I track Daire with quiet footsteps, staying in his wake. Seeing someone typically so composed start to fray unmoors me. When he stops, I move, reminding myself that while here I had promised myself not to hold back.
He rounds toward me and darts away, his face void of emotion. "I have something for you," he says, dodging any potential questions.
I follow him to a small container that he picks up from the ground. "What is it?"
He grabs something from inside it and holds it out like bait. "You get a treat for being such a good pup."
"I think the last two nights have proved I'm no pup, but I'm happy to revisit the lesson anytime." I snatch the small tart from his hand and make a show of licking a dab of berry from my thumb.
His attention stays on my mouth as he says, "I may need a refresher."
"Happy to give one." I wave my fingers at him for another tart.
He hands over a second with a crook of his lips, and I'll gladly divert his thoughts if it gets him smiling again.
"What's in these?" I ask.
"Miganberries."
"We need to save some for Coly," I say, peeking into the tin to gauge how many more I can get away with eating.
"I'm sure Mae and Toby would be more than happy to send us back with a ferry filled."
I lick at a crumb on my lip. "Who are Mae and Toby?"
"You'll meet them tonight."
"What's tonight?" I ask as he heads toward our cottage, taking the tarts with him.
"The pack campfire."
My hands drop to my hips and my forehead wrinkles in confusion. "What are you talking about? What did you do today?"
"Come on, we're going to be late. I need to grab some warmer clothes before we go."
"To the campfire?"
Daire turns to me, eyes less turbulent. "Yes, that's what I've been saying."
I sigh and trek after him. Good grief.
∞ ∞ ∞
I carry two drinks toward Daire, who sits alone on a tree trunk bench. His back straightens and face softens when he sees me approaching, and I can't hold back my smile. It's the first time I've felt this at ease with someone other than Rainer.
Holding a cup out to him, I take a seat close to his side, able to feel him against my thigh as I lean to his ear and ask, "Everything alright?"
"Everything is fine."
It's light, a bit dismissive, so I cup his chin and turn his face toward mine. "Daire, are you okay?"
"Of course." He smiles and rubs my leg. After a few minutes of listening to an elder strum a guitar, he says, "I can't remember that last time anyone's asked me that in that way."
"What way?"
"Like the answer affects you. Peter would ask, but that was mostly during fights to make sure I hadn't died yet." He grins.
I wrap my arm around him and push my fingers up into the hair at the base of his neck.
He peers at me with a growing smile. "It's nice. I've never had..." He uses his other hand to gesture between us.
"Intimacy?"
"Yes. I think," he pauses, his hazel eyes consuming me, "you continue to surprise me. I don't trust easily. I've always had to be cautious, keep my guard up. It's freeing with you." He looks away and I can't tell if it's in further thought or slight embarrassment at the confession.
Whichever it is, I pull him closer into my side, wanting him to know that I feel the same.
"Reeve," he says softly, like he simply needed to say it. "Sometimes it feels like I've already lived so many different lives, played so many different roles, but none of them felt real, like the real me, until I met you."
The moment for my own confession is broken when the elder wolf playing guitar ends his song and calls out, "Would the good Master Warder care to honor us with a song? A little birdie told us he has quite the talent."
Daire smiles at me, full and heart-stopping, and then turns to the awaiting crowd. "It'd be my pleasure," he replies and then stands to make his way to the front, all charm and natural charisma.
I move to stand away from the fire, behind the seated wolves, in a perfect position to see him. He grins at several wolves who cheer for him as he makes his way up front. Adjusting the instrument, he sits back on a raised stool to be seen over the fire, which from my position casts an ethereal glow about his face. He is undeniably breathtaking.
With expert talent, he commands attention, playing haunting tones that prickle across my arms and neck. It's an old healing song. The music moves me, and the breach is so unexpected I have no barriers in place to manage the swift uprising of emotion. I think back to the question I had when we arrived here: is this real between us? And I think I've found—am feeling—the answer. I want him. His presence. His passion. His soul. I want him. I just don't know how to make him stay.
A drawn howl interrupts the performance. Another one follows. Then another, from the eastern borders of Simik Valley.
Daire meets my eyes across the fire, a knowing glance, then sets the guitar down and is gone faster than I'm able to ditch my cup and move toward him. Shit. Wolves flee in a chorus of panicked moans and screams, abandoning their goods and drinks and rushing toward several safe houses Nivi had shown me today.
I help direct the scattering masses, assisting elders to hurry along with the others. When it appears that Nivi's betas have everyone managed, I shift into my wolf and run to find Daire.
Kassel merges with my path, leading me along short cuts through the mountain wild. When he slows, I do the same, pawing cautiously beside him as we trek in; the scent of vampyres teasing us from every direction. There are three here besides Daire.
The woods carry an eerie, unnatural stillness and the sense of being watched.
Surely, Daire is out here somewhere.
We pause and listen, finding cover beneath large leaves as we search for any quiver in the air, a heightened scent, or subtle noise.
A vampyre paces in from between trees, armed and poised to hunt, a streak of white-blond hair in his black mane. Daire appears to materialize from shadows directly in front of him and swipes across his chest with his blade, causing his opponent to stumble back and press a hand to the bleeding wound. Catching sight of Daire approaching him, the vampyre sucks in a sharp breath and drops to his knees, eyes wide in fear. "It can't be."
Another vampyre pushes through the thick greenery, mouth parted in disbelief. He doesn't lower his blade, but he seems otherwise wholly disarmed. He wears a stitched sash across his dark shirt filled with badges of honor—a high ranking in the king's guard.
The third vampyre steps behind the leader, face pinched, looking more angry than awed.
The leader steps out of the brush to stand in front of Daire, and what little color his complexion held is now gone. "I watched you burn." His eyes redden and his voice breaks as he falls to his knees. "How? Had I known you were alive..."
Unease prickles my skin. What the hell is this?
"I have failed you, my prince."
No.
I stagger back, the words hitting me as soundly as a fist. Kassel paws away from me as if I might be involved. As if I might to be a deceiver as well. I meet his eyes, and the shocked betrayal I have no hope of concealing makes him hesitate.
With a subtle dip of his head, he puts his trust in me to address this situation.
Daire reaches down and cups the leader's neck. "Were you sent here to hunt these wolves, Cassius?"
"No, Prince. We were sent to find the Ghost. We tracked you here. I didn't know."
"I know."
"Why didn't you send me a batling during all these years? I could have helped you. I would have kept your secret. Things at the coven—"
Daire cuts him off with a gentle squeeze of his hand, flicking his eyes to the young vampyre watching with hatred curling his features. The leader gives an almost imperceptible nod to Daire before he turns and throws a dagger, piercing the soldier in the heart.
What the hell is going on?
The young soldier grabs at the hilt, betrayal darkening his eyes. "He'll kill you for this," he seethes. "He'll kill you all."
The vampyre with the white streak struts over and cuts off any other threats with a clean swipe of his knife across the vampyre's neck and then stakes him as soon as he hits the ground. He turns to Daire with such hope and loyal admiration, and each second severs something fundamental inside me.
I shift form and stand boldly from my place within the thick trees, drawing all eyes to me, and by the look of stunned realization on Daire's face, I'd say that he'd completely forgotten that I even exist. "Reeve," he says with hints of trepidation and fear.
The leader stands and pulls his knife from the slain soldier. "We can't leave this wolf alive. Not if he knows who you are, Prince."
Daire's eyes haven't left mine, a ferocious pleading in their hazel depths, screaming for me to trust him.
"No one touches him. Cass, you need to get off of the Diamond Pack land. I'll torch the soldier's body and meet you tonight to explain everything. Send a batling with your location."
"Yes, my prince." The leader sizes me up with a frown. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"
"Yes," Daire says, "I trust him."
"If you say so." With a final warning look, the leader and his companion run off, leaving us alone, though I can tell that Kassel isn't too far away, lying in wait in case I need help.
"Reeve," he steps forward and I step to the side. "I can explain."
"You're Prince Daire Heroux." A cold trickle of dread races down my spine, and somehow the words come out, though my mind freezes in shock.
"Yes."
Rationale seeps into the blankness and comprehension is slow to come; the blunt blow and encompassing hurt shutting down everything else. "Goddess, you must think we're the biggest fools," I whisper, failing to accept that I don't know these hazel eyes, and I can't trust this handsome face and familiar body.
"No." His hands rise in supplication—hands that have soothed and teased and pleasured me. "I know what this looks like... what you must be thinking right now—"
"Was this all part of some grand scheme of the king's?" I ask, still dazed, pacing in a circle around him, though it may as well be someone else operating my body for all the thought I give to my movements. "Were you sent to infiltrate the strongest packs? Lull us into some false sense of trust and connection until we submitted to you?"
"No. I've been completely honest about my intentions and who I am—"
"Who you are? Who are you?" In my head the words are screamed, deafening, but my voice gives out, broken instead of irate. "The Ghost? A rogue warder? A dead prince?"
"Yes. I am all of those. You know me—"
"I don't. I know fuck all, thanks to you and my father." My voice strengthens, the heat of pain finally finding purchase and hardening as it replaces my disbelief.
"Reeve—"
"You will leave this land and not come back. You will stay away from me and my pack—"
"Listen to me. Please, Reeve, don't do this. Everything I've told you is true. Yes, I left out details for my own safety and yours. I've spent two years in hiding, waiting for the right time to engage King Frederick. My title doesn't change any of that. It's still me. You know me. You know you can trust me."
"That's the thing, Prince, I don't know that. Not anymore. Burn your vampyre and leave." I choke on the words, the pain in my chest quaking out from my core and making my hands shake.
"Please don't do this." He's not crying exactly, but his eyes are glistening from the quick build of emotions crashing down on him. On us.
I blink away a watery gaze and hold back so many words: I thought you were my guy. I thought you were going to be the one I could need. I thought I could be the one you could need, too. "You were using me to murder your way to a crown," I say instead, and if I weren't so fucking enraged, I know my expression would match his—the look of someone shattering. My power pulses, a building pressure searching for a way out.
I'm done being everyone's pawn.
I wait for Daire to burn the soldier before turning to leave without another word.
∞ ∞ ∞
I peek at the rising sun, replaying the events of last night, the sadness sharpening the hit of betrayal. My treads are heavy over worn rocks and down scree covered hills with Kassel and four deltas trailing me in wolf form until I'm off their land. At least as wolves, I can't see their pitying expressions any longer.
The alpha fool.
Nivi had been quiet when I'd returned to tell him what happened. I read no surprise or bloom of violation in his scent, only a silent consideration before he patted my back and suggested I leave to inform my father.
How could this have happened? How could he have fooled all of us? The damned vampyre prince.
After shifting into human form, I give a solemn greeting to Delta Banks upon crossing our border and head toward my pack home, glad I had time to sort through my thoughts on the long journey back so I don't charge into my father's office and lose my shit.
Banks tips his throat to me; his eyes narrowed. "Young Alpha," he greets me with a questioning lift in his voice. "Your power."
"Come with me, Delta. I have news you'll need to hear."
My father is in his office, standing to embrace me when I press through the door. I step past his arms and, for the first time in my life, don't allow him time to mark me. With a deep inhale and a beat of uncertainty, he grins. "I'm happy to see you, son." He gestures toward the chair in front of his desk. "Tell me about your trip to the Diamond Pack."
Dropping onto the chair across from him, I can feel him study me, anxious at my cool demeanor. "Your power has substantially grown and you smell distinctly of a certain vampyre."
"Yes. About him..."
I school my expression and relay the details of our trip; my father's expression closing off after each passing second.
"Did you know that he was the prince? That it was the prince's army you volunteered me to lead," I snarl.
"I didn't know, I swear. But that doesn't change his intentions or my desire to aid him in his fight."
"What?" Has he gone crazy? "Prince Daire, who spent his youth murdering wolves, torturing rogue vampyres who were lucky enough to escape the hell of his king, and wielding his wrath without mercy."
"I don't know the validity of those stories, Reeve, but I do know that he faked his death to get out from under his uncle and spent the past two years rescuing wolves and waiting for enough support to be able to stand up to King Frederick and end his reign."
"Yeah, for his own grasp at power."
He regards me with a slight tilt of his head and tightening of his eyes. "I don't know if we can ultimately trust him in the long-term to further our best interests, but for now, I believe that we can. I hoped if he committed to you that it would secure our safety once he helped remove the king, but Omi has assured me that he has no plans to commit."
"Obviously, and neither do I," I say, reminding him that it is my choice as well. "I would not bind myself to a liar and a murderer."
"I see. When you left him," he says carefully, "was it as our enemy?"
I stand, vibrating with rage and heartbreak. "I left him as nothing and no one."