Ryan
There are only three thoughts in my head at the moment, all of them intertwined. The first being that I’m starving. The second, that I’d like to eat, preferably as soon as possible, so I can haul my wife over my shoulder and carry her back to our bed to continue what we’d started last night.
And finally, I do not like the look on Ryatt’s face as he gazes at my mate like she’s the answer to a riddle that’s been plaguing his mind for decades.
At almost fifty, Ryatt still looks youthful and dangerous. He’s at his most powerful, from the whispers I’ve heard from my parents and close family acquaintances. He looks like a walking, talking angel of death with his shadows creeping between his fingers as he grips his desk, his silver eyes locked on Aviva.
Something just changed, I know that for certain.
“The G-Gate of the Gods,” Aviva says, standing, looking down at me with a pink sheen covering her cheeks like she’s embarrassed, maybe even a little nervous to be speaking to my aunt and uncle. “It’s a–well. The legends are all different, I guess. In most, the gate is a depthless well where the demons who hunted the Goddess and Her people were thrown and sealed inside, long ago. I don’t know about the other legends, uhm, because it’s bad luck to talk about it.”
“Why?” Ryatt asks in a clipped tone that sends a shiver down my own spine.
Aviva tenses, rolling her lower lip between her teeth. I stand up beside her, not liking the feelings coasting through our bond right now. She’s scared of Ryatt. She doesn’t know him like I do.
“Because it’s said to be a gate to the underworld, where everything was locked away just before the Firestone empire fell. Curses, dark magic, demons….” She tilts her head from side to side, glancing at Ella before continuing, “When I kill rogues, I say a prayer to the Goddess and ask for their souls to be sent to Her instead of the Baetyl. We believe rogues and hellhounds are created with some of the magic that might have escaped the Baetyl when it was sealed and… it's silly. It’s something told to children if they’re misbehaving,” she rambles, laughing nervously. “It’s not real.”
Ella is watching her with rapt attention. She looks at Ryatt, letting him lead, probably putting questions in his head.
But Ryatt is stone faced and serious as he asks, “Where is it?”
“The Baetyl?” Aviva chokes on the word. “It’s not real. I have no idea.”
“But if it were, where would it be, based on the legends?”
“The land split by rivers,” she says quietly, glancing nervously at Ella. “A land of plenty. A land where the springs never run dry. That’s all I know. The legends never say. But… there is a song.”
“A song?”
Aviva looks down at her feet, closing her eyes like she has to dig through her memories to find it. “I don’t remember all the words, but it spoke of dark times when a curse swept through the sacred land and chased the magic away. The Goddess dropped Her veil of starlight to contain it, but it was too late. The curse turned the green hills and valleys to dust, where nothing grows, where the ground is too hot and the sun burns. The curse came from the Baetyl because someone opened it, and let it out.” Aviva opens her eyes.
Ryatt is staring at her so intensely it makes my skin prickle with anger. Recognition flashes behind his eyes, and he nods, looking down at his shoes as he turns to his desk. “Thank you, Aviva. Ella, please take her to the dining room. I’m sure everyone is wondering where you are.”
I start to turn with them to leave, but he says, “Not you, Ryan.”
Ella catches my eyes as she and Aviva leave the office, throwing me an apologetic but tight smile, one that doesn’t touch her eyes.
Dread burrows through my chest as I turn to face my uncle. “What the fuck was that about? You scared the hell out of her–”
“What are her powers, Ryan?”
“She doesn’t have powers,” I grind out, hating his tone. It’s like ice, sharp and bitter cold.
He turns to me. “What are her powers?” he repeats sternly.
“You would be able to sense them in her,” I bite out, losing my patience entirely. “You and I both know there’s nothing there. She’s my mate, for Goddess’ sake! I would feel that in our bond.”
“She’s different from other wolves. You must feel that.” He’s speaking to me like a child right now which only fuels my growing anger. What the fuck is his problem?
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“What can she do?” His eyes are almost pleading. There’s an edge to his voice I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. Ryatt, while sometimes terrifying, has always been… mostlyserious. He wasn’t always stern, like Dad. He allowed some flickers of emotion to show behind his eyes, unlike Dad. Dad only allowed Mom to see that side of him, which now that I’m mated, I understand, but Ryatt?
He was the fun uncle. The one who built sandcastles and tossed us in the ocean when the family vacationed together in Maatua. He allowed us to be rough, annoying little boys and delinquent teenagers. He knew we’d come to Moonrise for visits and immediately sneak out to drink and party, and he allowed it, but always followed it up with a vicious training session the next morning that had me and Sydney regretting every sip we’d taken.
He was easy to read, at least to me. I gravitated to him growing up, often seeking his company and advice over others. I trusted him.
I still do.
But something’s wrong.
And somehow, I suddenly know exactly what he wants me to say. “She’s incredible, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my mate, or because I love her, but she’s…” I bite my lower lip and sink onto the couch, exhaling deeply. “The first time I saw her, she was teaching her younger sisters how to hunt. I ended up with an arrow in my shoulder and she defended those little girls from me. It didn’t matter that I backed off the second I realized that it had been a child, an accident, but there was something in her eyes that made me feel… like I was in serious danger around her…” I trail off, pulling those early memories forward, dusting off the details. “We went hunting together. I’d been invited on her pack's spring hunt and chose to follow her against my better judgment and we both nearly got killed. There was a hellhound on her trail. It was hunting her…had been for a while, I believe. There was something different about this–this thing. It wasn’t tethered to a witch. It was driven by something else, something instinctual. I shifted into my beast and killed it.” I meet his eyes.
Ryatt watches me talk without so much as blinking.
I lick my lips, continuing, “After we were married, and I took her home to Silverhide, we had to spend the night on the road. That night, she left camp, and I found her a few miles away and watched her… kill three rogues and it was… not a normal sight.”
“How did she do it?”
“She can shift like I’ve never seen anyone shift before. It’s quick.” I snap my fingers in emphasis. “That fast. She moved in both her human and wolf form, shifting between them in a millisecond, killing all three before they even realized she was there. She’s drawn to bows and arrows, mostly, but skilled with her knife. She didn’t kill them with teeth or her claws. She just moved in her wolf form and shifted back to make the kill, and then again, and again.”
I remember feeling like I was dreaming when I watched her do that. I’m still not entirely sure I wasn’t.
Ryatt turns from me and walks behind his desk, sitting down with a low groan. Finally, he drops that icy mask and levels me with a look as he blows out his breath. “There’s a lot we don’t know.”
“About what?”
“Eastonia, and the early people who lived here before the veil. Alpha King Kane finished the crusades his predecessors started, destroying the history of our kind's origins. We know so little about the Firestone witches, so little about Shadowsyngers, and the mystics, and other shifters who once roamed alongside our wolves. But the Deadlands?” He grits his teeth. “Those tribal packs…? They were far enough away from the carnage taking place in the Roguelands, Rifthold, and Tarsian that they stayed untouched and cut off from the war. The Deadlands are dangerous, which you know. It’s like the landscape protected them, kept them sheltered, when the rest of Eastonia went to war. They essentially live in a time capsule.”
“What are you getting at?”
“That Aviva and her people are possibly an ancient type of wolf, something different from us.” He leans forward over his desk, suddenly excited. “Your aunt has spent the last two decades trying to uncover what exactly she is, cataloging everything we can find out about the Firestone witches. We know they had guards… wolves with skills like the Ghosts have now, but with very little training needed. They were just like that–impeccable warriors. Strong. Fearless.”
“Like my mate.”
“Yeah.” He leans back, tapping his knuckles on the desk as he loses himself in thought. “Ella mentioned being drawn to Aviva, like some natural force. I didn’t think anything of it, chalking it up to Aviva being the daughter of her old friend, but then I saw her with Maeve just now. Maeve doesn’t fall asleep in anyone’s arms anymore, not even her own parents’. She’s weary and skeptical of strangers. But she was comfortable with Aviva, trusting her enough to rest her cheek on your mate's chest, and sleep. She knew what the symbols on Ella’s skin meant. There’s so many books and ancient tomes in the library that we’ve never been able to translate–”
A heavy, twisting feeling settles in my stomach. “No.”
Ryatt stares at me, conflicted. “She might belong here, with Ella and Maeve. She might be our answer to Maeve–”
“No,” I repeat. “I don’t care what she is, or what this means, or about the forges or the Bae–fuck, whatever it’s called. She is not staying in Moonrise. She is not getting tested for powers. She is coming home with me.”
“It should be her decision.”
“And I will allow her to make it,” I say in clipped tones that drop as I draw out the words. “But she won’t. I already took her from her pack. I won’t allow you to separate us. I already lost a mate, and I’m not doing it again.”
Ryatt watches me stand up and turn for the door.
“There’s been reports out of Tarsian,” he says loud enough to stop me in my tracks. “Alpha King Jaxon says there’s some unrest, but he has it handled. Your territory runs along their southern border.”
“It sounds like that’s Alpha Jaxon’s problem–”
“There’s been a shift, Ryan. Ever since Gabriel and his coven started making moves, both Ella and I have felt it. An unrest, an uneasy feeling in our magic, like a warning, and it didn’t go away after Sydney killed Gabriel. I need you to be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?” I turn to him with a scowl.
“Whatever’s coming,” he says, holding my gaze.
I want to ask him if he wants my mate as some kind of specialized warrior. If he wants to keep her here to take her apart and find out what makes her tick, what gives her her skills, and how it can benefit our family, his kingdom. To see if she can unlock the secrets of our kind and why our family has the power we do. Maybe my anger is displaced, but for the first time, I feel like I have something that’s mine, just mine, and I intend to keep it that way.
“It’s good that the Deadlands have been historically left out of conflict, then.” I turn for the door again, throwing it open and storming out into the empty corridor.