004 | A perfect, political choice

Caleb’s POV

I really didn’t need this. Not right now, thank you very much. I glowered up at the sky, peering at it through the gaps in the branches, its blue never changing from its cold, wintry sweep. My lip peeled back from my teeth as I snarled up at the Moon Goddess.

“Why now?”

I’d meant for my voice to come out menacing, laced with an unspoken threat. Thank fuck nobody was around to hear the pathetic little squeak that actually came out.

‘Hey, man, let me try,’ said my wolf, Knight. I’d wanted to stomp around with my own legs and feet for a while, even though I knew full well that doing so would scare away any and all prey in our vicinity, but maybe it was time to give my wolf control again.

‘Go on, then.’ The shift tore through me, and Knight padded his huge paws in place, prancing anxiously on the spot. And then, all of a sudden, he spun around and raced back the way we’d come from.

‘Hey!’

‘You said you’d let me try.’ His voice sounded smug, which worried me. 

‘Yeah – and I thought you meant, like, howling or something. Why are you taking me on a joyride?’

‘No reason.’ His lips twitched.

‘Well, there obviously is, Knight, so just tell me.’

He clamped his jaw and surged on. It didn’t take me long to figure out his stupid plan, though; I could smell her a mile off. Her scent was heady, intoxicating; it was everything I loved most blurred together, like the colours of a sunrise fading into one perfect image. She was pine needles and the air right before a snowfall, perfumed with basil and lime and something else, something I couldn’t quite describe, something purely feminine and yet utterly wild. 

And for me to be thinking language like that, about sunrises and perfume and how the fucking air smelt, then something had to be seriously wrong. ‘Knight,’ I cautioned him, ‘think about this.’

‘I am. I have. Look,’ he pouted, ‘you might be okay with Amelia, and I was, too, until about twenty minutes ago. She’s been our mate for three years. I thought that was it, that the Moon Goddess had scorned us for picking a mate ourselves to save our skins, and that we’d never meet our true mate.’ He sighed wistfully. ‘I just want to be close to her. Just for a bit.’

As much as I wanted to argue with him, I wanted that, too. So I nodded, too embarrassed by how easily swayed I’d been to say it aloud, and let Knight stride merrily over to our doom.

Knight brushed against her wolf’s side. Shivers ran through me at the contact. Her wolf growled, low in her throat, and I was stunned by how large she was. That wasn’t an Omega’s wolf – that was the wolf of a Luna. She was easily as tall as I was, her fur a gleaming, resplendent white – save for where she’d been flicked with mud up her legs and belly. Fuck. How had I missed it before? Was I really so blind to the wolves in my pack if they weren’t relevant in my battle plans or patrols?

She looked like she’d been made for me. Well, made for Knight. His ears pricked, and he tried to sidle closer to her. She side-stepped away neatly.

That was… odd. She had to feel it too, didn’t she? The mate bond was all-encompassing, enough to drive wiser men than I to madness. Knight kicked out at a dead snowdrop, its petals drooping, and huffed.

‘Why doesn’t she like me?’

‘No idea. You’re an Alpha wolf – a prime catch for an Omega. You’d think she’d be over the bloody moon.’

Knight whined. ‘Do you think it’s because of Amelia?’

‘Maybe,’ I hummed, hoping that was the reason. ‘Maybe she’s just trying to be respectful.’

‘But she’s being rude.’

‘No, she isn’t. She’s just being quiet.’

‘Talk to her, Caleb. Please,’ he wheedled.

‘I don’t know what to say! Coming over here was your plan, not mine.’

‘Ask her about the mate bond! Maybe she really doesn’t feel anything. Or maybe she doesn’t want to talk because you were kind of being a dick before, acting all macho and like Omegas don’t know how to do anything.’ He stuck his nose up in the air. ‘I’ve changed my mind, Cal. She’s not the rude one; you are.’

Before I could mindlink her, she mindlinked me. ‘Where’s Marcella?’

But I was already committed to asking her about the mate bond, aching to know why she didn’t seem interested in me, so I pretended not to hear her. ‘Did you feel it too?’

Her wolf pursed her lips and fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Feel what?’

My belly dropped like a stone in a lake. She really didn’t know what I was on about? How was that even possible? I could feel it now, as if a golden, glittering light filled the space between us, drawing us together – 

Oh.

She was joking.

I clenched my jaw. ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then.’

She sighed. ‘Yes. I did. But–’

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ I said in a rush.

Knight whimpered. ‘What are you doing? I thought we were trying to get her to like us!’

But I couldn’t. I had a duty to my wolves, to my pack, and I couldn’t let a mate bond sidetrack me from what I was honour-bound to do. Amelia and I had chosen each other, our pretend mate bond creating an alliance between our two packs and ending the brutal war that had claimed too many lives on both sides. The peace treaty between Night Wind and Moon Chasm was linked intrinsically to our relationship. I couldn’t risk it. Not even for this.

I had to push her away. So I told her I had a mate, and then, just for the hell of it, I accused her of trying to drug me. She didn’t look angry, though; her grey eyes flashed with amusement, like she enjoyed getting a rise out of me. And, damn it, I wanted to keep bickering with her, just to see that spark in her eyes again.

Staying near her was dangerous. Without our alliance to Moon Chasm, we’d lose the only outsourced supplies we had. Even if our dalliance didn’t end in war, it would surely end in death. My wolves were starving already, unable to survive on the meagre amounts of meat we brought back from these hunts.

I’d made my choice. So why did it hurt so much when she told me she had a mate, too? I had Amelia. In the three years we’d been together, I’d never wanted anyone else. We weren’t in love, but we loved each other. We were well-matched, dutiful and dedicated, committed to our pack and keeping the peace. 

But as I walked away from Rhiannon, I left my heart behind with her.

* * *

‘Caleb,’ Amelia hissed, her eyes wide as she trotted over to me in her sleek black wolf form, ‘have you heard?’

My hollow chest went cold. ‘Heard what?’

Her wolf, Maeve, butted her head against Knight’s shoulder. He touched her nose with his. As they cuddled, we spoke.

‘A wolf has died. One of the warriors. He… he froze to death, Cal.’

‘Who was it?’ I rasped.

‘Michael.’ Her voice sounded wet, like she’d been crying. ‘We failed him.’

‘This fucking curse,’ I seethed, wrenching control from Knight and slamming a front paw into the snow. I growled, my hackles rising. ‘I don’t know what else we can do. I don’t know why it’s doing this to us. I don’t know who’s doing this to us.’

‘I don’t think it is a who,’ she murmured. ‘I think maybe it’s just the land. In the human world, they have ice ages and global warming, and they have different areas with different climates. Maybe we’re just in the wrong place.’ She exhaled heavily, and I knew what she was going to say next. She’d said it a thousand times already – and that was just this past week. ‘I think we need to leave our territory.’

‘And go where? Actually, no,’ I bit out, ‘I don’t want to have this argument with you again. Not right now, Amelia. We need to get these wolves back and deal with Michael’s death, before everyone in the pack finds out. We have to keep this under wraps until we know how to announce it. His family need to know first.’

‘Um, about that. I think it might be a bit late.’ She hesitated.

‘Why?’

‘Harley told me.’

Shit me, it was like getting blood from a stone. ‘And how did she find out?’

Amelia sniffled delicately, in a way I’d always found cute as hell before but suddenly found the most annoying thing in all of The Valley and beyond. ‘Michael collapsed in the woods on patrol, but the others he was with carried him to the medical centre, where he was pronounced dead.’ She sucked in a damp breath. ‘Then he was laid outside, so people could pay their respects. Everyone already knows, Cal. I’m sorry.’

Anger and anguish burned through me; some of it mine, some of it Amelia’s. Tears choked me, but I couldn’t think of anything useful to say anyway. Turning on my heel, I stormed off to find the Omegas and the Warrior Wolves I’d brought with me.

Terror gnawed at me as I searched for Rhiannon. I couldn’t help but imagine finding her frozen to death somewhere, her magnificent wolf with those cutting grey eyes limp and lifeless. 

Relief swept through me at the sight of her, so potent that Amelia quirked a wolfish eyebrow at me. When I’d marked her, we’d gained the gifts afforded only to mates – which meant that she could feel my emotions. Oh, goddess. Had she felt the mate bond looping securely around my heart, pulling me towards Rhiannon forevermore? 

Surely not. Amelia was straightforward. If she’d felt anything, she would’ve said it to me already. Unless Michael’s death had distracted her…

Worry and love and pain sliced through me. The mate bond urged me to go to Rhiannon, but I stuck like glue to Amelia’s side. 

Beneath everything else was a turbulent sort of guilt, which dragged razor-sharp claws down my insides.

Because Michael wasn’t the first wolf to die. He was just the first one that my pack had found out about.

Amelia was right. 

I’d failed them.