Page 45 of The Warrior's Captive

To him, Castor was a stranger who had caused nothing but trouble.

Still, Kieran would be more than fair. He’d already gone to great pains to try to make her happy. In a way, he was the one responsible for saving Castor’s life.

Briar May swept her hands over her face and then twisted her knotted, unkempt hair. For the past three days, she’d completely neglected herself and it must show. Whether Castor was up to a meeting or not, it was clear that he would go, and like a predatory animal, hide his pain at all costs.

“Just let me get cleaned up first and then we’ll talk. Mom, Dad, Zora, you, and us.”

She had to brush past both men to get out of the room and then she fled down the hallway and locked herself in the bathroom.

Once she had the shower running, she was free to break down. The water would wash away her tears and cover any sound she made.

Chapter 17

Castor

Night had long since fallen. It was apt. The heart that he’d only just discovered wasn’t some purely functional organ in his chest but was actually capable of feeling, now felt as if it had been ground to dust, and the darkness echoed the sense of bleakness that surrounded him.

Very little moonlight came through the thick curtains in the cabin’s living room. He’d faced far worse situations than this, the children in his pack were more threatening than the Nightfall alpha and his beautiful dark-haired mate. They both wore pensive expressions, which spoke to the fact that they cared about Briar May very much. The ex-alpha and his mate, both of them white haired, were equally tense and guarded. It seemed that the silver-white hair ran in the Nightfall genes, though Briar May’s was more white-blonde than silver. They had softer, honey brown eyes, unlike the wolves in his pack. Almost to a man, their eyes were gray or ice blue.

He’d caught a glimpse of the other Nightfall offspring when he’d been watching the pack to figure out how best to take his revenge. He knew there were twelve who belonged to Silas and Lilac Nightfall, but he hadn’t set eyes on most of them. Even now, the family was obviously doing their best to keep them and the rest of the pack hidden away.

He’d set everyone on edge with his presence.

Briar May was seated between her parents on the one large couch. Kieran and Zora took the other. That left him a recliner, which he fell into easy enough. In truth, his body was a mess of pain. His head thundered, his back felt like he’d been dragged fifty miles down asphalt roads, and the rest of his muscles boomed furiously, trying to outdo his back.

He remembered each blow he’d received in that cave, though he couldn’t truly piece together what happened immediately after he was cut down. It was all sketchy from there.

None of that mattered and nothing hurt like not knowing that Briar May was pregnant.

She hadn’t planned on telling him.

He knew that was because she truly believed in playing the heroine and sacrificing her own happiness so that he could find safety and freedom. But she was a smart woman, surely she knew that he would fight through an apocalypse, take down the whole world, come up against his pack however many times it took and come out the victor to protect her and the baby.

“Castor.” Kieran broke the silence. He took his mate’s hand. She squeezed back while looking askance at him. “This is an unusual circumstance. I can’t say that in our history we’ve ever had someone stolen from our pack.”

Then you’ve been very fortunate.

How might his own life have turned out differently if his mother hadn’t been taken by an enemy? If he and Pollux weren’t abducted with her and made to watch while she died?

“These are unprecedented circumstances indeed,” Silas added when his son left a gap in the conversation.

Briar May cleared her throat. “We’re not talking about what came before or how this all played out. We all know it. We came to discuss our mating. Or not mating.” She looked at her parents in turn.

She was freshly showered and glowing. Her pale cheeks finally had a spot of color. She was wearing a soft-looking green cotton sundress with a light brown cardigan buttoned up halfway overtop. The mossy green softened the browns in her eyes, she was painfully beautiful.

He didn’t deserve to even be sitting in the same room as her. He didn’t deserve this conversation. What he deserved was to be banished from here as the Nightfall Pack’s retribution for stealing their daughter. He deserved a punishment such as his father had meted out, only this time it would have been justified. He didn’t deserve their care. He knew they’d sent for a healer. He sensed sometimes, when he couldn’t bring himself out of the delirium, an older woman with skilled, kind hands. He didn’t deserve an ounce of respect. These people knew what he was. How could they even think about giving their soft, sweet, lovely daughter to him? How could they trust him with her entire life and her future, her heart and health and soul?

It wasn’t just her.

They were trying to figure out if they could trust him with a child.

Fuck, he couldn’t even fathom how it happened.

Biologically, sure. She was a virgin. It made sense she wasn’t taking any sort of herbs or birth control. He was thinking about trying to stay alive, trying to keep her safe. No. He hadn’t been. He was solely thinking about how fucking good she’d felt around his cock, crying out as she came, her walls milking him as he spilled his seed, deep inside her.

He looked up and caught the pack alpha’s eyes. Fuck, if it was him sitting there, he’d surge across the room and strangle the life out of him. But Kieran’s expression wasn’t vengeful, it wasn’t even mistrustful. He wasn’t just trying to moderate it for his sister. It appeared he’d already given the matter serious consideration. If that wasn’t true, he wouldn’t have contacted Agnar to parlay for his return. He’d already planned on their mating. He’d already decided.

Did that make him a hero with incredible faith and foresight, or did it make him the dumbest man alive?

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