Pack Captive by Cate Corvin
Ayla
I scrubbed myself angrily,trying not to replay his words in my mind and failing miserably.
How dare he assume that I would live with him? Maybe he'd said I wouldn't need to be his whore, but I didn't believe him for a heartbeat.
Especially after the way he kissed me, and I thought my heart might explode right then and there in my chest.
There was a voice of reason very deep inside me that whispered, it's not wrong to want a male from outside your pack.
I shoved that voice away, locking it in a box and dropping that box into a void where I would never think of it again.
It wasn't that he was from outside my pack, although that did have something to do with it.
It was because he assumed that I would live in his quarters.
He assumed that I would be happy to serve Lykos, whether I wanted to or not.
Andhe’d assumed that I would run away to save myself and leave my pack at their mercy.
I dipped the cloth in the basin, also trying not to be grateful for the hot water. It had been months since I've had anything but a quick scrub in a cold creek, and even those brief baths had vanished when the water ran dry.
The shadow wolves tended to be drawn to large fires, so in recent months we had taken to eating raw food in our wolf forms, and I had only ever lit small candle flames during the necessary lunar rituals.
Then I noticed the cake of soap he had left beside the washcloth.
I lifted it to my nose, inhaling the creamy scent of spiced honey and vanilla. It smelled so good it was actually mouthwatering.
He was bribing me.
And I didn't appreciate it one bit.
I drew back my hand to throw it to the other side of the room, then I slowly lowered it, and lathering up in the basin.
Blood was still caked on me from the shadow wolf dragging me across the ground, even blood dried into my hair. There wasn't much I could do about my torn, stained clothes, but the rest of me didn't have to feel so filthy.
And it’d be a waste of hot water to not use it.
Excuses, my voice of reason whispered. You like the attention and care.
Shut up, I silently whispered back.
By the time I was done with my makeshift bath and wringing out my hair over the basin, I almost felt like a whole new wolf. It was hard to believe what hot water and a full stomach could do for you.
And, to my credit, I'd only thought of escaping once during the entire wash. It was only the fact that I knew that Ryden hadn't made an idle threat that I didn't seriously consider attempting it. Being run down in my own valley had been bad enough.
One of the Guardian-caste wolves came in to take the basin when I was done, and brought me a plate piled with more food, and a pot of ointment.
I ignored the medicine and drew the plate closer, examining the fresh roasted meat, a chunk of bread, and even a small bowl of ripe purple berries.
It wouldn’t kill me to accept his offerings. After all, it didn’t mean I had to like him.
I ate rapidly and was actually starting to feel at ease with my circumstances, but when the same Warrior wolf came in to take the empty plate and bowl, Calian came in with him.
I knew exactly what he was there for. My dark mood returned, settling on my shoulders like a thundercloud.
I obediently held out my wrists.
Calian knelt next to me, but this time, instead of roughing me up, he gently wrapped the ropes around my wrists, and didn't put them behind my back.
“See? Good behavior earns you rewards.”
I couldn't believe that only a few short minutes ago, I’d actually been in a decent mood. I’d even considered forgiving Calian for his behavior.
Clearly, I'd been wrong. Soap and food were not good excuses for magnanimity.
“Don't talk to me like I'm a dog.” I met his gaze. It was getting easier and easier to stare these presumptuous males down. “You will not train me into doing anything you like.”
I sucked in a breath when Calian put his fingers under my chin and tipped my face up towards his.
He’d only touched me before to tie my wrists and feed me. This pose was too intimate for my liking.
“I'm not trying to train you. I'm trying to show you that we're not your enemy, and the sooner you get that in your head, the better off you'll be. Yours isn’t the only pack we’ve ever brought back from a raid. The rest of them were fucking overjoyed to stand a chance against Fenris.”
I was past the point of making arguments. If they couldn't understand that tying someone's hands was not a way to make them your ally, then they would never get it.
But right now, it was hard to look beyond the fact that Calian was only inches away. I'd never seen eyes so dark; they were like the sky on a moonless night.
He made me furious, but he still had a face to make any wolf envious. He even smelled delicious, like he was designed to rattle my senses.
The memory of him feeding me popped back into my head unbidden, the gentleness of his fingers against my lips.
I tried to push it away, but it seemed firmly lodged there. Of course I would now be having vivid images of what his actual lips would taste like against mine.
And it was all because of the damn Alpha kissing me.
Calian seemed to know what I was thinking.
“Good night,” he whispered with a slight smirk. He released my chin, grabbed my hand, and brought it up to his mouth, pressing a kiss against my knuckles.
Then he left the tent. I sat in silence for a moment, completely bewildered by what had just happened, and then the first of the pups came crashing in.
Within moments I was covered with flailing arms and legs, and trying to get them to settle down on the furs. The elders joined us shortly after.
That night, I hardly slept. I couldn't say if I thought of the Azurans and their Alpha, or of my future in Lykos more.
We reachedLykos early the next evening.
My mouth dropped open when the city walls came into view. The wastelands had vanished this morning, left behind when we loped into green fields and dense forests.
The Azurans seemed to know their way through by heart, following a hidden path through the forest.
Then came the rivers, and the crashing waterfalls. I quickly realized that what we had in the valley had been a tiny, insignificant stream next to the city’s resources.
It made me wonder why we had never left for something better.
Lykos itself was built on an island in a broad lake, an enormous, walled city of white stone that had waterfalls spilling from its edges. Around it, steep green hills rose into mountains, and another river cut through them, crashing down into rapids.
Ryden shifted into his human form as we drew closer to the city, holding me near him.
“The Fenris wolves don't like water.” He nodded towards a bubbling pond as we passed it. “It won't hold them back entirely, but they take much longer to cross it. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had deliberately blocked your little creek from outside the valley to make their path easier.”
I held back a scowl at the sight of lush pink lilies floating on the pond, their petals edged in deep orange.
If we'd known that, we could have moved our pack out of the valley and into a more defensible area. Half the year, the stream dried to a slow trickle, and the other half of the year it was barely waist deep.
To think those creatures had been plotting to dry it up...it scorched my insides with rage
“The Elder Caller will probably bring you out here for your training,” he continued. “Water helps conduct the power of the Moon.”
Shock jolted through me. I'd never heard that before.
On the other hand, he wasn't a Caller himself. Maybe he was lying, trying to make himself look better so I would be inclined to stay.
But my gut feeling told me that he genuinely believed what he was telling me.
And if that was the case, that meant he had even more knowledge of my powers than I did.
It was galling. As much as I loved my home, had I been short-changed by staying there my entire life?
The Azurans led our pack down a winding path of bridges over the lakes and ponds, heading towards the gates of the city.
The wall around Lykos dripped with water and climbing ivy, tall enough that the shadow wolves would never be able to penetrate it except by sheer force of numbers.
I knew that the elders around me were also staring up at it, their mouths all open with awe, but I kept my jaw firmly shut, refusing to be impressed by it.
Wolves paced the top of the wall, both in animal and human form. The ones who were wearing their human skins were wearing shiny, scaled armor, armed with bows and arrows.
Several of them gathered near the top of the gates as our packs approached, and the enormous doors slowly began to slide inward, revealing the city’s interior.
It was almost painful to my ears. I’d never heard this much noise at once in my life; the sounds of all the people packed into the city rivaling the clap of a thunderstorm.
Ryden strode in like a conquering hero. I tried to make myself invisible at his side, but it was impossible.
I had the marks of a Caller clearly outlined on my leg, visible through the rips in my pants. What felt like the weight of thousands of eyes landed on me, and I wished I could turn invisible.
Especially when I realized Ryden hadn't been lying.
It seemed that everywhere I looked, every female wolf was dressed in beautiful clothes, dripping with jewelry, their hair shining.
For the first time in my life, I felt lesser. Like I didn't belong, a clod of dirt that had accidentally crept into the city on the Alpha’s heels.
A band of Warriors waited just inside the city's entrance, their eyes on the Alpha who had just arrived.
They bore the lunar runes of born Warriors, but there were also pitch-black claw marks tattooed over their shoulders and down their arms.
Ryden tilted his head towards my pack as we approached them. “We brought back potential warriors,” he told the leader. “Untrained, raw material.”
The head warrior, who wore armor carved with images of snarling wolves, looked over the Vesperans, particularly the runed pups, as we passed. They must be the Claws, who were going to try to take them.
I bristled under the weight of his assessment. They were my pups. I wasn't going to hand them over like they had never been part of my pack.
But it was clear that in Lykos, nothing was going to go my way. This was a city unlike anything I had ever seen before, and Ryden obviously ruled everything.
I wished someone in my pack had told me about all of this.
Instead of stewing on it, I found a clear line of sight towards the apex of the city, where a white castle of spires and gently arched windows waited for us.
That must be the Dawn Palace, where I would be kept a prisoner—but in luxury instead of a tent.
It was in that exact direction that Ryden led us.
The castle itself was built on an island within another, smaller lake, and he halted in front of an arched bridge that led to its fortified doors.
From here, I could see that a portion of the palace was nothing but a crumbled ruin. White stones and boulders lay in a strewn mess that tumbled towards the lake’s edge, and even a portion of the enormous wall behind the palace was cracked and shattered.
Ryden turned to look at me. There was something in his gaze that I didn't like at all.
“Welcome to your new home,” he purred.
I wish he could have just been honest with both of us.
He should have called it a prison.