The Alpha who was Meant to Kill Me

Chapter 6

Leo handed me a cloth. I scrubbed at the blood on my neck until the cloth came away pink and then grey and then clean, and then I kept scrubbing, because stopping meant thinking.

"Wren." He caught my wrist. "Enough."

"Leo." I looked up at him. My helmet tilted. "How did I do that?"

"I don't know." His green eyes held mine, steady and unafraid, and I loved him a little in that moment, the quiet way you love someone who does not flinch when they ought to. "All I know is what I saw. You significantly tipped the odds when your king was about to die. How you did it is not what matters. What matters is that you are not an evil person. Anyone looking at you can see that. You should too."

He unsheathed his own sword and offered it to me pommel-first, blade turned toward his own chest.

I blinked. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

"I have no defense and you have a sword pointed at my chest." A slow smile tugged his mouth. "What do you want to do, Wren?"

I thought about it.

"I want to eat," I said. "And sleep for two days."

"See." He took his sword back. "Not evil."

"But what if I wanted to devour all the chicken dumplings by myself?"

"Okay. Now that is pure evil."

I laughed in spite of myself. I lifted his sword up again in both hands in a mock-threat as the laugh rolled through me, and that was the moment Alec and Darien chose to round the corner.

Darien's blade was out before I could draw breath.

"Get away from him!"

He was between us in a single stride, his body a wall in front of Leo, his green eyes burning. Whatever Alec had said about us mid-conversation, whatever ground had been gained in the square, had just burned clean off Darien's face.

My sealed wolf rocked back on her heels at the force of his Alpha.

Alec was at my shoulder before I had finished flinching.

"Whoa, whoa." Leo stepped out from behind Darien's shoulder, laughing, hands raised. "Easy. Easy. We were playing."

Darien stared at him.

"Wasn't he attacking you?"

"Him?" Leo pointed at me, still laughing. "Sire. We argue about dumplings. We do not dual."

"I just saw—"

"You saw nothing. You saw two friends being idiots."

"Darien," Alec began, the edge in his voice sharpening.

Darien raised his hands. "My mistake." He did not mean it. His jaw was tight enough to grind stone. "Looked suspicious. I reacted."

I let out a long breath through my nose. I looked up at him.

"That's certainly an interesting way to say thank you for saving my life."

I walked off before he could answer. Leo fell in behind me. I heard Alec's voice drop into something low and iron that I did not try to listen to, and the silence Darien gave back was louder than any answer.

I did not see Darien watch us go. I did not see him turn to the prisoner the soldiers had propped against the wall and order, quietly, that he be fed and given water. I did not see Alec stop him at the elbow.

What I saw was the village square emptying as bodies were dragged, and a woman peering out from behind a shutter for the first time all afternoon, and a child's tentative hand reaching around her skirt to wave at me.

I waved back. Some of the weight went out of my chest.

"Wren. Please."

Alec caught my arm as we walked. I did not pull away. I did not have the strength to.

"I'm tired, Alec."

"I know."

"And it seems like you'd rather share your real thoughts about me with your actual best friend. So don't let me stop you."

"Wren, don't."

I gave him a crooked, tired smile. "I'm teasing you. Mostly."

"I know."

"I really am tired though."

"I know."

Darien caught up to us at the edge of the building they were turning into a waystation. Specter soldiers were already setting up camp on the far side of it, and a few old rooms had been opened on the near side where traders used to sleep through rainstorms. Darien nodded toward the doorway.

"Rooms. Alec. We'll take them. I thought—"

"I'll share my room with Wren."

Darien nearly choked.

"What?"

"That isn't necessary," I started, and Alec's hand tightened on my shoulder in a way that was not a request.

"It is necessary."

Darien's green eyes cut between us, calculating. "Alec. You and I do not share rooms."

"And we aren't starting now."

"Don't you think that's a little inappropriate?" Darien's voice had a blade in it I had not heard before. "A king. A young, pretty boy. I think the math gets ugly fast."

"I don't care what anyone wants to think." Alec's face did not change. "Wren is exhausted. He needs rest. I sleep better knowing where he is. End of discussion."

Darien looked at him a long moment. His jaw worked. He lost, and he knew it, and he did not like losing.

"Fine."

Alec led me into the little room and shut the door behind us. The instant the latch caught he dropped to his knees in front of the cot.

"Alec."

"I was so scared today." His voice cracked on the word. He pressed his forehead against my knee. "I have never been so scared in my life, little bird. My chest shook. My hands shook. The thought of something happening to you. I could not breathe through it."

I put my hand in his hair.

"I made a promise not to reveal your identity. I will keep it. But I will not change how I intend to protect you. Let them think what they want. Let them spread whatever rumors they will. As long as you are safe." He looked up at me. "I am not sorry."

"Thank you," I whispered.

I let him stay on his knees another moment. Then I ruffled his hair and glanced around the cramped little room and saw two cots against the walls and laughed, tired.

"Looks like we lucked out. Don't worry, I won't pounce on you."

He let out a shaky chuckle as he rose to his feet. "I am sleeping with a needle. I have to protect my virtue."

"They already think I'm stealing it. What's left to protect?"

"Get some sleep, Wren."

"Alec."

"Mm?"

"Thank you for not treating me differently. After."

"Wren." His face softened, and he looked at me the way he looked at me when we were small. "You are not different. You were an extraordinary fighter out there today. That is all. Sleep."

I curled on my side on the cot, and I listened to his breath even out, and the whole time my wolf lay restless behind my ribs, and the Shadow Gladius on the floor beside my pack pulsed, slow and low and quiet, like a sleeping thing that knew something the rest of us did not.

I opened my eyes hours later wide awake.

The room was dark. Alec slept. The sheath on the floor beside my pack was throwing a shadow that did not match the angle of the moon through the window.

My wolf was pacing.