Unhappily Ever After

Chapter 10 - Bloodless

We found Evie in the centre of a circle of females, her hands resting on her knees and her face animated. She seemed to be telling some kind of story, and her audience seemed to be enjoying it. I raised my eyebrows at Alex, but he just shook his head a fraction. Okay — no questions for now. I had enough manners to listen and wait for her to finish.

"Once the southerners had breached the walls, Caradoc knew he was out of time. What else could he do, but deny them that final victory?"

The other females gave a noisy chorus of agreement. Evie had to wait a moment before recapturing their attention with a flick of her hand. A glance to my left showed me Alex grinning. Pride. I found it remarkable how well mate-bonds seemed to work, given that I'd never trusted the soulmate system.

"His men were dying around him. He knew he wouldn't share their fate if the southerners found him. No, they'd parade him around as a trophy, drag him through the mud until everything he'd built was ashes. He couldn't let that happen. He'd die before he let that happen."

"So, as the walls of Lle o Dristwch crumbled around him" —here, my ears pricked up a bit— "he used his own dagger to slash his wrists. They say the southern leader found him sitting in a pool of his own blood, and he was smiling as he died."

Oh, the castle... There was no way I'd set up camp where my great-grandfather died out of coincidence, now was there? It must be those little threads beneath the surface of the world, tugging us all into place. Or, I reflected, it could just be a family addiction to giant, formidable structures.

"He wasn't called king while he lived. That title is too difficult to earn among our kind. Humans make kings as readily as they make butter, but a shifter king rises once a millennium. But when Caradoc died to preserve his people's reputation, well... We all know what he goes by these days. King of the Alphas. Father of the Packs. We sit here today because of his sacrifice."

It was overdramatised, to say the least, but what else could I expect from pack story tellers? They needed their heroes as much as they needed their villains, and the only way to make heroes out of real people is embellishment. I couldn't fault Evie for that.

While she wrapped up the story's loose ends, Alex leaned towards me to mutter, "Her mother is our story keeper. Evie takes over when she's not feeling well, which is most of the time, these days."

"Ah," I said. It was the first time I'd seen a story teller without greying hair, so Evie's memory must be remarkable.

The females began to disperse, chatting amongst themselves, heading back towards the pack house in twos and threes. None of them paid us any heed. Evie stayed behind a moment to gather up her shoulder bag thingy and we just waited to be noticed.

A heartbeat later, she swept her hair behind her shoulder and peered at us. "Oh, hi, Doug. I apologise for the other day — Alex told me afterwards that you didn't deserve it."

No problem, really," I assured her. "It was my fault, if I'm being honest."

Alex shot me a sideways look and huffed. "No, that's fine, Evie — don't say hi to me. Not like I'm your soulmate or anything."

Evie gave him an affectionate slap. "You know I love you, jackass, but that doesn't mean I tolerate jealousy."

"I'd just feel better if we found him a mate."

"Brilliant idea, Al. Literal genius, that was. I'm going to play matchmaker. How about ... Katrina Maycomb?"

They both fell about laughing, and I got the distinct feeling I was missing a punchline. Not even to mention their talent for accidently falling into private conversations (which might have just been a mate thing — I wasn't sure).