Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir
Chapter Fourteen
“How could you possibly be so foolish?” Dex said when he finished stoking the fire and had come back to stand in front of Holly.
She looked up at him and saw that he had a more severe look on his face than she had seen before. It almost looked as if he had been worried.
“Why were you even there in the marketplace?” she asked him. “Were you following me?”
“I was keeping an eye on you because I had a feeling that you were going to do something rash.”
“Well, we don’t know how rash or foolish it would have been since you yanked me from the city before I was even able to do anything,” Holly said with a pout.
“You need to stop thinking just about yourself,” Dex said.
Holly was taken aback by his words.
“What in the world are you talking about?” she asked. “I hardly think that you of all people should be lecturing me on selflessness.”
“What is that supposed to me?” Dex grumbled.
“It means that you are a shifter without a pack, a loner, and someone who only cares about themselves and no one else.”
“Really? And how is it that you happen to know so much about shifters that choose not to be in a pack? Because you listen to my story, you think that you’re an expert?”
“I’ve spoken to other people as well,” Holly said as if that somehow made her opinion on the matter more valid. Her stubbornness was not going to relent quite yet. “And I know that being a recluse means that you don’t give a shit about what happens to anyone else.”
“Oh, I am a recluse now, am I?” he asked. “You know nothing. Why do you think I stayed in the kingdom today if I cared for no one other than myself? Why do you think that I was right there to pull you out of making the biggest mistake that you could have possibly made?”
They sat together without speaking for a drawn-out moment. She hated the fact that he seemed angry at her, but she wasn’t delighted herself that he had interrupted what she thought would be a defining moment in her rule. Finally, she couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“I don’t understand,” she said as she turned to look at him. “Why were you there? Why are you talking to Rubius and Theo about matters of the kingdom? And why do you even care whether or not the humans become aware of the existence of shifters? It’s not like you’re in a pack and you have to stay here. You can leave and go wherever you want.”
Dex sighed deeply and turned his entire body to face her. Usually, it seemed like he tried hard not to look at her or to get too close to her, but this time, it seemed as though he really wanted to make sure that she was listening to him.
“Holly,” he said in a solidly calm tone of voice. “Do you know what would happen if the humans discovered that wolf shifters exist?”
“Not exactly,” she answered, admitting that there was a bit of nebulous uncertainty to it. “But I imagine that they would at first be apprehensive, and then we could all get started on the work of trying to understand each other and coexist.”
“That is a very hopeful and, I’m sorry to say, naïve perspective,” Dex said. “What if things went wrong? What is the worst possible scenario that you could imagine happening if the humans received the knowledge of shifters existing and reacted to it poorly?”
Holly thought for a moment, and she was rather horrified with the thoughts that she came up with. It wasn’t that she hadn’t considered the outcomes before—she had. It was just that she thought the likelihood of success was greater than the likelihood of things going sideways. Still, she answered his question honestly.
“I suppose that the worst possible outcome would be that the humans reacted with fear and maybe even hatred. There could be a war between the species that would result in mass casualties on both sides.”
“Is that all?” he asked.
“Isn’t that bad enough?” Holly scoffed. “I don’t really see the reason for asking me that, though. I can’t go into situations as a queen with the expectation that they will fail. I have to hope for better and for change.”
“I’m not telling you that you should expect the worst outcome,” Dex said. “I’m telling you that you should consider all outcomes. And you have not. You still haven’t thought about the worst that could happen, and as a queen—you should have.”
Holly didn’t understand what he was talking about. She had thought about the worst outcome. War between humans and shifters was the worst thing that could happen.
“You have already forgotten my story that I told you,” Dex said. He almost looked sad. “You forgot why I chose to leave my pack behind to begin with.”
“No, I haven’t,” she said as she shook her head. “But I don’t see what that has to do with this.”
“The worst thing that could happen if the shifters are exposed to humans,” Dex said, “is that the shifters become enslaved after they are hunted down. I know that you think you are too powerful and too brave for that to happen, and that shifters are too strong and skilled to be defeated by a bunch of humans. But the humans have weapons and numbers that we do not. It is not at all outside the realm of possibility that the humans would be able to defeat the packs. And if that were to happen, a war and an abundance of death would not be the worst thing that could befall the shifters. I know a little bit about humans. I have watched them quite a bit and sat in the taverns and listened to them talk when their inhibitions have been washed away by alcohol. They are a cruel and inhumane species.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Holly protested. “Granted, there are a few smaller groups of humans that are fairly low on the humanity chain, but overall, the people of Grenvich mean no harm to any living thing. I walk among them. I talk with the women and play with the children. I even drink ale with some of the weaponsmiths. They do not inherently wish bad to befall others.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Dex said as he shook his head. “But since neither of us knows for sure, I supposed it comes down to chance. Are you willing to chance it? Are you willing to chance the lives of your family and the packs by exposing yourself and the existence of wolf shifters? If you are wrong and I am right, there is, at the very least a chance that we could all suffer a future of enslavement. You cannot disagree with the fact that it is a possibility.”
Dex was right. She couldn’t deny that it was at least possible that he was right. It was possible that the humans would react with hate and persecution, and that they would consider themselves a superior species. It was possible that if that happened, the humans could overcome the shifters. And it was also possible that they could enslave the shifters. The thought of her mother and brother and father being slaves to humans suddenly flashed across Holly’s mind. She immediately realized that she was wrong in thinking that it was up to her whether or not to reveal a secret that had been kept sacred for countless years in order to protect their existence.
“What was I thinking?” she said as tears filled her eyes. She shook her head and then buried her face in her hands. “When did I become so blind?”
“You are not blind,” Dex chuckled as he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Sometimes it just takes the help of someone else to see the things that we cannot.”
Holly looked up at him, feeling foolish.
“There must be another way to handle the situation in the kingdom besides exposing us,” she said. “I don’t want to give up on the end result, just on the foolish way that I was going about trying to achieve it.”
Dex nodded and then removed his arm awkwardly from her shoulder. He went back to looking at the fire for a few minutes and then got up to go and get some ale. When he came back with two full mugs and handed one to Holly, she remembered the other question that he hadn’t yet answered.
“Why do you care?”