The Alpha who was Meant to Kill Me

Chapter 2

I burst through the castle doors with my footsteps ringing down the hall and made directly for the kitchens. The place was already a storm of clattering pans and shouted instructions. My birthday dinner was coming together in earnest, and that meant one thing: sweet buns.

I snatched three off a cooling tray and was out the door before the head cook could turn around.

I made it to my favorite balcony and had taken exactly one bite of warm, syrupy heaven when a large hand settled on my shoulder. I spun, grinning, and shoved a bun directly into Alec's mouth.

"Don't say I don't love you."

"I never said that." He licked his thumb, eyes laughing. "You said that."

"Not that kind of love." I leaned back against his chest and let my head drop against his sternum. "Not the rolling around naked in bed kind."

He groaned theatrically, and I felt the vibration of it through my back. This was the piece of Alec I kept close. Not the king. Not the Alpha. The boy who used to hide under tables with me and steal pastries while our fathers discussed treaties.

"How long are you staying?" I asked quietly.

"I leave for the Specter Kingdom tomorrow."

My shoulders dropped. "You're going to see him again?"

Every time Alec came to me, he cut his trip in half and gave the other half to Darien, Alpha King of Specter. I had never met the man. I had heard plenty. Most of it from Alec, and most of that was unreasonably kind given what the rest of the realm whispered.

Darien had lost his mother the night he was born and his father at fifteen. He had come to the throne young, the way Alec had, but there the similarity stopped. Alec had grown up warm. Darien had grown up iron. His reputation traveled faster than his riders did: a vicious temper, a black mood, a wolf people said was the largest and meanest in any kingdom. He ruled the Specter lands with a fist, because the Specter lands were full of things that needed a fist. Shades. Revenants. The ugly kinds of supernatural that did not kneel to kindness.

"Why are you friends with that poor excuse for a king?" I grumbled into his shirt.

"Little bird. He isn't like that anymore." Alec's voice changed in a way I did not like. Gentle. Careful. The way he spoke when he was about to ruin my day. "He went through a bad stretch. He's a good man. I think it's time you saw for yourself."

I tilted my head up, narrowing my eyes at him.

"I already asked your father," Alec went on. "He's given his permission. Reluctantly. If you want to come, I'll take you with me."

My mouth fell open. "You— Are you serious? I've never left Aderian. Ever."

"There's a condition."

Of course there was.

"Your father wants you to bring the shadow gladius."

My face dropped like a stone into a well.

I tried not to think about the sword. I tried not to think about prophecies, or destinies, or the black sheath that sat in my chambers looking at me like it was waiting. I had never once drawn it from its scabbard. I did not intend to start now. I was just Celeste. I was the girl who stole sweet buns and out-ran kings in market streets. I was not whatever the sword wanted me to be.

"I'm sorry, little bird." Alec rested his forehead against mine. His breath was warm. "He wouldn't budge. He wants you to have it. If you're ever in danger, he wants you to use it."

"I'll bring it," I said, because I had to, because I wanted out of these walls more than I wanted to fight about the sword. "But I'm bringing my real sword too. The one that has made you yield a couple of times, if memory serves."

"You've been trained well." He smiled down at me. "Probably better than most of my men. I still hate the idea of you fighting."

"Neither do I," a deep voice said from behind us, "but I seem to be outvoted."

I spun to find my father standing in the arch of the balcony, arms folded, the silver at his temples catching the afternoon light. Alpha George of Aderian. King of these lands. The man who had raised me single-handed and loved me with a quiet, ferocious love that I had never once doubted.

"If there's trouble, you let the soldiers handle it," he said, walking to me. "I'm not a fan of Darien. But Alec trusts him. And Alec has personally guaranteed your safety. Other than me, there's no man I'd rather put you behind." He looked down, and his voice went softer. "While you travel, I want you dressed like a man. Helmet on. Among soldiers, a helmet draws no second look. A beautiful girl in a dress draws the wrong kind of attention from the wrong kind of people."

"I promise I'll practice my spitting and scratching." I pressed up onto my toes. "I'll be the best son you never had."

He laughed, but it did not reach his eyes, and I pretended not to see it. He pulled me into a hug that was too tight and too long.

"No one is more important to me than you," he murmured into my hair. "Please be careful."

"I'll protect her with my life," Alec said from behind me, and he meant it. He always meant it. "You know I value her life above my own."

My father squeezed my shoulders and let me go.

I grabbed his hand before he could step away. "I believe it is now time for my birthday dinner."

"Hurry up, Alec, or she'll eat the table and the chairs."

"Hey!"

"Outrun me to dinner, little bird." Alec bolted.

"Not fair, your legs are longer than mine!"

I chased him down the hall, laughing, and I did not see the way my father stayed behind on the balcony. I did not see him lift a folded piece of parchment from inside his tunic and stare at it the way a man stares at something that has been stealing his sleep.

I did not see him walk to the nearest brazier and feed it to the flame.

I did not see him close his eyes and whisper, Moon Goddess, watch over her.

***

Before the sun broke the horizon, I was dressed and ready.

I put on the men's trousers and the coarse shirt I wore for training. I pulled my hair into a tight bun and looked myself over in the polished bronze. With the helmet on, I would disappear into any row of soldiers. Good.

I strapped my own sword across my back. Then I turned to the ledge on my wall, where the black sheath waited.

I did not want to touch it.

I crossed the room anyway and wrapped my hand around it, and the moment my skin met the sheath, she moved in my chest. My wolf. The one who was not supposed to be there. She rolled over inside me like a creature turning in sleep, and every hair on my arms lifted.

I froze.

"Not today," I told her, and the sound of my own voice in the empty room embarrassed me. "We're going on a trip. Please don't do anything dramatic."

She settled, slowly, unwillingly. I shoved the sheath into the strap at my back and told myself I imagined the whole thing.

My father was waiting at the courtyard when I came down. His smile lit when he saw me, and I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck.

"Be careful, my daughter."

"Thanks for letting me go, Father. I'll bring you back a souvenir. I even packed coins in my satchel. I won't come back empty-handed."

"You might need a second horse for the return trip," he chuckled. I kissed his cheek and skipped to my mare. "Bye, Father! See you soon!"

Alec walked up to him, groaning. "Does she ever run out of energy?"

"Nope." My father grinned. "You're in for a long ride."

Alec clasped his shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll bring her home."

I saw my father nod. I saw him set his jaw. I did not see his eyes fill, because by the time he lifted his hand to wave, I had already kicked my horse into a canter and the dust was rising between us.

We rode out of the castle. The gate closed behind us.

I did not know it would be the last time I left those walls as the girl I had been.

The meadow stretched before us, golden weeds knee-high and rippling in the wind. Our horses moved easily. The soldiers laughed and jostled around us, and I let the helmet rest against my saddle because no one outside Aderian was going to see us for hours yet.

Alec rode beside me, easy in the saddle, watching the horizon with an Alpha's quiet attention. He tipped his chin at a rider ahead of us.

"Leo. Scout ahead. The princess's safety comes first."

Leo turned in his saddle, met Alec's eye, and grinned. He was lean where Alec was broad, quiet where Alec was warm. His wolf was the fastest in Adonis, or so the barracks said. I had only met him twice and he had made a deep impression both times by saying almost nothing. He touched two fingers to his temple in salute, wheeled his horse, and was gone across the field like a stone skipped over water.

I watched his dust disappear. "He doesn't talk much."

"He doesn't need to." Alec's mouth quirked. "He's the best sword I've ever seen. His wolf is faster than any scout in the realm. If trouble's on the horizon, he'll find it before it finds us."

I dismounted without warning and ran a few steps into the weeds, letting the stalks slap my shins. Excitement tore through me. My first steps outside the boundary of the kingdom I had been born in. My first breath of air that my father's soldiers did not already own.

"Little bird, save your energy," Alec called after me, laughing. "It's a long road."

I turned to grin at him, and he trotted his horse up and swung off in front of me. His face went serious in the way it did when he was about to give me orders I was not going to like.

"A few things before we cross the border," he said. "You stay close to my side. Blend in with the other soldiers. Follow their lead. Helmet on, voice low." He looked at me and his mouth tugged up at one corner. He reached down, scooped up a handful of dirt, and smeared it across both my cheeks before I could dodge.

"Alec!"

"Much better." His eyes sparkled. "Don't get too feisty, little bird. We don't want anyone seeing that pretty face through your visor."

"I could have done that myself. You did that for revenge."

"Could you?" He pressed a hand to his chest, wounded. "I thought I was just helping my best friend with her disguise. No ulterior motives."

"Wait." I narrowed my eyes. "You did figure out I wasn't chasing you. You ran the village like an i***t and now you're paying me back."

He swung back up onto his horse, laughing. "I plead the fifth, Your Highness."

I was still grumbling and wiping dirt off my face when I heard it.

Hooves. Fast. Coming back.

Alec's head snapped toward the horizon, and everything in him changed. The laugh was gone. The ease was gone. His Alpha fell over him like a cloak, and the soldiers around us felt it and went still.

Leo.

He broke over the rise at a flat gallop, his horse lathered. He did not slow until he was nearly on top of us.

"Tracks," he said, breathless. "East side of the wood. Heavy ones. Two hundred riders, maybe more. Moving fast. Moving toward Aderian."

My stomach dropped through the ground.

Alec's eyes flashed. For a moment they were not blue at all. They were the pale, burning gold of his wolf. "Banners?"

Leo's jaw worked. His eyes found mine before they answered Alec, and I knew before he said it. I knew.

"Dothia."

The wind died. My wolf surged up inside me so hard my knees nearly buckled, a snarl with no sound behind it, and I pressed a hand to the black sheath at my back because for the first time in my life it felt warm.

Alec turned to me, and his face was a face I had never seen him wear.

"Helmet on, little bird," he said quietly. "Now."