Page 79 of Wolf’s Fated Bride

Lindsey breaks the silence. “I overheard Sven speaking with someone tonight. This was before he fired on the alphas. It sounded to me like the Peacebroker isn’t arriving alone but with a regiment.”

My father nods. “They’re coming to enforce the treaty. They must’ve sniffed out Maren’s defiance.” My dad turns to me, “I tried everything. I even made her nest. Maybe you can talk some sense into her.”

Actually, it’s nonsense, not sense. “Maren won’t change her mind. When the Fireborns see the regiment arriving with the Peacebroker, they’ll interpret it as aggression.”

My father frowns. “Since when are you an expert on Fireborns?”

Since I’m fucking their Alpha. “I’m just speculating.”

“You’re right, but it makes no difference since the humans are coming anyway.”

Lindsey gathers her medical supplies into a black medical bag and slings the strap over her shoulder. “I’m off to examine the Fireborn Alpha.”

My father shakes his head. “Stay with Sören. If anyone asks, you were too busy saving my son’s life. All night long.” At the exit, he turns. “Are you coming?”

I walk out with him. As we traverse the tunnel that leads to the tower, I hope to change his mind.

“Daddy, Ash should get medical care from us. He was attacked under your roof by your son. If something happens to him, nobody will trust that they’re safe with us anymore.”

“Ash Fireborn’s death would be a good thing.”

I stop dead in my tracks. “What?”

My father stops with me and puts his hands on my shoulders. “If he’s dead, Maren gets to marry whichever of our males she pleases.” He looks around and bends closer to whisper, “Ash is the only werewolf who can defend his territory. If he’s dead, the Fireborns are defeated. We win.”

I look at this man who raised me, who rocked me on his knee, who taught me how to catch a rabbit, how to swim, how to be the wolf I am today. And instead of being grateful, I feel contempt. I used to think the world of my dad.

In the pack, he’s a war hero, a fighter the humans begged to join their ranks. He has kept us thriving through the wars with the Fireborns and Skyrenders and even through our disagreements with the humans.

“It’s not fair,” I say. “That they get to rape and murder his sister, and we attack and nearly kill him, and then spread lies about him.” It’s not fair that Maren betrayed the treaty and Ash has to pay for it. “Ash Fireborn is all that a wolf alpha ought to be.”

“Which is?”

“Protective of his people.”

“He burned down cities and towns.”

“He burned down cities and towns when the humans wouldn’t turn over the men who raped a child. Would you not have done the same for me or Maren?”

My father sighs and keeps walking toward the military passage that runs beneath the tower and into the castle. “Maren was taught everything Sören was, and now I suffer her intelligence. What is your excuse?” He turns when I don’t follow as I’m supposed to. When the Alpha of the pack walks, the omega follows.

I head in the opposite direction.

“Get back here, Runa Stormcrest, or I swear it will be the last day you roam free.”

He’s wrong.

It’ll be the first day I’m free.

Chapter 33

Runa

“You have no business being here,” Blade says at the guard stop. The Fireborn guards doubled their numbers at the entrances into the tower, and they won’t let me pass. Neither will Blade. I don’t blame them.

“How is Ash?” I ask.

“Barely alive. Have you come to gloat?”