The Alpha's Concubine (Historical Shifter Romance) (5 page)

Before her stood a woman as tall as any man, with skin the colour of ivory and a mane of raven black hair flowing from beneath a headdress made from the full pelt of a fox. Her eyes were as blue as the clearest crystal lake, and she had painted them with charcoal to make her appearance even more powerful. She was by far the most beautiful woman Netya had ever seen.

But her eyes, as striking as they were, did not sparkle like Fern's. They pierced Netya with a look so cold it paralysed her. The woman's elegant lips looked as though a smile might break them.

Fern immediately bowed her head, muttering something in the language of the Moon People. The older woman stared at Netya for a moment longer, before turning to Fern and responding with a comment that sounded as frightening as her expression.

Fern shook her head, looking in the direction of the caves above them agitatedly as she mumbled out a response.

The woman glared at her, not saying a word, then turned her attention back to Netya and took a step forward, lifting a lock of damp hair from her shoulder to examine it.

"You do not belong here," she said at last in Netya's language, then added something else in her own tongue before turning away.

Netya shivered as she watched the woman walk up the slope and disappear into one of the highest caves, a huge crag in the rock decorated with animal skulls and painted with strange markings.

"She is Adel, our den mother," Fern whispered without needing to be asked. "The senior female of our pack, second only to the alpha. You must always obey if she asks something of you, and when she speaks, you must listen. She is the wisest of our seers, and she knows the ways of the spirits better than anyone."

"She frightens me."

"I think she would frighten anyone, even the spirits themselves," Fern said, then her tone lightened, and she tugged Netya back in the direction of the tent. "But she keeps to herself most of the time. Her cave is a forbidden place for anyone but her and her seers to enter. Even the alpha stays away."

"I don't think she liked me."

Fern looked as if she was about to say something, but this time she stopped before her tongue ran away with her, biting her lip at the last second. "Come, before the fire burns down."

They returned to the tent, watching the last light of sunset fade from the sky as Netya sat with her back to the fire. Once her hair had dried Fern ran the comb through it once more, then began to braid it back into a plait. As they sat together Netya decided to ask one of the many questions that had been on her mind since the previous evening.

"Why do your people come to attack mine? From all the stories we tell I would have thought you were vicious and barbaric, but you have been very kind to me."

"We were not coming to attack you. If you had not been there there would have been no fighting."

"But our people have fought in the past, haven't they?"

Fern sighed. The topic clearly wasn't one she was comfortable discussing. "These are not questions for someone like me. You should be saving them for the alpha. He is the one who makes the decisions to venture into your lands."

"Still, I would like to hear what you know." She turned and gave the other girl a smile. "I am very grateful for everything you've done for me today. I would have been lost, and a lot more frightened without someone to treat me so well."

That seemed to coax Fern out of her shell. She was eager to talk, but her sense of duty was clearly a weight on her mind, if the way she had behaved in the presence of Adel and the alpha was anything to go by.

"The hunting has been bad recently," Fern said. "Usually this season is a time of plenty, so we have no reason to store supplies. But there has been disease in the animals we usually hunt on the plains, and the ones we do catch have not been good for eating. We came to your home because you keep animals there. We planned to take some and leave, but your friend called out too soon. There would have been no time to gather what we needed before more of your people arrived."

"Do you not keep animals of your own? My people learned long ago that it was better to raise young animals somewhere close by than to rely on hunting them in the wild."

"Our people live for the hunt," Fern said. "We keep some birds, but that is all. Most of us become hunters once we are of age. Each successful hunt is a mark of great status and respect for those who take part, especially the men. We would lose much without the hunt."

"I see," Netya said, and a grim thought suddenly occurred to her as she remembered how the men of her village boasted and told grand tales of the wolf skulls they took from the Moon People. Were animals the only things Fern's people hunted in the name of glory?

"There!" Fern said as she fastened the braid in place. "Now you look beautiful. A mate fit for an alpha."

Netya flushed. She did not feel particularly beautiful with a woman like Adel in the camp, but the compliment was nice to hear all the same.

There seemed little left for them to do but wait at that point. Netya's inevitable meeting with the alpha loomed larger than ever after everything she'd learned that evening, and without Fern's company she might have driven herself to distraction with worry. Instead she occupied her thoughts by talking with the other girl, exchanging small stories about life, coming of age, their families, and other everyday things that kept her attention off what might soon become one of the most significant nights of her life.

As preoccupied as she was, she did get a sense from Fern's conversation that the Moon People did not divide themselves clearly into families. Bonds of direct kinship still existed, but the pack viewed all of its members as brothers and sisters to one another. Had she been paying closer attention she might have learned more about the lives of the Moon People, but as the minutes passed by her gaze kept returning time and again to the tent's open flap. The evening chill was beginning to seep in, and soon she couldn't tell whether the trembling of her body was due to the cold or her mounting anxiety.

At last, after an hour or more had slipped by, a middle-aged woman appeared from between the rocks and bent down to peer in at them. Her curious gaze lingered on Netya, then she smiled a toothy grin and spoke a few words to Fern, who bobbed her head in acknowledgement.

"Come," she said softly. "It's time."

—
5—

The Alpha

It was at the entrance to the largest cave at the highest point of the outcrop that Fern left her.

"Only those who are invited can enter," she said. "Remember, this is a great honour, especially for one of your people." She gave Netya's hand a squeeze before stepping back.

Swallowing her fear, the dark-haired girl took a steadying breath, and crept forward into the alpha's den.

The cave wall was smooth beneath her fingers as she put out a palm to guide herself around the corner. Warm darkness reached out to greet her until she could barely see her own arm, feeling her way down the passage as her heart beat faster. She was stepping into yet another new mystery all over again, leaving the comforting familiarity of Fern behind her as she descended into the heart of the rock.

The passage only went on for a few yards, but her cautious steps made it seem much longer. The cavern floor gave way to the rough texture of woven mats, and she jumped as her fingers brushed a hanging drape in front of her. When she lifted it aside, she emerged into the alpha's chamber.

It was perhaps the most grand room she had ever set eyes on, and yet it was more primitive than half the dwellings in her own village. A fire pit glowed with orange coals in the centre, and all along the walls stone lamps occupied natural crags and sconces to bathe the chamber in soft, shadowy light. The only carpented piece of furniture she had seen so far occupied the far corner of the room, a raised platform of wooden logs upon which sat a large bed piled high with furs. On the other side of the cave a pool of water stirred gently in a second, smaller natural chamber, trickling gently down some unseen channel, presumably to join the river below. A smoothed portion of a tree trunk, bigger than any Netya had ever seen, stood in for a table, with smaller logs on either side for seats. Like Fern's bedding, it was decorated with a lavish animal skin cover, painted and embroidered with trinkets around the edges. The walls were hung with so many trophies, hides, tusks, and bones of animals Netya have never even seen before, that she almost lost herself staring at them as she turned to take in the full magnificent range of decorations adorning the room.

"Has Fern made you welcome?" The deep voice of the alpha reached her ears. He was seated across the room from her, half in shadow, upon what Netya could only describe as a throne. It was adorned with the full pelt of a bear, enormous and snarling, its jaws hanging inches above the alpha's own head.

"Yes," she said, her voice sounding very quiet compared to his. "She has treated me well."

The alpha rose to his feet and stepped into the light, his broad frame looming even larger than the pelt of the bear behind him. He was dressed as he had been the evening before, bare-chested with a kilt of furs.

"Good. You are to be treated as one of our own while you are here, for however long that may be. If any of my pack mistreat you, they will be punished."

"I am thankful," Netya said, edging a little farther into the room. "Am I not to be your prisoner, then?"

"You are here by my will, not your own. But whether that remains true, we shall have to see."

Netya frowned at the cryptic answer, then forced herself to ask the question that had been drumming in her mind for the past hour. "Then why did you choose to bring me here?"

The alpha approached her, his eyes taking in her body without a hint of reserve. He took her by the lower arm, running his free hand over her pale skin from the inside of her elbow to the palm of her hand. The touch of his rough fingers against the sensitive area made her shiver, and as her heart jolted in her chest her lower body began to tingle with warmth.

"Perhaps Fern has told you. I have no mate, and so I have no heir. I will take you as my consort." His eyes met hers, and in them she saw an unspoken question, a silent expectancy as he waited to gauge her response.

Her breath shuddered as she inhaled deeply. "Why not one of your own people?"

The alpha smiled at that. "None of my pack would dare to ask me such a question."

"I'm sorry—"

"But you are not of my pack," he continued. "And that is why, when I saw you at our mercy last night, I chose to bring you with us."

"I don't think I am suited to be the consort of a great leader," she said. "What about the den mother? She is far more beautiful than I."

The alpha's expression hardened. "Do not speak to me of Adel," he said firmly. "I have no need of hearing her name voiced in here."

Netya almost wilted under his fierce gaze, but she forced herself not to look away. Perhaps bravery was foolishness, but the stirring pulse of her blood prevented her from giving in to fear. She was walking the tightrope of her curiosity into the unknown, where she had dared to venture with Layon the night before, and secretly longed to explore more of. The allure of danger was too tempting.

"You are young," the alpha said as he reached over her shoulder to admire her braid. "How many times have you lain with a man?"

"Never."

The alpha nodded. "You will come to my bed tonight. No other male will be permitted to claim you."

Netya's skin warmed. The subtle scent of his body reminded her of fur and salt water. "I do not know how to be with a man," she said.

"Your body will know the pleasures of a woman. You will learn to listen to it, and then you will know what to do." He placed his hand at the nape of her neck and shoulder, allowing his fingers to rest across her throat, then drew them slowly downwards, caressing her skin until they slipped into the cleft between her breasts. Another sensitive ripple ran through Netya's body, and the tug in her lower belly seemed to urge her toward him.

"Do you feel it?" he said.

She nodded shakily.

"Then I was not wrong in choosing you. What is your name?"

"Netya."

"Netya. Are you unwilling to be my consort?"

She hesitated, unsure of what to say, or even think. She was anxious. Perhaps even afraid. But unwilling? She had no desire to flee or plead her fate. She wanted to understand the things her body seemed to be telling her. The alpha's appearance and scent and powerful voice awakened all the feelings she had begun to notice in herself since becoming a woman, and for once she had the opportunity to explore them.

"A man who takes an unwilling female to his bed is no man at all," the alpha said when she did not respond.

"I am not... unwilling, no," she whispered, the words catching in her throat.

"Good." The alpha moved his hand back up her neck, sliding his fingers through the hair at the base of her braid.

It was strange for her to be so close to an unfamiliar man, to have him touching her in this way. It was not like being touched by anyone else. His hands slid over her body as if she were an immaculately crafted ornament, seeking out the fine details to make them more real through his touch. He tilted her head back and pulled her in with an arm around her waist, bringing his lips to hers for a kiss.