Before His Fated Mate

Chapter Five: Veyra

Sorelle was waiting exactly where she said she would be.

She had not gone far, just around the side of the nearest building, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and that look on her face that meant she had been thinking hard since she walked away. She straightened up the moment she saw Eirlys coming and read her face before she even opened her mouth.

“He talked,” Sorelle said.

“He talked,” Eirlys confirmed. “Not enough, but he talked.”

They fell into step together naturally, moving away from the main paths toward the quieter end of the grounds where conversations could not be overheard without effort. That was something they had learned to do early. In a pack full of werewolves with sharp hearing, location mattered.

“What did he give you?” Sorelle asked.

“Her name,” Eirlys said. “Veyra.”

Sorelle stopped walking.

Just for a second. Just long enough for Eirlys to notice. Then she started moving again, but something had shifted in her expression and she was quiet in a way that was different from her usual quiet. This was the quiet of someone who had just heard something that meant more to them than they were ready to say out loud.

“You know that name,” Eirlys said. It was not a question.

Sorelle exhaled.

“I have heard it before,” she said carefully. “A long time ago. Before you came here.”

“Then talk.”

Sorelle looked around once out of habit, then looked back at her.

“Veyra was not just someone from Zevran’s past,” she said. “She was connected to the pack that bordered this territory before Zevran’s father died and he took over as Alpha. There was a period, maybe two years before you came here, where things between the two packs were very unstable. Nobody talked about it openly, but you could feel it. The older pack members knew something had happened, but nobody said what.

”Eirlys listened without interrupting.

“Veyra’s name came up once during that time,” Sorelle continued. “I overheard two of the senior pack members talking. I did not hear everything, but I heard enough to know she was at the centre of whatever had gone wrong between the packs. And then her name just disappeared. Nobody mentioned her again. It was like she had never existed.”

“Until last night,” Eirlys said.

“Until last night,” Sorelle agreed.

They had reached the far end of the grounds now, close to the tree line, far enough from everything else that the morning sounds of the pack were just background noise. Eirlys sat down on the low stone wall that marked the boundary and looked out at the trees and tried to fit everything together into something that made sense.

Zevran’s father. A neighbouring pack. Instability. Veyra’s name disappearing for years and then suddenly she was back and she was his fated mate and he was standing in front of the whole pack announcing it like it was simply the next thing that needed to happen.

“He said her return was political,” Eirlys said. “He said there were agreements made before he became Alpha. Things tied to the pack’s safety.”

Sorelle was quiet for a moment.

“If Veyra is who I think she is, then those agreements make a certain kind of sense,” she said. “But it also means Zevran has been sitting on this for a very long time. This is not something that came up recently. This is something he has known was coming since before you arrived here.

”Eirlys felt that settle into her chest like a stone dropping into still water.

Since before she arrived.

Which meant the entire time she had been in this pack, every conversation, every moment of protection, every time he had made her feel like she was his, he had known this was the destination. He had known and he had let her walk right into it anyway.

“Why would he do that?” she said. Not angry. Just genuinely trying to understand. “If he knew, why would he keep me close? Why not just tell me from the beginning what the situation was?”

Sorelle looked at her for a long moment.

“That is the question, is it not,” she said quietly. “And I think the answer to that question is the thing he is most afraid for you to know.”

Before Eirlys could respond she heard footsteps on the path behind them. Unhurried. Deliberate.

She turned around already knowing somehow before she saw him.

Dravenor.

He looked different in the daylight. Less like a shadow and more like a person, which almost made him harder to read rather than easier. He was looking at both of them with an expression that said he was not surprised to find them together.

“You found out her name,” he said.

Again, not a question. The man had an irritating habit of stating things like he already knew the answers.

“How do you know that?” Eirlys said.

“Because you look like someone who just got their first real piece of the puzzle,” he said. “And because Zevran came to find you this morning, which means he is getting nervous about how much you are starting to figure out.”

Sorelle was looking at him with open suspicion.

“Who are you?” she said flatly.

“Dravenor,” he said.

“That is a name, not an answer,” Sorelle said. “Who are you and what do you want with Eirlys?”

He looked at Sorelle for a moment like he was reassessing something. Then something that might have been respect moved across his face briefly.

“I want the same thing you want,” he said. “The truth about what Zevran and Veyra are actually doing in this pack to come out before it is too late to do anything about it.”

“Too late for who?” Eirlys said.

He looked at her directly.

“For you,” he said. “Veyra did not come back here just because of fate or politics or old agreements. She came back because there is something in this pack she wants. Something specific. And the fastest way for her to get it is to make sure you are either gone or too broken to stand in the way.”

The morning felt very quiet suddenly.

“Stand in the way of what?” Eirlys said.

“That is what we need to find out,” Dravenor said. He looked between them both. “But I will tell you this much. The reason nobody said her name in that hall last night was not an accident. Zevran did not say it because he knows what that name means to certain people in this pack. He was trying to control how fast the information spread.”

He paused.

“He is running out of time to do that.

”Sorelle crossed her arms.

“And why should we trust anything you say?”

“You should not,” he said simply. “Not yet. But you should listen because right now I am the only person in this pack telling you anything at all.”

He was not wrong about that and all three of them knew it.

Eirlys looked at him.

“What do you need from me?”

Something shifted in his expression. Just slightly. Like that was not the response he had expected and he was recalibrating.

“Nothing yet,” he said. “Just stay close to what you already know and do not let Zevran talk you into letting it go. He is going to try.”

Then he turned and walked away again, same as last night. On his own schedule, on his own terms, leaving just enough behind to make sure she could not stop thinking about it.

Sorelle watched him go and then turned to Eirlys.

“I do not trust him,” she said.

“Neither do I,” Eirlys said.

“But.”

Eirlys looked out at the tree line and thought about Zevran’s face this morning. The tiredness in it. The careful way he had chosen every single word. The silences that had said more than anything he actually said out loud.

“But Zevran had every chance to tell me the truth this morning and he did not,” she said. “So until he does, Dravenor is the only one talking.”

Sorelle was quiet for a moment.

Then she said, “Find out what Veyra wants in this pack. That is the centre of everything.”

Eirlys nodded.

She already knew what her next move was.

She was going to find Veyra herself.