Page 26 of The Alpha's Arranged Mate

“As a Senior Lorekeeper trained in such matters by the Halforst Council, I am here to provide formal confirmation that Lyrie is with child,” Syrra intoned, but the whispers that ran through the crowd were of no interest to Lyrie. She couldn’t take her eyes off Reeve’s face, the look of absolute joy shining through the blood and sand that covered him. Then his gaze moved, and she turned to see that he was looking at his brother, who’d also shifted back. He’d given as good as he’d gotten, Lyrie thought faintly, taking in the horrifying sight of her bloodstained mentor. How either of them were still conscious, she didn’t know. But Darion’s face was what really shocked her. He was looking at his brother with more feeling in his eyes than she’d ever seen there.

“I withdraw my challenge,” he croaked, and when he coughed to clear his throat she saw blood splatter on the sand. “Let any punishment for the violation of the tradition fall upon my shoulders alone.” And then, in the same formal tone of proclamation: “You are my brother, the other half of my heart, and I have loved you my whole life.”

Before anyone could react, he’d shifted back. Darion’s paws thudded into the sand again, and drawing on some impossible reserve of strength, he turned on his heel and padded away towards the trees at the far end of the training ring. Every wolf gathered watched him go, and Lyrie wondered if, like her, they were all holding their breath. It didn’t feel real. Even in her most hopeful fantasies of this moment, she’d never imagined that it would be Darion who would call off the fight. The silence stretched out even after Darion was out of sight. Trinn seemed to be speechless, his expression unreadable as he stared into the trees. And of course it was Reeve who eventually broke the silence.

“Thatdefinitelymeans I win, right?” he said brightly, for all the world like a teenager arguing a technicality in a card game. The question was directed to Trinn, who turned to his former pupil with the thunderous expression that had always made Lyrie quake in her boots. And then, he did something Lyrie had never seen him do. He laughed. The smile on his face made the old wolf look about three decades younger, and the ripple of relief that ran through the crowd was palpable. Reeve uttered a shaky little whoop, punching the air weakly in celebration—but then his legs gave out and he staggered, his cry of celebration shifting immediately to a whimper of pain. Lyrie was at his side to steady him, heedless of the fresh blood seeping into her clothing, heart thudding with sudden, awful fear that even after all this, she was still going to lose him.

“Lyrie, you shouldn’t—” he wheezed, breaking off mid-sentence to cough.

“Shh,” she said sharply. “Don’t you dare die, Reeve. Water! Bandages!” she barked over her shoulder, seeing the crowd jolt into action.“And someone go after Darion, too. Follow the blood.”

“You shouldn’t be—” She stepped in closer to support more of Reeve’s weight, feeling tears streaming down her cheeks, though whether they were from relief or terror, she couldn’t tell.

“Shut up,” she repeated through gritted teeth. “Save your stupid strength and that’s an order. I love you and you’re not allowed to die.”

“I love you too,” he said hoarsely, and despite the pain on his face, his smile shone even brighter. “Lyrie, you shouldn’t—“

“What?” she demanded, only barely suppressing the urge to shake him. He was almost unconscious, the bracing of her body the only thing keeping him upright.

“You shouldn’t be lifting heavy things in your condition,” he whispered. And with that final, deeply stupid joke, his eyes slid shut and unconsciousness claimed him.

Chapter 17 - Reeve

Reeve kept almost waking up from what felt like the longest, strangest dream of his life. Every time he thought he glimpsed the ceiling of his bedroom on the yacht, something pulled him back down into the dream, a swirling kaleidoscope of strange impressions and memories he couldn’t tell apart from fantasies. One moment, he was a child, deep in conversation with his mother about why his brother wouldn’t laugh at his jokes. The next, he was dripping in blood on a beach somewhere, convinced he was about to die. The harder he worked to impose a narrative on any of it, the more the fragments seemed to separate, leaving him even more confused and lost than he had been to start with.

But one thing he knew was that he had to wake up. Because there was someone in the room with him, and though his dream kept yanking the rug out from under him whenever he tried to remember who that was, the dream couldn’t convince him that they weren’t the most important person in the entire world. There was something he had to ask about, he kept thinking, wading impatiently through blurry combinations of events that had never happened and events that had happened decades ago. Something too good to be true, something he was frightened to let himself even begin to believe until he had absolute, unshakable confirmation that it was real.

A skyscraper jutting up through the tangled vegetation on Kurivon. A sleek, minimalist boardroom set up in the middle of the temperate forest of Halforst where he’d spent his childhood. His brother’s arms around him, holding him tightly—was he embracing him with love, or holding him back? A sea of paper, some of it bright white and bearing his company’s logo, some of it yellowed with age and printed with cramped and ancient script that made him uneasy just looking at it. His own name written over and over on every page. And all the while, blood dripping down his body, narrow rivulets tickling his wrists, every step leaving a bright red mark behind him, his weight balanced at once on two feet and four paws.

And sometimes, when the dream grew so dense and crowded that he began to panic that he’d never find his way through it, he could hear a voice, just on the edge of hearing, whispering his name and telling him that he was safe. And no matter what kind of horrible situation the dream had delivered him to, he always knew without a doubt that she was telling him the truth. He trusted her more than he’d ever trusted anyone. Lyrie wouldn’t—

“Lyrie!”

He sat bolt upright, feeling an immediate rush of fury crash over him like a wave. That had been so easy! How long had he been trundling about in that stupid dream with the key to pulling himself out of it sitting right there in front of him? But the volume with which he’d shouted her name felt like it had torn a hole in his dry, scratchy throat, and he dissolved into a rather undignified coughing fit until he felt a pair of soft hands pressing a cool glass into his grasp. He sipped the water gratefully, blinking hard. He was in his bedroom on the yacht, same as always, the expensive quilt cover rumpled and askew on the bed. He must have been thrashing about in his sleep. How long had he been…?”

“You slept for a day or so yourself,” came that familiar voice that had guided him through the worst part of his dreams. “But when you woke up you kept tearing your stitches open, so I had Syrra make you up some sedatives.”

“That was the dream, wasn’t it?” he said, frowning. A distant flash of strange feeling, the flesh on his back splitting open, some terribly powerful force overcoming him and pressing him down to the bed in a way that he somehow, strangely, enjoyed…

“Nope.” There it was, that barely concealed frustration he’d fallen in love with. He set the glass down and met those fierce silver eyes, not bothering to hide the broad, probably silly smile that was spreading across his face. She was here. She looked a little weary, her dark red hair tousled and shadows under her eyes that suggested she hadn’t been sleeping so well. Some worry prickled at him and he sat up in bed. “Take it easy,” Lyrie said quickly, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. Something stopped those fingers from brushing against his bare skin, and he frowned to realize he was wrapped in bandages. “You’ll probably be a little disoriented from the herbs at first—Syrra said they make your dreams pretty crazy.”

That made sense, he supposed. “Checks out. I dreamed Darion and I killed each other.”

Lyrie’s expression flickered. “That part’s not so far from the truth,” she said quietly, then hastily added: “He’s fine. He’s okay. Well, he’s alive, and healing. I don’t know how long it’ll take for him to be okay.”

He could feel his frown deepening as he continued to assemble the pieces, the curious, suspended state of the dream giving way to chunks of cold reality. He could remember it now, the leadup to the fight, even the sand under his feet. His hand flexed around the glass the way it had around the handle of his sword. “The Blood Rite,” he said, sudden horror striking at him. “We had to—we stopped? We’re both alive?”

“It’s okay,” Lyrie said again, and now she was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand resting gently on his bandaged chest—though there was something about that light but firm pressure that told him that a lot more force was available to be applied if he thought about trying to get out of bed. “It’s all okay, Reeve. The duel’s been called off.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, right. Like these tradition-crazy old assholes were going to let that happen—sorry,” he added, remembering belatedly who he was talking to.

“We used the traditions to get the rite called off, actually,” Lyrie said primly, and he could see the glow of smugness in her eyes even as she averted her gaze. “So actually, you have the traditions to thank for saving your life. And your brother’s.”

“He hates me,” Reeve said, flashes of the dream resolving into unpleasantly real memory. “Rite or no Rite, he still wants me dead. He thinks I hurt you, he thinks I’m—”

“No. I’ve talked to him. He knows the truth now, Reeve. The whole truth.”

His wave of relief gave way almost immediately to indignation. “He woke up before me? He even has to beat me at healing. Unbelievable.”

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