by Kamryn Hart
“Like a cub whining for its mother.”
“Little fighter takes shit from no one.”
The princess grinned at Rodrick. A full-on grin. She wasn’t the least bit intimidated by him.
“Good,” I murmured. “You aren’t bound by the Mate Claim.”
“What is the Mate Claim exactly?” she asked.
“A werewolf bites a werea and has sex with her to seal her to him. That werea is bound to the werewolf that claimed her like a tethered would be. She has to obey, and even if she was stolen away by another werewolf, she wouldn’t be able to bear cubs for any werewolf but the one who sealed her with the Mate Claim.”
“Tethered?”
“Do you know nothing at all?” Aerre asked testily. “A tethered is a human turned werewolf.”
The princess cocked her head, and Aerre turned his gaze to the window.
“Prince Charles put an unfulfilled claim on you,” I continued. “You aren’t bound to him, but he still has first rights. That mark will stay until he fulfills his claim. I think it can be broken if another werewolf claims you and seals you first, though.”
“That’s not happening,” she announced. “I don’t belong to anyone.” She shot me a severe look. “Is that the real reason you are taking me to Wolf Bridge, so I can be a breeder for you instead of Paws Peak?”
“No! Well, sort of?”
Her eyes got darker.
“I mean, we’re not going to force you to do anything.”
“You forced me to come with you.”
Now Aerre was looking at me with accusing blue eyes. He was daring me to act and do what I wanted to do instead of what I was assigned to do.
“You’re right, Princess. But I meant what I said. So, if you want out of this roader, give the word. We’re far enough from Paws Peak now that you’ll probably be fine. We’ll stop and let you go,” I said. And I meant it. It would be the first time I went against a direct order, but I meant it. I’d be damned if it didn’t worry me, though. The implications of returning to Wolf Bridge without her would be dire. Then again, I didn’t have any intention of leaving her out here on her own.
No wonder my father didn’t trust me. I saw the Lost Princess as much more than a key piece in a lingering world war that just wouldn’t die.
The princess took another long look around the roader, carefully observing each of us.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered. Her bottom lip quivered, and her eyes glossed over with tears. My chest tightened at the sight. “If I go to Wolf Bridge, will I just be a breeder forced to mate with some werewolf the king chooses?”
“No,” I said firmly. “You will not.” I meant that too, even though it wasn’t my place to make such promises.
She nodded her head like my words were enough. “Maybe I won’t mind Wolf Bridge if everyone there is like you four. You’re different from the werewolves in Paws Peak.”
“That’s because we aren’t maneaters.”
“Maneaters. That explains a lot,” the princess murmured. “What are you then?”
“Shields. We protect the humans in our kingdom, and we definitely don’t eat them.”
Rodrick folded his arms, and Aerre looked out his window in resignation. They were both tethered to me. They were both human and still were in a sense. It wasn’t perfect. Wolf Bridge wasn’t perfect, but it was better. It had potential to continue to be better. Most importantly, the world had the potential to change. I wanted that. That was why my squad was made of a bunch of misfits. A former agitator, a human born and raised in Wolf Bridge, the smartest werewolf I had ever known from a line of maneaters, and a prince whose title was hollow.
Things were simpler when I was a cub who snuck out of the castle so I could make a friend. A real friend. Someone who wasn’t my brothers because I didn’t fit in. Someone who was different and would see me differently. I picked Aerre, a human. He wasn’t half as naive as I was, though, and he rejected me time and time again. But I was stubborn and patient. Patience was what had seen me through to this point, and it was what would continue to see me through to a new world, a kinder world more like the one I saw as a kid. I hoped so anyway.
I glanced back at the princess to see her dozing. I didn’t blame her for being exhausted. She held on tightly to that book she was attached to. I never did read the title and wondered why it was so important to her.
“Take a nap,” I said. “We’ll wake you up when we get to Wolf Bridge.”
She shook her head, but she could barely keep her eyes open. “I’ll stay awake.”
I smirked. “We’ll see about that, stubborn princess.”
CHAPTER 13
AERRE
I COULDN’T STOP MY foot from tapping the ground. I wasn’t jumpy or hyperactive by nature, but when I got agitated, it just happened. It was like my body had to find a way to deal with the discordance in my head, and that resulted in whatever this foot-tapping shit was. If there had been more room in the back of the roader, I might have been cleaning or polishing our weapons instead.
The princess fell asleep. Her full eyelashes pressed lightly together like butterfly wings, illuminated by the moon. How she managed to look so delicate and beautiful while covered in filth, I didn’t know, but it made me uncomfortable.
She was clutching some book or journal to her chest. I couldn’t read the title since it was covered. If I really wanted to know what it was, I probably could have asked Todd. He might have read it when he picked it up after Caspian tackled the princess to the ground. I didn’t care that much.
What I did care about, at the moment, was how the princess was sleeping so peacefully with her head resting against Rodrick’s densely muscled and tattooed arm. For some reason, the sight made me more agitated. Maybe it was the fact that the princess was so unsuspecting. Rodrick was the worst choice for her to show this kind of vulnerability. He was her predator and was probably contemplating how to discreetly slit her throat right now. As an agitator, the punishment he would receive for that would be worth it.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
“What are we going to do about the Mate Claim?” I asked, directing my question at Caspian. “Prince Charles will be able to track her, won’t he? Just because she wasn’t sealed, doesn’t mean he won’t sense her, right?”
“I don’t know about that. I hid the princess in plain sight and Prince Charles had no idea,” Caspian replied. “But he did hesitate for a moment.”
“Maybe his sniffer is broken,” Rodrick mused.
I shot him a glare, and he grinned through his stupid beard.
“He’ll know, or King George will,” I insisted. “Paws Peak will attack Wolf Bridge.”
“Maybe.”
“They will! We were seen. There aren’t any other werewolves around.”
Caspian shrugged like none of this mattered. “Okay, but there’s a chance they’ll negotiate. Not everything has to end in violence.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell us to hunt down Prince Charles as soon as you saw the bite on her skin? Or did you somehow know Prince Charles hadn’t fulfilled the Mate Claim? If he had, you would have had to kill him or she would be bound to him until he died. She would be useless to your asshole father. Did you think about that? You don’t really know if she can escape Charles’s claim if another werewolf tries to claim and seal her, do you? What about your promise to her? You never think things through.”
“And you think your way into endless circles, never finding a right or a wrong,” Rodrick jabbed, “confrontational asshole.”
“That’s not true.” I hated that he was somehow right.
“We know Paws Peak wants to be the next High Kingdom, but that title died with Howling Sky eighteen years ago. We also know that if someone took the title, it’d be Wolf Bridge,” Caspian said. “We don’t have lunalite, but that won’t help Paws Peak when we have superior tech. There’s no way Paws Peak will get inside our walls. Right, Todd?”
“Probably,”
Todd answered.
“That wasn’t the comforting answer I was hoping for.”
I growled. “We failed the mission! The princess might never be free of Prince Charles unless he’s dead, and you fed her a bunch of bullshit.”
“I didn’t lie,” Caspian defended.
“You did.”
“No one’s ever heard of the Mate Claim being stopped halfway, but Prince Charles passed by the princess when she was practically right in front of him. I wasn’t completely talking out of my ass.”
“You better hope so because otherwise we’re going to have to kill Prince Charles, and it’ll be a lot tougher than if we had just done it in the fucking first place. You should have killed him when he was right in front of the princess, then.”
“With a shit-load of guards? The princess’s safety was my top priority.”
The princess stirred, likely disturbed by our raised voices.
“Just shut up, Aerre, before I lose my temper,” Rodrick said menacingly. He hardly ever lost his temper. He was the go-with-the-flow member of this squad—even when he was bashing heads—but not right now. He moved slightly, making the sleeping princess’s crunched position propped up against his arm a little less crunched.
Rodrick continued, “You’re whining for no reason just like you always are. We got the princess. We’ll figure out the Mate Claim. We’ll be back in Wolf Bridge soon enough, and then your homesick bellyaching will be cured until we leave again.”
That last bit was oozing sarcasm. I growled. Rodrick growled back. The princess stirred again, letting out a little sound of displeasure.
“Stop,” Todd ordered.
Rodrick and I stopped out of pure shock. Todd never got into this stuff. He withdrew. He never said a word unless he was directly asked a question or if the conversation was about tech.
“You’ll wake her,” he said.
The fight left my system, so did the urge to tap my foot. Silence engulfed us, aside from the hum of the roader engine. I looked at the princess as she drifted back into a deep sleep. It was dark out, but the headlights and dim light inside of the roader provided adequate visibility. I could see the slight rise and fall of the princess’s chest even through the large sweater she was wearing. I almost swore I could hear her heart beating. It was like I was hypersensitive to her presence, but I couldn’t explain why that would be.
This werea had been through a lot in one day, and yet she was taking all of this extremely well in my opinion. She was born with the kind of confidence that was almost intimidating. I would have also called her naive, but that wasn’t true. She wasn’t naive. She was new to this world. She was practically a newborn in it. However, I had a feeling she’d grow up fast. Her fate was to be treated as a piece of property. Werewolves couldn’t even be bothered to treat their own women right.
This world would tear her down like it did my sister, and I had to play along with it. I hated werewolves. That included the princess, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to suffer. I didn’t think any female, human or werewolf, should have to go through what my sister did. I couldn’t believe any male, werewolf or human, would take advantage like that. It was wrong. So wrong. It was her first day out of the Witch Woods and Prince Charles already succeeded in violating her partway. Perhaps vampire women were lucky in that sense since they greatly outnumbered their males; the same couldn’t be said for their males.
I tasted bile in my mouth. I was complicit in whatever happened to her next. I wasn’t stupid. It would be more of the same, but it was my only option. I didn’t rebel. I was a good submissive, a good tethered, a good dog. Rebelling got people hurt and killed. That wasn’t worth the outcome to me.
Fuck werewolves.
Fuck agitators.
Fuck vampires.
I hated them all.
CHAPTER 14
SORISSA
THE VAGUE AWARENESS OF a loud clang roused me. I must have been exhausted because I wasn’t a heavy sleeper. I wasn’t a light sleeper either, but a sound that loud should have woken me instantaneously. Instead, I stirred slowly. I moved my head, rubbing my forehead back and forth against something firm and warm. I wasn’t touching skin, but the warmth reminded me of skin. It was nice, soothing and comforting. I didn’t want to open my eyes.
I snuggled closer, tilted my head upward, and then I opened my eyes. I was met with forest-green eyes staring back at me. I blinked, surprised. I glimpsed a couple white scars marring the brown skin on his face and even some hidden in his facial hair before he moved like he was trying to shake me off of him. I sat up rigidly straight at the same time.
I was still buckled inside of the roader, and we were still moving. I squinted my eyes at early morning light streaming in through Rodrick’s window. Truthfully, I was a bit mortified. I had been sleeping against his shoulder. Yes, these werewolves were much kinder than the ones I met from Paws Peak. I even hoped I could find a place in their kingdom, but I couldn’t become complacent. There was a big possibility I’d still end up having to escape alone, having to run from here. Being alone was better than being forced to mate with a werewolf I didn’t even know.
Did I really think these werewolves could be different or was I simply delusional? I hoped for the former but feared the latter.
“Good morning, Princess,” Caspian said as he looked back at me from the front of the roader. He was wearing a soft smile that seemed easy for him to give. “You woke up at the perfect time. We’re inside Wolf Bridge.”
I looked back and forth between Rodrick and Aerre, trying to decide which window I’d get a better view out of. That turned out to be an easy decision. Rodrick was huge and blocked a lot of his window, so I picked Aerre. But then I caught Aerre staring at me. There was something sharp in his look, something I wasn’t sure I liked. He seemed angry. I wasn’t sure if that anger was directed at me, but I felt it regardless.
I turned back toward Rodrick. I had been sleeping against his arm, so maybe he wouldn’t mind me being close again. I just wanted to peek outside of the window. The view from the front window was too bright.
Leaning over, I experimented with getting close to Rodrick without touching him. He tensed and folded his arms, but he directed his gaze outside of the window. I placed my hands on his right leg to get a better angle. That made him really tense, but he sat back in his seat, giving me as good of a view as he could.
This kingdom was bright. Paws Peak was a lot of gray metals accentuated with yellow. Wolf Bridge was a lot of tan clay-based structures accentuated with dark blues and warm orange-reds. Based on looks alone, I liked Wolf Bridge better. The streets were wider, and the houses had a little more room. They were close and cozy, but they weren’t practically built inside of each other to save room. These buildings also looked much more similar to Babaga’s cottage. I didn’t see tech or things I didn’t recognize.
I saw humans, a lot of them, walking the same orange-red streets the roader was traveling. These humans actually smiled. I didn’t see many werewolves, but there were a few scattered here and there. They wore dark-blue soldier uniforms with silver accents and a orange-red insignia of two wolves whose noses were joined together like a bridge. They didn’t seem to bother the humans. Some of them were even talking to humans and smiling. Was this the difference between “maneaters” and “shields”? If so, I liked shields many times better.
I thought I heard the sound of rushing water, but I wrote it off as part of the growl the roader made constantly when it was awake. But eventually we made it to a humongous bridge, and I couldn’t deny the sound any longer. It wasn’t the roader at all. I dug my fingers into Rodrick’s leg, expressing my anxiety-mixed excitement. Wolf Bridge was split by a far-reaching chasm. It had walls clearly outlining its territory like Paws Peak had, but they stopped where the chasm began. However, those areas had extra fortifications, tall watchtowers likely equipped with weapons.
“Careful with the goods, Princess,” Rodrick murmured. His voice was so low, I was sure onl
y I could hear him. I softened my dagger-like fingers so I wasn’t digging into his leg and offered an apologetic smile, but he wouldn’t look at me. Was he angry too? What happened while I was sleeping?
“This is the bridge our kingdom was named for,” Caspian informed. “It has a lot of history. It used to kind of be a toll bridge. It was the most popular way for kingdoms on either side, east or west, to cross the Quicksilver River. It was a power play really, and our kingdom naturally grew out from either side of the bridge until it became what it is today.
“At one point, this bridge was the only way across the river, so it kept Wolf Bridge an influential and neutral kingdom. Things got hairy with war and demanded alliances of course, and Glory Valley ended up making a bridge of their own to cross the Quicksilver River. War is pretty complicated and messy. Stories like this just go on and on, war and more war. But I like the idea of a bridge uniting species, inviting peace.”
Peace. I was right. Caspian, Rodrick, Todd, and Aerre were different. I was sure of it. And I wanted a reason for why I liked them because I did. I liked them.
I moved away from Rodrick and squeezed my mother’s journal as the roader began its journey across the bridge. It was so wide, it didn’t feel like we were on a bridge at all. The base was made of the same orange-red rocks as the streets. The railing was intricate, swirling and sweeping. The metal looked like white gold. It was dazzling in the sun. I saw a hint of white frothing water to either side, past the walls to the north and south. The Quicksilver River was wild and sent up a misty spray from time to time. The water particles twinkled in the morning light like stardust. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
Would I be able to call this place home? My mother’s journal made that question hard to answer. Nothing would let me forget that I was valuable, that I was a “werea.” I didn’t want to be treated like a sack of coins in fairytales. I didn’t want to be traded or hoarded. I was alive, and I wanted to be treated as such.