by Asher North
Rhys groaned and stirred in his arms. He seemed to be tortured by dreams. More than once during their journey to the den, Rhys had thrashed or flung his arms about and muttered something that was audible but indecipherable. Damon pulled him closer, listening to his breathing, hoping to find any sort of sign of life and wellness within it. Though the breathing was steady, it offered no relief. Rhys's leg was mangled and crusted over with blood, a sight that turned Damon's stomach each and every time he saw it. This is my fault, he thought. He hoped that once he explained everything to Rhys that Rhys would forgive him, and maybe even understand why it happened, but the hope was faint at best.
"You there, Black Claw," a voice called drawing Damon's attention away from his mate. He looked up to find Magnus and two other white wolves he didn't recognize, not that he would have recognized them anyway, and immediately his heart jumped into his throat. This is it, he thought. They're going to take me to my death, to punish me for all of the wrongs that the Black Claw pack has committed against them.
"What is it?" Damon asked, searching Magnus's face for an answer that he never found.
"Oron would like to speak with you," Magnus answered, his voice flat and giving no indication of what Damon might walk into if he agreed to meet with the leader of the White Tails.
"Why me?" Damon asked, his voice fluctuating with each of his hammering heartbeats. As if it weren't bad enough that he'd fallen to nerves on the battlefield against the Reavers, now he was expected to talk to the leader of the most infamously reclusive pack in all of Moonvalley in the hopes of convincing him to allow them all to stay. They had nowhere else to go at this point. The Gold Eyes, the only other pack that had taken them in, were almost certainly extinct and Damon did not doubt that the rest of Moonvalley had heard their story and grown to fear their fate. If it were him making the decision for Oron, he doubted that he would have allowed them to stay himself. It was too risky.
"Because Oron demanded it," Magnus said. Damon turned to Knox, hoping that Knox might have some better answers for him.
"It should be me who speaks to him but clearly he is testing us. I do not fault him for being suspicious. However, that means that the responsibility falls on your shoulders alone."
"I'm not the right wolf for this. You're right, you're the one who should speak to him," Damon said, desperate to find a way out. In his current state, after his failure to protect Rhys, he had no confidence in his ability to convince the White Tail pack leader to grant them refuge. He stared down at Rhys, full of responsibility and remorse, and when he looked up he found Knox staring at him so intently that it made his skin feel translucent, as if Knox could see into his heart.
"You are more capable than you realize. The well-being of your child and your mate depends on this meeting. It is time that you proved to yourself and to every other wolf that you are worthy," Knox said.
“We’re counting on you,” Eleo said, stepping toward him and offering his arms to take Rhys.
"I think this is a mistake, one that we will all live to regret," Damon said, and without another word of argument, he passed Rhys's slack body into Eleo's arms and stepped toward the entrance to the White Tail den, its mouth threatening to swallow him whole. Magnus watched him approach, his careful and studious eye following each and every one of Damon's movements, as if he were judging and characterizing him based on that and that alone. Still, he followed Magnus into the den and talked himself up mentally as he did so, repeating to himself the words that Knox had said: You are more capable than you realize. You are more capable than you realize. You are more capable than you realize.
No matter how much he may have doubted himself, the thought of securing his child's future outweighed all of his reservations. It was true that he told himself on more than one occasion that he needed to be strong and had fallen short of it, but if he was to make that up in a meaningful way now was the best time to do so. He felt sure that if he were able to negotiate terms with the White Tails, at least for a small amount of time, it would override all of the mistakes that he had so far made. He was confident that when Rhys awoke and came back into his full consciousness, if he could tell Rhys that he had saved them all and given them a safe place to stay again while Rhys carried their child to term, Rhys would let go of any of his resentments that might still linger after Damon had failed to keep him physically safe.
To his surprise, the interior of the White Tail den was warmer than anything its exterior suggested it might be. There were fires lit among groups of stones and snow and several wolves crowded around each one. Damon wondered how these wolves managed to keep themselves warm. Not even growing up in the Blackcap Mountains could have prepared him for the cold that seemed to seep into his bones and fill them up with a numbness that he thought he’d never be able to shake. He would have given anything to share the fire with the wolves he passed but the looks of contempt that they gave him told him he’d never be welcome to.
After what seemed to Damon like an eternity of tension while they crossed the main room of the White Tail den, he and Magnus entered a cavernous room. Magnus stopped in front of him and Damon looked up to find an old, battle-weary wolf sitting on a throne made entirely of ice. Where Damon had come from, such a display would have been seen as ostentatious, but for some reason it seemed to fit perfectly for these wolves. Though they deemed themselves as removed and separate from the conflicts of the other packs of Moonvalley, Damon didn't fail to notice that they seemed almost desperate to prove that their path was the correct one, a path that included showing how much better off they were by staying out of conflict.
"Is this the one?" the wolf on the throne asked, his voice booming throughout the otherwise empty chamber. Though the voice was loud and large, the wolf that it came from was quite the opposite. He looked sickly, as if he'd been ravaged by disease and age, and Damon wondered if he had all of his wits about him. This might be an opportunity for me to exercise some diplomatic muscle, Damon thought. Still, he did not want to underestimate the ruler of the White Tail pack. He knew all too well that appearances could be deceiving.
"It is," Magnus called back, his voice echoing just the same and yet still sounding somehow much more intimidating. The wolf on the throne, who could only be Oron, nodded his head and without another word Magnus left the room. Damon sat down in the middle of the icy floor and dared to meet the eyes of the leader of the White Tail pack with his own.
"Why are you here?" Oron asked, clearly not interested in talking about the smaller things. Damon appreciated that. The only thing that mattered at this point was to get his family and his friends safe and the only way that he could do that would be to strike a deal with the leader. What that deal might consist of, he had no idea, but he only had one way to find out.
"I'm here to seek refuge," Damon said. Where Oron and Magnus's voices demanded respect in this great hall full of nothing but ice and emptiness, Damon's own voice sounded meek and demanded little.
"Refuge from what?" Oron asked, shifting forward in his throne of ice to stare down at Damon. Though the blue in his eyes seemed to have faded over the years, leaving them pale and milky, still they gave Damon pause. It was clear the Damon had never and most likely would never see the sort of horrors that Oron had in his own life and not for the first time Damon wondered why he had been summoned here to talk with this wolf.
"From everything," Damon admitted. He wasn't sure what he hoped to accomplish with the comment but the words had tumbled out before he had the time to consider them. Oron raised an eyebrow and shifted again in his icy throne, the sound of his long, gnarled claws against the ice like the shriek of a banshee in Damon's ears. He winced and shook his head, hoping that Oron hadn't taken the display as weakness.
"I admit that I am not inclined to grant you the refuge you seek," Oron said. "However, I am not an unreasonable wolf nor an unreasonable leader. If you are to convince me to allow you to remain here then I need you to be honest with me. What are you running from? Why di
d my wolves find you in the snow?"
"We were fleeing from my own pack," Damon admitted. There was no sense in lying about it. If truth be told, Oron already knew the story.
"And what did they want from you?"
"They think I murdered my father, our pack leader," Damon said. His blood’s temperature soared at the thought.
"And did you?" Oron asked.
"No," Damon said, his voice confident and sure. "Make no mistake, I have no love for my father, and he never had love for me, but I’m no killer."
"Then who killed him? He is unmistakably dead now, as the entire realm knows and currently bleeds for."
"My brother, Thane."
"It’s the throne he seeks, is it not?" Oron asked.
"Isn't that what they always seek?" Damon answered. Oron chuckled.
"That much is true. Power turns many wolves against each other and sometimes against themselves. I don't see that in you, however," he said.
"Power is something I have never been interested in. The only thing I've ever wanted was to belong, something that has eluded me for my entire life," Damon admitted. It pained him to be so vulnerable, especially in the face of a wolf that he didn't know but he didn't see any other way. He'd tried to be strong for Rhys physically and it'd only ended up in tragedy. Maybe it was time for him to embrace his true strength, which was his honesty and intimacy with his own feelings. Maybe being an Alpha was about more than muscle; maybe it was about being strong enough to face his fears and admit his feelings, even when it seemed imprudent to do so.
"And yet you think that you belong here?" Oron asked.
"No, I never dared to believe that for a second," Damon said.
"Then why are you here?” Oron asked.
"Because we have nowhere else to go," Damon admitted. "The only places we have ever felt safe have all been lost. Some of our friends have been claimed in the process. We came here out of desperation. Rhys, the injured wolf I carried when we arrived, is my mate and the bearer of my child." Oron considered him for several moments, his eyes seeming to travel over every inch of Damon’s body, and the longer that the silence stretched on the more nervous Damon grew. He held his breath and silently begged Oron, prayed that he would see reason.
"For the sake of your child, I will allow you to stay,” Oron said at last and Damon nearly fainted from glee.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Damon said but Oron’s hard, grizzled face hadn’t changed.
“That said, once your mate gives birth to the child, you all must leave. You cannot understand the risk that your presence poses to my pack and my wolves. I won't see any of them harmed on your behalf. I won’t let us go down in flames the same way the Gold Eyes did," Oron said. Now Damon knew why his face had remained strong and hard.
"But we'll die out there," Damon said, urgency rising in his voice. The thought of trying to care for a young pup out in the wild among wolves who would murder them in their sleep without a second thought was too much.
“You might, but that is not of my concern,” Oron said and Damon couldn't shake the frantic feeling in the pit of his stomach. His one and only hope of finding a place to stay, of redeeming himself in Rhys's eyes, was slipping through his hands like melting snow. "I love him, and I love our child, I would do anything to see them safe. It's no different than what you would do for your own wolves."
"It is different, boy, because they are my wolves. You are a Black Claw, unlike the rest I have ever met to be sure, but a Black Claw nonetheless. Their wild blood is in you and they will not rest until they have come to spill it and slain the bastard child you've created with the Silver Fang," Oron said. As much as Damon wanted to argue, as much as he wanted to tell Oron that he was horribly mistaken, he knew that Oron had the right of it. Thane and his thugs would give them chase for all of their days until at last they were cornered and Thane could end Damon's breath, the one and only thing that threatened his control and power.
"You've doomed us all to death," Damon said, letting go of all of his inhibitions. Clearly, Oron was no friend of his, and he owed him no more courtesy than he had already given him—not now that he had sentenced them to die in the snow alone.
"No, young wolf, it is you who doomed yourself to death the moment you laid with the Silver Fang," Oron said. "And if you would like to live further then your already numbered days, I suggest you guard your tongue. Now go collect your friends and leave me before I change my mind." Damon stood rooted to the spot, as if his paws had been frozen there. “Go!” Oron shouted, his voice booming throughout the room and jarring Damon out of the internal downward spiral he’d fallen into.
He left the hall in a hurry and found Magnus waiting for him just outside. There was no way the White Tail hadn't heard everything that was said between the two of them and Damon found himself resenting Magnus for not speaking up. He had to have seen the condition of Damon's friends, he had to have known that they would die as a result of their wounds if they weren’t treated properly and given enough time to heal. More than that, he had to know that Rhys was pregnant. How could any wolf, of any pack, doom a pup to death when it hadn't even yet been born? Damon doubted he would ever know the answer to that question.
"I'm sorry," Magnus said when Damon joined but Damon brushed it away as nothing more than words.
"So am I," he said.
Rhys
When Rhys opened his eyes again, he found Damon's hovering before him. They were irritated and swollen, suggesting that Damon had recently been crying. Without a word exchanged between the two of them, he Damon had nothing good to share.
Rhys and his fellows had been gathered by a group of White Tail wolves and brought into the White Tail den. Once inside, Rhys was shuffled off into a room full of medical supplies, and a group of Healer wolves took to his wounds. They poured some sort of acid onto his leg, which jolted him out of his slumber before plunging him back into it when the pain subsided. Still, that pain was nothing in comparison to the pain he felt now as he looked into Damon's eyes.
"The White Tail leader summoned me," Damon said.
"I surmised. What did he want?"
"He wanted to know why we were here."
"He knows damn well why we’re here. What did you tell him?"
"I told him the truth. I told him that we were expecting a baby and I told him about everything that has happened to us so far," Damon said.
"And what was his verdict?" Rhys asked. Damon fell silent.
"Tell me," Rhys insisted. "And tell me true. What did he decide?"
"Don't make me say it," Damon said, tearing his eyes away from Rhys in shame.
"We can't stay, can we?" Rhys asked and after a moment Damon shook his head. "Then what are we supposed to do?" Rhys asked, gripping Damon's forearm with more force than was necessary. "Where are we going to go? All of our friends and all of our allies are lost. The White Tails are the only ones left. Without them we have no hope."
"There’s always hope," Damon insisted. "We’ll have to find a new way and new allies."
"And which allies might those be? There are only four packs in all of Moonvalley and only three remain, three packs we now know do not wish us well. What about our child? How are we to keep him safe?" Rhys asked. He couldn’t contain his panic. He felt as if his world had been violently turned upside down in an instant.
"Oron will allow us to stay until the baby is born, but then he wants us to leave," Damon said. It was a small mercy, but Rhys had trouble seeing it that way. He could take better care of himself in the wild while pregnant than he could take care of a young pup who had much more pressing needs than he did. If anything, it was more important to have safe harbor after the baby was born then it would be to have it now.
“He’s a coward,” Rhys said and Damon looked around them before fixing Rhys with an intense stare.
“Watch your words,” he commanded. “We should be grateful that Oron has allowed us to stay at all. If you run around here saying things like that then ou
r rest here will be far shorter.”
"Grateful? Grateful for what, exactly? We’re lost, Damon. There’s nowhere left for us to go," Rhys said, his voice cracking. "We came all this way, lost Lux, nearly lost more lives, and for what? What has it all been for?"
"We're not lost," Damon insisted. "We’ll only be lost if we give in to despair."
"I see no reason not to,” Rhys said. "What do we have now? Tell me, Damon. What do we have?!" The anger that flared within Rhys came from nowhere but he could no longer hold it back. He knew in his heart that it wasn't fair to heap on Damon this way but he had no one else to blame.
The thought of raising a child in the wild, surrounded by wolves who would love to see them killed or who would gladly turn them in for ransom, filled him with a kind of dread that made his body feel twice as heavy as it was. It wouldn't be possible. There would be no hope for their child because they would almost certainly be found, either by the Black Claws or by the Reavers or by the Silver Fangs, all of which wanted one or both of them dead.
"We’re doomed," Rhys said, letting go of Damon's forearm.
"Rhys, you don’t understand. I’ve never said this but you must know that I love you and our child, that I would do anything for both of you. I tried to convince Oron but you’re right, he’s afraid, and why shouldn’t he be? He's seen what happened to the Gold Eyes when they decided to help us. He doesn’t want to follow in their footsteps. I did everything I could have done,” Damon said.
“Then he’s no true leader,” Rhys said. “I’ll speak with him and force him to see sense. He must understand that even if he refuses us refuge, this war will still consume his pack,” Rhys said as he sat up from the bed, making to stand. Damon rested his hand on Rhys's chest and forced him back down.