Page 30 of Pack Captive

9

Ryden

Calian was leavingher room when I approached.

There was no sign of Ayla herself, but he wore a look on his face I hadn't seen since his childhood—a wounded, trapped look, the same expression he’d worn when my father had brought him to Lykos.

I hadn't seen it since he'd joined the Claws, nor since he'd left them.

When he heard my footsteps approaching, he smoothed it away.

Calian had always been better than me at hiding his true emotions. It made him an ideal Second; let our enemies think I was the big, dumb lunk who couldn't tell his tail from his ass, while Calian blended into the shadows and listened.

He picked up all the small tells my open personality drew out of them: which were more likely to come to our side, which were lying, which were plotting my death right then and there.

Everything he thought was locked behind an icy iron curtain, but Ayla had somehow drawn that curtain aside.

He straightened up as I approached. "She's almost done."

I played along with his clear desire to not speak of whatever had gotten this reaction from him. "Did she attempt anything...excessive?"

My thoughts were mostly on the high windows when I asked this.

We'd only had one suicide since we'd begun collecting stray packs torn apart by Fenris, but that one had been enough for a lifetime.

Calian shook his head, and ran a hand through his cropped black hair, scowling at the floor. "Not with serious intent. She's testing how far she can push us, of course."

Looks like she found your weak spot, I thought, but I didn't say it aloud.

My Second raised his head and blew out a breath. "Realistically, the worst we're going to expect from her is a lot of foot-dragging. I can’t see her attacking the Guardians or Claws—not as long as her people are taken care of."

"Already on that," I said absently, wondering what else she could want.

"I think I broke through a little." Calian glanced at the closed door behind him, and we walked several feet down the hall. The walls of the Dawn Palace were thick enough to obscure our conversation, even if she was on the other side with her ear pressed against the wood. "She seems...to respond well when you make something her responsibility."

My inner wolf's ears perked up at that.

Wasn't that what we always wanted in a mate? Responsibility and duty, honor to the pack.

Fuck yes, that was what I wanted.

Tyra had pushed so hard to become my mate, and I’d never wished harm on her, but there was some relief in knowing that these days, I wouldn't wake up to her trying to creep into my bed.

"Perfect." Calian shot me a sharp look when I spoke. "We have to keep her origins in mind. She's from a reclusive community, where she was likely only taught the absolute basics of what the temple expects from her. She would've been one of the pillars of her people, alongside the Alpha."

A thought I'd tried my best to keep locked in the back of my mind resurfaced, and I bared my teeth without thinking.

It was clear that all her pack's Warriors were dead, but I deliberately hadn't asked if she'd already been mated to another male.

Pack Vesper had no Alpha when we arrived, which suited my personal plans just fine...but had she already been an Alpha's mate?

"Ryden. I don't think she was ever mated to someone else," Calian said quietly, reading my thoughts. Usually, he looked me in the eye, but now he carefully studied an engraving of the moon on the opposite wall. "She made no mention of a specific male, only her people as a whole."

It was the first time Calian had ever seemed reticent to tell me what he'd discovered about a new wolf.

That, combined with the look on his face, told me everything I needed to know.

She'd somehow managed to pry the story of Pack Tempestas out of him.

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