My eyes flew wide. “You can’t, you’ll be ripped apart!”
She looked inside the pack tent and then pulled me farther away so that I wouldn’t wake anyone.
“I’ll forfeit,” I told her boldly.
She shook her head. “Then you get ripped apart and I marry Axil. Do you really want me bedding him for the rest of my life?”
A growl formed in my throat and she chuckled. “That’s what I thought. You guys are mates. You’re the stronger of the two of us. You deserve to be queen.”
An unexpected sob shook my body and she pulled me in for a bone-crushing hug. I cried then, for what felt like the tenth time since I got to this damn mountain and she held me, keeping her composure the entire time.
“You’re so calm,” I told her as I pulled away.
She nodded. “I’ve made my peace with the situation, Zara. Come on, I want to show you my favorite place in the whole city. When you are queen, you can go there to watch the sunrise and remember me.”
Hooking her elbow into mine, she pulled me after her, but my mind was still playing catch-up.
Remember her.
She wanted me to remember her because she was going to die? I walked in a numb silence beside her as we hiked around the castle and up the mountain that loomed behind it. She’d already made peace with her own pack tearing her apart? And I was supposed to sit by and watch it happen?
“Eliza—”
“Shh, I want my last night to be happy,” she cut me off and another sob lodged in my throat. We hiked, arm in arm past a few Royal Guards for a good twenty minutes until we reached a flat bench of rock. There we sat and looked out onto the moonlight which lit up the vast expanse of land.
It was dark, with only the moonlight to illuminate it and yet it was still so pretty. From this vantage point I could see the dozens of patrolling guards all around the perimeter of the mountain. We were stuck here. Our fate was sealed.
“I’m glad it’s you,” Eliza said finally, startling me. We’d been sitting next to each other in silence for some time.
I looked at her and she was peering at the castle below and the city that stretched out beyond.
“I’m glad you will be our people’s queen.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I still wasn’t sure I was okay with what she was doing. Forfeiting to me and getting torn apart? There had to be another way.
“Maybe if those two girls who ran off were found—”
Eliza reached out and grasped my fingers to quiet me, then she leaned back on the rock and I followed her, lying on my back and looking up at the stars.
“When I was younger it was hard for me to make friends. You know how it is being a dominant female,” she said.
I nodded because I did know. The other dominant girls saw you as competition and the submissives were too scared to be around you for too long. You ended up hanging with the guys most of the time yet still feeling lonely.
“I never really felt like I belonged here. But when you took me into Mud Flat pack … it was hard to describe.” I looked over at her. She was smiling wistfully up at the stars. “I felt, for the first time like I had a real pack family and a sisterhood.” She squeezed my hand.
I hated this. I hated that she was saying goodbye.
“I’ll figure something out,” I told her but I knew my words were a lie. What was there to do? Stop a tradition that was over a thousand years old? We’d both be torn apart. The wolven people needed a strong queen and this was how they chose her. I was as much a victim to the circumstance as Eliza was.
We continued to hold hands as the night dragged on and sleep pulled at my limbs. It must only have been a few hours before sunrise but I could feel the heaviness of exhaustion pressing down on me. Eliza’s breathing evened out and I closed my eyes, only for a second, and fell asleep.
“Wake up. Look!” Eliza’s voice infiltrated my brain and my eyelids snapped open. I was disoriented for a moment, wondering where I was and why I was being woken. I could easily go for another ten hours’ sleep. Thick grogginess weighed me down but then I remembered I’d fallen asleep on the rock with Eliza and today was our fight.
I sprang into a sitting position and gasped when I saw what was before me. The realm that was once bathed in darkness was now covered with oranges and pinks across the entire horizon. The sunlight kissed the land as far as the eye could see and I was shocked at how far the visibility stretched from here. I could almost see the edge of the Mud Flats, blurry in the distance.
I looked over at Eliza to see a single tear slide down her cheek. She was so filled with life and innocence, I just couldn’t allow that to be extinguished. It was in this moment that I realized she would make an amazing queen. The love of her people and this land was exactly what a queen should have. I reached out and squeezed her hand, coming to terms with my own future just as she did.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
I nodded. “Breathtaking.”
We sat in silence for another few moments and then the people began to move down below, stoking their fires and cooking their breakfast.
“Axil wanted to see me,” she said.
I nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
We stood and then made our way off the mountain and past the guards who watched us carefully, a hand on the blade at their hip.
When we reached the front doors of the castle, the guard stepped aside without question and let us in. We were instructed to go to the dining hall where we found Axil sitting in front of an untouched plate of food.
It seemed we weren’t the only ones preoccupied about the battle to come. Eliza was his wolf; he’d grown up with her. Knowing I had to kill her to be with him couldn’t have sat well with him.
“Eliza, Zara, thanks for coming.” He plastered on a fake smile as we approached.
Eliza stood before him and extended her wrist. “I think this will be easier on all of us if I rejoin Death Mountain pack before the fight.”
Axil’s fake smile faltered but he nodded. “I agree.”
Then he looked at me, as if asking if it were okay. It was hard to explain but I felt like Eliza’s alpha. I didn’t really know how all that worked since Dorian was my alpha but … she felt like mine.
I bit the inside of my cheek and nodded. For some reason I was sad. I didn’t want to feel the gaping hole left behind by her, the same hole that any pack member left when they went to marry and join another pack. But she … she was mine, I’d claimed her and we’d worked together to stay alive out there in the dead lands.
Axil shifted his fingers to claws and dragged them across her arm, forcing blood to come to the surface. Then he scratched his own arm, mixing the blood.
My heart beat wildly in my chest and I could feel Eliza’s hesitation. She didn’t want to do this either. She was Mud Flat pack now and it felt so right. But I’d taken her in as a pack sister without permission of my alpha, or hers, and so I knew this must be done.
Axil mumbled under his breath and I felt a sharp sudden squeezing at my heart, Eliza gasped and I knew she’d felt it too. I looked at Axil and his brows were drawn into a knot at the center of his forehead. He mumbled words under his breath and again I felt that pain in my heart but Eliza was still there. I felt her strength and innocence.