The Forbidden Wolf King: Kings of Avalier, Book 4(3)

“You really want to do this?” he asked and I broke his gaze to look down at the summons, catching my breath after the sustained eye contact. I had to show him I was capable of this, that I was strong enough to do it.

“I do. I want to bring honor to our people and show the fancy king and his brother that a girl from Mud Flat pack can wipe the floor with any of his city wolves.”

My alpha grinned but then his smile faltered. “And competing for Axil Moon’s heart is okay with you?”

My breath hitched. Dorian had been the one to pick me up from camp that summer. After Axil had broken me, Dorian, Amara and Cyrus had been the ones to help put me back together. He knew how badly Axil’s rejection had affected me.

I met his stare, trying to hide the vulnerability I was feeling. “I have to. I need to show Axil Moon that he was wrong about me.”

Dorian nodded curtly. “Then I have one condition, Zara.”

“Name it.” I sat erect.

“My condition is that you do not forfeit,” he stated. “I want you to be queen or to die trying.”

Chills rushed down my spine and I swallowed hard. Of course I wanted that too. I’d always been taught it was dishonorable to tap out, but … if it really came down to it, could I just … allow myself to be killed to keep honor in my pack?

I had the distinct feeling this was another one of his lessons. To see how badly I wanted this, how ready I was for it.

He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly gleaming with emotion. “Zara, you have always been my favorite. But if you bend the knee to some pompous city wolf, I will have to kill you myself and I don’t want to do that.”

Amara stopped stirring and made a whining sound in her throat. But Dorian’s words gave me pride, there was a compliment layered deep somewhere in there.

“I will win or I will die trying, Alpha,” I promised him.

He reached for the paper and handed me back the summons. “Then reply yes. I assume Cyrus is training you?”

I nodded. “Yes, Alpha.”

“You only have two weeks to prepare. I’ll help train you as well. And Morgan will join us.”

My heart pinched with pride. For the alpha to take time away from all the busy dealings of running a pack of over fifty wolves was a big deal.

“Thank you, Alpha. I’ll make you proud,” I vowed and stood, grasping the summons tightly between my fingers.

He gave me a curt nod and then went back to tearing into his elkin meat. As I turned to leave, Amara streaked across the room and pulled me into a hug.

I was caught off guard at first. Dominant wolves weren’t big on displays of emotion so I wasn’t keen on hugging, but Amara was like a second mother to me. When my own mother died in childbirth with Oslo, I was only eight years old. My father, the last alpha of our pack, before Dorian, had died a few months prior in a bearin attack on a hunting trip. Our entire family was devastated with the loss of our mom and dad.

But the pack had rallied around us, to help make sure we had what we needed until we came of age and could fend for ourselves. They brought food, blankets, came to clean the house and play with us. But it was Amara, who was in her early twenties at the time, newly married to the alpha, who had come every single night for four years and sung me and Oslo to sleep. She would pat our backs and sing old songs that my mother used to when I was a young babe. She taught me how to feed Oslo from a milk bag and to change his soiled linens.

I never forgot that kindness.

“I’ll miss you.” Her voice cracked and my throat pinched.

“I’ll miss you too, Amama,” I said, and she burst into laughter.

Amara had become a second mama to me, so I called her Amama for a while as a young child and it was what Oslo called her now.

When she pulled back, she was crying. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried.

“Alright that’s enough, you’ll soften her too much,” Dorian told his wife with a smile and I grinned.

After leaving their hut, I opened the summons again and read it for the tenth time.

To: Mud Flat pack

The royal wolven advisors who serve King Axil are requesting your most dominant female wolven, Zara Swiftwater, to appear at Death Mountain in two weeks’ time to enter the Queen Trials.

Winner takes the throne.

Please send your response via courier immediately. A dominant replacement may be sent.

Name of contestant or replacement:

Alpha approval:

I stepped inside our house and retrieved a quill and ink from my father’s old desk.

Cyrus was silent as he watched me write Zara Swiftwater in the contestant’s name spot and then yes under Alpha approval. I handed it to him.

“Dorian and Morgan will help train me as well,” I told him.

He looked impressed at that, and through our pack link I could feel his excitement mixed with apprehension over his little sister entering the trials. As a wolven packmate, there were times when you didn’t even need to speak, one could sense the others’ thoughts or emotions as if they were your own. And because he was my brother our bond was especially close. As a pack, we could all speak to each other mentally in wolf form but as humans there were just wisps of feelings floating by that you had to intuit.

Cyrus walked over to the storage locker we kept by the couch that had all of my training equipment inside. Flinging it open, he looked at me. “I’ll get this to a courier. You get ready, we start right away.”