Page 110 of Blood of Wolves

Náli cackled. “He named the other one Percy, what did you expect?”

“Hey, now!”

The breeze shifted, and brought Leif the scent of his brother’s approach well before the crunch of snow underfoot announced him. He waited for his wolf to label Runerival, but it didn’t happen. It wasn’t going to happen. His own feelings had been tepid, he could admit, and the wolf didn’t want anything to do with Tessa, aside from a vague sense of familial protectiveness. He hadn’t lied when he’d told his mother he had no interest innice young ladiesnow.

Rune arrived beside him and folded his arms over the top of the wall. “What are they on about?” he asked, jerking his chin toward the rapidly devolving conversation inside the yard. Náli was bent double laughing, now, while Mattias failed to hide a fond smile, and Oliver was gesticulating wildly as he defended his poor naming skills. Tessa hid her laughter in a gloved hand, while the other stroked the female drake’s neck. The little one, Valgrind, loped excited circles around Náli, trilling, his body undulating in that strange way it did when the drakes ran on all fours.

“It’s two-to-one on Kat being a good name for a dragon.”

Rune snorted. “Well, if Tess doesn’t like it, then that’s that.”

Leif turned to regard him, the sparkle the torches picked out in his eyes, the blush of happiness along his cheeks. “Really?” he said, knowing the words were cruel, unable to stop them. “Did she learn how to assert herself while we were away?”

Rune’s head whipped around, shocked, hurt, a frown already forming.

Leif held up a hand. “Sorry. I didn’t – sorry.” He glanced away, back to where Oliver was still trying fruitlessly to make his case. “That was uncharitable of me. I apologize,” he said, formally. The wolf inside him squirmed; he and Rune had grown up roughhousing, but he’d never set out to say something to intentionally hurt him – not until now. This was his brother, his closest relation…and yet the wolf in him was struggling to think of humans that way.

Gods, he was…

Rune let out a slow, loud breath. In a low voice, he said, “I’m sorry as well. I never meant–” The serious tone cracked, and he sounded like a pleading little brother. “Leif, I wasn’t trying to take her from you. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t going to – but she can’t be taken, because she has a mind of her own, and, I’m so sorry, but she – and I–”

Leif halted his rambling with a look – one he hoped bore some measure of softness. “I’m not angry about that,” he assured. “You didn’t betray me, and neither did she. We hadn’t pledged anything to one another. And, truth told, I could tell she preferred you.”

Rune groaned and buried his face in his elbow, voice muffled. “But I’m sorry anyway.”

Leif patted his head. “Don’t be. Just be happy.”

~*~

Erik hadn’t spoken with the Sel general yet. Leif had asked him about it, last night, when he’d visited him in his study.

The room was one of those untouched by the collapses, and had been more crowded than usual, a pallet bed shoved into one corner, the chairs rearranged to make room, travel trunks full of the clothes and toiletries they’d taken to the festival stacked on another. Erik had given up the room he’d been offered to two injured Redcliff men, after offering it first to Chief Oddmarr, who’d insisted he and his men would rather pitch their round, bearskin tents in the yard and bailey than live indoors for the time being. Erik and Oliver were sleeping here in the study, until the damage to the royal apartments could be ascertained. Top priority was the great hall.

When Leif inquired about the general, Erik had pushed aside the scrolls before him and grown stern. “Let him go hungry for a while.” It would take days, maybe even weeks to sort through all the ships, and to de-ice and then bury the bodies of his soldiers. Erik wanted as much information about the siege as possible before he spoke to the man face-to-face, hopefully while the latter was thin, and cold, and getting desperate.

Then Leif had asked about Ragnar, and Erik had leaned back in his chair, hands braced on the edge of his desk, gaze shifting toward contemplative. His voice had lowered. “Were it up to me, I think I would take his head and be done with it. Him and all his mongrels. He’s caused far too much trouble as is.”

Leif’s brows had gone up. “You’re the king. It is up to you.”

But Erik shook his head. “No. Nothing he did to me compares to what he did to you. You were the one to capture him. To subdue him. And he is of the clans – it is only right that the old rules apply.”

Leif’s mouth had gone dry, his chest tight, even as his wolf rumbled in agreement, deep in his chest.

“You should decide what to do with Ragnar. He’s your war prize. You may kill him, or keep him alive; bind him with a torq and make him serve you, if that is your wish.”

Leif had shuddered. It was a practice not seen in Aeretoll since before his great-grandfather’s time, one still enacted out in the Wastes, among warring tribes. Those not killed in battle were taken captive: branded, secured by the throat with a torq of hammered metal, chained until their spirits broke, and they learned to obey.

He couldn’t imagine Ragnar obeying anything.

Kill him, his wolf urged. A flash of hunger, of fangs, and blood, and satisfying crimson arcs across the snow. Copper on his tongue and the assurance of victory, of dominance.Alpha.

He’d looked down at his hand where it lay on his thigh, and saw that his nails had become claws. He withdrew them with an effort. One he was still learning to push forth; he hadn’t shifted since that first time, and, truth told, he was afraid to do it again.

He’d met Erik’s gaze. “Náli says silver will bind him.”

~*~

“Lantern, your grace?” a guard offered, as he passed through the inner gate into the dungeon proper.

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