Page 11 of Their Cursed Wolves

Damn it.

I wrack my brain as I float in the water, trying to figure out what Wisp was trying to tell me. The answer has to lie closer than I realize if she had the answer so quickly. What was she doing? Drawing a picture in the air?

Movement upstream draws my attention, and I spot Prince Rinan in the water. My stomach flips, and I realize I just soaked the shifter prince. He’s not going to be happy about that. And how do I even explain what I did? He’ll think I’m crazy.

To my surprise, Prince Rinan’s laughter rings out across the water, and I turn to see him near the boat. His laughter is a sound of genuine amusement that chases away the chill and my worry. It’s a shock. I don’t understand it. I’d have expected him to be angry with me. Water has ruined his perfect hair, his fine clothes, and it’s cold. So, why’s he laughing?

His gaze meets mine. “You're crazy, Tara!” There's no malice in his words, only an infectious joy that, despite the circumstances, begins to seep into me.

I can't help but to crack a smile, even with my soaked clothes heavily weighing me down. In this moment, with Rinan's laughter echoing in my ears, the seriousness of our quest lightens.

From the shore, Prince Drogo and Prince Arlys, still in their wolf forms, watch us with cocked head and open mouths, the wolfy equivalent of “what the hell is wrong with you?” I’m sure. It's a surreal scene – a capsized boat, a witch, and a shifter in the middle of the river, laughing at chaos.

His laughter dies down, and those perfect blue eyes of his fine me once more. “So, did you figure any of it out?”

I was close. Closer than you could ever imagine.

“Almost had it,” I say, half in jest, half in truth. Wisp was on the verge of revealing something crucial, but I pulled a Tara.

I sigh. I’ll never not be me.

We work together to right the boat, and we’re laughing the whole time, splashing water at each other and being stupid. It’s nice. Back home, I can only imagine what a fellow witch would have done to me if I’d overturned a boat she was on. I know for sure I would’ve been called something much worse than crazy.

But this peacefulness only lasts as long as I find a cure. And soon.

FIVE

Drogo

I’m sitting by the fire with my best friends, drinking and trying to sort out my damn mind. The scotch burns a path down my throat, but it’s nothing compared to the anger simmering inside of me. Princess Tara needs to fulfill her purpose here, and she needs to do it fast or else she has no fucking purpose. And there’d be no reason for me to sleep with her tonight either.

Arlys and Rinan chat about nothing of importance while we drink, but something’s nagging my brain, and I can’t let it go. To my utter annoyance, I hear Rinan laugh again. He’s been all smiles since that stupid girl knocked them into the water. What she did was dumb. Pointless. And yet, everything this woman does seems to make him happier.

Perhaps he misses his sisters.

Whenever we visit Pack Silver, we’re overwhelmed with females, nearly all mated, though. The females visit all the other packs in hopes of finding their fated mates, since the rest of our packs are severely lacking in the female department. My pack, Pack Fury, more so than all the rest. There, it’s not uncommon to find Rinan in dresses, covered in makeup, while his little sisters giggle and swarm him. If ever there was a man who could tolerate our wife’s antics, it’s him.

Yet, he has to be able to see the difference between a young shifter girl and a calculated she-bitch hell-bent on killing us all, can’t he? Rinan is many things, but he’s not stupid. Well, I never thought he was, but then he fell for her “accidentally” capsizing their boat. The guy might be stupid when it comes to her. It must be her scent and the curves of her body. Is Rinan giving into his baser desires?

I shake my head, drinking more. How is it possible that Princess Tara has the innocence of a young child and the beauty of a seductress? I wonder if it’s all an act.

And what else she’s acting about.

“Do you really think Princess Tara doesn’t know what’s making us sick?” I ask, my anger seeping out.

My words shatter their conversation, and their smiles fade from their eyes and their mouths. Momentarily, I regret speaking up, but I push past the feeling. King Talon is dying. We can’t waste time with shit. If I waste time, Arlys will know the pain of loss, again, like me. He’ll know what it is to feel like part of your heart has been torn out and can never be repaired, because he’s not a child any longer, losing his mother and not understanding the significance of her death. Not entirely. It’s hard to breathe, so I push the strangely sad feeling aside.

“I believe she doesn’t know,” Rinan, ever the optimist, quips. He’s so ready to defend her that he doesn’t take any time to think. “She seems like she’s trying to help us.”

Arlys slowly nods, cautiously adding, “I think she’s sincere, but witches can be tricky.”

He’s damn right. Witches can be more than tricky. We have centuries of war to remind us of that. And thousands of dead shifters, too.

“Fuck the peace treaty. Fuck everything that doesn’t give us our cure. Remember that she’s our enemy.” My mind flashes with all the dead we’ve brought home. And those we’ve had to leave out on the field. Two of them my brothers.

A low growl rumbles out of me. We don’t know anything about Tara. For all we know, she could’ve been the witch who killed them.

I take in a deep breath and shake my head, trying to lose the image of Tara killing my brothers, but it keeps coming back.

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