The Scarred Prince (The Wolf's Pet Book One) (9 page)

“Sorry,” I whispered. “I’ll be done soon.”

“Please,” he said. “It hurts.”

I cut through the knot, careful not to cut his skin when I got close to the end.

“There,” I said. “Just a bit more—”

The ropes snapped, and in a whirl he had spun around the pole. I felt rather than saw his kick to my wrist as I brought the wolf bone blade up. The knife fell, and I moved in slow motion. It clattered to the floor, and Alekk kicked it behind a shelf on the opposite side of the room. Before I even had a chance to raise my arm, he had grabbed me by the neck and shoved me back against the pole. I tried to scream, but his fingers only gripped my throat tighter and the scream was cut off into a gasp instead.

It was like an explosion of light in my mind. As his hand touched my throat, I felt all of my nerves seize up. I couldn’t have fought back now, not even if I had wanted to. My entire mind was caught in a whirlwind of sensation, and as I clutched at his arms helplessly, the sensation only heightened. I saw bursts of colors in the air, and the sound in my ears was a high-pitched cacophony of voices that I did not recognize. And the scent—

I couldn’t understand it, but I didn’t smell my own scent anymore. My scent was always background noise, like the taste of your own tongue. But now, it had disappeared. Instead, my nostrils filled with a different scent, something darker, with a sweetness under it. Like burning embers after you throw a green branch onto them.

Was he choking me to death? Was that what this was? I beat at his arms with my hands, but I might as well have been fighting a tree trunk for all the good it did. He was stronger than anything I could have imagined. He wasn’t weak at all. He was—

And then I met Alekk’s eyes, and there was a recognition in them that I didn’t understand. He leaned closer to me and licked my neck. The sensation made my vision blur, every muscle in my body shivering, twitching. If he hadn’t been holding me up by the neck, I would have fainted, I was sure of it.

“Brave girl,” he said. One hand stayed at my throat. The other moved down, and I shuddered as he caressed me roughly. My body was burning hot and cold, and where he touched me, I could feel his fingers possess me as though I was his. Oh, the agony of his touch!

“You want to be the prince’s bitch?” he asked. His voice was rougher, now, and his fingers touched me like he already had me in bed. I would have screamed but my air was cut off completely by the hand at my throat. I could feel him listening to my body, reacting instantly.

He couldn’t escape this way. He must know. He would have to kill me. He didn’t look like he was going to kill me. He looked—

“Oh!” A small moan escaped my throat as his hand moved down. His palm curved over my hip. His other hand moved slightly, his thumb touching my bottom lip. Why did every touch of his feel like fire?

“You like this, don’t you, Princess? I bet you would love being tied up by someone who knew what to do with you.”

I was getting close to blacking out. My body twisted against his hands, but there was no hope. This was it. This was—

“Kinaya! Damien, help!”

Alekk’s head snapped toward the door. I looked over to see my mom. She was alone in the doorway, moving into the room, and a second later my dad and brother were at the door behind her.

“Let her go,” my mom said, the growl in her voice.

It must have been the three of them together that convinced Alekk he couldn’t escape. He let go of my throat and raised his hands in surrender. I bent over, coughing, the sensations draining from my body. I could breathe, yes, but more than that I felt as though I had lost something that I couldn’t even name.

“I’ll kill you!” Blaise cried. “You son-of-a-bitch, I’ll kill you!”

He stepped toward Alekk, and I raised my hand in protest.

“Wait!” I cried weakly.

My mom put her arm out , barring Blaise and at the same time reaching out to me.

“What is this, Kinaya?” she asked. Her voice was dangerously soft, and I think it was this more than anything that stopped my brother from charging. He stood like an angry bull, his fists at his side. I could smell his need to shift, to fight.

“We need him,” I said. “We need to send him back.”

“So he can fight with his pack against us?” Blaise snorted. “I don’t think so.”

“Hush,” Damien said. He stood next to Blaise, and his reprove shut my twin brother up. I felt vindicated. For once, my parents were listening to me. “Why, Kinaya?”

“So he can propose a marriage,” I said, regaining my voice.

“A marriage?”

I looked up at my family. My tongue felt thick in my mouth when I spoke.

“Between me and the Scarred Prince.”

Chapter Fourteen

“A marriage? Are you insane?” Blaise blurted out.

“It’s a possible solution,” Alekk said. It was the first he had spoken to my family. “I will bring the proposal to the Scarred Prince.” He looked at me strangely.

“Kinaya, come here,” my mom said.

“First, let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” my mom said. “I will not allow it. You shouldn’t even be here talking with this prisoner.”

“It’s the only way to stop this war!” I cried.

“My child…” My dad moved forward and held out his hand. I took it and let him help me stand up. He pulled me away from Alekk, closer to the doorway.

“Please,” I said. “Dad. Please. Just think about it.”

“There’s nothing to think about,” Dad said. “The council has decided to stay and fight.”

“That’s a bad decision,” Alekk spoke up.

“Why should we take your opinion into consideration?” my mom asked. “Who are you to decide what is a good decision for us and our pack?”

Alekk shrugged. After all this, he looked as calm and collected as when he had first walked in. Bloody and bruised, he was still completely sure of himself.

“From the looks of it, you’re not a fighting people. Your wolves are not warriors. Your alpha is a blind man.”

My dad pressed his lips together.

“Don’t be so quick to judge. Trax tried to lead your pack against mine two decades ago, and it did not go well for him.”

A strange look flitted over Alekk’s face. I could sense the tension between them rising. I wanted to throw myself between them and shout at them to stop. All I wanted to do was prevent a war. How could they not see that this was the only way to do it?

“Then you will fight?”

“We will defend ourselves if your Scarred Prince declares war. And we will see how your pack fares against us now.”

“You will not have to wait long. The pack marches forward. Even as we stand here.”

My mom nodded.

“The scouts have picked up scent at the northern edge of our territory. Their own scouts, no doubt.”

Alekk turned to her.

“Perhaps you should take this proposal to the council and see what they decide.”

I never saw my mom look as furious as she did at that moment. Her eyes blazed with fury. The scent of it radiated off of her.

“I won’t give up our child to this madman. Your pack is hard, aggressive. And the Scarred Prince is known throughout the territories as a madman. He’s a scary story to tell to children, not a legitimate alpha.”

“Your pack will die if you don’t do this.”

“Who are you to say that?”

Alekk motioned toward me.

“She’s said that your women will kill themselves rather than be taken captive.”

“And a marriage will stop them?”

“I don’t know. Let me go back to the prince with these terms and we will see.”

Damien shook his head.

“No. We won’t do it.”

Throughout all of this, I hadn’t spoken up. Now, I stepped forward.

“It’s not your decision to make,” I said. Fear bled into my heart at the thought of war. Thinking about Blaise and Erroll and Francis and the rest of them fighting against warriors like the messenger… They would all die. My mother and Mara would die. My father would die. And Dee…

“Kinaya…”

“I’ll do it to prevent this war.”

“You can’t give yourself up like this. Kinaya,” Dad said sternly. “This isn’t an option.”

“You always talk about doing things for the pack. I’m willing to do this. Let’s talk about it as an option.”

“No.”

“Dad, you’ll
die
!”

My voice echoed off of the cabin walls, and I realized before the echo was gone that my eyes were stinging with tears. I could not let my pack die, not like this. It didn’t matter what happened to me, if it could save the pack.

“Kinaya, go back to the house.”

“Dad—”

“
Go!
”

His voice boomed, and tears ran down my cheeks. My mom’s hand was at my back, but it wasn’t a comfort anymore. None of them understood. None of them. Sobbing, I pushed past them and out the door. My mom followed me.

“Kinaya, don’t—”

A yelp from the storage cabin made me spin around on the trail. I turned to see Alekk leaping out the door. He shifted into a wolf before his feet hit the ground, his black robes fluttering to the ground. My dad was at the doorway. I was about to shift and chase after Alekk, but then my dad shouted out.

“He hurt Blaise!” my dad said. “Max! Ziv! Where are you?”

My heart dropped as I saw Alekk in wolf form, bounding away through the trees. His dark pelt rippled as he ran, and in three leaps he had disappeared into the forest. I stared agape, unsure of what to do. My mom had already run back inside the storage cabin. Max came running.

“Track him,” I ordered the guard. “Run him down, if you can.” I turned back to the storage cabin and looked in through the door. Blaise was lying on the ground, his leg bleeding. He hissed a breath through his teeth. My dad held his leg.

“Get a doctor,” my dad said.

“Ohhhh
,” Blaise moaned, clutching his leg. I stared at him in terror.

“Kinaya!” my dad shouted. “
GO!
”

I turned and ran, my heart beating a million miles an hour. Oh, god, Blaise was hurt. The prisoner had escaped.

What had I done?

Chapter Fifteen

The next morning, after a fitful few hours, I woke up alone in my bedroom from a nightmare. My fingers gripped the sheets tightly. I had been taken by the Scarred Prince’s pack in my dream. They had come and killed everyone else, but they had left only me. I gasped a few breaths before realizing that it was only a dream.

Blaise. Where was Blaise?

It took me a second to remember that my brother was spending the night downstairs on the couch. I pulled on my clothes and went down. Every step made me more nervous.

The doctor was there, watching over him. And my parents too, sitting across from Blaise. Mara and Dee were there, too. I could hear their voices arguing. When I came downstairs, they all looked at me. A lump rose in my throat.

“How’s your leg?” I asked. My voice was a whisper.

“It’s fine. No thanks to you,” Blaise said.

I choked on my tears. I’d messed up before, but never like this. This was all my fault. I turned to my parents.

“What about the prisoner?”

I didn’t know what I hoped for. My heart thudded as I listened to my dad speak.

“Max did the best he could. He tracked him as far as he could to the edge of the territory. The trail was messy there, and, well… Max isn’t our best tracker, you know. He lost the scent.”

My heart fell.
My fault. My fault.
The thought beat over and over again in my chest. Guilt flooded me as I sat down on the stairs.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

Dee came into the room and sat next to me on the stairs. She put her arm around me, and I broke down into tears. She was so kind, even when I had messed up everything.

“We’ve moved before. We can move again,” she said.

“The plan is to fight,” Blaise said. “The council decided—”

“The council decided before the prisoner escaped. He knows the true strength of the pack now, if they didn’t already. He knows the entry points. We need to leave.”

I sobbed quietly into Dee’s shoulder.

“We can stand against them,” Blaise said.

“Stand? You can’t stand. How can you fight with a bad leg?” Dee asked.

“It’ll heal. It’s not deep. I want to fight!”

“You know nothing of death,” Dee said quietly. “Damien, you must reconsider.”

Everyone waited for my father’s response. He sighed.

“I trust you, Dee,” he said. “The pack has always trusted you. If you think it’s wise to leave—”

“Dad!” Blaise cried. “You can’t do this.”

“We can’t stay here. Not anymore,” Dad said. “Let’s pull back. We can come back later to see if they’ve come into the territory. We’ll fight, but only on our own terms. Right now, we are at a severe disadvantage.”

My tears burned hot on my cheeks. It was me. I had put us all at a disadvantage. I had weakened the pack’s position.

“We’ll find another home,” my mom said. It took me a moment to realize why her voice sounded so strange. She was holding back her own tears.

“Julia,” my dad murmured. He took her hand.

“I can’t believe you did this, Kinaya,” Blaise hissed at me. “Do you know what you’ve done?”

Of course I knew. I stared around the room. Nobody met my eyes, nobody except Blaise, and there was only hatred in his face.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Thanks for your fucking apology,” Blaise spat.

“Blaise, don’t!” Mom said. She was perilously close to tears.

“Then it’s decided,” Dad said. He stood up. “Let’s tell the rest of the pack to get ready. Dee, pull back the scouts from the outer edges. We’ll leave tonight and move into the city for a day, then decide where to go from there. If they invade, they’ll find this territory empty.”

“Great. Thanks,” Blaise said, pointing his sarcasm directly at me.

“I’ll go tell the pack,” Mara said.

“I’ll come with you,” I said, standing up.

“It’s alright, Kinaya,” Dee said, hugging me tightly. I let her arms hold me, but I wanted no sympathy from any of them. I didn’t deserve it. I left the house, following Mara, leaving my family behind. I had failed them. For all my stupid arrogant blustering, I had failed them completely.