Chapter 146 – Uneasy Departures
Ronan
The last carriage wheel cuts a deep rut in the snow, the iron rim squealing faintly as it vanishes around the curve of the lodge road.
Blue and silver banners trail behind the convoy, their embroidery catching the weak dawn light like water rippling over ice. The guards ride in stiff formation, helms gleaming, horses shod in steel. What the hell kind of werewolf rides a horse?
Beside me, Jace stands with his hands clasped loosely behind his back, watching them go without a word.
Behind us, Eli mutters through a yawn, scarf bunched under his chin. “It’s too bloody early and too bloody cold. I’m going back to bed before my fingers fall off.”
He brushes snow off the porch rail with one hand, shoots me a mischievous look that dares me to join him, then pads back into the cabin with the lazy confidence of a man who knows he can bend law and still be adored.
I keep watching until the carriages are swallowed by the trees. Then I exhale through my nose, slow and heavy. It feels like an anvil is resting on my chest. “Something’s wrong.”
Jace doesn’t look at me. His gaze follows the disappearing wheel tracks. “You were expecting trouble when he arrived. Now you’re expecting it when he leaves?”
“Yes.” I bare my teeth briefly against the wind. “This is too abrupt. He didn’t get what he came here for. That kind of boy doesn’t walk away without trying again.”
Jace finally turns his head, eyes sharp in the grey morning. “You think he’ll be back.”
“I think someone will.” My wolf stirs restlessly under my skin, pacing, hackles raised, urging me to get back to Eli and protect him.
“Maybe him. Probably not. We all know Silvercrest doesn’t engage directly. All I know is I don’t trust a smile that wide and a retreat that sudden.”
We stand a while in the brittle quiet. Somewhere beyond the ridge, a crow rasps.
“I want the patrols doubled,” I say at last. “Stagger watches so there’s no blind corner on the ridge cut. Rotate fresh blood into the eastern slope guard. Make sure no one is nodding off out there.”
Jace’s mouth twitches like he was already planning on giving those orders. “Consider it done.”
“And sharpen drills. I want sparring stepped up, not eased off because of winter.” My voice is iron. “Every wolf in this pack stays ready.”
I shift my weight, jaw tight. “And I want spies sent to Silvercrest. Quiet ones. Pick wolves who can pass unnoticed and get word back fast. If Alaric so much as cast a gaze in our direction, I want to know.”
There’s no surprise in Jace’s face, only that calm acknowledgement he wears like armor. “Consider it done,” he repeats.
The snow crunches under my boots as I turn back toward the cabin. “We can’t afford complacency.”
Jace falls into step beside me. “You really think Alaric would risk war? He’d have to buy more than half the packs in the valley to stand against us.”
“He’d buy them,” I say flatly. “If it means getting his hands on Eli.”
The silence that follows is heavy, a weight that presses into the marrow. Jace doesn’t contradict me. He knows the truth as well as I do.
We pause at the cabin steps. Through the frosted window I see a hint of movement. The toss of blond hair against a pillow, his body curled into the blankets like he’s trying to cocoon himself from the cold. My wolf stills, ears pricked, soothed by the sight.
The memory of him when I first woke this morning softens the edge of my worry.
Eli had been face-down across the furs, one leg flung wide, his mouth slack in sleep. The kind of sleep only found after being wrung out, body and soul.
Jace makes no comment when he sees my expression, but I catch the faint curve of his mouth. His version of indulgence.
I let some of the tension bleed out of my shoulders. Just enough to breathe without tasting iron. Whatever storm is coming, it hasn’t touched him yet. He’s safe in that bed, smug and unrepentant, the bond humming steady through my chest.
And if war comes, I’ll meet it head-on. I’ll meet it a thousand times if I have to. Because whatever Alaric plots, whatever mercenaries he hires, whatever coin he throws at the valley, it won’t be enough.
Not against me.
Not against us.
“Sharpen the pack,” I tell Jace again, voice quiet but certain. “Because when it breaks, I intend to end it before it starts.”
I step inside the cabin and let the warmth close around me.
Eli shifts in the bed and mutters something incoherent. My wolf relaxes fully at the sound. For the first time since the carriages left, my jaw unclenches. My hand itches to touch him, to confirm with skin what I already know through the bond. He’s safe. He’s mine. He’s here.
Still, the restlessness refuses to let go completely.
I cross to the low table and unroll a sheet of parchment. My hand moves without thinking, sketching patrol loops, noting the ridge cut where Kieran spent so much time eyeballing my wolves.
I mark distances between watch posts, the length of time it would take for a rider from Silvercrest to reach the east bend, where the gorge narrows and ambushes might bloom.
The storm will come. I can’t pretend otherwise. But the shape of it is something I will force to happen on my terms.
I will sharpen and wait and strike when the edge is clean. I’ll keep my pack fed, trained and brutal, and when the dust falls, I will meet Alaric and anyone who thinks to come for my mate with a violence they will never forget.
I run my thumb once along Eli’s jawbone, feeling the quickening under the skin as he stirs. He mumbles, turns, and slides closer in his sleep. I press my forehead to his hair, inhaling the faint sweetness of sleep and the lemony scent of his shampoo.
“I will protect you,” I whisper into the dark, “You are mine and I will keep you forever. I will end anyone who comes for you.”
He sighs, a small contented sound, and my fingers loosen from the fist they were clenched in. Outside, the valley waits and plots, but under this roof, for a heartbeat, there is only the steady pulse of the man who is mine.
When the storm breaks, they will learn what it costs to covet the Alpha’s prize. Until then, we prepare, and I watch, and I love him with a ferocity that will not be bargained away.