My wolf bristled at that.
War?
Axil reached for me, grasping my shoulders. “Let’s talk later. I’m not done with you.”
I’m not done with you. There was more. Of course there was. There was five years of absence to explain.
Footsteps fell away from me and then the door shut. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Collapsing to the ground I burst into cries reminiscent of the night Axil left me. Fat hot tears fell down my cheeks as I relived what I’d said to him last night. How I’d squarely placed all the blame on him.
He was taken. Forced to leave. It made sense, how he’d shut down as soon as his brother caught us lying together in the grass and kissing. He had been so emotionless I thought he was embarrassed to be found with me, but now I knew he was under the control of the king. A power that Axil now carried in his veins, to render any one of the wolven under his complete control, like a puppet.
That’s what Ansel did to him.
This was all too much to process so quickly. Axil had pined for me this entire time and was held against his will from seeing me?
It was crazy. Surely not for five years?
I cried so hard then. I cried for all the years I’d blamed him, for all the kisses that were stolen from us. The shock of this new information seeped deeply into the very core of my being.
He didn’t leave. But staying away for five years? He’d been king for two. Why not come for me then? I had so many questions but I was too overwhelmed to deal with them. Sucking back my tears, I wiped at my eyes and stood, forcing myself to get it together.
I was going into a doubles fight soon, I needed to stay strong.
No matter what happened with Axil and I when we were kids, it didn’t change the fact that we were different people now. I wasn’t that same love-drunk young wolf he fell for. Life had hardened me, and so had our break-up, whether he intended it to or not.
Taking a steadying breath, I left the library and found my way back to the tents outside. Cyrus was waiting for me and we ran over some drills as I threw myself into my training, pushing everything I’d just learned deep down inside of me.
I couldn’t deal with it right now; it would make me emotional and emotions made you weak. I’d learned that the advisors had agreed to pair Eliza and me up against Ivanna and Charlize and that the fight was tomorrow morning, and so Eliza came by with her coach and we trained together in wolf form first, then in human.
“They’re good together,” I overheard Cyrus telling Eliza’s coach.
“That would be the pack bond,” Jonas, her coach, said with a bit of disdain in his voice.
I couldn’t imagine anyone from Death Mountain pack was happy I’d altered the pack bonds and basically stolen Eliza.
“Mmm,” Cyrus just grunted, about as excited that Eliza and I now shared a pack bond as Jonas was.
I wondered if Axil was allowing us to keep the bond for the doubles fight and would take Eliza back into Death Mountain pack once we’d won.
We were winning. I would accept nothing less.
The more the night pressed on, the more I thought about Axil. What war news had he been taken away to talk about? We hadn’t gone to war in ages but I knew the other realms fought with the Nightfall queen often. Was she finally coming for us?
How could you ever think I’d willingly spend even one day away from you?
I’m not done with you.
Axil’s words plagued me all night as I tried to sleep, until I ached to see him again, to finish what we started today. I needed answers. I needed closure. As I peered over the side of my hammock, I noticed Cyrus was fast asleep, his leg hanging out of his hammock limply.
I slowly slipped out of mine and padded across the tent barefoot until I got outside. Two of my packmates were chatting by the fire and I quickly thought up a lie when they peered over at me.
“Going to Eliza’s to talk strategy for tomorrow,” I told them.
Not that they would care where I was going or try to stop me, but I didn’t want anyone knowing Axil and I had a romantic involvement. As far as I knew, only Cyrus and Dorian knew about it because they’d been the ones to pick up the pieces when I fell apart after Axil left me discarded as trash.
But he didn’t, I reminded myself. His stupid brother did and yet I needed more answers before I believed all that.
I made my way through the tents, across the front lawn and then right up to the front door of the palace. It was late and I was kind of hoping Axil would have come to see me but I realized he might either be busy doing kingly things, or not want to talk about all this stuff with me. But he had told me we would talk later and I wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight unless I knew why he didn’t even send a note to me in five years.
I walked up to the guard and prepared a big speech, because it was forbidden to have any type of relationship during the trials. I didn’t want him to know that I was here to see Axil. It was the same guard from before so I knew I didn’t have to introduce myself.
I opened my mouth to speak when he beckoned me closer. “Are you here to see the king?” he whispered discreetly. There were still some wolves walking around the courtyard. People had been partying each night of the Queen Trials and I knew if word got around that Axil and I were once an item … it could get me in major trouble.
My cheeks burned red but I nodded once.
Without further interrogation he left his station and turned inside, walking down a hallway I hadn’t used earlier in the day.
I followed him as he made twists and turns until finally we reached another door with a different guard.
That new guard took one look at me and opened the door to a room, gesturing that I enter. “The king said that if you came looking for him, you were to wait in here,” the new guard said. “He is finishing up a meeting.”
He did? My stomach dropped when I thought of how thoughtful that was. And clearly his men weren’t going to tell the advisors I was here. “Thank you.” I dipped my chin and then entered the room, leaving both guards behind me. They shut the door and it was in that moment that I realized I was in Axil’s private living quarters. The space opened into a giant sitting room with a dark red velvet sofa and a roaring fire. I inhaled and had to suppress a moan. It smelled like him. Like pine trees and moss, and man. Stepping farther into the room, I peered to the right, through the open double doors and my gaze landed on a giant bed with red silk sheets and a cream fur blanket.
Axil’s favorite color had always been red.
My mind then went to how many women had seen this bed. According to Eliza’s sister, not many. I had to fight the urge to riffle through every single drawer and cubby hole. I didn’t know grown King Axil. I only knew the boy, the young prince who I wasn’t even aware was royalty at the time.
Young Axil was an expert marksman. He was a future alpha, the most dominant man I ever met. He liked to hunt elkin and sing songs by the fire with his friends. He’d traced the freckles on my collarbone and told me how they reminded him of certain star patterns. I reached up and touched that spot now.
Older Axil was king. Still dominant. Still in love with the color red. But I knew nothing else about this man.
Seeing an open book on the sofa, I walked over and pick it up. Examining the leather tome, I stroked my fingers along the author’s name. A. Grey.