Page 47 of The Warrior's Captive

“No.” Castor shook his head.

“No,” Briar May said at the same time.

The very slim, small hope in the room burst like a half-formed bubble blown into a strong wind. He wanted to stand up and reach out to Briar May with everything he had, but he ignored the pull.

“What would we have to do then, in order to keep our pack safe? Other than handing over Rome, because I won’t do that.” Kieran said as his eyes met his sister’s.

There was something in the look that Kieran and Briar May now shared that spoke of secrets that not even their parents knew. Castor picked up on it because he missed very little. Kieran turned his dark eyes back to Castor. “If our pack isn’t safe if you mate or if you don’t mate, then I don’t see what harm it could do in you staying here. If I give my consent and Briar May gives hers, then you’re welcome to stay here.” It was obvious that Kieran was deeply troubled by the admission that war was coming. “We’re all wolves. There are precious few of us left in the world. We don’t need to be fighting and killing each other.”

“A formal blood oath might help. Between you and Agnar, performed here and then performed on my pack’s territory. Agnar wants peace, he’s worked hard for it, though I suspect if my father continues to influence him, then perhaps that peace will not remain for long. Where our lands are, there has been little peace. It’s been that way for decades. Raids. Theft. Murder. Vengeance. Enslavement. All they know is war. Endless and endless war. They know revenge. They’ve been raised on blood and battle. Dying that way is sacred for them. My father is poison delivered on a silver tongue and Agnar heeds him because he speaks with the voice of the pack. They need to be shown a different way, they need to get rid of the old guard, people like my father. I believe Agnar is a good man, and he could continue to lead for years. He’s been unchallenged for three years. That’s the longest any alpha has ever led our pack. It’s not often that wisdom, leadership, and a good head come with the muscled fearlessness of a man who wants either power or the thrill and prestige of winning an alpha challenge. It’s a sort of sport for us.”

That made Briar May and Zora frown, but Silas, Lilac, and Kieran absorbed that information with silent nods. They clearly knew how so many of the packs still operated. They’d grown their numbers, expanded their wealth, influence, and land because they didn’t follow the old ways.

“If you proposed two matings, I think that peace could have a chance.” He knew that his idea was a risk. “I’m not trying to be heartless, and I have no interest in saving my own skin. This is only a proposal, and you can do with it what you will. One mating from our pack, myself and Briar May, with us living here. Another from your pack, mated to Agnar. He’s not so old yet. He’s a good man. He might not be kind, but he’s not unkind. As I said, he’s a thoughtful man who tries for wisdom before weapons. He’s had enough of the senseless bloodshed. He does have a vision for our pack, and he believes in it. Unlike most who challenge when they’re young and foolish and besotted with glory, Agnar was in his early forties when he challenged and became alpha. He wants change, but it’s slow. He had a mate, but she was murdered by another pack years ago leaving him with two children. He doesn’t let the pack see his love for them as a weakness, though some don’t understand.” Castor paused, Kieran’s expression was unreadable, but he appeared to be considering his words carefully. “My father turned to vengeance after my mother was murdered, I think her death killed whatever good was inside him. Agnar still has a sense of decency and honor. If he were to take a mate from your pack and she were to live there with him, there could be blood oaths taken as well, between alphas, that bind our packs. Because of the distance between us, you would never be called on to enter disputes or wars as an ally, but we would have some kind of alliance.”

“No woman from this pack could survive in such a harsh, dangerous environment,” Silas sputtered. He wasn’t angry, just winded by the unexpected blow.

“I’ll do it!” The door suddenly burst open and a windblown woman with her white-blonde hair whipped around her face, pulled out of a messy braid, her long simple dress tangled around her legs, tumbled into the room.

Two children, the alpha’s twins who had obviously been kept away from the cabin while he was in the room upstairs convalescing, barged in after her.

All three of them looked guilty and flustered, but the woman bore the most guilt. Her pale complexion turned a deep red.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. She took hold of the twins’ hands immediately. “I know we were supposed to stay at your cabin…” She faced her parents and then Kieran and Zora. It only took Zora half a second to shake off the shock and rush over to her kids. She hugged them tight to her, but not like she had to protect them from the stranger in the room.

The kids looked at him with wide, frightened eyes. They certainly remembered the bad men from the woods who had taken their aunt and scared them senseless, and Castor was hit with a wave of guilt for having caused them to feel such terror.

From her appearance, it was clear that the woman was one of Briar May’s sisters. It was hard to keep all of them straight. What information he’d gathered while surveilling the pack just numbered a long list of names and ages, pulled from generally unwilling sources. They could only ask so many questions before people were suspicious. They were more forthcoming about the Ranger pack that had been sighted for a short while and then disappeared, which was how they’d tracked Pollux’s remains down and built a picture of his last few days.

“We wanted to hear what was happening. I- I should have told them no. I’m sorry. But I wanted to know what was happening. Everyone wants to know what’s going on.”

“Prairie Rose—” Lilac started, but the woman in question tilted her chin up stubbornly.

“I know I was wrong, but I’m here now and I’ve heard everything. I’m unmated. I’m forty-two years old. My chances of ever having a family are slim. I know we’re a family here. All of us. A pack. But a woman wants a family of her own. A home of her own with children and a mate to love and be loved by.”

“If you’re unhappy, we’ll find you a mate,” Silas reasoned. He begged her with his eyes not to do what she was proposing to do. He thought it would be throwing her life away.

Castor understood Silas’s fear and grief. It wasn’t misplaced. Their pack was a dangerous place, but it could be so much more. He’d made the men and women there out to be barbarians, but they lived and loved. They might be rough around the edges, but they had dreams and hopes just like everyone else. With Agnar making changes to their pack and trying to forge peace around them, maybe it wouldn’t always be that way.

“No. This needs to be done to save our pack. It needs to be done so that my sister can be happy.”

Prairie Rose rushed over to Briar May and wrapped her arms around her. They melted into each other, as close as twins. He and Pollux had shared that bond. The alpha’s twins probably had that same unspoken sort of way they communicated. More by feeling and intuition than with words.

“I can be happy if you don’t do this,” Briar May protested, half begging. “You don’t have to go there. Please don’t. I need you. I love you. It won’t be the same here without you. I’ll miss you so desperately. We’ve always been best friends as well as sisters. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t lose me.” Prairie Rose caressed her sister’s hair tenderly. She looked far older in that moment. Wise and at peace. “We’ll talk every day. The pack comes before all of us, and I can do this. Please.” She looked at her parents. At her brother. At Zora and then eventually at Castor. He was half broken at the lights dancing in them. “It’s not a sacrifice. I’m not throwing my life away. Let me do this, I’ve always felt that my life had no real purpose, and this is something I can do to help the pack. We can’t live like this if I don’t, under a constant thundercloud. No one will be happy. No one will thrive.” She touched Briar May’s belly, pressing her palm down over her sister’s dress. “I love you, Briar May. I love this baby already.” She trapped him in her bold amber stare again. “So does he, and you love him, even if you don’t know it yet. You can’t live without him. He can’t live without you. And none of us can live without peace.”

“Prairie Rose.” Her mother’s lips trembled, and her eyes glistened with tears. Lilac wouldn’t dissuade her eldest daughter. She swept across the room like a spirit and threw herself over her girls. She didn’t flash him a look of hatred, but seeing her hurting over losing her daughter was worse than the whipping, the carving, the blows that he’d endured in the cave.

Of the three of them, only Prairie Rose wasn’t crying. “Please, Kieran,” she whispered, holding tight to her mom and sister. Zora clutched the twins in the doorway, who were shaking and confused. Castor doubled over, the weight of all their despair a crushing blow. The look Silas and Kieran shared was the worst of it. Unspeakable, unimaginable sorrow.

They looked defeated and they wore their doubt openly.

“Kieran.” Prairie Rose begged again. “This is a happy night. We’re going to have two matings and an alliance with another pack. Sacred blood oaths. Two families joined as one and many lives changed for the better. I know this, I can feel it. The only tears we can cry tonight are happy ones.”

Kieran finally gave that authoritative nod, just a single jerk of his chin.

The whole room might as well have been dealt a deathblow. Only Prairie Rose looked the least bit hopeful.

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