Alpha’s Concubine

Chapter 3:wounded girl

They ran all night, just as the alpha had said. It was an anxious, exhausting, exhilarating experience for Netya. For the first hour she clung to the wolf so tight that her body was soon aching, terrified that the jolting motion of the creature beneath her would send her toppling head first into a patch of rocks or the trunk of a tree if she loosened her grip for even an instant.

The cold wind stung her eyes until they were streaming. The wooded lands around her village thinned out, and soon she was already further than she had ever been from home. The last of the trees disappeared as the wolf pack streaked out across the open plains before them, nothing but endless grassland to be seen in every direction. Was this the edge of the world, where trees and water and animals stopped existing, and every direction held more of the same nothingness? The Moon People ran east, never altering their course. Eventually the plains became more uneven, rocky outcroppings breaking up the land as bushes and shrubs began to appear. It was only then that Netya realised she was no longer clinging to her wolf as tightly as she had been back in the woods. Every time she shifted or slipped the beast seemed to respond instinctively, catching her weight and rebalancing it so that she stayed firmly in the middle of its back. Stiff and aching, she finally allowed herself to sit upright. It was still an unnerving feeling to be moving so fast on the back of an animal, but once her fear of falling began to subside she found herself staring in wonder at the ground as it rushed by beneath her, almost enjoying the sensation of speeding through the night faster than she had ever imagined possible.

The injured girl riding up ahead was no longer even holding on to her wolf with her hands. She sat upright with her hair streaming out behind her, straddling her companion with an ease that told Netya she had done this many times before.

Just like the apprehension she had experienced as she approached the wall of skulls earlier that evening, Netya felt as if she was being dragged deeper and deeper into an unknown world full of secrets and danger. Had she been given the opportunity she would likely have turned back and run home, yet some small part of her was almost glad that she had been denied such a choice. She was experiencing things beyond her imagination, things beyond even the oldest and most fanciful tales of her people.

As the hours wore on exhaustion began to take hold, and even Netya's racing thoughts could not keep her eyes open as the rush of adrenaline burned out in her veins and her aching body called for rest. It was impossible for her to sleep as she rode, but she slumped forward over the wolf's back and closed her eyes, warm fur shielding her cheek from the biting wind as she fell into a fitful doze. In her muddled snatches of wakefulness she saw the surroundings gradually changing. Just as she had suspected, the open land seemed to go on forever, but it was no longer barren and devoid of features. More than once she was jolted back to reality by the splash of cold water soaking into her moccasins as the wolves waded through streams. They climbed hills and descended through valleys, barely pausing for rest. Eventually she saw the silhouettes of trees in the distance, but they were a long way away.

Rosy dawn was making its first greeting to the horizon when the wolves finally stopped, and a pair of human hands gripped Netya beneath the shoulders to ease her off the back of her bearer. In her sleepy daze she heard the murmur of voices nearby, the crackle of fire and the sounds of people awakening. For a moment her fear returned, and with a whimper she struggled in the arms of the man supporting her, but he held on tight until her protests stopped. She was too tired. Her body felt bruised and sore from the long ride, and more than anything she wanted to sleep.

The man lifted her easily in his arms, carrying her somewhere away from the bright fire and the voices of the others. Wherever it was, it was warm. The wind was gone, and a bed of soft furs reached up to embrace her body as the man set her down. Netya welcomed it, and within minutes she had fallen into a deep sleep. Waking up was a surreal experience. She had slept outside of her mother's house before, but those times had been few and far between. She was used to wooden log walls and the cosy warmth of a nearby fire. The smell of cooking or the sounds of her sisters would awaken her, and she would reluctantly drag herself off her cot to help her mother prepare the morning meal while she waited for the fog of sleep to leave her mind. This time she awoke to a draft and the glow of evening sunlight shining through the animal hide wall of a tent. She clutched the warm fur beneath her, brow furrowing as she tried to snuggle back into it. Everything felt different. The brightness, the musty smells, the lack of noise. Even the air seemed different in this place. It was only then that Netya remembered where she was.

Her eyes opened, blinking several times as the realisation jolted her awake. Her fingers tightened in the fur, breath quickening. Memories of the long journey rushed back, the wolves, the Moon People... She sat upright and froze when she saw another person in the tent along with her. It was the girl who had been injured the night before. She sat across from Netya tending the coals of a small fire. In her lap she was preparing what looked like a bowl of food, mixing the contents with a smooth, oval-shaped piece of stone. The girl looked at her curiously, continuing with her work as Netya took in her surroundings. The tent was not large, but it was filled with rustic furnishings. The furs she had slept on were decorated with wooden beads around the edges, stained with shades of red and blue and attached by roughly woven strings of animal hair. Dozens of hide pouches hung from a wooden frame on the other side of the tent, and a stack of bowls, pots, and stones for cooking sat alongside them. There were baskets woven from grass and filled with pieces of smoothed bone and wood ready to be carved into utensils or tools. Someone's clothing, a heavy set of fur and leather garments, lay draped to dry over another wooden rack near the tent's closed flap. Though Netya was not unused to seeing similar dwellings among her own people, this one seemed yet more functional and basic. The wooden furniture was lashed together from raw branches, not worked skilfully by a craftsman, and even the hides layered to form the walls of the tent were uneven and mismatched, as though they had been stitched together out of necessity rather than by design.

"Where is this?" Netya said at last. It took a moment of silence before she remembered that the Moon People had spoken differently to her. "Do you understand my words?"

"Yes," the girl said. "I know them well. That was why they sent me to tend to you." Her voice still held an unfamiliar cadence that sounded both sweet and strange to Netya's ears, but her language was clear and understandable.

"How? I have never heard of anyone who speaks the way you do," Netya said.

"Our people travel far. It is in our nature. With our wolves' legs we can run for many hours, see people and places a long way away. There are more of your kind far to the north. We learned to speak as they do in the time before I was born."

Netya's curiosity perked. Once again she was reminded of the tickle of excitement she had experienced the night before, that sensation of delving into something unknown. She knew there were more of her people living in their own villages all across the wooded lands she called home, but she had never heard of any who came from the north. In one short night the world had become far larger than it was before.

"But not all of us understand your words," the girl continued. "It is mostly only those of the highest rank. The senior pack members will be able to talk with you, but the others may be uncomfortable." She gave Netya a sympathetic look. "To them, you are one of our enemies. Some of them would have killed you if not for the word of our alpha."

Netya's skin prickled. "I think my people would do the same to one of yours. I do not know why, but they see you as monsters."

"And you don't?"

Netya shook her head. "You frightened me last night, but you do not seem like a monster. Layon would have killed you, but you let him go, and you did not hurt me. I am sorry about what happened."

The girl smiled and turned so that Netya could see her wounded arm. It was wounded no more. Her bronze skin had reddened, and it looked as though she would be left with a scar, but the painful gash was practically healed already.

"I have heard your people are hurt more easily?" the girl said.

Netya gazed in wonder. Either she had slept for days, or the wound had healed overnight. "How did you do that? How do you do any of the things you do?"

"It is just the way we are. I can forgive your friend. He did not hurt me badly."

Netya edged closer to the fire. "Your people must have very powerful magic."

The girl seemed amused. "We would not call it magic. And if it is, even the wisest of us do not understand it. Besides, I think you would know more of such things than I."

"Me?"

"Your hair." The girl moved closer, setting her bowl to the side as she reached out to touch the long black braid that hung over Netya's shoulder. "Only the wisest leaders and seers have hair the colour of yours. It means you were chosen for a great destiny. I think it is why our alpha decided to bring you here."

The idea that she was wise or destined for great things seemed absurd to Netya. She knew several of her people who shared her dark hair, and none of them had ever struck her as particularly great. Still, she did not want to offend these people. If they treated her with respect, even if it was only because of the colour of her hair, it could do her no harm to embrace it. The comments about some of them wanting to kill her were still fresh in her mind.

"Why did he bring me here?" Netya said. "This is your home, isn't it?"

The girl nodded, her eyes sparkling with excitement as the initial tension between the two of them began to ebb. "Our alpha has not taken a female for many years, not even our den mother. He spoke of finding one of your people before, but I never expected it to happen. When he saw you he must have desired you very much, you and your pretty hair."

"As a female?" Netya frowned. "You mean as his woman?"

The girl looked down suddenly, as she had done the night before when the alpha reprimanded her. "He will not take you as his mate. It would not be proper. I can't speak of what he truly desires from you."

"But can you guess?" Netya pried. This was not what she had expected at all. She'd not felt treated like a prisoner, but if not a prisoner, then why had the Moon People taken her with them?

"You must ask him yourself," the girl said, then she glanced to the tent flap and lowered her voice. "But the others say he will take you as his consort. As his concubine. They think he hopes you will give him a strong, dark-haired heir."

A strange twisting sensation grew in Netya's stomach, her heartbeat quickening. She did not know what being a consort to a great leader—or anyone, for that matter—would entail. As a man, and her elder by several months, if Layon had asked her to be his woman she would have been obliged to say yes. Then she would have gone to his bed and lived under his roof, and borne his children if the spirits were kind. It was a future she had often envisioned over the past year, and yet it had been just as fantastical and beyond her comprehension as the legends of the Moon People. The way he had touched and kissed her the night before was the clearest glimpse of that life she had ever gotten. Would it feel the same way to be touched by the alpha? She called back the image of him from the previous evening, remembering the way his voice had sounded how his long hair stirred in the wind. Something tickled her beneath the knot of anxiety in her belly.

"I would not know how to be his consort," she said at last, her head swimming as she began to feel overwhelmed. She put a palm on the floor to steady herself as she wobbled.

The girl's smile took on a bemused quality. She picked up her wooden bowl again and handed it to Netya along with the smooth mixing stone. "Here, eat. You must be very hungry."

She was. The bowl contained a paste that tasted of mashed nuts, made palatable by a sprinkling of dried berries. There was little flavour to it, but it was not unpleasant. After swallowing down the whole bowlful and drinking from a waterskin the girl offered, Netya began to feel a little better. Her bladder was still full, and the knot in her stomach still remained, but at least she was no longer as giddy.

"Have you been with a man before? Or a woman?" the girl asked once Netya was done eating.

She shook her head.

"Why not? You are old enough. Some girls of my people are mated younger than either of us."

"No man chose me yet. I only came of age a few seasons ago."

"But you should know how to be with a mate when they do choose you. Have you not learned?"

"How would I learn without a mate to teach me?"

The girl crossed her legs and turned to face Netya properly, eyes twinkling once more as she explained. "Every year, during the celebration of the summer fires, our pack come together to share our pleasures for one night. For all those who have come of age, it is a time when we can choose freely who to lie with. Even those who are mated join in, and the ones who are not often find their partners on that night."

"My people have nothing like that," Netya said. The idea intrigued her, even though it sounded wild and bestial, just like all the other tales of the Moon People. Perhaps that was exactly why she found it so compelling.

"Then I think our alpha will show you himself. Many of the young females will be envious."

"Why would he want me over one of them?" Netya said.

The girl's eyes fell, and she bowed her head in that same gesture of deference again. "I cannot speak for him. If you are lucky, he may tell you." She looked back at Netya suddenly, gripping her by the hand. "But do not ask him directly. It would not be proper."

The warning in the girl's eyes unnerved Netya. It was frowned upon for a woman to question her man in public, she knew that much from the customs of her own people, but it made her wonder whether the Moon People had any

other expectations of her that she would need to learn. As one of their enemies, and a clear outsider, her fear crystallised her thoughts into something sharper and more practical than she was used to. If she wanted to survive among them, she would have to learn their ways. If their alpha wanted her as his concubine, she was in no position to refuse. If it was as great an honour as the girl had suggested, perhaps she had no reason to feel apprehensive at all.

"And... how long will I stay here?" she said at last.

"For as long as our alpha says you must. He has told the others to treat you as one of our own, but they will be watching closely. You will not try to leave, or hurt any of us, will you?" She added the last sheepishly, as though it was a question asked out of obligation rather than desire.

Netya shook her head. How could she hurt people who transformed into wolves and healed their wounds within hours, even if she wanted to? And the thought of making the journey back across the open plains by herself was even more frightening than staying put.

"What is your name?" the girl asked.

"Netya."

"I am Fern." She smiled. The bright and eager sparkle in the young woman's eyes did much to put Netya's fears to rest. Aside from the tone of her skin and the sound of her voice, she could almost have been a girl from back in the village.

"Come," Fern said. "I will show you where you can wash, and then he will want to see you."

"The alpha?"

"Yes."

Netya shielded her eyes from the sun as the girl lifted the flap of the tent and led her outside. She prayed to the spirits that the alpha would be as welcoming as Fern.