Arit moved behind him, wrapping his arms around Nick’s abdomen so they could share body heat. “Okay?” he asked, voice still rough from the shift. The word tumbled from his lips sounding more like a growl.
Nick shuddered. Nodded. “This,” he said, the human word quavering as he also struggled to emerge from his shift. His grip on the locket tightened until his knuckles shone white. He lifted his other hand and gestured to the valley. “This,” he repeated.
Luckily, Nick didn’t need to speak for Arit to understand. The bond building between them was new, tenuous—so fragile the link could be broken as easily as the inexpensive chain of the prince’s locket, but the shared sense of affection vibrated between them no less for that. Arit’s people would’ve been Nick’s tribe if not for the war. The executions hadn’t stripped the crown prince of the family he’d been born into and that alone. The murders and subsequent flight to safety had robbed Nick of the tribe he would’ve and should’ve belonged to—the family of his future. Losing his tribe, and at such a young age…Arit shied from imagining Nick’s groundlessness, his grief. The loss still echoed like a gaping maw inside Nick. Arit felt the void in Nick and craved filling it with all the love and security that had been stolen away. He stroked Nick’s bare stomach and rested his chin on Nick’s shoulder, enjoying the crisp scent of lemony pine wafting from his mate’s pale blond hair at his nape. “Yes.”
Nick gulped. His teeth chattered, but his hand lowered to cover and squeeze Arit’s forearm twined around his waist in silent acknowledgment. They studied the lights from homes and the people gathered round them below for short minutes. The storm prevented them from staying in this form. Nick dipped his chin, and Arit released him. Stepped back.
At least escaping the brutal cold hurried their shifts. This time frequent practice won the race, and Arit pushed to stand on four paws first. Nick wasn’t much longer, though, scrabbling up from the hard slab of stone that provided the overlook. The white wolf gazed again over the edge. Tail wagging, Arit loosed a beckoning bark that dragged Nick’s attention to him. Arit grinned, paw stamping the rock beneath him in wry challenge.
Shooting one last glance to the town, the white wolf pivoted and yipped in reply.
Arit sprang, racing into the paths through the jumbled rock, joy lighting him up as the scrape of claws on stone indicated his mate had rejoined the chase.
The storm strengthened, the flurries gently drifting from the sky intensifying to sheets of snowflakes falling in fat clumps. Wolf or human forms didn’t matter when weather conditions worsened; basic safety and respect for the difficult environment forbade any to risk running and playing longer. Arit streaked down the mountain, swerving to throw off Nick’s ardent pursuit because they both relished the game.
As they neared the flickering reds and oranges from fires on the lodge patio and the milling crowd of staff and guests collecting around those fires for warmth, nothing had changed.
Not really.
Nick tempted Arit. His scent. The unsubtle pull of the bond developing between them. The handsome beauty of muscle bunching under his pelt of glorious white fur. Arit wanted all of it, wanted Nick desperately. The sizzle of desire coursed through him faster than their wild sprint from the overlook and set Arit’s heart to pounding.
None of it made yielding to this mating heat smart.
In the final stretch, the white wolf zoomed by Arit to reach the lodge first and skidded on the slick stone as soon as his paws met the flat plateau of the rear patio. The others jumped out of Nick’s way, some in human form but others still wolfen. Those in animal form instinctively lowered their gazes, hunched to make themselves smaller. A few sank to the stony ground to show their bellies. Slowing his descent, Arit watched them, the capitol shifters in Nick’s tour group but also his staff responding to Nick. Arit’s people scrambled to show the white wolf submission, respect.
Because they were Nick’s people, too.
From the dark edge of the patio, Arit paused to take in what his eyes told him. To accept the showy displays.
To wonder.
His ears flattened when he spotted Benjic, too, angling his snout to bare his throat, but despite the snarl climbing up Arit’s throat, he grudgingly allowed his sire had been appointed elder to the Urals. He and his security team bore the markings of this tribe alongside Arit’s staff. Eyes narrowing, Arit swept the crowd and only then realized Benjic hadn’t brought the red wolves from the southern plains or the brown wolves common to the heavily forested interior from the capitol as part of his entourage.
The shifters in the capitol must be deluded to go through with the madness of arranging Nick’s abdication ceremony, because here, on this patio, the white wolf ended the crazy and wrong rumors purporting him to be an omega—and a damaged omega at that. All recognized him as not only an alpha but gave him the deference due their high alpha.
Nick may not be an emperor yet.
Tonight, his people—the tribe he’d been promised to as a boy—made him a king, though.
Chapter Seven
Despite Benjic’s urging to wallow in the lush amenities at the lodge, the tour group moved to the upper camp the next morning. Unpredictable in the Urals, fierce but often brief, the storm that had swept from the mountaintops into the valley last night had dissipated, leaving a scant dusting of white in the lower elevations the sun soon melted. Higher up, Arit’s paws moved over a thin blanket of fluffy powder disturbed by game trails from rabbits, cats, and elk uncowed by the early season storm.
Arit loved the snow, too. Made hunting easier. Where the hooves of deer broke through snow and could bog a deer’s fleeing escape, shifter paws were broad enough to skim the surface. Deer were faster than wolves. Capitol fools knew that. On flat plains in the valley, Arit stood no chance of taking one down even if he selected the best of his hunters to work with him, but high in the mountains? With snow still clinging to the rocky ground? Their odds of success wouldn’t get much better.