Page 39 of Renegade Kings
Bonds are meant to make us stronger.
He knew. They knew I was going to find not just one mate but multiple, and not only that, but that I’d have to enter a bond with them. This was against everything I’d ever been taught, but now that I was thinking about it, was it what I’d been taught? I knew the story of the widow, everyone did. It was the cautionary tale that older fae liked to tell when they felt like their children wouldn’t conform to what they wanted them to. Yet, I couldn’t recall my parents ever telling me the tale, and deep down, I’d always known they had to share a bond as well. Even though no one spoke of it. My mother and father had both held the marks of royalty, but that shouldn’t have been possible because only my father came from a royal line.
I opened the book, flicking through the pages to find page after page of handwritten folktales, each with annotations at the side, adding factual specifics where the tales were too vague. The later pages were filled with sketches of the creatures of Nymeria and information about them and the places they lived. There were maps and descriptions of places, notes about Nymeria itself and pieces of legends stitched together to give a bigger picture of how Nymeria and its magic worked. This was like a manual for our realm and it was as if my father had known my mates would come into this world with no knowledge of it and the dangers it held.
“I think he wrote this for you,” I told Ryder, passing the book to him.
He raised an eyebrow before carefully opening the book and slowly turning the pages with more care than I’d have expected. He knew this book would mean a lot to me, and the fact that he was handling it like that meant the world.
“There must be something in here about the prophecy,” he mumbled, more to himself than to me. “He wouldn’t have risked you not knowing.”
“Not unless he knew there would be someone here to tell me it instead.”
My mind turned to Fizzle, and I didn’t know if it was my desperate need not to lose anyone else that was making me think I could trust him, or if I truly could. I hated that after all the years he’d been at my side, I still doubted him. I hated that it had come down to this. If he’d just been honest with me from the start, he could have saved me so much heartbreak.
“I’m going to read through this, if that’s okay with you? There have to be more answers in here. Or maybe there’s more hidden in this room?”
I looked at the shelves around us and knew there wouldn’t be anything else. What would be the point in risking that we wouldn’t find the letter if we found something else and stopped looking?
“No. This is it. Unless there was anything else behind the bookcase.”
I reluctantly climbed off Ryder’s lap and made my way to where Maddox had swung the bookcase a few feet away from the wall. There was a void behind it, far larger than the book we’d retrieved, but apart from dust, there was nothing else on the concealed shelf.
“Maybe someone else found it and took whatever was inside? Or he didn’t have time to hide whatever else was supposed to be in there?”
I shook my head. “No one would leave the letter behind if they’d taken something else. And he knew what was about to happen. He had plenty of time to write the letter and put it in there with the book. He’d have added anything else that needed to be there at the same time. My father wasn’t the type of man to leave much of anything up to chance.”
He knew. He knew what was coming for them and they did nothing to stop it.
I couldn’t even face thinking about that right now, so I chose to turn away and think about something else instead.
“We should catch up with the others. Make sure that everything is in place for tonight.” I turned to find Ryder standing behind me, a sympathetic look on his face. “How are you feeling about your first shift?”
It was a blatant change of subject because I didn’t want to think about the rest, and thankfully, Ryder went with the flow just like I knew he would.
“Excited.” When he saw the shock on my face, he laughed. “I can feel him, you know? The wolf. I can feel him pacing the edges of my mind and he wants out. It’s like I’ve got this itch just below my skin and I can’t quite reach it.”
“That sounds… really annoying, actually.”
Ryder laughed again. “Yeah, and I think the annoyance is all his.”
“Is it strange, feeling someone else in your mind? Do you… do you hate that I’ve done this to you?” I knew it was the only way for them to come into Nymeria and they’d all agreed to it, but they didn’t really have a choice in the matter when it came down to it.
“Fuck no! Are you kidding me? This is insanely awesome. I’m going to change into a wolf. Do you know how exciting that is? All my life I thought I was worthless, but it turns out that it just wasn’t what my life was supposed to be. This feels so right, Alyssa. I finally feel whole.”
Whole. That definitely wasn’t how I felt right now. I’d never felt more broken, and I absolutely hated it. I thought back to the bar when I’d first met the guys. It felt like an age ago, even though it was only a few weeks. How had I gone from that strong, self-assured woman to what I was now? The constant questions and doubts were getting old. I wanted to get back to the woman I’d always been, but maybe without all the self-loathing and denial I’d cloaked myself in.
Damn, becoming self-aware of your issues really wasn’t a fun time.
Sighing at myself, I shook my head and resisted the urge to slap some sense into me. “We should catch up with the others,” I said again. “I want to check the site they choose and make sure there won’t be any problems. I’m not prepared to risk any of you when you’re at your most vulnerable.”
This shift would be dangerous. The guys were obviously more than the ordinary shifters we’d come across before. Not to mention that Dean had an alpha wolf side to him now that, whilst he currently seemed in control, we had no idea what would happen once the wolf was allowed free.
Tank should really stay back at the palace. Having him there when Dean shifted for the first time could spark a dominance fight. We couldn’t afford for either of them to be injured right now, even if they healed quicker than they should be able to. There was no way he’d agree to that, though. Not unless I stayed back there with him, and I wasn’t about to do that. We couldn’t leave the guys alone and vulnerable, and right now there was no one else I’d trust to have their backs.
“It’s okay, you know?” Ryder said as my hand reached for the door and my escape out of this place. “It’s okay to be overwhelmed and sad and maybe even angry.”
My hand pressed against the wood of the door I’d opened so many times to see my smiling father sitting at the desk behind me. This had once been such a happy place, and I was struggling to put the image of the person I was back then with who I was now.