The Scarred Prince (The Wolf's Pet Book One) (7 page)

“Potato?”

“It’s too hot.” I picked up the diced potato, water vapor rising from the hot morsel. I blew on it gently to cool it down. Then a strange scent caught my nose. I raised my eyes to see Alekk staring at me, the look of need flickering in his eyes like the flame of the fire behind me. There was hunger in his eyes, but not for the food. A thrill of fear ran through my body.

“Kinaya,” he whispered.

“Yes?” I said, looking at his lips. I couldn’t bear to look at his eyes anymore. I watched as his lips pressed over the food, taking it from my fingers. I was careful not to touch him.

“What would you tell the Scarred Prince if you had his ear?”

I looked up at Alekk. His eyes were full of desire, and the thoughts in my head swirled in confusion.

“I would… I would ask him…”

“Kinaya!”

My head spun toward the door. It was Ziv’s voice.

I dropped the plate of food to the ground and ran back to the door just in time to see Ziv rounding the corner.

“Kinaya!” he cried. “What are you doing here alone?”

I shrugged nonchalantly. I hoped he wouldn’t notice my pounding heart.

“Blaise said he would send you over. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No!”

Ziv was a little older than Max, and more than a little wiser. From the look on his face, I knew I wouldn’t get away with the lie for very long.

“I’m sorry, Ziv,” I said. “I really just wanted to see the prisoner and make sure he was tied up. He threatened my family!”

I didn’t have to pretend to be angry, and Ziv only patted me on the shoulder.

“It’s alright, Kinaya,” he said. “We can handle it.”

“I know,” I said, casting my eyes toward the pole inside. “I just wanted to see for myself. The knots on his wrists—they’re cutting into his skin.”

“Yes,” Ziv said, nodding like I was praising his efforts. “We made sure they were good and tight.”

“We don’t want to harm the prisoner,” I said, squaring my shoulders and trying to sound as confident as I could. “It isn’t fitting for a peaceful pack. Will you make sure the knots don’t cause any permanent damage?”

Ziv looked at me strangely.

“Yes,” he said finally. “Go on home now. Go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

I handed him the wolf bone knife to give back to Max. As I left, I darted one last glance back into the storage cabin. Alekk sat there, tied to the pole, his head now bared. I thought of the look he’d given me, and my body shivered. I turned and ran quickly through the darkness.

Chapter Eleven

With the bright sun coming in through the windows, last night seemed like a dream. A bad dream. I pulled the covers back and sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes.

All night I’d tossed and turned in bed, thinking about Alekk’s eyes and the low growl of his voice. He knew about our pack, but he hadn’t known my name. I shouldn’t have given it to him. Just the thought of him saying my name was enough to send me into bad thoughts. Terrible thoughts.

Needy thoughts.

He was only a messenger, and yet he was so calm, so strong. What would it be like to be part of a pack full of wolves just like him?

I shook my head. It wasn’t time for thoughts like that. I needed to talk with my parents, to see how my dad was going to avoid going to war. I pulled on my clothes and washed up quickly, then headed downstairs. Nobody was in the kitchen. Great. They had already left to discuss things in the council without me. And Blaise must be with them. It stung, but I blinked back the hurt and grabbed a bagel and rushed out the door.

“Ya! Hya!”

In the meadow behind the house, Blaise and Erroll were outside, circling around each other. At the sight of Erroll, I flushed. I didn’t know how to speak to him after last night.

Fortunately, my dumb twin brother spoke up before I had the chance to make a fool out of myself.

“Hey little Sis.” He landed a blow on Erroll’s back and danced away before he could get hit.

“Argh!” Erroll cried. The two of them resumed circling.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

“Training,” Blaise said. He swept a foot at Erroll’s shins, but Erroll managed to jump over the kick just in time. “Ya!”

“Training,” I repeated flatly. I hoped that Erroll would take notice of me, but he didn’t even say hi. I guess last night wasn’t what I thought it had been. Maybe Marianne had talked with him afterward, had told him that he shouldn’t be my boyfriend. I frowned. It was stupid for me to even be thinking about boyfriends right now. Stupid hormones.

“For war.” Blaise warded off a flurry of blows from Erroll, managing to get hit only once. “If we have to fight, we need to be in top form.”

“Is that what Dad said? To train for war by smacking each other?”

“No. But he won’t let me into the council discussion, so this is the second best thing. Ya!”

“Great,” I said. “Well, you two have fun. Don’t kill each other.”

I walked past them as Erroll managed to land a kick into Blaise’s side. So Dad was already in the council meeting. And they hadn’t even woken me up to let me know where they were going. Awesome.

The morning air was chilly, especially once I made my way past the tree line and into the forest. I could see my breath, and I pulled my hoodie up over my hair. Ugh, my hair. Both of my braids had come undone, and they had made the sides of my hair even more curly and poofy. For a brief moment, I thought about going back to fix it before going to the council. But no. This was more important by far. With war on the horizon, how could I be worried about a bad hair day?

Making my way through the forest toward the longhouse, I began to smell the scents of the other pack members. My mom. My dad. Dee. Mara. The guards. And the strange scent of the messenger, still lingering in the air. I thought about veering off to go see him. Something in me wanted to talk with him again. Even though he scared me, I could sense that he needed something from me. Maybe it was just food, but maybe it was something more. And if I could only figure out a way to avoid war, then it would be good for him to trust me.

Coming around the last curve of the trail, I ducked under a branch that the wind had knocked over. My mother looked up expectantly.

“Kinaya,” she said, standing up. “Good morning.”

“What’s so good about it?” I grumped. “You didn’t even bother to wake me up to come with you this morning.”

“To—oh, Kinaya. No. We didn’t come back to the house.”

“What do you mean?”

As I got closer, I noticed dark circles under my mom’s eyes. She hugged me tighter than normal, and I hugged her back, sensing something was wrong.

“What is it, Mom?”

“We didn’t come back last night,” she said, and now I saw the traces of weariness in the corners of her eyes. “The council was up all night discussing alternatives.”

All night long? I suppressed the disappointment that reared up in me. How I would have longed to hear them talk! But I only pressed my lips together.

“What did you decide?” I asked.

My mom took a deep breath in. She pulled me down onto the longhouse steps. Behind her, the door was closed. The rest of the council members were inside, and I ached to go in and see what they were discussing.

“Kinaya, it looks like we may have to go.”

“Go?” I frowned. “Go where?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Dad said there isn’t anywhere around here we could go. This was the only territory—”

“We would have to go far. Over the mountains, maybe.”

“The Rocky Mountains?”

She nodded.

“But that’s, like, the other side of the country!”

“Kinaya, you’ll be off at school anyway. You want to go to college, don’t you?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“Now is the best time,” she said. She looked at me, and all I saw was the worry in her eyes. I swallowed the lump in my throat. When I’d woken up this morning, it had all seemed like a dream. Now, though, looking at my mom’s terrified face, I knew that it was all for real.

“What about war?”

“Some of the council members want to fight,” my mom said. She looked away when she said it.

“They want to go to war?”

“The majority of the families, yes,” she said softly.

“So you’re not leaving?”

“I— I feel that it’s best to leave. We don’t know the opposing side’s strength. All we know is that they would likely drive us from our home anyway, or kill us.”

“Then why do the other council members want to fight?”

“Because it’s their home.”

“What does Dad think?”

The way my mom looked at me, I knew the answer.

“He wants to fight?” My voice was a whisper.

“He doesn’t want to fight. Kinaya, none of us want to fight. He’ll try to negotiate if they will agree to negotiate. But sometimes we must do what needs to be done, regardless of what we want to do.”

“And Dee?”

“Dee agrees with your father,” my mom said. “I didn’t think she would, but she agrees that the pack should stay if possible.”

“What if the messenger is right? What if they kill everybody and take the women as slaves?”

“The women who stay here will fight alongside the men. Nobody will be taken as a slave.”

“What about the kids?”

“We’ve thought about it, and the best way is to have someone bring them all into town to stay for a while. They’ll be leaving today.”

“Today?
”

“Kinaya, none of us has any idea when the Scarred Prince will attack. It could be today, for all we know. It could be in a week, or a month.”

I thought of the messenger. He’d said that he’d journeyed for three days. I hoped we had at least that much time, but I couldn’t tell my mom I’d talked with him. A day or two wouldn’t matter, anyway. The kids would be gone before the other pack arrived. That was the most important thing.

“But what if—” I thought of the worst case scenario. “What if we fight and lose?”

My mom didn’t say anything. She only pressed her lips together. Her scent, though, told me all I needed to know. I thought of all of the children, and how many of them would be orphans.

“Who else wants to leave?” I asked. “Who besides you?”

“Two of the other families,” she said, her voice clipped. “The Kents and the Forresters.”

“So everybody else will stay here and fight? What about Mara?” Mara had escaped from Trax’s pack long ago, before I was even born.

“Mara wants to fight. She says that she thinks we will lose.”

“Why does she want to stay, then?” I asked incredulously.

“She says…” My mom’s voice choked in her throat. “She says that if the pack is anything like it was when Trax was alpha, there will be no negotiations. They will come in and invade. But she doesn’t want to leave. She says that every one of them that we kill is worth the cost.”

Tears ran down my mom’s face, and I buried myself in her arms. Dread overcame me.

“I can’t let you both stay here,” my mom said through her tears. “I can’t. You and Blaise, you must go. Please.”

“But Dad—”

“
Please
.”

I closed my mouth. Fear clenched my chest tight. I had never seen my mom like this. So vulnerable. So scared. Her arms cradled my shoulders, and she rocked me as though I was a baby still.

“I will protect you,” she whispered. “You have to let me protect you.”

“Okay,” I said. At that moment, I would have agreed with anything she asked. But in my mind, I was already thinking of other possibilities.

Chapter Twelve

I told myself I wasn’t going to go back to see Alekk. But after my mom left to go home and sleep for a while, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to see how the guards were treating him. They shouldn’t be starving a prisoner, no matter what pack he came from or what threats he made. Before, I might have told my dad about it and left it for him to work out. Today, though, I realized that he was working on more important matters.

This was one of the responsibilities Granny Dee had talked about. I had to take it on myself to make sure the prisoner wasn’t mistreated in our pack. It was part of my job as an alpha’s daughter. As a representative of the pack.

Steeling my shoulders, I walked over to the storage cabin. The sun was filtering through the tops of the fir trees, and the air was warmer. A beautiful day. If only it hadn’t been for the threat of war, I would have shifted. I loved running through the forest as a wolf on days like this. But today was not like any other day, and I had new responsibilities.

As I came closer to the storage cabin, worry set in. The guards weren’t standing outside. Then I smelled a familiar scent, mixed with the messenger’s own scent.

“Blaise!” I cried out, sprinting up to the cabin. No. Not my brother. My feet had never flown so fast over the forest floor. I could sense my body beginning to shift into wolf form, preparing for a fight.

I threw open the door, adrenaline making my heart jump. I expected to see that the prisoner had escaped. I expected to see Alekk beating my twin brother into a bloody mess. What I didn’t expect, what I had never expected, was what I saw then.

Blaise was standing over the prisoner, his knuckles bloody. Alekk groaned. His hands were still tied behind the pole. I stepped forward.

“Kinaya! What are you doing here?”

I stood agape at my brother.

“Blaise?”

Alekk’s head turned to try and look at me. Blaise reached out and slapped him hard, the crack of skin on skin reverberating through the room.

“Don’t even try to look at my sister, you dog.”

“Stop it!” I cried. I tried to breathe steadily, to make my heart slow down. I had no idea what to do. “Blaise, where are the guards?”

“I told them to leave,” Blaise said. His dark red hair hung in front of his eyes, and he threw his head back to clear his face.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m interrogating the prisoner.”

He smiled, a thin smile that made the room feel ten degrees colder. My fear for him trickled away, replaced by anger.

“You shouldn’t hurt him,” I said uncertainly. I wondered how long this had been going on. Alekk said nothing. His face dripped blood from a cut above his eyebrow, and a dark bruise was spreading over one cheek.