Page 6 of Renegade Kingdom
We stood in silence for a moment, both of us watching Alyssa. She’d helped the weeping woman to her feet now, was guiding her toward the others, one hand on her back. Still carrying. Still giving. Even when she had nothing left.
“She’s impressive,” I said quietly.
Tank hummed in agreement.
“About what Ryder said,” Tank started.
I felt every muscle tense as Tank tried to feel out my thoughts on Ryder’s insane idea. But then I realised it didn’t really matter what I thought because it wasn’t my decision to make. Not only that, but I already knew what Damon would say. Because what other solution was there?
“It’s Damon’s decision,” I finally said. “If it’s what he wants then it’s what we do.”
Tank nodded slowly and we stood in silence for a moment.
“I had a sleuth once,” he said quietly. “That’s like a pack for bears. But when it came time for us to move to a new city, I couldn’t leave Alyssa behind. I knew she was my mate, I just had no idea how it was possible or how she’d feel about it. But do you know what I figured out the other day?”
I looked up at him standing beside me, watching the woman we both loved as she slowly worked her way across the battlefield of broken people.
“Sometimes, when everything seems impossible, all you need to do is lean on the people you trust the most to see you through it. Because one way or another fate knows what it’s doing and there’s no point in fighting the inevitable.”
“You’re saying to just let the chips lay wherever they land?”
“I’m saying that something brought us here, brought the four of you together years before even that. Three humans who turned into shifters even though the odds weren’t in your favour. Three humans who came right to the door of, not only the one woman who could help them, but a fated mate they never knew was possible to have. When you think about it in those terms, it seems pretty impossible that Damon wasn’t meant to be a shifter. He’s always been one of you. And there’s a reason for that. For all of this. There has to be.”
I let out a long breath, not knowing what to believe anymore. But I knew one thing, I needed to be the one to talk to Damon.To give him the choice. To let him decide if he wanted to take the risk.
But something about Tank’s words stayed with me as I turned them over in my mind.Fate knows what it’s doing. The inevitable.
If Damon became a shifter... if he survived... would he be one of Alyssa’s mates too?
The thought shouldn’t have bothered me. We already shared her with Dean and Ryder and Tank. What was one more? But something twisted in my gut at the idea, something uncomfortably close to jealousy. Damon had been possessed. Damon had hurt people while that thing wore his face. And now he might get to share in everything we’d built? Might get to touch her, hold her, love her, after everything he’d…
No. That wasn’t fair. None of this was Damon’s fault.
But fair or not, the worry remained. What would it look like, sharing a mate with a man who had a monster living inside his head? Would the beast kill it or just bury it, leaving it biding its time? What would it mean for Alyssa? For all of us?
I looked down at my hands again. At Rhidian’s blood dried across Rhidian’s mark.
Some questions didn’t have easy answers, and yet they all seemed to come with the same cost. Pain. Death. Where was it going to end?
Chapter Three
Dean
It had taken well into the night before we could leave the battlefield.
There were injured who needed to be helped, wounds that needed binding, bones that needed setting. And then there were the dead. So many dead. When the pyres were finally lit, their flames reaching toward the darkened sky, no one wanted to linger. It should have been a time to remember the people we’d lost, to stand vigil, to grieve properly. But everyone was too scared the flames would draw unwanted attention. So we’d honoured the dead with one eye on the horizon, waiting for an attack that never came, rushing through rites that deserved more time than we could give them.
We reached the camp we’d stayed at the night before just as the last light bled from the sky. The children were already huddled together asleep near the remnants of our fire pit, small bodies curled against each other for warmth and comfort. And Damon was sitting on a rock nearby, watching over them.
It should have comforted me.
Damon had done the same thing for me countless nights when we were kids. I remember those first few days with them like it was yesterday, when I’d first turned up on his and Maddox’s doorstep. A feral, angry kid, so broken I didn’t know how to be anything else. I couldn’t sleep unless Damon was there. He’d sit up for hours, just being present, just being steady, until I finally believed I was safe enough to close my eyes. He never complained. Never made me feel weak for needing it. He just... was there.
But looking at him now, sitting in that same watchful pose, I couldn’t tell if it was Damon or the nightmare staring back at me. And while I was still reeling from everything that had happened on the battlefield, if he opened his mouth and that thing’s voice came out instead of my brother’s, I didn’t know what I’d do to him.
I didn’t think I could hold back anymore.
We didn’t have enough supplies to feed everyone, let alone give them blankets to sleep comfortably. There’d been nothing to salvage from Arik’s camp. What little there had been had gone up in flames during the fight. It was probably torched by one of his Endless when he realised they weren’t going to win. I could picture it perfectly. Arik giving the order with that cold smile of his, watching supplies burn while people who needed them stood helpless. He was spiteful enough to do that. Evil enough to enjoy it.
