“I … can’t kill you, Eliza. I’m a lot of things but I’m not capable of that.” I was surprised to find that it was true. I thought myself tougher than that, especially considering I’d known this girl only a few days but there was something about her. A sisterly bond I couldn’t explain.
She shrugged. “You kill me or I forfeit and my pack tears me apart. Your choice.”
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Let’s not even talk about that. We could die in the next challenge.”
Eliza shook her head, her blonde curls spilling around her. “You know we won’t. We have a pack advantage. You lead, I’ll follow.”
My heart pinched at her loyalty to me. “We shouldn’t have become friends,” I said, feeling bad once the words left my mouth. I didn’t really mean it but I kind of did. It would have been easier that way. Somewhere in the last three near-death experiences I’d had with this woman, we’d forged an unbreakable bond. “I didn’t mean that,” I said.
She reached over and placed her hand on mine. “I know what you meant.”
“Axil said he still loved me,” I blurted out, changing the subject, not used to having a girlfriend to talk to, having grown up with two brothers.
She gasped and stepped closer to me, full-on grinning. “And?”
“I told him off. And then he sobbed.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “King Axil sobbed?”
I nodded.
“Damn, what did you say to him?” She looked concerned and now I wondered if I’d gone too far in some of the things I’d said to him.
“Just the usual post break-up stuff, that I was dead inside now, that he broke my heart and I was a shadow of my former self,” I teased.
She burst into laughter and then grabbed her bandaged side, wincing.
“You okay?” I asked, hoping she would be healthy enough for our doubles fight.
She nodded. “Still healing. Have you eaten?”
The moment she said it, my stomach came to life. That flatbread wasn’t enough and I’d been half conscious when I’d eaten it. Now I smelled the meat in her kitchen and my stomach growled loudly.
“Feed me immediately,” I ordered with a mock seriousness.
With a smile she walked gingerly over to the kitchen and pulled out a plate of various smoked meats, bread rolls and cheeses. I dug in without even waiting to be offered. Like a crazed lunatic I shoved meat and cheese into my mouth, half chewing before swallowing it down. It was spicy and salty and so, so good.
Eliza looked at me horrified. “I take it back, you would make a horrible queen, you have no manners.”
I gave her my middle finger and she grinned.
We got along so easily, it was like the best friend I never had in the Mud Flats. Every female there was either competing to be the most dominant, and therefore steering clear of each other, or they were so submissive they barely spoke to me. With Eliza, it was an easy friendship, she knew her pecking order in the pack was beneath me but she was dominant enough to give me crap, which I appreciated.
“Could you drop out?” I asked her. “You’re injured.”
She laughed. “You think they care about an injury? A drop-out is the same as forfeit. I’ll be killed and seen as bringing shame to the whole pack. The king’s pack.”
I lost my appetite then, feeling sick thinking about the possibility of eventually having to fight Eliza.
“Thanks for the food. I should probably go.” I suddenly didn’t want to be here, bonding with her only to be pitted against each other another day.
She looked sad but nodded, handing me a glass of water to wash all the food down. I drank it and thanked her, leaving out the door to her apartment.
SEVEN
As I walked the halls of the castle I couldn’t stop thinking about Eliza. Stupid Zara. I should have told her to pound sand the first day I met her. I never should have helped her win her fights or given her advice. And I never should have made her pack. Now I was stuck with her. The best part about the Queen Trials was that there was only one person per pack and you didn’t know any of them. It was easier to kill people you didn’t know. Like Ivanna.
I was so stuck in my head that I realized I was now lost. I’d gone the wrong way and turned to retrace my steps when I slammed into someone’s chest.
Axil.
My whole body froze.
He looked down at me and after yesterday’s emotional exchange I wasn’t prepared to see the mask of anger that was displayed there.
I sucked in a breath at the sight and he gritted his jaw and moved to walk past me. I stepped to the side, matching his movements but getting in his way. His nostrils flared and pure unbridled rage roiled through him. I could feel it.
How dare he.
“You have no right to be mad at me,” I seethed, holding his dominant gaze.
“You didn’t even let me speak,” he managed through clenched teeth.
I scoffed. “And what could you possibly say that would explain how you just walked away from me? After all the promises you made.”
He looked farther down the hallway where footsteps could be heard and then reached out, yanking me by the shoulders and pulling me into an open doorway.
I growled but allowed him to shuffle me into a room and shut the door. I peered around to see that we were in some kind of library. Books lined dark wooden floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.
He rushed forward then, zooming into my face with as much anger as I’d had during our last exchange. Dark circles marred his skin and I wondered if he’d slept last night. “You’re not serious about me walking away, right? You had to have known that it was against my will.”
I scoffed, looking at him like he’d grown two heads. “Against your will? The second your brother showed up and started to call me trash, you shut down and walked away without a fight …”
As soon as I said it out loud, it hit me. Why in Hades had I never thought of it before? His brother was king at the time and therefore had the gift that every wolven king had …
“He controlled you.” I said it with complete shock, feeling badly for how I’d treated him, thinking for all those years that he’d walked away willingly.
“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth, “and never permitted me to return to the summer camp. I can’t believe you would think that I left you like that.”
My heart hammered in my chest at his words, and some part of me, deep down inside, healed. He didn’t leave me. He was taken away from me. There was a difference.
Axil leaned his forehead against mine, like he used to when we were kids. “How could you ever think I’d willingly spend even one day away from you?”
I whimpered then, feeling my own breakdown just beneath the surface.
“My lord!” someone shouted in the hallway, the sound muffled by the closed door.
Axil growled and stepped away from me. I spun, giving him my back just as the door opened. I had to bite my lip to keep from falling into a fit of sobs right there.
“I have an urgent matter that needs your attention, sir,” a male voice said from outside.
Axil hesitated, probably looking at me and waiting for my reaction.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Axil said.
“My lord, it’s extremely urgent,” the guard pressed. “We have news of war.”