The Alpha's Concubine (Historical Shifter Romance)

by Claudia King

  Adel looked down at Netya, the den mother's icy blue eyes glinting from within the dark charcoal markings that framed them. Here, in the light of her own lair, she was terrifying.

  "None of them are to mentor you, girl," she said, "because I am. You will be my apprentice."

  —28—

  The Den Mother

  Netya had little choice but to follow. Adel led her deeper into the cave, beyond the eerie light of the lamps and through another dark curtain, then up a steep incline in the rock as the passage narrowed. She was still too stunned by what had happened to make sense of it. After almost believing that her apprenticeship had been a cruel trick, the realisation that she was to be taught by the den mother herself sent her thoughts spiralling into confusion.

  Why would Adel, of all people, desire to instruct her? And did Netya even want a woman who had shown her little but scorn as a mentor? It seemed she had little choice in the matter now. Netya was no expert on the nuances of pack culture, but even she knew that learning directly from the den mother was an honour few could ever dream of, and to snub it would be a tremendous insult. Even without the consideration of what it would do to her standing within the pack, Netya feared that incurring Adel's wrath would leave her with far worse problems than the scorn of her peers. All of her expectations, all the things she had imagined herself doing over the coming months of her apprenticeship, had been pulled out from under her the moment Adel made her announcement.

  They passed through one final curtain, and Netya found herself blinking a sudden brightness from her eyes as she stepped into the den mother's lair. It was not a secret chamber buried within the caves as she had expected, but a deep, open vault at the top of the outcrop. Evening sunlight streamed in through the space above, where an elaborately crafted cover of logs and animal hides had been opened up, much like the coverings Khelt used to keep the inside of his den sheltered from the elements. It was at least three times Netya's height from the floor to the roof, but her keen eyes quickly picked out the natural footholds in the rock that would allow a person to climb up. If there was a way down from the top of the outcrop, Adel might easily be able to come and go as she pleased without anyone ever knowing.

  The den mother's chamber was striking in how simultaneously different and yet similar it was to Khelt's. The alpha's den was lavish and imposing, from his throne to the large bed platform and the trophies that were mounted in every suitable crack and cranny in the rocks.

  Adel's chamber had been furnished to impress no one, but every inch of it seemed to have a use. The full animal pelts that hung from the racks around the walls stared at Netya through their long-dead eye sockets, foxes, wolves, deer, cats, and even bears. Some of them were fashioned into clothing, but many more had been stitched to make bags and pouches. It would have been easy for the collection of dead animals to seem majestic or beautiful, but Adel had made no attempt to present them as trophies. Some of the pelts had warped and shrivelled with age, twisting the features of the creatures they had once resembled into disturbing masks. The head flap of a fox skin bag leered at Netya from across the chamber, listing to one side at a disturbing angle.

  All around were bags and bowls, unlit lamps and worn-down tools. A series of flint knives on a slab near the fire were stained with the dark colours of whatever they had recently been cutting.

  Netya was glad she was seeing the den mother's chamber for the first time under the light of day, before the nighttime spirits crept in to make every shadow a dozen times more unsettling.

  "Sit," Adel instructed as she swept to the far side of the room, where the light shone brightest. Netya began to sink down on the opposite side of the fire, but a sharp look from the den mother halted her. She forced down the lump in her throat and crept closer, until she and Adel were less than a yard apart. Then she sat, crossing her legs on a dusty woven rug as she came face to face with her mentor. The silence was almost painful.

  "You have been taking the herbs I gave you." Adel said.

  Netya raised her eyebrows. "How did you know?"

  "I did not, but I do now. At least you finally came to your senses. There are more of them in the fox hide bag near the entrance. Now that you are a seer, you may take them whenever you wish."

  Netya's face warmed. She still felt like the den mother was toying with her, and she did not like it one bit. "I am taking them for my own sake, not for yours," she replied, perhaps a little more hotly than she should have. "And it has pained me to do it behind Khelt's back every day."

  The den mother snorted. "A small burden, I'm sure. Why did you think I gave you that bag if not for your own wellbeing?"

  Netya hesitated. Speaking of these things with Khelt or Adel felt like treading over razor shards of flint. She had to mind her step. "I know you do not want Khelt to have an heir," she said carefully.

  "Then you know very little, girl. What do I care whether he has a child or not? You think my issue with him is one of petty spite?"

  "I do not mean to presume." Netya backed off quickly, struggling to find the sharpness of mind she would need to match wits with Adel. Letting herself become flustered by her emotions would only make her clay in the den mother's dexterous hands. "I would think... I would think you might object to another heir like him taking over his leadership one day."

  If Adel had been testing her in some way, she seemed to have given the right answer. The den mother's icy expression softened, and Netya caught her first glimpse of the wise leader within her.

  "Children are not their fathers. You think very little of me, if you believe I would deny a life out of spite. Having a son or daughter may even help open the alpha's eyes to his flaws."

  "Then..." Netya squinted, trying to understand. "Why give me those herbs?"

  Adel hissed out an impatient breath through her teeth. "They told me you had a quick mind. Why do you think? You were straying down a foolish path, and none of the others would have dared go behind the alpha's back to steer you off it."

  "But you have hated me since the day I arrived!" Netya blurted out.

  Adel leaned forward. The faint lines on her face stood out to Netya once again now that they were so close. The den mother's beauty was near-perfection, but those tiny lines, the only hints of her mortality, lent it a deep sadness.

  "I hate men who behave like the beasts within them. I hate seeing people destroyed through pride, or fear, or ignorance. What reason have you ever given me to hate you?"

  Netya opened her mouth, but she could find nothing to say. Jealousy? she thought, but that now seemed the most foolish reason of all. What was the den mother trying to do with her? "Because I am one of the Sun People?" she tried at last. "When I first came here, you said I did not belong."

  "I only told you what was true," Adel replied. "You did not belong. You were a child thrown to the mercy of a beast and his pack. I hoped for your own sake you would run that night, when I made you watch those two males fighting."

  "So I have proven to you now that I am not as helpless as you thought?"

  Adel regarded her for a long moment before speaking. "There are many women who would have been broken like a twig in the wind by such an upheaval. As soon as I learned the alpha had taken you, I saw it happening. A frightened girl staying by his side out of fear. Afraid to ever challenge the warriors who had taken her from her home. Dutifully bearing a child she never asked for, bound to it as she grew older, living a quiet life of service. Content after a time, perhaps, but never truly happy. But you did not break like I expected. You changed. Many years ago, I was taken from my people as well, and I did not break either."

  Netya did not know whether to feel flattered or unnerved by the den mother's appraisal. She did not even know whether to completely believe what she was being told. "Then, I suppose I am glad to have earned your respect."

  Adel snorted. "You have a long way to go before you earn that. There is potential in you to become something more than Khelt's bed warmer, but potential on its own means litt
le. You would not have made it this far without my help."

  "It was my choice to stay, and my choice to take those herbs."

  "Was it? Or did you need a hand to guide you?"

  Netya bit back her response and forced herself to breathe and think again. It was painful to admit that everything Adel was saying might be true. When she was angry at Khelt she could at least cling on to her own sense of self-righteousness, but what did she have now? In her heart she knew that Adel had been cruel to her, disingenuous at the very least, but all she had to fall back on were her wounded feelings. Had the den mother's cruelty really been born of some twisted kindness? And, more worryingly, would Netya's time with the pack have been worse without it?

  If not for Adel's offer of the herbs, would she have spent long nights awake agonising over whether to use them or not? Would the possibility of being in control of her future in such a way even have occurred to her? The den mother's gift, regardless of whether she chose to use it or not, had forced her to think about things she had previously never considered.

  Her perplexity must have registered on her face, for it drew a look of cold satisfaction from Adel.

  "The most important skill of a seer is to question these things, and open her mind to possibilities that are not seen by others. It does not matter whether you believe I guided you down the right path or not, only that you consider why I did it. The world is a complicated thing that few see for what it truly is, and the realm of the spirits even more so. These are all things you will learn as my apprentice."

  "I still do not know why you chose me," Netya said. "The others say you have never taken an apprentice before. Why am I the first?"

  Adel looked at her, studying the dark-haired girl with the eyes of a master craftsman appraising the stone that might one day be chipped into a tool unlike any other. "I considered taking an apprentice many times," the den mother said, "but these women are not of my pack. They have all grown to think of the spirits in their own way, and I cannot unmake a lifetime of learning. You have heard the visions Brae and the others pronounce as if they were proof of the future, glimpses into things far beyond the knowing of any person."

  "I have, but many visions do not come to pass," Netya said. "Everyone understands this."

  "No," Adel said sharply. "That is the way of thinking you must abandon if you are to learn from me. The wisdom of the spirits does not come from premonitions of the future. I will never convince the other seers of this, but you have been raised apart from their way of thinking. If you are willing to listen, I will teach you."

  It was with much scepticism that Netya tentatively bowed her head. The den mother's own unique teachings, whatever they turned out to be, were certainly not what she had expected to be made privy to over the course of her apprenticeship. "Am I not to learn how to seek out visions, then?" she said.

  "Any fool can witness a vision. You see them in your dreams every night, but it takes a seer to understand the wisdom that can be drawn from them. When you are ready, I will guide you to a place where you can listen to the whispers of the spirits more keenly."

  "When will that be?"

  "When I say so." Adel rose to her feet and walked to a rack of pouches, unhooking several of them before returning to her spot in front of Netya and hefting a flat stone slab between them. One by one, she emptied the contents of the small bags, berries and herbs and leaves. Some were familiar to Netya already, but many were not.

  "First, you must learn your herbs," Adel said. "Even the simplest of minds can manage this with enough practice. Once you can tell all of them by sight and smell, I will teach you their uses, and then how to administer them. Until then you will not take any of these for yourself without permission. Many of our most powerful medicines can become poison in the hands of a clumsy apprentice."

  Netya was not permitted to ask any more questions for the rest of the evening. Adel brought out her collection of plants a few at a time, making her new apprentice memorise their names before moving on to the next batch. There was little further discussion between the two of them, and every time Netya attempted to make conversation the den mother silenced her with a few sharp words, insisting that she focus on the task at hand.

  Adel's strict manner was aggravating, but as the evening wore on Netya found little space to indulge her frustration as the list of plants she was expected to memorise grew longer and longer. There were so many of them, and most seemed so alike that she did not have the first clue how she was supposed to tell them apart.

  Before long, Netya was so overwhelmed by the task that she could have focused on little else even if she tried. She repeated the list of plants over and over in her head, trying to remember what made each one distinct as Adel emptied the contents of more and more bags on the stone in front of her.

  When it became too dark to see, she was given a brief respite to light the lamps and kindle the fire, trying not to allow the unsettling animal pelts to distract her as she repeated the list over and over under her breath.

  It seemed like hours before they came to the final bag, and even then Adel claimed there were more plants she would have to learn in the days to come. When the den mother took a handful of leaves from one of the pouches and told Netya to identify it, she found herself unable. They tried again, with a different kind of plant, and once again the answer refused to come.

  Each time she failed, Netya felt her cheeks burn hotter, realising that she had focused so hard on remembering the names that she had forgotten which plants they were linked to. Adel reprimanded her for every mistake, but it was the den mother's unspoken judgement that bothered Netya more. She wanted to prove she was capable of becoming a seer. Not just to her new mentor, but to everyone, herself included. Each failure, each contemptuous look from Adel, made her feel like a foolish child, an outsider, a girl suited only to warming the alpha's furs.

  After a time, she managed to identify a few plants correctly, but those were mostly the ones she had already grown accustomed to gathering with Fern. By the time they finished, the night was old, and Netya was exhausted.

  "Climb up and close the coverings," Adel instructed. "It may rain soon."

  Careful not to slip, Netya gingerly used the natural footholds in the cave wall to make her way up until she reached the opening in the roof, peering out across the top of the outcrop until she found the section of the heavy, hide-covered frame that had been moved aside to let the light in. She almost fell as she heaved it back into place over her head. At Adel's instruction, she spent another few moments making sure the pieces of hide trailing from the edges were tucked and arranged properly, so as not to let any rain in.

  Netya clambered back down, her mind feeling like stretched wool. She longed for the comfort of her furs.

  "You will return tomorrow morning," Adel said. "And we will try this again until you learn."

  Netya bowed her head wearily and shuffled out through the drapes, edging back through the pitch blackness of the tunnel until she found her way to the central cave. The other seers had all returned to their own private dwellings, though Netya knew only the most senior of them slept in the cave itself. A single elder dozed in the antechamber on the way out, propped up against the wall in a pile of furs in case anyone had need of the seers' services in the middle of the night.

  Netya dragged herself back to her tent, finding Fern already asleep, and tucked herself into her bedding. She tried to keep running over the names of the plants in her head, but sleep soon eroded any attempt at memorising them.

  Her first day of apprenticeship had not been as dangerous as fighting mountain cats, or surviving on her own in the wilderness, but it had certainly been no less exhausting.

  —29—

  The Apprentice

  The second day was just as taxing as the first. This time, Adel prepared a larger stone slab in the corner of her chamber for Netya to use, with many of the plants already laid out for her. As the day went on the den mother left her alone while she attended to he
r other duties, but every time Netya began to relax her mentor would appear again a moment later, demanding that she list off her herbs once more.

  Despite how much there was to remember, Adel had been right when she said that even the simplest of minds could grasp it given enough time. All Netya had to do was fill her head with the names of all the plants over and over again until they stuck, and then connect those names to the contents of the bags around her. It was not so different from learning the language of the Moon People, and after a time she felt a familiar comfort in the routine.

  Adel kept her at the task all day, allowing only two brief breaks for Netya to eat and relieve herself. By the time she was allowed to return to her tent it was well past sunset, and she had little energy to do anything but recount the first two days of her apprenticeship to Fern before curling up to sleep.

  As the days went on, Netya gradually learned to recognise all of the herbs Adel had prepared for her, and when she hit a stumbling point where she could not tell one plant from another, the den mother showed her the various hidden ways in which she might identify them. Two leaves or roots that looked identical might have distinctly different smells or tastes, or subtle patterns in their size or way of growing that could be picked out by a keen eye. Certain plants, of course, were not safe to try and identify by taste, as Adel purposefully allowed Netya to learn when she began to chew on a small piece of freshly cut stem, only to spit it out a moment later when her mouth began to burn as if she had just tasted fire.

  She had to endure the rest of the day with her tongue and part of her cheek swollen and stinging, but she could not deny the effectiveness of the lesson, regardless of how little it did to improve her attitude toward Adel.

  After Netya's unpleasant encounter with the piece of stalk, the den mother showed her how she could peel back the outer part of that particular plant to see how it differed on the inside from its less harmful cousins.