Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir

Chapter Nine

At the first light of morning, they awoke to Rubius having found them. He reached into the den, past Dex’s sleeping body, and poked Holly in the side. When she flinched, Dex was jarred awake, and he was surprised to see Rubius standing over them.

“It’s okay,” Holly said quickly. “Rubius is my father.”

“I know who he is,” Dex said. He laid flat on his back so that Holly could crawl over him to get out of the den, and then he walked out himself.

Before either Dex or Holly could say goodbye, Rubius pulled her gently by the arm to come with him back to the castle, leaving Dex behind in the forest in a bewildered state.

“How did you find me here?” Holly asked as she walked next to her father and tried to keep up with him. “It’s so far.”

“We were all worried about you last night when you didn’t return to the castle. I spent the night searching for you, and this morning, I reached the farthest edge of the forest and found you there,” he answered.

He didn’t sound mad, just relieved that he had finally found her.

“Was that the mysterious rogue shifter you told me about?” he asked.

“Yes,” Holly nodded. “His name is Dex.”

Rubius didn’t say anything in response to her answer, so Holly wasn’t sure whether her father was in approval or not. It didn’t really matter, considering nothing happened between the two of them.

“What happened? How did you end up at the farthest point of the forest last night, and why didn’t you come home?” he asked her. “Your mother was worried sick. With the sparks of unrest in the kingdom, she thought that something might have happened to you. Theo and I were out looking for you all night. I searched the forest while your brother searched the city.”

“I’m really sorry,” Holly said, feeling bad for having worried them and causing them all a sleepless night. “But Mom wasn’t wrong.”

Rubius gave her a concerned look and Holly explained what had happened with the group of human hunters in the woods.

“If it hadn’t been for Dex, they would have killed me. I have no doubt of that.”

The look on Rubius’ face was one of pure and unadulterated fury.

“It was those same men that Theo and I addressed during your crowning ceremony. We should have killed them then.”

“Well, that probably wouldn’t have made a very good impression on the rest of the townspeople,” Holly said sarcastically. “Besides, Dex said that he had seen other hunting groups in the forest last night too. I imagine that they are preparing for the winter feasts, but there are several groups of men who hide behind their titles as hunters but would be better named as assassins.”

“Yes, that’s what Theo and I have feared all along. We need to figure out how we are going to deal with them before something else happens. You are lucky that your rogue wolf was there to save you that time,” Rubius said.

The way in which her father said, “your rogue wolf,” made Holly feel warm in the deepest parts of her stomach.

“You must be extra careful now,” he warned her.

Holly nodded.

“And you must also be careful of Dex.”

“What? Why Dex?” she asked. “I don’t think he would ever hurt me.”

“Nor do I,” Rubius said. “But let me give you a bit of fatherly advice. I know the temperament of rogue shifters. I was one, remember? And I know that they tend to care solely about themselves. Just be careful to protect your heart.”

“But you don’t care only about yourself,” Holly said. “You care about Mom and Theo and me, and your pack.”

“Yes,” he nodded. “That is true. I do care about all of you—now. But during the time of my life that I was a loner, I cared only for myself and nothing else. It’s a way of survival when you are all alone without a family or a pack to hold onto.”

Holly was a bit dismayed by what her father said. She felt as if Dex might have actually cared about her. Not only did he save her life, but there seemed to be something between them. And not only the physical desire which she could see was obvious, but something else—something that lingered just behind both of their eyes when they looked at each other. Then again, the moments that they spent were either amped up with adrenaline after having dealt with the humans or altered by the intoxication of good ale. She didn’t know whether to put stock in what Rubius said or not, but she kept it in the back of her mind as a precaution just in case.

After their return to the castle, Holly returned to her royal duties. If she had been distracted before, she was even more so now. She thought about the conversation that she had with Dex by the fire, and it made her think even more about what she wanted her queendom to look like. She started to daydream during her routine tasks about what her non-traditional rule will look like. The trick was going to be getting everyone else to buy into it with her. The humans in the kingdom had clung to their rote traditions for so long, and just like Cassandra had told her, the humans feared and disliked change. She would never be able to wrap her head around that or understand what an irrational mindset that was. All of life was change, literally every single moment. What a dull existence to want things to always remain the same.

She thought that her mother would probably stand beside her desire to want to change some rules and reconstruct some of the old ways. Cassandra had the same rebellious and wild streak as her daughter, and she was not one to cling to the past if the future could be changed for the better. Theo would likely not care what she decided to do with her rule, as long as it didn’t negatively affect the packs in the forest. And although Rubius was a bit more overprotective and likely to be resistant, Holly also knew that he would usually go along with whatever Cassandra thought to be best. It wasn’t the royal family that she would have the hardest time convincing, Holly thought. It was the humans.

When Holly went out into the market square, she talked to some of the townsfolk and asked them what they thought of the forest. She asked them if they would ever consider having a picnic or a festival in the woods and was surprised to find that most of them were against the idea. Most of the humans were scared of going into the forest, except for the hunters. When she asked them what they were afraid of, many of them began to talk of old stories and tales of beasts that lurked within the trees and would tear them apart limb by limb. Upon even further pressing, Holly was able to get some of the humans to describe what they thought the beasts looked like, and to her horror, they described wolf shifters. Men that turned into giant wolves and tore people apart with their bare teeth.

It was all such an inaccurate and unfair depiction. No wonder the past hunters who had still believed shifters to exist were on a mission to kill them. The humans were afraid of something that wasn’t accurate. And she was determined to bring the truth to light. When Aeron was alive, he had tried to keep the peace between the humans and the shifters, even going so far as to arrange gatherings where the two species of people would be together, albeit not knowing they were anything other than all human. As crazy as the idea seemed, especially after countless years of keeping their secret as if their lives depended on it—which, at the time, they did, Holly wanted to do something drastic and unheard of. She wanted to reveal the existence of the shifters to the humans, and she wanted to show them that there was nothing to fear. She wanted to bring Aeron’s vision full-circle and do something that even he never dreamt possible. She wanted shifters and humans to coexist together.