Page 20 of The Alpha's Betrayed Mate

“We should talk about the pack,” he said softly, regretting it—but Venna was already shifting away, and he could tell the thought hadn’t been far from her mind, either. “We should talk about what this means, for…”

“For my status in the pack,” she said dully. “Or lack thereof. For your position as Alpha. For who our child is going to be, once they’re born. For whether Raske’s going to exile them too.”

“It’s complicated, that’s all I’m saying.” He felt oddly bereft without her, as though his body had grown accustomed to holding her close in those few seconds she’d spent in his arms and was now protesting at the return to solitude. But he knew better than to try to hold her when she had that look in her eye.

“I’m not stupid. I know it’s going to be complicated. They hate me for what happened to my brothers.”

“I know how hurtful it was, what Raske said that day about Korvi.” The name felt strange on his tongue, and Belmont wondered how many times he’d even spoken the child’s name since his death. It was strange to think that Venna’s youngest brother would be older than Rylan now, if not for that terrible accident. “I can imagine he’ll have even more hurtful things to say once he finds out you’re going to be a mother.”

Venna’s expression was guarded. “Let him say what he likes. I know what I did that day, how badly I let my family down. My brothers both died because I wasn’t there to protect them. I’m responsible for their deaths. Our parents, too.”

Belmont frowned. “You were gone years before—”

“I was responsible for the grief that killed them,” she said calmly. “I accept that. I accept all of it. But I won’t let Raske or anyone else tell me I’m not fit to be a mother because of a mistake I’ve spent eight years of my life grieving.”

He looked at her for a moment, wishing he could put words to how he felt. He’d always admired her strength in battle, her natural talent, her speed—but this was a strength that went deeper and further than that ever could. This was the strength that kept drawing him to her, and this was the strength, too, that made him withdraw. The admiration he felt for the way she’d handled this situation was inextricably bound up with the guilt he felt for his own role in what had happened. She’d made it abundantly clear that she didn’t blame him, that she didn’t hold his rejection of her responsible for the tragedy—but the secret still gnawed at him.

“And us?” she said now, her voice a little less certain than it had been when she’d been speaking her defiance of Raske and the other senior figures in the pack. “What about us?”

He thought of Tetra, of the way they’d come together in their grief to care for the infant who needed them. They’d never spoken about it, but they’d both known they’d never have made it through their grief—or through the early days of Rylan’s life—without each other’s support. But as much as they’d cared for each other as friends and as co-parents, he knew that there had been a great, awful sadness between them. There was a part of Tetra that nobody would see again—a part of her that had died with her soulmate. Would there be a similar gulf here between him and Venna? Could he enter into another co-parenting relationship, weighed down by a hundred things that neither of them could speak about?

But before he could open his mouth, before he could begin to put any of that into words, a piercing siren broke the tense silence in the room. Venna’s head snapped around—he was already on his feet, heading for the doorway. After eighteen months on Kurivon, his body reacted to that siren almost faster than his mind could. The attack that they’d been waiting for had come at last—and of course it had come at the worst imaginable time. He grabbed his sword from the cabinet by the door where it was kept, glanced over his shoulder to see Venna methodically touching half a dozen places on her body, beneath her layered clothing. The only time she was ever unarmed was when she was naked, he’d learned—and even then, her daggers were never far away.

“Venna,” he started, not sure what he was going to say. But when she looked up to meet his gaze, there was no trace of reproach—only understanding, and the grim glint of readiness for battle.

“Later,” she said, with a little shake of her head. “Right now, we’ve got bigger problems.”

“Rylan—”

“I’ve got him. You go—the pack needs you. I’ll take Rylan to the creche with the other kids then join the defense wherever I’m needed.” Part of the attack readiness protocols the island had set up was a safe place for the children of the packs to hide while the adults turned back the demons. For a moment, he thought of what she’d just disclosed to him, wondered if a woman in her condition ought to be going into battle… and then he imagined, just for a second, how she’d react if he tried to suggest she shouldn’t fight. Absolutely not, he decided. Not while she had a dozen knives at her fingertips.

“Thank you,” he said instead. He didn’t just mean for taking care of Rylan. Venna flashed him a grin before she headed down the hallway.

“Just doing my job.”

The siren was still howling when Belmont reached his pack, already gathered at the marshalling point and ready to do battle at last. There was a strange sense of relief in the air, clearly shared by the wolves from the other pack. While no wolf relished the thought of risking his or her life in battle with a demon, there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that they were fulfilling their ancient duties, waging a war that had been passed down through untold generations of wolves, longer than living memory or written record extended back through time. To be a wolf was to take up arms against demons. And it was in this spirit that they dove into the fray.

He’d worried that his pack might hesitate before the battle, that the trauma of the attack might interfere with their abilities… but they surprised him, as they so often did. Far from shrinking away from the fight, they seemed to hurl themselves into it with more speed and ferocity than he’d ever seen in them. And as they howled their victory over what would be the first of many fallen demon foes, Belmont realized what was driving them. They were fighting for their lost packmates. They were fighting for revenge.

By the time sunrise came, the battle was won. He and the other Alphas paced the battlefield, taking stock of the damage done—at least a few dozen large demons had been slain, and a countless number of smaller ones whose monstrous forms had already dissolved and seeped into the grass where they’d fallen. Reeve and Darion were both exultant, wearing matching grins and both splattered liberally with ichor. After a serious gulf in their relationship, the brothers had been slowly repairing the bond between them, and what they liked best was battle. Torren and Blaine were on the other side of the battlefield, arguing about something—Belmont could only imagine it was the rash young warrior’s tendency to fight as though he had a death wish. But it was the worried look on Renfrey’s face that drew Belmont’s attention most.

“I don’t think this was the attack we’ve been waiting for,” he explained when Belmont moved up beside him to open the door for discussion. “You can feel it, can’t you? The buildup of demonic activity—it hasn’t dropped.”

“We’ll consult with the lorekeepers,” Belmont said, feeling an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Now that Renfrey pointed it out, he had to admit that the fight had been easier than he’d anticipated. After the weeks of buildup, to dispatch the whole force in a few hours, with no casualties more serious than a half-dozen flesh wounds… Renfrey was right to be suspicious. As if on cue, he turned to see Raske picking his way across the battlefield to join them. The old man looked weary, leaning harder on his staff than usual, and the hem of his robes was stained with demonic blood. He had a habit of spending more of his energy than was strictly safe, especially when it came to the protective spells he wove for the pack during battles like this one.

But Raske gave only a brief report on the battle before he pulled Belmont away from the other Alphas, his expression grim. As they walked through the gray light of dawn towards the community center, Belmont could feel worry solidifying in the pit of his stomach. He knew better than to needle Raske with more questions about what it was he was needed for—the lorekeeper would share his thoughts exactly when he intended to and not a moment before. Still, he had a horrible feeling it concerned Venna. And when he arrived at the community center to find the pack’s most senior members waiting for him in the room that had come to function as Raske’s office, his suspicions were confirmed.

“The demons weren’t here for us,” Raske said as soon as the door shut behind them. “It was the creche they were targeting.”

Belmont’s eyes widened with alarm. The creche had been positioned very deliberately in the center of the settlement, and it was the least convenient location for the demons, who always emerged from the trees around the settlement’s outskirts when they attacked.

“The children are safe,” Yara said, launching quickly into her report.Two thirds of Kurivon’s fighting wolves had met the main assault outside the settlement, but the rest had been on guard through the town. Experience had told them that demons would often use a major assault as a smokescreen for smaller attempts to infiltrate the town and catch some victims unaware, and plenty of firepower was reserved to stamp out such incursions. But this sounded like a much larger force than usual.

“Should we give some thought to increasing the number of wolves we put on guard in the settlement?” Belmont wanted to know. But Yara hadn’t finished.

“That wasn’t a problem,” she said, shaking her head. “We took them down without any injuries. Venna was there,” she added, a grudging note of respect in her voice. “I don’t need to tell either of you how formidable she is in battle.”

Belmont felt pride swelling in his chest, making sure to keep it from his face as he nodded agreement. “It eases my mind considerably to know Rylan has her as a guardian,” he said. But something told him that this wasn’t the time to try to sway the pack into taking a more positive attitude toward the exile.

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