Chapter 14 The Price Of Breath
Cold stone pressed against Alberto’s cheek when consciousness clawed him back. He tasted iron and ash. Every heartbeat felt like a hammer striking the inside of his skull. His body had become a map of agony: the stump of his missing finger a pulsing star, the silver poisoned wound in his side a slow grinding fire, and newer cuts across his back and chest weeping steadily. The air itself hurt to breathe.
He was no longer upright. Thick chains had been looped around his wrists and ankles and staked flat to the floor of a smaller chamber, limbs spread so wide his shoulders screamed. Iron bit into old wounds. Blood had crusted beneath him, gluing skin to stone. A single torch guttered high on the wall, throwing long shadows that danced like mocking wolves.
Across from him, only a few paces away, Vargus sat on a low bench carved from a single block of obsidian. The rogue Alpha had removed his midnight pelt coat. His linen shirt was dark with dried blood, his own and Alberto’s, yet the wound under his ribs had already begun to close. Alpha healing. The cleaver had not gone deep enough.
Vargus watched him with the patience of a wolf who has all night and the next night and the night after that.
Alberto tried to speak. His throat was raw from screaming. Only a croak emerged.
Vargus lifted a waterskin, drank, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You killed twenty of my wolves,” he said conversationally. “Twenty. With no beast inside you. I have never seen the like.” Admiration colored his voice, genuine and chilling. “It almost makes me want to keep you whole.”
He rose and walked a slow circle around Alberto’s spread eagled form, boots scuffing softly.
“But twenty wolves have families. Those families want payment in flesh. And I still need my message delivered north.” He stopped at Alberto’s head and crouched, pale eyes level. “So we will bargain again, you and I.”
The door scraped open. A guard entered dragging something heavy. Alberto’s heart lurched when he saw what it was.
Liana.
They had wrapped a crude tourniquet above the stump of her left leg, but blood still seeped through the filthy cloth. Her face was unrecognizable beneath swelling and bruises, one eye completely shut, lip split to the teeth. Her arms were bound behind her back. She sagged in the guard’s grip, barely conscious, yet when her remaining eye found Alberto a spark of defiance flared in the green depths.
The guard threw her down between Alberto and Vargus. She landed hard on her side with a pained gasp. Before she could move, the guard pressed a long curved knife against the soft skin under her jaw.
Alberto jerked against the chains hard enough to tear fresh skin from his wrists. “No!”
His voice cracked like breaking ice.
Vargus lifted a hand. The guard froze, blade kissing Liana’s throat, a thin line of red already welling.
“Listen carefully,” Vargus said. “I am going to make this simple. The girl lives or she dies. That choice belongs to you now.”
Alberto’s chest heaved. He tasted bile and terror. “Let her go,” he rasped. “Whatever you want, I will do it. Anything. Just let her live.”
Vargus tilted his head. “Anything is a large word. Be specific.”
“I will serve you.” The words burned coming out. “I will carry whatever message you want to Fernando. I will kneel. I will crawl. Only spare her.”
A faint smile curved Vargus’s mouth. “You would betray your pack?”
“If it keeps her breathing, yes.”
Liana made a weak sound of protest, shaking her head as much as the knife allowed. Blood dripped steadily from her chin onto the stone.
Vargus ignored her. “Pretty words. But trust is earned with more than promises.” He gestured, and the guard hauled Liana upright by her hair. She cried out, the sound thin and broken.
Alberto strained until the chains sang. “Name your price!”
“Silence,” Vargus said softly, and the room fell still. “Here is my offer. You will return north. You will walk into Fernando’s stronghold carrying wounds that tell a convincing story of escape. You will become my eyes and voice inside his council. When the time is right, you will open the eastern gate during the dark of the new moon. My wolves will pour through. The north will fall. And Fernando will die on his own floor.”
He let that settle like poison in the air.
“In exchange,” he continued, “the girl lives. She stays here, a guest in my halls. Healers will tend her. No more blades, no more whips. She will keep her remaining limbs and her tongue. When my banner flies above your pack house, she will be returned to whatever ashes remain.”
Liana thrashed suddenly, trying to speak past the knife. The guard pressed harder; more blood ran down her neck.
Alberto’s mind raced, frantic. There was no choice. Not truly. Refuse, and she died now. Accept, and she might live long enough for rescue, for vengeance, for some desperate miracle later. He forced his body to still.
“I accept,” he said. The words tasted like rot.
Vargus studied him for a long moment, searching for deception. Finding none, he nodded once.
“But insurance is wise,” he added. “You will carry proof of your new allegiance. Something Fernando cannot deny.”
He rose and crossed to a wooden chest bound in iron. From it he drew a thin bundle wrapped in oilskin. When he unfolded it, torchlight glinted on sheets of vellum covered in precise handwriting and sealed with black wax. Maps. Troop movements. Supply routes. Lists of southern packs swearing loyalty to Vargus. Documents that, if genuine, could shatter the fragile alliances holding the north together.
“These,” Vargus said, “were stolen from my war room two nights ago by northern scouts. Scouts who never returned.” His smile was thin. “You will tell Fernando you took them from my corpse after you killed me and fled. He will believe you a hero. He will welcome you back with open arms. And when my wolves come, you will make certain those arms are empty.”
Alberto stared at the documents. The trap was perfect. Fernando would see the maps, see Alberto’s wounds, hear the story of desperate escape, and trust him again. Trust him right up until the gates opened and the south poured in.
Vargus knelt and laid the bundle on Alberto’s chest. “You will also spread a rumor before you leave. The original documents were destroyed in the fight. Only these copies remain. That way, when my wolves march unhindered, no one will suspect treachery until too late.”
He stood. “Do we understand each other?”
Alberto swallowed blood. “Perfectly.”
“Good.” Vargus turned to the guard. “Release the girl. Take her to the healers. Clean clothes, food, a proper bed. She is under my protection now.”
The guard sheathed the knife and lifted Liana gently, almost respectfully. She sagged against his shoulder, strength gone. As they carried her past Alberto their eyes met.
I am sorry, his gaze said.
Find a way, hers answered, fierce even through the swelling.
Then she was gone, and the door thudded shut behind her.
Silence fell, thick and terrible. Only he and Vargus remained.
The rogue Alpha crouched again, close enough that Alberto smelled cedar and blood on his breath.
“You hate me,” Vargus murmured. “Good. Hate keeps a man honest. Remember it when you stand before Fernando and lie with my words in your mouth.”
He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Alberto’s forehead, almost tender.
“One day,” he said, “when the north is mine and Fernando’s head decorates my wall, I will free the girl. I am not without honor. But until then, every time you think of betraying me, picture her chained in the dark with silver at her throat. Picture how quickly my patience ends.”
Alberto closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the hatred burning there was pure and clean.
“I will remember,” he said.
Vargus rose. “Then our bargain is sealed.”
He turned to leave, pausing at the threshold.
“They will unchain you soon. Food and water. Enough healing to walk. When the moon is dark, my wolves will escort you to the border and cut you loose. After that, little stray, your fate is in your own hands.”
The door closed. Torchlight flickered over the oilskin bundle resting on Alberto’s chest like a brand.
He lay staring at the ceiling, listening to water drip somewhere in the distance, and began to plan.
Because bargains made under knives could be broken the same way.
And some debts could only be paid in blood.