She’d become my salvation in that long, dark night, as I raced her away to safety.
I was not sure what I would have done without her. I didn’t know how I would’ve coped returning to my lair only to find out that my uncle and cousin had been the betrayers… or whether I would have had the fortitude now to face what was up ahead of us. It would kill me when we finally discovered a portal. The Northstones might be my relatives by blood, but they were not by soul. I felt closer to Victoria than I did to them, and I barely even knew her.
“Do you know how much longer it will be?” Victoria murmured against my ear, lifting me from my reverie.
Poor girl. She had done so much traveling of late, and there would be much more to do yet. Still, I would look after her. I would make sure that she was as comfortable as possible. She need not fear while I was around.
“We can lower to the ground to check now,” I said, realizing that hers was a good question. “I think we’re nearing our destination. The Bonereavers do not live so far from the Northstones.”
As loath as I was to leave this wondrous world of open sky and treetops, I descended with Victoria to the ground.
As I gazed around, it appeared that we had traveled quite far ahead of the rest of the wolves. They were nowhere in sight yet. I smirked to myself as I imagined the look on Brucella’s face as I had lifted Victoria up into the trees and out of sight. She fully believed that I would still marry her daughter. And she would continue to harass me about it. But I could not step into that cage. I did not love Rona the way I guessed a lover should. I did not know exactly how one ought to feel—for I had never been in love—but from the bond I’d witnessed between my parents, I knew that it should be something stronger, something more powerful, than what I felt for my cousin. If my refusal to wed her meant that I had to be “single” all my life, as Victoria had put it, then so be it. I refused to let Brucella put chains on me.
Encircling a bush several feet to our right, I pointed out to Victoria the large gaping hole in the ground—the entrance to the Bonereavers’ abode.
“At least there are no hunters around,” Victoria said, her eyes darting across the enclosure.
I looked around again. The Northstones still had not caught up with us.
A snapping of twigs drew my attention from behind. I whirled around to see a man springing from the bushes. He was unmistakably a Bonereaver. I grimaced at the sight. Crude people who talked too much and did too little, with egos bigger than the moon.
I recognized this werewolf by face, though not by name. He was thickly built with long shaggy hair and a beard that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a week. He was shorter than me, though, I had my parents’ fine bloodlines to thank for the fact that I was taller and larger than most wolves in The Woodlands, especially after shifting.
He raised a spear he’d been clutching in one hand and poised it in front of him, pointing it toward my chest.
I backed Victoria against the bushes and stood firmly in front of her, even as I swept out my bow and an arrow from my satchel. I considered simply turning into a wolf to scare him off, but I did not want to rip my clothes just now. I only had a limited number of sets in my satchel, and I certainly did not want to waste one on a Bonereaver.
“What are you doing here?” the man snarled. His eyes flickered from Victoria—mostly hidden behind me—to me.
I aimed my arrow at his chest. “I suggest you calm down,” I said, gazing at him steadily. “I have come here with the Northstones. They wish to speak with your leader regarding a matter of great importance to all of us.”
His eyes narrowed on me, but I was spared trying to convince him further of my innocence when the rest of our pack burst into the clearing—Brucella and Sergius at the lead.
“Cedar!” Brucella exclaimed, arriving at our side.
Cedar lowered his spear and, prying his eyes from me, fixed them on my aunt and uncle.
“I see you have already met Bastien,” Brucella said. “Our dear nephew.”
I could just imagine her adding on, “And my future son-in-law,” if only Rona were not present. I glanced at my cousin at the back of the pack as Cedar began leading us into the burrow. Rona was innocent in all of this, which made me feel guilty in a way for stalling her marriage. She deserved a mate just as much as any she-wolf. I—and she—just had to hope that eventually Brucella would stop waiting for me, and in desperation to get her daughter married, relinquish the betrothal and find another suitor for her daughter.
Something told me, however, from what I knew of my aunt, that this would not happen any time soon.