Page 24 of The Alpha's Betrayed Mate

Each wolf had taken one of Venna’s arms, and a third had come forward to remove the demonic weapon from her unprotesting fingers. All three glanced at Belmont after Raske’s order, clearly expecting the instruction to be countermanded. Had he really spoken so often in Venna’s defense that they expected him, even now, to spare her? He couldn’t meet her eyes—he looked instead at the wolves, gave them a short, brusque nod. Once Venna was gone, it was easier to breathe. After all, he’d had plenty of practice with putting that woman out of his mind.

“Rylan,” he said quickly, moving to the boy’s side. “Rylan, you’re safe. We’ve got you.”

“Hurts,” the boy said drowsily, his eyes fluttering open before sagging shut again. Yara had propped him up in her arms, clearly trying to stir him from his sleep, but there was vivid worry on her bloodstained face when she looked at him.

“Whatever this substance is, it seems to have drugged him,” she said, gesturing gingerly to the wound. From here, he could see it more clearly—a sticky, viscous substance, clear like water with that iridescent shine on its surface, but the quality of its movement was more suggestive of honey. Belmont tore the sleeve from his shirt without a second thought, wrapped his hand in it and began to wipe the venom carefully from his son’s wound. The pack were gathered around him, watching in stony silence, but they might as well have been on another world for all the attention he paid them. Slowly, painstakingly, he cleaned his son’s wound—and at last, the boy’s eyes flickered open again.

“Dad?” Rylan frowned up at him. “There’s a demon—we have to—”

“It’s gone,” Belmont reassured him. “The demon’s gone. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Rylan said, and he could hear tears in the boy’s voice. “I was here—and Venna was here—and—” He winced as he moved his arm, and his eyes widened in fear when he looked down to see the wound. “It was so big,” he whispered. “It came out of the sea. Dad, it’s the same one. It’s the same one that killed Mom.”

“What do you mean?” Belmont demanded—but Rylan’s eyes had slid shut again, and Yara held him close.

“Enough.” That was Raske’s voice, cold and clipped. Always calm in a crisis, that was Raske. Belmont felt a sudden wave of gratitude for his old advisor as he rallied the shocked pack. “Rylan needs his wounds cleaned and tended—ideally by a lorekeeper with experience in demonic wounds. No, Yara, not you. Someone who’s not at risk of bleeding out themselves.” A couple of wolves moved forward, and with a certain reluctance, Yara let them take the boy.

“The prisoner,” Belmont said, rising to his feet and feeling a strange, cold certainty burning in him. “Have her brought to the community center tomorrow at noon.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Raske said, his expression watchful. “For what purpose?”

Belmont took a deep breath of sea air, letting the cold night wind chill his body to the bone. He’d need that icy chill in the days to come, that much had become clear.

“Tomorrow at noon, we will be putting the exile on trial,” he said, raising his voice so that every wolf present could hear what he’d said. “Once and for all, we will be getting to the bottom of what she is doing here among us. Every member of this pack is invited to be present, to bear witness, and to give any testimony that he or she sees fit. I will likewise see to it that representatives from Kurivon’s other communities are invited to weigh in. This is a matter that concerns us not just as wolves of this pack, but as wolves of Kurivon. I will see you all at the trial.”

The pack murmured their grave agreement before they dispersed. Yara, worried as she looked, spared him a fleeting smile—perhaps the warmest gesture he’d received from her since the pack had arrived on Kurivon. Raske put a hand on his shoulder for a brief, meaningful moment, then turned without a word and left him standing on the beach with the wind whipping at his hair. All this time, he hadn’t wanted to believe Venna was capable of the awful things that his pack had accused her of. And now, he feared, his son had paid the price.

He hoped like hell that Venna was innocent, that this was all a terrible misunderstanding. But if she was, she was going to have to prove it. He’d see to it that the trial was fair, of course, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself for another minute without proof that his pack—and his son—were safe around her.

And if she never forgave him for it, then that was the price an Alpha had to pay.

Chapter 14 - Venna

A prisoner yet again. How grimly predictable. She kept having to hide her laughter as the worried-looking wolves escorted her through the settlement and towards the old library. Why did they think they had to hold her arms? Where did they think she was going to run? Into the ocean, to swim to one of the other islands? Maybe they did. Maybe they imagined her over there, plotting with demons… a stabbing pain shot through her heart at the very thought, and the urge to laugh seemed suddenly very far away.

She’d expected the wolves to drag her into the room where she’d stayed the last time. She’d also expected to see Syrra—but neither of those expectations came to pass, and she was instead dragged into the back of the library and down a flight of stairs she hadn’t even realized were there. The basement was damp and a little unpleasant, but it wasn’t the dank dungeon she’d briefly let herself envision. Still, there were considerably fewer escape routes than she’d been expecting. She paced around the basement, eyes narrowed in the unpleasant fluorescent lights. It was clear the space had been intended for storage and not much more, but she was able to find a pile of spare bedding that had been stashed down here. Paying no heed to keeping the place tidy, she dragged out the bedding and built herself a soft little nest to curl up in—then she stared at the far wall and wondered just when the night had gone so wrong.

Finding Rylan, that part had been easy. She’d barely been through the door before she’d known where she was going to check first. It had been a while since they’d spent much time on the beach—her plans to distract Rylan from his boat-building project had been a runaway success—but sure enough, a small pair of footprints in the sand told her she’d found him. The difficult bit had been talking him into coming out of his hiding spot. He’d wriggled into a crevice when he heard her calling his name, and it was only when she’d slid down between the rocks to hide too that he’d realized something was wrong.

And so they’d hidden there, as wave after wave of demons emerged from the sea. They’d emerged once the waves had dropped to a trickle, but Rylan hadn’t been willing to follow her home just yet. So they’d set up a little makeshift camp by the rocks, the demons repelled by the torchlight (or, when they got a little too close, by a well-aimed knife.) Slowly but surely, she’d been talking Rylan around about the prospect of her going back to Halforst for a few months. She was even beginning to believe it herself… but that was when a horrendously familiar specter had emerged from the sea behind Rylan, and after that, her memories all grew blurry, as if she was looking at them through a foggy window. She couldn’t remember when Rylan had been struck to the ground, and she couldn’t remember when the strange, shimmering weapon had ended up in her hand and not the demon’s.

But she could remember, clear as crystal, the look on Belmont’s face when the pack had turned up. That was the part that burned her the most. She’d expected the pack to turn on her the way they had. But Belmont going along with it… that had surprised her. That had cut her to her quick. And the fact that he’d called for a trial didn’t reassure her at all. The pack could pretend that they were giving her a fair hearing all they wanted, but she knew from experience how good Raske was at justifying just about any means to obtain his desired ends. And if his desired end was for Venna to be gone or dead, then that was what the outcome would be.

She was almost curious, lying there in a heap of blankets with what felt like a huge empty space in her chest where her heart had once been. Would Belmont stand by and allow the pack to execute her, if that was the punishment they deemed appropriate for her crimes? Exactly how far would he take his loyalty to the pack? Once, a long time ago, she’d believed that she and Belmont were soulmates. Then, when she’d confessed her love and he’d turned her away, she’d revised that position. Over the last few weeks, she’d returned to the subject, some part of her thawing and healing. Against all odds, she’d found the strength to begin to believe that maybe, just maybe, they were soulmates after all.

And now, at last, she was certain of it. Theyweresoulmates. She’d just been lucky enough to end up with the only wolf in this world or the other who was more dedicated to his pack than he was to the love of his life. If she hadn’t been so damn tired, she might have laughed. Instead, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, her heart and mind too heavy with grief to even bother dreaming.

When the wolves came to get her, she was utterly disoriented. With no access to natural light, she had no idea how long she’d been asleep down here—a few hours? A day? She emerged blinking into the back room of the old library, wrinkling her nose as the grave-looking wolves bound her hands behind her back. She asked after Syrra, but the wolves seemed to be under strict instructions not to speak to her. She recognized both of them—they were only a few years her senior, they’d likely been friends before she’d been exiled. But if they remembered, they were doing a very good job of acting as though they didn’t.

It was midday, she realized as the wolves marched her across the grass towards the distant, familiar shape of the community center. The settlement was oddly quiet, with barely a wolf to be seen on the street. It had been strange not to see Syrra at the library at all, too. The stink of demon blood still lingered in the air, and she was surprised to see how much corpse residue was still clogging the grass beneath her feet. There must have been considerable numbers in last night’s attack, for this much blood to still be lingering.

The whole pack was gathered in the community center. She scanned their number, keeping her expression dispassionately blank despite the twinge of sadness at how small the group was compared to what it had been… but she frowned a little as she noticed just how many of them seemed to be sporting bandages. No wonder Syrra hadn’t been at the library. She’d no doubt been flat out at the infirmary, cleaning the venom from all these wounds.

“I call this trial to order.”

Belmont was running the proceedings. Why didn’t that surprise her? There he stood at the front of the room behind a podium they must have brought out especially for this purpose. His clothing was crisp and his hair flawlessly neat, but she could see the weariness in his eyes as clear as anything. Well, he’d get no sympathy from her for his sleepless night. He made some words of introduction that Venna quickly tuned out in favor of scanning the faces of the pack—boring old tripe about justice and scrutiny, about hearing every side of the story before deciding on the truth. He wanted to hear her side of the story, did he? That would make a refreshing change.

At least Rylan was here. It took her a few heartstopping minutes to spot him, hunkered as he was in the back of the audience with Yara’s protective arm around his shoulders. She flashed him a smile when she met his eyes, saw him smile back for a moment, but she could see how worried he was from the tear marks on his cheeks. His arm was covered in fresh white bandages, and she breathed a sigh of relief. If Syrra had tended him, he’d be recovered in no time.

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