Page 2 of The Warrior's Captive
“It doesn’t matter if they could or couldn’t kill anyone. They’d be held captive until the Nightfall Pack hands over the person who did. They’ll guard their own, unless it’s a matter of the alpha’s children. Then they’ll do anything to get them back.”
Apollo had pushed about as far as he could go, and he finally sensed that and shut his mouth. He shot Castor an infuriatingly taunting look instead. It took all his self-control not to reach for his axes in their leather sheath on the bed and make good on that promise to embed one in the bastard’s smug skull.
“Hades. We’ll do as you instruct us.” Zeus touched him again, this time no more than a brush of his hand on his shoulder, but it sparked a buzzing in Castor’s head.
Unbidden, an image of the woman who had been with the children two out of the four days they’d watched, glanced through his skull, so sharp and hot it threatened to split his brain in two like the pain of a migraine.
They’d arrived in the late morning, the woman and the children. They didn’t belong to her, but she was the alpha’s sister and so she was entrusted with their safekeeping while their parents got on with pack business. The woman looked nothing like her brothers. She was slight and willowy whereas they were tall and muscular. She did have their white-blonde hair. It fell nearly to her waist, a series of intricate braids and waves. She smelled like summer strawberries until she unpacked their picnic and pulled out doughnuts, and he’d realized that was the source of the delicious odor. He’d nearly made a sound and given himself away when the powdered sugar fell from the doughnut and rained straight down her shirt, dusting her creamy skin in sweetness.
“We take the woman,” he grunted, shaking himself. What the fuck had that been? Could Zeus put ideas into a person’s mind? Is that how it worked for him? No. The guy wasn’t magic. He was just a shifter.
Keep telling yourself that.
He’d had years to perfect an emotionless façade while in the military, and he gave one now, revealing only anger and authority. He was the master of his body. He’d tell it whether it could react to a mere woman or not.
But despite his resolution to be the master of his mind, his thoughts returned to the woman. She appeared close to him in age, probably mid-thirties or older. But there was something sinfully sweet and innocent about her demeanor.
“We’ll hold her for ransom. If they don’t want to give up the murderer for us to have our justice, then we’ll keep her.”
Zeus’s brow arched up at that.
His pack was a ragtag band of wolves, all with a warrior ethos and varying degrees of morals. Their numbers had been depleted over the years, sometimes in hunting accidents, but mostly from fighting with other packs. They had no stupid rules like some of the packs here seemed to have, about only the alpha pair being able to bear young. That would deplete the pack so quickly they wouldn’t survive past a single generation. They had no hard and fast rules about blood either. Many wolves were stolen in raids as babies or young children and raised with them. As a result, no one looked the same. Not like the Nightfall Pack they’d kept a close eye on when they realized that it was one of those wolves, perhaps more than one, who had killed his brother.
Zeus was darker. He had auburn hair cut into a shorter style. He was clean shaven most of the time and wore smart clothes, like he worked in an office for a living instead of spending most of his time out in the wilds tracking people, animals, and shifters for hire. “Keep her?”
“A life for a life.”
Castor swallowed the bitter acid burning in his throat. His own mother was taken when he and Pollux were four years old. They were kidnapped with her by another warring pack on a raid. She’d been killed there, right in front of her two young sons. They’d eventually been ransomed back to their pack. How could he even contemplate taking a woman, when his father had sworn justice for his mother and a few years later achieved it in a bloody slaughter that both he and Pollux took part in? There he was, also claiming that ten-year-olds were innocent when he’d killed his first wolf at the same age.
But this wasn’t about what he personally wanted. This was about the job he’d been tasked with by his father and his alpha. His brother had left the pack to join the Rangers, a betrayal in itself. But the fact that he had been killed, meant that a payment had to be made and blood had to be spilled. He had his orders, and though his time in the military might be long past, his alpha’s word was law and his promise to obey was his bond.
“You’d kill her? A woman?” Zeus kept his gaze trained on him like he was something that couldn’t be trusted.
Castor was known to have a nasty reputation with blood on his hands. You didn’t become a trained killer and expect a clean conscience, dove white palms, and an unstained soul.
“That’s not for me to decide,” he stated firmly. “We’ll make a gift of her, if her pack doesn’t want her back. To my father, to replace his son. He needs a mate. Or anyone else in the pack who wants her She’s not ugly and she’s from a good bloodline. She’d be forced to bear the young of her mate. A mate from our pack. She would be giving life in exchange for the death that was already had.”
Agnar, the pack alpha had killed their old alpha in challenge. Vespar had done nothing but bring grief and bloodshed to their pack. They lost more wolves under him than ever before. His time as alpha, though a brief two years, was the most devastating any of them could remember. Agnar, in contrast, tempered his physical prowess with wisdom and goodness. He’d brought them a tenuous peace that had held firmly for the past three and a half years. He’d stopped the bloodshed, the raiding, the wasteful and endless stream of slaughter and death. His instructions to them had been clear.
Bring back the murderer, or another who could stand in his stead so he could pass judgement.
The last thing they wanted was more war, especially with an unknown, powerful foe they’d never faced before. It wouldn’t be said, but there would be no war started over Pollux. A restless soul who had left the pack and gone searching for death with the Rangers.
Castor didn’t believe in anything he was saying, but he had to remove himself from the situation. All this time, his anger burned so bright it was like a furnace, threatening to turn him to ash. While it was tempting to go down in flames and be no more, he had his vengeance to seek. It would remain unsatisfied as long as his brother’s killer was out there. As many times over the years as he’d thought about death, thought of it as the sweetest release, he believed in being a warrior and dying honorably, preferably in battle, whatever that looked like. Combat, challenge, a knife coming at him in the middle of a cold, dark night that he wasn’t swift enough to dodge.
No woman was going to be payment enough. It made him feel like a beast to even think of taking an innocent and forcing her to pay the price. He was disgusted with himself, but anything else meant war, and that was unthinkable. His pack had their own innocents. Women and children. The sandy soil of their lands was already stained red with their blood. No more, Agnar said.
So, Castor had travelled north with two other pack members to seek out his brother’s killer and ensure that the proper dues were paid. Then, he could head home… and do what? He had no idea, as he’d fought all his life.
Again, the vision of the lovely, blond woman entered his mind unbidden. He sighed and shook his head, as if to rid it of those errant thoughts.
Castor believed in peace too. So, while he wanted nothing more than to feel hot blood flowing over his hands as he ripped out the insides of the man who took his brother’s life, he forced himself from the stifling room, out onto the crumbling cement balcony. He stared out over the gravel parking lot and into the distance, where, out in those hills, amongst those woods, his brother had breathed his last.
Taking the woman as hostage and bringing her back as a gift, if her pack refused the exchange of the innocent for the guilty was a solid plan. It might not get him the vengeance he desired, but it would bring a sort of closure, if there was any to be had.
“It seems like a solid plan.” Zeus crept out onto the balcony with him and leaned with his elbows on the metal railing. It didn’t look like it would hold. He stared off into the same distance, seeing things that Castor couldn’t. “We can always come again. Take again. Take another and another until they finally hand over the one we want.”
“As soon as we take the woman, they’ll double their security and their guards. It would be harder to get in.”