Page 23 of The Alpha's Arranged Bride

“I still think physical brutality is the only language he’s looking to speak right now. He needs an outlet for all that hurt,” Briar May said from behind her.

“I’ll ask him about the training. Anything else is—”

“Anything else is risking more heartbreak. I do see that. I see it and it makes me furious, even though I know if it was Castor, I would do anything including fight my own family.”

Prairie Rose turned and saw the furious determination etched into her sister’s face. Not just for herself and her mate, but for her family. She’d be willing to do anything to help her. Zora too. Any of her family would. Anyone in the pack, probably. That kind of love shot straight through her, warming the ice that felt so much like hopelessness.

“Kieran and I fought against what your parents wanted too,” Zora reminded them. “They made him reject me, but when we came back together all those years later, we were able to fight for us as a family. Having kids changes everything. We’ll do everything we can for you and for Levi and Blake, and of course that means doing anything and everything we can as a pack for Agnar. You can come to us anytime.”

“Any of us. We love you. All of you.”

“Thank you. Both of you.” She hugged both women furiously, their breath puffing out and melting against each other’s cheeks.

It was so easy for Zora and Briar May to tell her that because they’d grown up with it. They’d been taught by their parents and their pack, or in Zora’s case, by her incredible mother, what it was to be loved and cherished and have family. They could go to anyone and talk about their feelings. They could share what was hurting them and were encouraged to grow in their interests and passions.

It was instinctual for her to want to shield the boys from the worst of the world, even though they’d already experienced so much. She was afraid they’d stumble and fall and that they’d get hurt, physically or otherwise, because that was every parent’s fear. Shielding a child came first. Always.

What if it didn’t?

She knew nothing about how Agnar was raised. She knew nothing about his parents. What had he been taught? What was his family like? What things had he seen when he was young and still developing? How much blood? How much hate? How much violence? How much love and peace and care? Had he ever seen the beauty of life? Had he known the wonder that family could be? Or had he built his life on that same mountain of pain it seemed like he’d been climbing for a very long time? If he was hurt before, he wanted to hide it. So many amazing assets and facets of a person had been treated as a weakness to scorn. He was a predatory animal, and it was in his nature to hide his wounds, but how much of that was due to nurture? If he was never properly taught or shown love, how could he even recognize it for what it was?

There were so many kinds of love. She didn’t doubt that he loved his children, but was the rest of his life just wrapped in obligation? Having a duty as a man and a leader was different than genuine friendship and family.

She had no idea where to go or what to do, but one thing was clear. She couldn’t do it if she didn’t have time, and at the moment, time was ticking away and steadily evaporating.

Time might be able to heal, but it could also be the enemy.

Chapter 11

Agnar

Emotion affects the body. It affects the mind and the heart rate. Even the greatest general is still vulnerable to making poor decisions based off how he feels. Emotion has no place in war and every aspect of life is a battlefield. One wrong move and you could be dead.

From this day forward, you will harden yourself. You are part of this pack. You’re my adopted son and you will be a warrior. You will make me proud. You will forget who you were before this day. You are a Phaethon now.

You will sharpen your mind and train your body. You will not cry. You will not love. You will not hate. You will resist the temptation for anything in between. You will be an empty vessel and we will fill you with the means to survive. That is the only way you will stay alive out here. The desert is no place for peace. Mercy is a weakness that will destroy you. Our home is here because we’ve carved it out. This very land has tried to take our lives, but we’re still here. We always will be. Above all, you will not fail me.

He remembered the words his adopted father told him the night he’d been taken, as if it were only yesterday.

The stars shone bright in Wyoming when the clouds cleared. The sky was a dark smudge of purple black above him, bruised until the sun came to banish it in a few hours. The dark was deep and so pervasive that next to nothing cast a shadow. The myriad colors of the solid trunks around him, rising tall and thick to an endless canopy of soft green needles or a host of leafless branches, the reds and grays, the striated whites of the beech trees with their black bands, all of it was painted in muted purples and raven blues in the all-pervading darkness.

He’d been taught, in a life that he told himself he couldn’t recall, about the stars. About the galaxies and worlds far off. About how all of them, each living breathing soul from the tiniest beetle to a great ball of cold fire millions and millions of light-years away, were connected. The universe was a web, and it was spun around all of them.

The full weight of shame lacerated his insides as he tried to recall his father’s face—his real blood father—and no longer could. Did he resemble him? He must. To know his own eyes and bones and shape was to know the ones who created him. His mother died before he was old enough to know what that even meant. He’d never known her. Only his father. Callum McDonald. Such a regular, beautiful name.

And his own. Allistair McDonald.

All things begin and all things end. Don’t let this make you sad or afraid. This is the natural order of things. It can be painful, but it can also be mysterious and beautiful. Everywhere in the world, creation is living. Creation is dying.

Why could he recall now, with such startling vividness, the sound of his father’s voice, but not his face?

He curled forward, setting his head on top of his useless hands. The agony welling up inside him made his throat raw. He couldn’t sleep because his mind was at war with itself. He couldn’t quieten it, and that was one of the earliest things he’d learned how to do as a Phaethon. They hadn’t beaten the fear and anxiety out of their children. They had taught them how to breathe through it. How breathing and stillness could overcome the worst storm of emotions until they were so mastered they no longer raged like a tempest or howled like a thunderstorm.

The snow seeped into him, cold against his warmth, stealing it from his body, numbing out the places he already couldn’t feel. The night was clear and frigid. No snow. No storms. No raging nature. He twisted back, still on his knees, casting his face up to the stars. He wanted so badly to rage at them. To cry out in grief, to howl like a wounded animal. Ironically, the wolf inside him was absolutely silent. The stars looked back at him, refusing to mock his tiny, meaningless existence, refusing to throw it in his face that he never should have believed he was capable of anything at all, let alone the magnitude of what he’d tried to create. They didn’t mock him for being the one who had survived and despising himself for it. How many souls out there in the world were looking up at these very stars right now, pouring out hurts and regrets, making wishes, laughing, mourning, living, dying.

Another night. Another morning. An endless cycle of noticing the renewing, the beginning, the ending. Another day of surviving granted to a man who was already dead. Dead except for the black hole inside him. Dead except for the burning betrayal that still burned in him, acid and fire on flesh, robbing him of sleep and sanity.

Atreus became his father when he was ten years old. Ten was more than old enough to remember his old family, but he told himself he didn’t. It only brought pain. He’d wanted to survive. He’d wanted to make his new father and mother and the rest of his pack proud. Atreus might not have been right about everything, but he was a tough man and a great warrior. He was never going to be alpha, but he loved his pack, loved his land, and he fought many times, eventually to his own death, for their freedom and their very existence. He didn’t have a single ounce of kindness in him, but he hadn’t been cruel either. He was just hard. Hard like the land. Like the other men. Hard like his father and his father and his father before him. Hard like a child trained into a man far too soon. He knew no other way of life. His wisdom, training, tactics, and leadership kept Agnar alive. It kept so many of them alive.

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