is grim.“I just met him, but Joran seemed like a good soldier.”
“He was,”Luka says, sounding pensive.“Did you see what happened?”
I nod.“He shouldn’t have died.”
Luka nods as if he expected that. He wasn’t with us on this hunt, but is clearly unsurprised that his friend’s death was an avoidable accident.
The entire hunting party was a shitshow, but at least now I’ve answered the question for myself why Viktor isn’t the alpha, although he’s obviously more dominant than Kai. All the other soldiers hate him—or at least don’t trust him. He can bark orders at them and some wolves are compelled to comply, but any of the ones with enough dominance to fight the order do. It makes everyone sloppy and disorganized, a perfect fucking storm for preventable mistakes.
“What did Viktor do?”I ask Luka.
Luka doesn’t even pretend not to know what I’m talking about.“He killed the last Alpha.”
I raise my eyebrows, thinking of the alpha I grew up with. “Olaf?”
