Page 46 of The Warrior's Captive

“I’m going to put a question to both of you and I want an honest answer. Don’t think about what’s happened between our two packs or what’s coming. I just want to know what you feel. I believe that when you meet your mate, you know it. I spent a decade separated from the woman I love. I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone. It’s a slow death, and if I can spare either of you that pain, then I’d like to.”

Being an asshole wasn’t going to cut it, so Castor didn’t scoff. He knew pain. What was a little more?

Lie.

Losing this woman would kill him. There was no testing the pain because he’d already thought she was gone forever, and he’d pretty much welcomed the end at his father’s hand. He had nothing to live for and he had been prepared to die for her and her pack. It would have been a sweet execution, knowing she was safe.

The same way she’d live for him.

She hadn’t betrayed him up there in that room. He knew that. He wasn’t angry with her. Not when he’d understood perfectly from the start what she was trying to do.

He crossed his hands and tucked them in his lap, palms down as if he could hide the sins of his past or at least be less offensive to those present. He fixed his eyes on Briar May, who had done a remarkable job of looking anywhere and everywhere else since they’d sat down.

“If you don’t want me as your mate, then I’ll leave here and go right back to my pack. They might as well finish the job because I have nothing without you and… and the baby and that’s the truth.”

Briar May let out a cry that was half rage. She leapt off the couch and glowered at him. “That’s not fair! You can’t make me a murderer if I don’t choose to mate you.”

“But you do want to mate me, little wolf, and that’s the truth. You know we’re fated, and who am I to stand in the way of such things? I might be the least suited person for you. I might be a killer, a blood-stained bastard, and the hardest man, but I would never harm you. If fate has decided this, then—”

“Fate has decided nothing. Just because we might have—” She looked at her parents and flushed. “It might not be the right time.”

“Fair enough. But a promise is a promise. You want me to stay, you just have to say the word. Tell me to stay and lay down my old life. Stay and learn how to love, although I make no promises that I’m capable. Stay and learn kindness. Stay and be a part of your pack. Be a true family. Stay and raise our child. Stay and be everything to each other. All you have to do is say it, little wolf and I will obey your command.”

Briar May looked like she was going to burst into tears and at the same time charge across the room and shove him hard. A wicked tension crackled through the room. No one dared to move. Her parents were taken aback, but not appalled. Kieran was still clutching Zora’s hand.

“Your pack,” Briar May challenged, her voice heavy with emotion. “They’ll never stop coming for you. I can’t risk my pack and my family on one selfish decision. I can’t let Kieran let us have a life here, if it brings danger to all of us. As alpha, he has to put the pack first. I won’t break his heart. I won’t break anyone’s heart. My own happiness at the cost of even one person’s misery isn’t worth it.”

“Briar May.” Kieran stood and put his hand on his sister’s arm.

Castor resisted the wild animal urge to tear that hand away and break every bone in it. That was the crux of it, she was willing to forgo her own happiness because she was scared that his pack would renege on their agreement.

“I’m sure there are ways we could work this out. Castor’s pack are warriors. They live and die by a warrior’s code. They aren’t lawless bandits.” Dark brown eyes flicked to him. “Is that right?”

“Yes. There are things we hold absolutely sacred.”

“Like your word?” Briar May didn’t shoot that at him to be cruel.

She twisted her face to look up at her brother. The pain on her face made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. The urge to destroy something or someone just because she was hurting nearly overcame his control. His vision blinked in and out, but that was probably because while he was sitting here pretending like he didn’t feel a damn thing, his body was getting very near the edge of what it could take without needing to sleep for hours.

“Castor’s alpha gave his word. He said that he wouldn’t be harmed and look at him! They were set to kill him. I thought—” Her voice broke, and he lunged forward in the chair, but Kieran’s frown stopped him. Briar May trembled, but she got herself under control and finished her sentence. “I thought that he was going to die right in front of me.”

Her tears made it impossible for him to take a breath. He’d been out of it for most of those days. It was hell enduring and healing, but it was worse for her, having to witness every single minute.

“If we can’t trust their word, then we can’t trust them. We can’t trust that there would never be a war. That they’d never come for Castor and that he’d be taken away from here and harmed. We can’t trust that they would never come for that vengeance they didn’t get to carry out. Rome killed Castor’s twin brother. Their creed is an eye for an eye, and they won’t be satisfied until someone pays.”

“My alpha’s word is law.” Castor said.

“And look where it got you!” Briar May exclaimed.

“This wasn’t my alpha’s doing. It was my father.”

There was silence as Kieran and Silas looked at one another, appearing to silently communicate something.

Briar May spoke out, “I still think my plan is more logical. Is it what I want, in truth? No. But if we sent Castor away and told his pack that he died, it would stop. Or at least, he’d be safe.”

“No. No, I won’t do that.” He thought his life was a sort of hell before? He had no idea. Being parted from the woman he wanted as his mate and his child, that would surely be the worst hell anyone could ever devise. “If I’m here and something happened, if they came, I could help prepare this pack for defense. I know you don’t want war, but it might be inevitable. My father may not be alpha, but as the alpha’s right-hand man he always has his ear. He’s kept his position through numerous alphas, he can be very persuasive when he wants to be.”

Kieran shook his head. Zora stood up and came to his side. She wrapped her arms around him. The look they shared was so intimate that it stung him to the quick. “I thought that if I proposed a mating between our two packs, then it would settle things for good.”

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