“Is it from Eugenia?” Linnea asked, her face stony.
The girl nodded. “She said she’s chosen the time of your fight. Tomorrow at dusk.”
I let out a heavy sigh and nodded. “Okay. Understood. Thank you.”
She fled as if she was afraid I might try to attack her or something, and that only made me feel worse. I looked at Linnea, and she appeared less than excited.
“Well,” she said, “at least you won’t have to wait long to find out how this will go.”
“Apparently not. Want to help me practice fighting?”
Linnea gave a short bark of a laugh, then shrugged as if accepting her fate. “Fine. I guess we can pass the time that way.”
We spent the next several hours sparring, Linnea in her wolf form, and me trying my best to defeat her. It didn’t go well. I lost every time. By the end of it, I was even more terrified than I had been before. All I could do was hope that I’d findsomeway to fend Eugenia off the next day.
38
LEVIATHAN
Through my window, I had a distant view of the clearing at the edge of town. I watched as two figures—tiny at this distance—fought each other. One wolf, one human. The wolf was winning every round.
I still had some anger from the night before. That June could do something this rash, thisdangerous, and put herself in harm’s way like this was beyond anything I could imagine Naphele doing. My first mate had always been careful and calculated in her decisions. She’d been a fighter, a warrior, but she’d always approached every fight with a cool head and a plan.
The night before, I’d stalked around my cabin, going over everything that had happened. Not just during the party, but prior to that. Each thing that went before it. Each and every piece of evidence pointed me in a direction I didn’t want to go.
“Did you fall asleep over there?” Rainier asked. “You’ve been staring out that window for, like, thirty minutes.”
Tearing my eyes from June, I turned to look at my friend. Rainier sat on the couch, eyeing me like I was a puzzle he was trying to figure out.
“I don’t like that look on your face,” he said at last.
Slumping down in the chair opposite him, I gave a low growl of irritation. “It’s the look of a pissed-off man.”
“Pissed at Eugenia, I hope?”
“Partly,” I muttered.
Rainier leaned forward, looking confused. “Youcan’tpossibly still be mad at June.”
He’d arrived early that morning and found me at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, but unwilling to discuss the night before. He hadn’t pushed, but simply hung around while I stewed on my emotions.
“I am,” I admitted. “I can’t understand why she wouldn’t be more careful. Eugenia is going to kill her. You and I both know that. It’s too impulsive.”
Unbidden, memories of Naphele swirled up in my mind. A warrior queen. A fighter and a thinker. She’d commanded respect and loyalty. She never would have gone into something dangerous without a strategy to survive. In all honesty, that crazy woman leading the Red Maw was more like Naphele than June was. The biggest difference was that both Naphele and June were kinder and more caring than Desdemona seemed.
“That’s true, but you didn’t leave her a lot of options there, bro,” Rainier said, shaking his head and chuckling ruefully.
“I swear to God,” I growled, “if one more person tells me shehadto accept that challenge, I’m going to scream.”
“Well, she did, man. First off, you can’t really decline a challenge of that nature. Not in the shifter world. If she had, she’d have been branded a coward. No one in the pack would have respected her. That’s atbest. At worst, she’d have had to leave.”
“I would never banish her,” I said, my voice growing louder, objecting to the very idea.
“I know you wouldn’t, but the pack would have all but turned their back on June. She’d have been given the cold shoulder forrefusing. She would have been banished in all but name. If I had to guess, it would have been too psychologically devastating, and she’d have run off eventually.”
“But I would have worked it out,” I said, putting my hands out like I was begging. “I would have smoothed it over with Eugenia and the pack. I’d have made them see?—”
“Stop,” Rainier said. I clamped my jaw shut. I wasn’t used to receiving commands from my beta. Yet, I did exactly that, keeping quiet as he spoke. “You are the best alpha I’ve ever known, but you’ve become blinded by trying to find Naphele’s reincarnation and falling in love with her. You’ve latched on to June, and you want to shout from the rooftops that you’re in love with her, and she’s your fated mate. I commend that, I really do, but it’s made it hard for you to see the big picture.”
