After turning from my pack, I followed the guards to the fighting ring. I had barely slept, I hadn’t eaten and nausea rolled through my stomach as the crowd chanted my name. I looked up to see Axil sitting on his throne: today he wore the sharp-bladed crown of the king wolven. His brother Ansel stood beside him, glaring at me with his wife Jade at his side.
This would please his brother, to see that we would not end up together. His little brother and king would not marry Mud Flat trash after all.
I turned my attention to the center of the dirt circle to see Eliza, standing tall and beaming at me.
“No rules for this fight! Anything goes!” the elder advisor shouted behind me.
I walked right up to Eliza and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Be good to him,” I told her and she frowned in confusion at my words.
The bell rang and I spun, giving Eliza my back.
I tipped my chin high and raised my voice for all to hear. “I have no doubt I am the strongest wolf in this ring. But Eliza Green is my packmate! We forged a bond so strong even the king himself could not tear it away.”
There were shocked gasps from the onlookers and even howls as people stepped closer to me, knowing what I was about to do.
“And even though I’ve loved that man since I was fifteen,” I pointed to Axil, “I cannot hurt my pack sister.” Eliza crashed into me, wrapping her arms around me from behind, sobbing.
“No,” she said but I ignored her.
“I, Zara Swiftwater of Mud Flat pack, for—”
“I step down as king!” Axil cried out, cutting off my words and my entire body went limp. I could barely hold myself up as shock ripped through me. The crowd shared my sentiment as they wavered on their feet, gasping, booing and screaming.
Dorian was so bowled over by the king’s comment that he spun his attention away from me and we both faced Axil.
“The law states that the Queen Trial must end if a king ever steps down from duty and hands his crown over,” Axil said and then walked down from the throne and strode over to his brother and his brother’s wife. Ansel was as still as a snake before it was about to strike. Axil faced him and took in a deep breath. “I’ll give you back the title of Alpha King if you let Zara and I run away together. You will never see me again,” he told him.
I knew then that he’d planned this all along, that if it looked like I might lose he’d always been ready to do this. His voice didn’t shake, he was so calm, like he’d planned it for months.
The crowd’s boos got louder and I didn’t know if it was because they never liked Ansel and didn’t want him as king again, or if they hated Axil’s weak act of stepping down. As wolves we fought for dominance, we didn’t give it away. But as a king within the royal bloodline and no heir, at least two of them needed to stay alive until Ansel had a child.
“I give you my word,” Ansel said, looking to the royal wolven advisors who nodded one by one and relief washed over me.
The two brothers shook on it and then Axil took the sharp-bladed crown from his head and sliced his arm with it.
Ansel did the same and they shared blood on the blade. I knew in that moment that the power to control every other wolven had just passed to Ansel. He was now king.
Ansel grinned as he took the crown and placed it on his head. Axil nodded to him, walking away from his brother as if he hadn’t just given away an entire kingdom and birthright!
I peered at Dorian, wild-eyed, wondering if he would let me walk away from this. He must have known what I was about to do: to forfeit as a coward. And to run away with Axil meant I’d be leaving his pack. I’d need permission for that.
There was a softness in Dorian’s gaze, one he usually lacked. With one curt nod from him, I rushed forward into Axil’s arms and he lifted me off the ground, spinning me around.
The boos got louder and the crowd pushed in closer. They wanted their fight, not a forfeit and loss of their strongest king.
Ansel was a decent enough king but he now walked with a limp, which was seen as a weakness, and he was kind of cruel in my opinion.
“We need to get out of here,” Axil whispered to me. “We can go to Thorngate. Lucien will hide us.”
Lucien Thorne? The fae king?
I just nodded, trying to process it all as we pushed our way out of the crowd with Eliza, Cyrus, Dorian and my other packmates keeping the mass at bay.
“We don’t want Ansel as our king!” someone yelled.
“You coward!” another spat.
“King coward!”
“Queen coward!”
Queen coward, I’d earned a nickname before even becoming queen. That might be a record.
But the crowd seemed split because as many people who’d tried to rush us and attack, that many or more pushed them out of the way.
“Let them go!”
“They have honor!”
“She was loyal to her pack sister!”
“They’re mates!”
I absorbed everything going on as we made our way to the edge of the forest and the uncertainty that lay beyond. Flee to Thorngate? Leave our kind and the lands of Fallenmoore forever? It felt so wrong and yet when Axil slipped his fingers into mine, it felt so right.
I’d not really forfeited. Eliza wouldn’t be harmed. Axil was no longer king but we would be together. Then why did something feel off: like I was leaving something important behind?
Just as I thought of him, Oslo screamed my name.
I spun, pulling free from Axil as my little brother crashed into me and I wrapped my arms around him.
“Take me with you. Please, I beg you,” he pleaded, tears in his eyes.
I looked up at Axil, unsure what he would think of all this. He knew my brother was almost like a son to me, and that I’d raised him after my parents died.
Axil simply nodded once and relief rushed through me. I glanced at Cyrus and Dorian who flanked us, keeping the crowd back and they both dipped their heads in agreement as well.
“Okay, you can come,” I told Oslo and he pulled back from me with a grin, wiping at his leaking eyes.
I loved that boy too much. Axil would have to toughen him up for me because my heart was too soft when it came to him. He reminded me so much of our sweet mother.
Eliza pulled me in for a final hug. “Goodbye, sister,” she whispered, her throat clogged with emotion and then I felt her, through our bond and all of the love and respect she had for me.
“What are you going to do?”
She shrugged. “Go live in the Mud Flats and marry one of your cute single packmates?”
I laughed at that and everything felt a little bit brighter. I’d have to find a way to get word to her. I never thought this would be a possibility, that Axil would step down as king and run away with me.
I could sense Axil’s urgency; the crowd was getting restless and we needed to leave before there was an altercation.
With that, Axil grasped my hand once more and I held Oslo’s with my other hand and we walked into the woods and our unknown future together.
We were about ten steps into the dense forest when my muscles suddenly constricted and it felt like I’d slammed into a wall. I stopped abruptly, gasping as an unknown power seized control over my limbs. I knew by the shocked inhale of breath beside me that the same thing had just happened to Axil.