THE MATE THE ROGUE ALPHA WAS MEANT TO KILL

Chapter 25—Home and Elsewhere

Ravin's POV

Cord found me an hour after we returned from Stoneback's border, catching me while I was reviewing the compensation arrangement with Sable at the main table, and he stood at the edge of the room with the expression of someone who had been thinking about something for a while and had decided it was time to ask it directly.

"My punishment," he said. "What will it be?"

I looked up at him and then back down at the document in front of me. "I told Ethan you would be disciplined according to Darkhowl law."

"Yes," Cord said carefully. "And what does that mean?"

I set the document down and looked at him. "It means I said what I needed to say to stop a man from doing something stupid that would have cost both our packs resources and lives."

I leaned back. "There is no punishment, Cord. Just the expectation that you exercise considerably better judgment going forward."

Cord blinked once. "That is it?"

"Did you want something more significant?"

"No," Cord said quickly.

Sable made a sound beside me that was not quite a laugh.

"Although," I said, and Cord went still again, "I am genuinely curious about the reasoning.

Because the woman was Ethan's intended and Ethan, for all his bluster, is not a man whose enemies sleep well, and yet here we are." I looked at Cord steadily. "At what point in that particular chain of decisions did you conclude it was a reasonable idea?"

Cord was quiet for a moment. "She approached me first," he said finally.

"They always do," Sable said under her breath.

I looked out at the rest of the warriors who had gathered near the edges of the room with the specific attention of people who were pretending not to listen, and felt something that was not quite amusement but was in that direction.

"Let me ask the room something," I said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "If every Alpha in Velthorn decided to go to war every time his Luna showed interest in someone else, what do you think happens to the wolf territories?"

A beat of silence.

"They collapse," one of the younger warriors offered from the back.

"Every last one," I said. "We would be extinct within two generations. No territories, no packs, no Velthorn. Just a very long history of Alphas who could not manage their own households starting wars over problems that began at home." I looked at Cord. "So I would like to thank Ethan's Luna personally for the service she has done the wolf world by reminding us all of this."

The room broke. Even Sable covered her mouth with two fingers, and Cord had the expression of someone who was deeply relieved and trying not to show it too obviously, and for a moment the main hall sounded the way it did when things were genuinely all right and everyone in it knew it.

I let it settle, and then I stood and straightened my jacket and said, "I am returning to Draven tomorrow morning. Sable, you have the pack in my absence, same arrangements as before, and I want a report on the eastern border situation waiting for me when I get back."

Sable nodded once. "Understood, Alpha."

"And Cord," I said, and he looked at me with the alertness of someone who had relaxed too soon. "Next time you find yourself in a situation that could start a war, I would appreciate being informed before Ethan does."

"Understood," Cord said, with considerably more feeling than the word usually carried.

A hand went up near the far wall, eager and slightly tentative at the same time, and I looked over to find Stefan watching me with the barely contained energy of someone who had been waiting for the right moment to ask something and had just decided this was it.

Stefan was an omega, the youngest of the pack by a few years, built lean and quick and almost always cheerful in a way that somehow never became irritating, and he had been with Darkhowl long enough to have earned the right to speak freely.

"Could I come?" he said. "Not inside. Just to see it. I have never seen the academy."

The room went quiet in the small way it did when something unexpected had been said and everyone was waiting to see how it landed.

I looked at Stefan for a moment, at the open uncomplicated hope in his face, and felt something in my chest that was warmer than I usually let myself feel in front of my warriors.

"Not this time," I said.

Stefan's face fell slightly.

"But maybe one day," I said, "I will show you the gates."

Stefan straightened immediately, satisfied in the way young wolves were satisfied when a promise had been made by someone whose word they trusted completely, and the quiet in the room dissolved back into the usual sounds of evening.

I retired to my quarters earlier than usual that night and lay on my back in the dark staring at the ceiling, and for once the pack matters that usually occupied my evenings stayed where they belonged and my mind went somewhere else entirely without being invited to.

I thought about the academy, specifically about second period and the row of seats near the window and the particular one that I had been occupying for the last several weeks, and about what it looked like from across the room when someone was sitting in it versus when it was empty.

I thought about Elara noticing, because she would have noticed, she noticed everything about me the way I noticed everything about her, quietly and without announcement, filing details away with the same focused attention she brought to everything she actually cared about.

I thought about her face when she will see me walk back in tomorrow, the way she always tried to hold her expression steady when something was getting to her and never quite managed it, and something warm settled in my chest that had nothing to do with pack business and everything to do with the simple fact that three days without seeing her was three days too many

Morning could not come fast enough.