Yes, I was reminding him of that fact in the hopes it would butter him up.
“Don’t tell me she’s in my house too?” he growled.
I winced. “No… just your mall.”
“What now?” he asked.
“Sawyer, they’re starving. The Paladins. She looked… like skin and bones. Sick. They need food and blankets. Something about their alpha dying has sickened their land or something. I don’t know, but we can help them, right?”
He was silent for a long moment. Too long. So long that I had to pull the phone back and look at the screen to make sure the call hadn’t ended.
“The entire reason there is a mating year and you had to date me with fifty other women is because of the Paladin wolves, you understand that, right? They cursed my family so horribly that we are all at risk of death every time we choose awife!” He growled the last word and I knew it wasn’t anger at me but at them.
I nodded. “I understand, and I’m… asking you to forgive them. Extend this olive branch. Send some rice and smoked meat and clothing and do the right thing.”
“How many people need to be fed?” His voice was laced with annoyance, but underneath it, I heard a small hint of compassion.
Arrow had said they had over ten thousand the other night, but I knew that figure would shock the shit out of Sawyer and also might make him fearful to keep them alive, because I was pretty sure he had no idea there were that many of them.
“A couple thousand,” is all I said.
Silence again. “You know this isn’t just up to me? I can do a lot without my father’s input, but sending thousands of pounds of food to our sworn enemy is not one of them.”
Shit. “But he hates them even more than you do. He’ll let them starve!” I yelled into the phone. After what my mom was caught doing with Run during Curt’s mating year, he would never throw the Paladins a kindness.
“This is asking a lot, Demi. When do they need the supplies by?”
I swallowed hard, thinking of how thin she looked. “Tonight. Now.”
He sighed. “I’ll call and ask my father and then call you right back.”
I didn’t want this to be a strain on our relationship, but I didn’t see how I could let an entire people starve and not ask my fiancé for help when I knew he could give it. “Thank you. Oh, and Sawyer.”
“Yes, Demi?”
“That Paladin wolf at the base of Waterfall Mountain who died trying to help me… that was the Paladin alpha, my grandfather. I’m here, right now, marrying you… because of him.”
I was going to layer this guilt tripreallythick.
Sawyer sighed. “Got it. I’ll do my best to convince my father.”
“I love you,” I told him.
“I love you too, Demi, most of all your giant heart.” Then he hung up.
I sat there for ten minutes, telling Sage what Astra said and bopping my foot up and down waiting for Sawyer’s call.
“She did look ill,” Sage commented, frowning.
I nodded, wondering what I would do if Curt said no. Before I could think on it, the phone rang.
“Hey.” I picked up quickly.
“I’m sorry, Demi. He said no. But next year I’ll be alpha and then—”
“No?” I stood, shock rushing through me.
He breathed into the phone. “Hehatesthem, Demi. He said they could starve to death and die for all he cared. I tried to explain that politically it would be good to do the Paladins a favor, but—”
