I wanted to growl again, but this time, my frustration was with the mages, not my brother, so I swallowed it. “Fine.”
Noble walked over and placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “For what it’s worth, I believe Nai will be back, and … you’ll make a fine king.”
Emotion clogged my throat, and for some reason, I thought of our father and how proud he’d be to see me leading with my brothers’ support.
I forced a swallow. “Thank you for being here for me.”
He smiled and squeezed my shoulders before turning to leave.
When he reached the door, I called out. “Noble?”
Turning to glance over his shoulder, he raised his eyebrows at me, and I gestured to all the stuff in the office. “I want this redecorated, and I’m putting you in charge. Make it nice—and get rid of everything that was Declan’s.”
A slow grin worked up his mouth and he nodded. “Yes, My King.”
After he left the room, my gaze fell to the space in front of the fireplace. A memory surfaced from our childhood—one I always tried to push away—but I let it come this time. My brothers and I were eight years old, and we’d convinced our nanny at the time, a large bear shifter named Nanny Bess, to take us to the market in Mageville to buy our mother a birthday present—a memory glass so she could see memories of our father because we’d all caught her crying about him at one time or another.
I closed my eyes and let the scene play out in my mind’s eye.
Nanny Bess ushered us onto a ferry, and we scampered around her, all giddy with excitement. The ride across to the mage lands was filled with laughter, all four of us boys spending the hour-long ferry ride racing up and down the deck and playing hide and seek. As we pulled into the dock, we ran to Nanny Bess and clung to her thick purple skirt. An indentured servant, who probably should’ve hated us, Nanny Bess treated us with warmth and kindness.
After we disembarked, I stared at the mages as unease twisted my insides. They intimidated me with their strange mage marks and scowling eyes.
But Nanny Bess was bigger and stronger, and she moved with quiet confidence. Soon enough, I forgot all about the smaller-built mages and their scary magic; my attention became riveted on the food. Nanny Bess bought us each a sticky sweet roll, which we ate on our way to the stall where magical artifacts were sold.
In my uncle’s office, I shook my head, remembering my own infatuation with the stunning dark mage who’d sold us the memory glass.
Surlama.
As we waited for the ferry back home, a group of bear shifters approached us, and the big male embraced Nanny Bess. One of them, a young girl a few years older than us, broke away from the others and confronted me and my brothers.
“When will your father let my mom go?” she asked, tears in her eyes. “It’s not fair to keep her—”
“Hush, Marji,” Nanny Bess said, stepping between us and the girl. With her back to us, our nanny kissed the girl’s head as the ferry pulled up to the dock. As Justice, Noble, Honor, and I all stared at one another in confusion, our nanny waved at the group of shifters and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Just as it had then, my stomach opened to a dark, fathomless pit.
‘Those people are her family,’ Honor said.
We all knew it.
‘Why is she with us and not them?’ Justice asked.
I shrugged, just as perplexed as my siblings. We were still young enough that we didn’t really understand that Nanny Bess was a hostage and our uncle was her captor.
‘You should ask,’ Justice said to me, his green eyes wide with worry. ‘You’re the one with courage.’
So I did—as soon as we were on the boat, I asked Nanny Bess.
“Before you were born, when your father was alpha king, all the shifters lived on the island together,” Nanny Bess said.
I stared at her in awe. “All of them?”
She nodded. “But after your father was killed—”
“By those Crescent scum,” I snarled, repeating what we’d heard from Declan, so eager to fill in this fact and show my brothers and my nanny that I was smart and on top of things.
Instead of nodding, Nanny Bess pursed her lips and then took a deep breath. “King Declan said the other shifters were inferior to the wolves and were taking up too much of his territory. We needed to leave. When we protested being kicked off the island, the wolves came into our territory and removed us by force.”
Her declaration had shocked me and my brothers, and we stared at her, slack-jawed.
“Now, I owe a ten-year penance to the alpha king.”
Her statement gutted me then.
‘That’s not right,’ Justice said.
“We’ll make Uncle Declan let you go,” Honor told her, hugging her waist. “You should be with your family.”
I agreed…
But Declan didn’t.
Later that night, when I’d asked him to let Nanny Bess go, he’d slapped me across the face and called me stupid and naïve.
He’d said my brothers and I had let ourselves be manipulated. We were too soft, too loving. Too gullible. We’d trusted a traitor—
And then, when Honor yelled at him to let Nanny Bess go as well…
Declan flew into a rage and hit us all.
With every strike, he admonished us to be wiser, stronger, tougher.
“You are the oldest and the strongest,” he’d said, looking down his nose at me. His expression was stern, his voice filled with disappointment. “And therefore, whether you want it or not, you are the alpha of your sibling pack. It is your responsibility, Courage, to make sure nothing like this happens to your family again. You let a traitor worm her way into your heart and steal your common sense. Just look at what that cost your brothers.” He waved at Justice, Noble, and Honor, all three of them holding their red cheeks. “If you can’t lead a group of four, how will you ever lead a pack of hundreds or thousands? It is time for you to grow up, young man. Lead with your head, not your bleeding heart.”
For years, I thought Declan was right.
I toughened myself, closed myself off to anyone or anything that could make me weak. I accepted Declan’s abusive words as truth. Even when I went with my brothers to fetch Nai from Montana.
The moment I laid eyes on her in those ripped jeans shorts and tank-top, standing barefoot on her land in Montana, my wolf had seized up inside of my body. When her scent had hit me, the drive to touch her, taste her, possess her nearly overwhelmed me. I knew then she’d be my ruin if I let her.
So I decided to never let her in.
And then, on the car ride to the portal, she clamped her hand over my mouth. Without even thinking, I’d tasted her skin. A small lick of her finger was all it took, and suddenly, I needed more. But every time I felt desire for Nai, I reminded myself of how weak it would make me. How thinking with my heart had gotten my brothers and me hurt.
Then came the masquerade party…
Hidden behind a mask, I thought a blind hook-up would be enough to satiate my growing desire for Nai, help me walk away from her.
But of all of the masked ladies at the party, I’d been pulled to her—like a magnet. Her kiss was sunshine lighting up the darkest abyss inside of me. It was water in the desert, sustenance to my starving soul. As soon as I kissed her, tasted her, I knew Miss Blue was Nai … and then the butterflies descended on us. I knew then Nai was my fated mate.