The Alpha's Concubine (Historical Shifter Romance) (47 page)

The eyes of the others followed her on her way out, but she found a quiet corner to herself in the central chamber as she waited for her pot of water to boil. It had been a tiring day, and it felt good to have a moment of peace. She rested back against the cave wall, drawing her wolf pelt around her as she watched the fire. In the back of her mind she was vaguely aware that she needed to pay attention to her pot, but the thought slipped away gradually until her eyelids drooped and she lost track of time.

A sudden pop from the fire jolted Netya awake. Her white wolf had been there in her dreams. He had fought with the spirit of the scrawny female, the pair of them locking jaws in a grim dance as Netya clung on to her guardian's back and tried not to fall. The thought that the wild wolf's spirit was haunting her already was unnerving, and the dream had left her stiff and anxious.

She rubbed her eyes and stumbled to her feet, wondering how long she had napped for. Someone had taken her pot off the fire, and the central chamber was empty save for two of the elders sitting on the opposite side. The absence of everyone else suggested night had fallen.

Despite her worries that she had left Khelt waiting for her, she decided to check in on Adel once more before taking her leave. She crept up the dark passage and pushed the drapes half way open, calling the den mother's name softly. A low grunt answered her, and she stepped on through.

The fire had burned down low, and Adel was curled up in her furs near the wall. Her bowl of stew sat empty by the fire, and the bags of pollen Netya had left there earlier had still not been prepared. With a weary smile, she tiptoed in and picked up the bowl, then added a few more logs to the fire as a chilly draft rushed down her back. Adel had left the roof cover half way open for some reason, and through the gap Netya could see that the stars had come out.

"You cannot sleep in the cold all night, Den Mother," she said, making her way past Adel as carefully as she could, preparing to climb up to the roof. But as she stepped over the dozing woman, Adel grunted again. She was not dozing, she was shivering. Why had she not closed the cover if she was so cold?

"Are you unwell, Den Mother?" Netya said, a frown crossing her face as she crouched beside her mentor. When she received no response, she put a hand on Adel's shoulder and tried to roll her over, the apprehension from her dream returning stronger than ever. When she saw Adel's face, it was damp with perspiration. Her eyes were wide open, but they stared through Netya as if she was a ghost, wide black pupils darting back and forth in agitation.

The den mother was in a spirit trance, but this was no controlled journey she was undertaking. Her brow burned like fire, and her body twitched with unnatural movements that seemed beyond her control. When her breath came, it was in shrill, shallow gasps, and her pulse drummed against Netya's fingers like the patter of rain.

There were few sicknesses she had learned to identify in the course of her training, but the symptoms Adel was displaying were keenly familiar to her. Netya had experienced them herself after she took the nightwood berries, but that time their effects had been much milder. The state Adel was in now reminded her of how the boy from her village had been after eating the berries by accident, when it had taken the administering of more poison to save him from death.

Panic gripped Netya as she shook the older woman by the shoulders, cupping her face and trying to draw her back into the physical world. She seemed lost beyond all hope, her mind buried so deep in the realm of spirits that it might never find its way back.

"Den Mother! Listen to my voice, come back! What must I do to help you?!" Netya shook her again, but it did no good. How could this have happened? Did Adel make a mistake? She would never. "Wait for me," Netya said, squeezing her mentor's hand. "I will fetch the others, they will know what to do."

She hurried through the drapes, almost tripping in the dark passage on her way back to the main chamber, before rousing the two dozing elders.

"The den mother is unwell! I do not know what to do, but I fear she may die!"

After much reassurance from the other women to calm her down, Netya followed them back to the den mother's chamber, explaining what had happened. She wrung her hands impatiently as the pair examined Adel, exchanging grave glances as they muttered beneath their breath.

"What can be done for her?" Netya said at last, when she could endure no longer. "Do you have the medicine to bring her back?"

One of the elders rose to her feet and gave Netya a hard look. "It is as you thought. She has been poisoned with nightwood berries, and for those, there is no cure. We must speak with the other seers immediately. Our den mother is dying."

Netya felt the colour drain from her face, a sickly feeling rushing into her stomach as she looked to Adel's twitching form. "Shall I fetch them?" she said numbly.

The elders exchanged another strange look, then the closer one nodded. "Yes, tell them to gather in the central chamber. Do not stray far."

Netya stumbled out through the drapes, quivering as if she was suffering the effects of the poison herself. Had she not paused to brace herself against the wall as a wave of nausea swept over her, she would not have overheard what the elders whispered next.

"Do you really think she did it?"

"You have seen the way Adel treats her," the other hissed. "She was never one of us to begin with. Who else could it have been?"

"She was coming and going while the den mother was absent earlier. I even saw her bring food in."

"Did anyone else enter this chamber?"

"Not a soul."

The lurching of Netya's stomach threatened to overwhelm her as she realised what they were implying. How could they think she was responsible?

"Go, tell the alpha," the first elder said. "If you see any of the hunters on your way, tell them to find the girl and bring her back here."

Before she could overhear any more, Netya forced her legs to move. She hurried blindly into the darkness, pushing through the drapes until she was stumbling across the antechamber and out into the cool night air.

What could she do? How could she prove it had not been her? Tears ran down her cheeks as she struggled to control her panicked breathing. In the space of a few short moments, the comforting presence of the outcrop had become unsettling and alien to her once more. The shapes of the people gathered around the central fire below no longer reminded her of family.

Hurrying back to her tent, she ignored Fern's words of concern as she burst in on her friend, grabbing her spear and waterskin before hurrying back out. In her panic, there was only one thing she could think to do, and only one person she trusted to listen to her.

* * *

Vaya wiped the sweat from her brow, crouching in the darkness as she watched the entrance to the seers' cave. Had she gone too far? It had seemed like such a fine plan to her at the time, when she was fuelled with anger at the den mother for the way she had treated Rolan. If she had only thought longer on it, if she had not allowed recklessness to guide her, she might have considered the consequences of her actions.

For all the anger and frustration in her heart, Vaya was not a murderer. The last time she had been sent to collect berries for the seers it had sickened her to keep a handful for herself, indulging in fantasies of how she might slip a lethal dose into Netya's food. After pushing aside the darkest of her thoughts, she had then planned to make the girl seem weak and sickly with the berries, but that idea was foolish. The seers knew poison when they saw it, and their suspicion would only have fallen back on her eventually.

The berries had sat in their pouch buried beneath Vaya's bedroll for many weeks, until now. It had seemed like a flash of brilliance, so perfect she wondered how she had not thought of it before. Not everyone knew of the hidden entrances to some of the caves atop the outcrop, but Vaya had spent more time exploring her home than most. Once she saw the den mother leaving to bathe, it had been the work of moments to scale the rocks and climb down into her chamber. There had even been a steaming pot of stew waiting for her, as if fate had aligned perfectly to ensure the success of her plan.

A plan, of course, that had not accounted for how many berries she slipped into the den mother's food. She knew they were poisonous, but Vaya was no seer. What if Adel died, as the rumours spreading like wildfire through the camp seemed to suggest? What if the Sun girl persuaded the alpha of her innocence? No one seemed to know where she had gone, and already several of the hunters had been sent out looking for her.

Running will only convince them of her guilt
, Vaya reassured herself, taking deep breaths as she plucked at her itching clothing. Foolish or not, it was done now. She could not take it back.

Before long the alpha arrived outside the seers' cave, joining the anxious crowd that had gathered around the antechamber. Vaya could not hear what was being said from her perch between the rocks, but his voice soon raised in anger.

I did this for you, Alpha. For all of our pack. None of you can see the trouble she brings.

Vaya desperately hoped the spirits were still on her side. If the den mother was destined to die so that their pack could finally be free of that girl...

A flicker of movement caught Vaya's notice, and, with the eyes of a hunter, her gaze immediately snapped to the source of the disturbance. A short way around the side of the outcrop, the drapes covering the entrance to Caspian's small earth lodge were swaying. There was no wind that night, and she had seen Caspian depart for one of his long nighttime walks several hours earlier.

Hackles rising, Vaya took the shape of her wolf and crept silently down the rocks, sticking to the shadows. She found a path lower down the slope where she could slip past Caspian's dwelling unseen, then climbed back up on the far side. Her nostrils twitched, picking up the unnaturally sweet scent of the Sun girl, tinged with the herbal smells of the seers' cave and the musky odour of the wolf pelt she wore. The drapes had not stirred again, but the scent was still fresh.

Vaya's paws pressed into the ground without the faintest footfall, body held low as she stalked to the side of the entrance. She sniffed again, picking up the scent stronger than ever. That was enough for Vaya. Without so much as a growl of warning, she batted the drapes aside with a paw and lunged. The look of terror on Netya's face drew a snarl of satisfaction from the huntress in the brief moment before her paws hit the girl's shoulders, and she drove her to the ground.

To her credit, she did not scream. She only pleaded like a coward, squirming feebly as the wolf's claws pressed through her clothing, drawing the scent of blood that flooded Vaya's muzzle and made her mouth water. She bared her teeth at Netya, letting her know just how easy it would be.

How weak and feeble her kind were, when it came down to the one thing that truly mattered. Seeing her quarry quaking and pleading beneath her almost drove all other concerns from Vaya's mind, so enraptured was her wolf in the victory of the moment.

"Please, Vaya, please, listen, it was not me!" the girl begged through her tears. "I can prove it! Please let me!"

Her words gave Vaya a moment of hesitation. The anxious thoughts of her two-legged self returned, and she lifted her paws from the girl's shoulders. Wrestling back control from her wolf, she reverted to her normal shape and stood blocking the exit, fists clenched at her sides as she stared down at Netya.

"How can you prove it?" she said. Her plan of dragging the girl back to the others in disgrace would be for nothing if she still had a way to squirm out of this.

"There is a medicine, my people have known of it for years, it may be able to save her!" Netya implored her, almost stumbling over her words in her hurry to get them out. "If I bring the seers the cure, they will know it was not me!"

Vaya looked around the dark chamber slowly, weighing her options. "You needed Caspian for this?"

"I know you have never cared for me, Vaya, but please, for the sake of the den mother, please believe me. The others will only think I am trying to flee from them. If you know where Caspian is, I promise I will do all I can to save Adel with his help."

Vaya glared at her, torn on what to do. She had no desire to see the den mother die, but her hatred for Netya burned stronger. "Caspian is gone," she said carefully. "Tell me what you intend to do. Where can you find this cure?"

"My people always kept some in their stores of herbs. They will still have the medicine Adel needs, I am sure of it, but I cannot make the journey back to my village alone. I need the legs of a wolf to take me there."

It occurred to Vaya that this was probably a lie. A cure that even the seers did not know of? One that conveniently required Netya to return to her village, the one place she would be safe from the retribution of the pack? It incensed Vaya so much that she was tempted to drag the girl before the alpha then and there, but she stayed her hand, forcing herself to think.

"It will take almost a day to run there and back," she said.

"It may be enough!" Netya pleaded. "But every moment that passes brings Adel closer to death. I will do whatever you ask, if only you believe me. I need your help."

Vaya took a moment to consider, her heartbeat quickening as realisation dawned. Fate was with her still. The impulsiveness of her decision had led to a more elegant solution than she could ever have hoped for.