Page 10 of Rivers and Roads

“I trust him.”

Silence fell, and then she took a step closer. “But?”

My throat ached with need to hold back the words, but it was damn-near impossible to resist her when her eyes flared bright. “But I don’t trust what was done to him. I think Danyal is too desperate to find the solution to our problems in Misha’s blood. I don’t know that fighting fire with fire this way is going to do anything except destroy us.”

“You think that’s what the humans want?” she asked.

I almost laughed. “No. I don’t think the humans are clever enough to set something like that in motion. I think that anyone trying to play a god with our nature is going to be culled by their own arrogance.”

“Danyal isn’t,” she started, then she bit her lip and shook her head. “You know, I don’t know anymore. Everything was so simple during the war. We fought—and we either lived or we died. And it was supposed to end with either a treaty or a surrender. But it just got worse. I don’t want my daughter to grow up like this.”

The pain in her voice made me want to reach for her, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate it right then. Talia was more nurturing than most Alphas, but it was in her nature to avoid shows of weakness.

“Neither do I.” I hesitated as I felt a wave of courage I didn’t think I’d have, for words I wasn’t sure I wanted to say. “Which is why I’m going to volunteer myself.” I had quietly whispered those things to myself in in the dead of night—words I hadn’t been brave enough to offer Kor or the other members of the Council. But I couldn’t deny them now that I was facing Zane’s sister. I met her startled gaze, and I spoke before she could argue with me. “I can’t trust Zane’s rescue to anyone else.”

She swallowed thickly. “Are you in love with him.”

No. The word rose quickly to the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t force it out. I wasn’t in love with him, but I couldn’t deny that I felt something every time he was around me. It had been easier to ignore when we were fighting, when we were trying to survive, and when we were trying to rebuild this city so we could gain a foothold against our enemies. But the thin distance between us had been harder to maintain when we were working together to find Kor, and it had only gotten worse since we’d settled in Corland. I knew better than anyone an Alpha like Zane would never want me. If he did settle down, it would be with an Omega who could balance him far better than I ever could.

But with this vulnerable moment hanging here between me and his sister—I couldn’t lie and tell her I felt nothing.

“I don’t know what I feel, and it won’t do him any good for me to think about it right now,” I admitted to her. “But I do know that it needs to be me. That with my experience and training, I’m the best option.”

She squared her shoulders and gave me a sharp nod. “I’ve got your back. I know if anyone can bring him home, Orion, it’s you.”

It took three full days and a run with the moon to convince Kor to let me take on the mission of retrieving Zane. Everyone but my Alpha was behind me, but Kor held out through the Council meetings, through dinners, through Misha shouting at him to get his head out of his ass.

Eventually, I told him I’d be waiting for him just outside the city, and I was unsurprised that he showed up early with determination on his face. He said nothing as he stripped out of his clothes, and he turned his face up toward the sky, taking a deep breath before his body began to ripple with the change.

I followed just after, my paws hitting the ground seconds after his own did, and he turned to face me. He was just as blind in his wolf form—the yellow flash in his eyes still mostly swallowed by the endless black of his pupils. His nostrils flared, and I could feel the pulse of his uncertainty in the bond.

We didn’t do this often. He normally shifted with Misha there to guide him, but I’d felt the absence of this pack bonding because he was my Alpha. I needed this connection. I took a step back as he hesitantly explored the area around him—his dark head down, his almost-black fur ruffled in the breeze. He was as massive as he’d ever been, even crouched low to the ground.

He scented me almost immediately, and it only took a moment for him to make his way over. As his nose touched the side of my neck, I let out a whine and bared it to him. There was no fear, no hesitation—nothing but absolute loyalty coursing through my veins as he opened his jaw and clamped down on me.

It was a message, a promise. He would never hurt me, and he was only trying to protect me.

It was easier in this form to understand why he was fighting me. Emotions were far simpler to process, and it became clear: he understood what these humans were capable of, and he was not willing to risk it when it came to the people he loved.

But we had so little choice, and that was what I needed him to understand.

I sent a pulse through the bond, and he let out a small huff before turning away. He moved slowly, with precision. He’d never race, reckless and uninhibited, through the trees again—not the way we once had—and it caused a spike of grief inside me. But it was easy to push aside as I caught up with him, and the faster I moved, the more he kept up.

Soon enough, we were making our way across the wide expanse of the meadow—the moon fat and full overhead. There were other Wolves nearby, none of them brave enough to approach their Alpha and his Second, and I was grateful for it. I was also grateful to feel them nearby. Our numbers were small, but they were growing, and I could feel the power stretching across the divide.

It was in moments like this I could convince myself we were invincible. I felt like the battle we were fighting was not destined to end in pain or death.

Kor and I made our way to the ridge overlooking the forest below. Miles and miles off was the nearest human city—a small, uncomplicated little town that had no idea what we were building. I turned my head to look at Kor, who sat perched with his head up and his eyes closed. I wanted to know how he felt now, about our mission, about what we might have to sacrifice in order to taste victory, but the moment was too fragile to disturb.

We sat there until the moon began to fade against the growing dawn, and I felt him start to shift before I was ready to take my other form. A hand fell on my neck not long after, the fingers warm as they trailed over my coat and over my muzzle, stopping around the front of my throat.

He held me there for a long while, and then I heard him take a breath. He started to speak, but I could really only process his tone. I could tell he needed this, though, so I sat still, a pair of ears to hear him without a tongue to argue back. It was the least I could do.

I shifted so my weight pressed against his thigh, and he began to gently stroke my fur. I wondered if Misha did this for him—if other mates and other spouses did this. I’d had plenty of sex, but I’d never been intimate with another person, and I was starting to feel the absence of it now, almost like a gaping wound.

With a huff, I waited until Kor’s words died off and his hand fell away, and then I allowed my body to reform. I was a little stiff and a little sore, but I stretched out on my back, naked, with my arms behind my head, my face pointed up at the rising dawn.

“I’m going to let you go,” he said, his voice gruff.

---