Her Royal Wolf: A Rejected Mates Romance (Fall Mountain Shifters Book 3)

by G. Bailey

  “Any more updates on how the Levi got into the city?” I question them both. I have a theory myself that I know I can’t say to them. I think Adira somehow lured the Levi in, controlling them, but I am not sure. She wouldn’t have wanted her entering the rite disturbed, and she was with us the entire time. I’m not sure she is even powerful enough to lure and control that many Levi at once. I need to get a book on her goddess and find out what I can about her and the powers Adira has.

  I need proof before accusing her once again.

  “Nothing,” Ragnar replies.

  Silas adds to his one-word answer. “The alphas have gone into the chapel to pray to the gods to protect our city, our pack, and for an answer on how this happened. That’s how low we have gotten, praying to gods who won’t answer calls.”

  “Could you four ask Hades?” I question.

  “No,” Ragnar replies. “Hades wouldn’t help with this pack and this city when we aren’t ruling.”

  “Our power is growing every day we are here,” Silas carries on, flashing a strange glance at Ragnar. “Soon I hope we won’t need Hades’s help in protecting the city with our own barrier.”

  “I feel my powers...my connection to Persephone growing here,” I admit. “It’s readier than ever to call my power out, and it feels stronger, like a flame building from a spark.”

  “I can sense your power growing,” Ragnar tells me after we climb a staircase and come out to the main, larger corridor of the castle. We all drift into silence after Ragnar’s statement and climb the rest of the staircases to the courtyard. This time, I actually remember a few of them. In the middle of the courtyard is a red car, the door left open. “You need to learn to drive the human cars, or I thought you’d like to learn.”

  “I would!” I say. “I mean, Mike taught me a little, but we never had much fuel, so I couldn’t drive far. Do you have fuel for it here?”

  “Stolen from humans over the years,” Silas says, rubbing his chin. “We keep cars in case of emergencies.”

  He flashes a sideward glance at Ragnar, who shrugs. “If Levi attack the city, Mai knowing how to drive could save her life.”

  “Fine,” Silas agrees, and I smile before rushing to the car and climbing into the front seat. Ragnar gets in the passenger seat next to me, and Silas sits behind him, slamming the door shut. I pull the seat belt on before adjusting the seat to pull me forward so my feet touch the pedals.

  “Did you make any changes to this one?” I ask Ragnar as I adjust the mirror like Mike taught me so I can see behind.

  “Why would I do that?” he rhetorically asks, and I frown at him, almost wanting to laugh, because Ragnar loves to mess with mechanics of cars. “Turn the engine on, pushing the pedals. This is an automatic, so no stick.”

  “Okay,” I say, doing what he asks. The car jolts harshly forward, and I gulp, pushing the pedal a little softer this time. I drive us slowly down the courtyard path, past angel guards who look our way, and towards the forest, speeding up a little.

  “Take a right at the gate, don’t go through it,” Ragnar commands, and I follow his instruction. “And speed up.”

  I chuckle, putting my foot down on it, and we speed through the bumpier path, following the wall for about a mile before going into the forest. I laugh, speeding up more, enjoying the freedom the car can give me.

  “Careful, Mai. A car can easily kill you in a crash,” Silas warns, and I slow a little, knowing he is right.

  “Always the boring and killjoy one, brother,” Ragnar replies and leans over, pressing his palm into my knee and slamming my foot on the pedal. The car jolts forward, my hands gripping the wheel tighter.

  “Let go, Ragnar, it’s too fast!” I shout at him, but he only presses his hand harder on my knee, to the point of bruising. Silas leans forward, grabbing Ragnar’s hand off my knee and slamming him back into his seat. I look back at the path, a scream blasting out of my throat when I see the crater pit in front of me, and I slam my foot on the brakes. The car screeches to a halt right in front of the edge, my heart racing in my chest.

  “What the fuck, brother! You nearly killed us all!” Silas roars at Ragnar as I shakily undo my seat belt, open the door, and run outside. I’m shaking from head to toe as I close my eyes, shifting in a green haze into my wolf.

  “Mai—” Silas pauses as my wolf turns back to him. I watch his eyes bleed into red, the red haze spreading all around him until his large black wolf is in front of me. Wordlessly, I turn and run into the forest, letting my wolf calm my racing heart and confused thoughts on Ragnar, knowing my pack is close. My alpha is watching.

  “They have cleared half the city for this morning’s test,” Erin quietly tells me, pulling another lace on my corset tighter so I can hardly breathe. Four sharpened daggers are hidden in the corset, a design all of its own. Black chiffon is tucked into the corset, flowing down my arms, and my black trousers are skintight. Breelyn finishes braiding my hair down my back and curling it up into a bun at the base of my head. Not a strand out of place. “Whatever the rite test is, it means you will be alone there with those other females.”

  The females that have sunk into this castle like a plague to haunt the alphas. They don’t speak to me or even notice I’m there when they come to watch training or just to follow the alphas. Every time any of them speak to my alphas, a growl slips out of my throat and my wolf itches to bite their heads off. The only thing that stops my wolf is how the alphas ignore them completely—except for Adira, but I know they don’t see her like that. I’ve overheard several conversations in training, asking her what the hell she is doing entering the rite. She never gives them any answer other than it’s meant to be. She always looks at Ragnar when she says it. I trust him, and he looks at me in a way he doesn’t look at her, but I don’t like it. My wolf and I know they are ours.

  As much as we belong to them.

  Erin meets my eyes in the mirror. “All the females in the rite are going to head straight for you and try to kill you. You kill them first, got it?”

  I give her a shaky nod, the best I can do with how nervous I feel. I want to see my alphas, but on any day of a rite test, they must be in chapel all day to pray to the gods for a true mate to be found in the rite. I hate they won’t be there today, but in some ways it’s less pressure if they aren’t watching me.

  “Adira is going to be first on that list,” Phim warns me, her arms crossed as she leans against the wall. “Please kick her ass and show her up. I’m tired of her.”

  I run my ring around my finger as I stand up and glance at myself in the mirror. I look like a warrior queen on her way to direct an army to battle instead of a female wolf in love enough to fight other females in a deadly test.

  “I’m not letting Adira win,” I firmly state. Three tests. Three times I need to win, because a life without them...I don’t want to imagine that again. I nearly lost my mind, as well as my heart, the last time that happened. “But if something happens to me—”

  “Don’t even say it, sister,” Phim firmly interrupts, coming over and placing her hands on my shoulders. “We are strong and have been through hell.”

  “And hell taught us how to fight,” Breelyn adds, stepping to Phim’s side.

  I hold my head high. “Thank you, I needed that. I needed your support.”

  “I hate to interrupt, but you can’t be late today,” Erin says, nodding at the door. Phim lowers her hands and steps back to Breelyn’s side.

  “We will be waiting for you to come back, and so will they,” Breelyn tells me, and I know who she means without saying their names. I walk to the door, and Erin runs to my side, making me pause.

  She keeps her voice quiet. “I found where The Wolves of Mnemosyne are. They sent word through a young wolf that they want to see you. The young wolf will come for you, and you should go with him.”

  “Thank you,” I tell her. I can get my memories back! Erin looks worried as she steps back and bows her head. I open the door and head out into the co
rridor, four guards waiting for me, their red cloaks pooling like blood on the floor around them.

  “I’m ready.”

  Two of them walk in front of me, two of them at my back, as I’m guided around the castle and to the courtyard where all the females are waiting. There are equal amounts of black and white horses tied to the edges of the courtyard, and I join the line of females, next to a blonde wolf whose name I don’t know. She looks at me and sneers before turning away.

  Well, no use learning her name.

  I glance down the line to find Adira and Tualla side by side, like night and day. Minutes tick by. The only sound filling the space is the falling water as it hits the rocks, and the warm wind as it blows around us, a wisp of dead leaves in its wake. The season is changing, summer fading into autumn, and soon it will be winter, my favourite month. There is something about the white snow, the peace and clarity it brings with it. A fresh beginning.

  I can’t wait to see this city in snow.

  Alpha Reine walks out from the side entrance to the courtyard, a long red cloak falling from her shoulders and trailing behind her, her white crown on her head. She stops in the middle of us, about ten feet away, her head held high and regal. I see so much of Ragnar and Henderson in her expressions, the way she holds herself.

  I wonder if she sees so much of my mother in me. A deep sadness tickles at my chest when I wonder what my mother would have thought if she could see me today.

  “Welcome to the first test of the rite. I have the honour of speaking and guiding you through three tests before handing one of you my crown,” she states, the wind echoing her voice and filling it with power. I can’t help the shiver that shakes through my body. “Each test is in honour of a god or goddess, and each sacrifice made today will be in their honour. Today’s test is for the goddess Athena.”

  “The goddess of wisdom,” the female next to me mutters softly between Alpha Reine’s slight pause.

  “Enter the city, guided by a lighted path, and find one marked with your scent. Use your wisdom to make the right choice and fight fairly. May Athena herself watch over you all,” Alpha Reine states and waves a hand at the horses.

  Dear gods above, horse riding?

  I memorise everything she said, while keeping a close eye on my fellow females in the rite and noticing how four of them have grouped with Adira, talking quietly. Tualla walks to my side on the way to the horses, a bow attached to her back with a quiver of arrows. Two long blades hang from her waist.

  “How are you?” I question.

  “Well,” she tightly replies, meeting my eyes. “Thank you for the kindness you showed my family, but we are not allies, Mairin Fall.”

  I nod. “Agreed. We cannot be allies in a test that sees only one winner.”

  She looks back at the group and straightens her shoulders. “An ally would warn you of the group behind us and the intention they have to hunt you first.”

  I look behind me at the group, Adira clearly in the lead. I know what she has been doing since we got here. Plotting and scheming, typical.

  I smile at Tualla. “Let them try.”

  She looks right into my eyes. “Five against one isn’t fair. Show them what a goddess of death walking on the mortal lands can do.”

  Goddess of death? I’ve never heard that one before. Queen of the underworld, sure. Goddess of spring and fertility, but not death.

  I don’t get to question Tualla on it as she runs and jumps onto a horse, effortlessly gliding into the saddle and undoing the binding before taking off in a gallop with the click of her tongue and a swift squeeze of her legs.

  I know I’m never going to look that graceful climbing on the horse. I choose the white horse nearest to me, not too tall or short. A leather satchel is clipped to the back, and I hook my foot into the stirrup and pull myself on. I sway a little on the horse, and she neighs, moving a step back. The wind picks up around me as two other females lead their horses away, and I undo the binding, talking quietly.

  “Horse, you need to know I haven’t ridden a horse since I was thirteen and fell off, breaking my arm in four places. Since then, your kind and I have avoided each other, but by the gods, I need your strength today. If you could make up for my total lack of experience, that would be massively appreciated,” I say. I should have asked Silas for a horse riding lesson. “I’m going to name you Neve for your snowy coat.”

  Neve neighs, like she can understand me, as I take her reins and copy what Tualla did, clicking my tongue, and Neve takes off, faster than I expected, down the courtyard road. I barely manage to keep my ass on the saddle as she charges down the road, passing the two other females easily, and into the thickness of the forest. The earthy scent of the forest is nothing but passing as the wind brutally slams against my eyes and body, making it haltingly chilling with every slam of Neve’s hooves on the road. The gates are wide open when we get to them, and I follow my instinct when we get to the large houses, taking the first right. I turn and look back before we go around the corner, seeing the group of females racing their horses down the road, Adira in the lead. Her white leather outfit makes her look like a peace symbol.

  But she doesn’t want peace.

  The few large townhouses I pass are empty, the gardens and streets too. I guide Neve left before pulling on the reins to slow her down. She listens and I stretch my senses, looking for something, anything that scents like me, but finding nothing. I think back to every word Alpha Reine said.

  Guided by a lighted path.

  Lighted...but it’s bright out, and there are no lights on. I search the houses, looking in their windows and only seeing reflections of myself on my large white horse. Pulling Neve to a stop, I turn around and watch the quiet roads for a second to make sure I’m safe before unclipping the satchel. I pull out four small glass vials, each a different shade of purple. I put them back and search further into the bag until I find a piece of paper.

  It has the number seven on it, nothing else, and I turn it over to see a strange row of stars in a weird line. I turn it over several times before I look down the street. The houses have numbers on the door; the house in front of me is number three hundred and two. The next one is three hundred. So it might be a house number, but what are the dots? I place my hand under the paper with a tiny amount of power, and the dots make up another word, glowing clearly.

  Titianess.

  A street name, maybe.

  Hearing hooves on stone in the distance, I push the note back in my bag and grab my reins, swinging them. Neve sets off fast into a new street. Not the right name, but the houses are still descending in order.

  Two hundred and forty-one.

  Two hundred and thirty-nine.

  Two hundred—

  I scream as something lands in my arm, and Neve cries out, throwing me off her back. I slam harshly onto the ground, my body aching with the impact. Biting down as I turn my head, I see a throwing star imbedded into my shoulder. It hurts like hell, and I grab it, pulling it out with a spatter of my own blood spraying me. I stand and rush to the house near me, ducking down behind a bush. Blood pours down my arm as I watch around me for any movement. And then Neve whines, her body falling onto the stone.

  Despite wanting to go to her, I pause. Whoever is hunting me did this on purpose. I just need to see where they are. I stretch out my senses, and then I feel it. A female in the house opposite me somewhere, likely upstairs so she can aim her throw perfectly. How the hell am I going to get to her before she throws another one at me? A throwing star launches through the bush and lands in the brick wall near my head.

  To hell with it.

  Lacing power into my hands, I stand up and walk out into the front yard of the house. Two throwing stars whoosh through the air towards me, and I use my power to knock them away, green shifter energy burning the metal into droplets that I step over. The female throws more and more at me as I walk to the house where she is hiding, and I bat them away like the annoyance they are. I don’t feel any pain,
just a heartbeat drumming into my ear as I pause and stretch my hands out towards the window in the middle of the house. My shifter energy slams out of my hand in a wave of tendrils, smashing into the glass and connecting with the female inside. She screams as my power lifts her out of the window, wrapping around her like tangled webs of ivy. The blonde female who sneered at me earlier screams for me to stop, and I do.

  Her body falls from a good height, bones smashing as she hits the ground, but she is alive. Part of me knows I should kill her. She is a risk to me, but instead, I walk away and rush to Neve. The horse is silent, blood pouring from her neck onto the cobblestone, like a river of red water.

  “May you run with the gods, Neve,” I whisper softly, sadness wrapping around me like a coil. I shake it off the best I can, grabbing the satchel and using one of my knives to rip a strip of fabric off to strap my shoulder with, stopping the bleeding. Tears sting my eyes as I pull the fabric tight and make a knot.

  Then I run.

  I run down the streets for what seems like an hour, checking each number, praying to the gods that I don’t run into anyone else. I’m tired, exhausted, and I stop to suck in a deep breath, my core muscles burning as badly as my legs are.

  I lean against a street sign, wiping sweat off my forehead, and then I see it:

  Titianess Street.

  1-29

  A smile fills my lips until two females step into my path. They both have long brown hair, one slightly darker than the other, and she has a full fringe. The female on the right has deeply tanned skin, scars littering her hands, and comes across a tough female. The other is very beautiful with her classic features, but her eyes speak a hardship her beauty does not. I slide my daggers out of my corset, holding one in each hand.

  I was so worried about the group Adira has tracking me that I didn’t check the others.

  They don’t waste time talking as they run at me, and all the training I’ve had prepared me to make my move. I hold my ground until they get to me, and the second they do, I duck below them and run my dagger past their knees as I tuck and roll myself over and jump to my feet. I swing my leg out, kicking the one on the left and slamming her a good distance away.