We went to Lisa and Raon’s home Ravin and Leon’s parents, the king and queen of the tribe, their home larger and more fortified than most, befitting their status. We brought both Alara and Krane with us, fully healed now thanks to the blue binds, their wounds closed and their strength restored. They walked beside me with straight backs and steady steps, though I knew the trauma of their escape still haunted their eyes. We had to come up with strategy and what else we could do to save our tribe from the impending war that was bearing down on us like a storm on the horizon.
The interior of the stone home was warm, lit by a central fire that cast dancing shadows on the rough-hewn walls adorned with trophies of hunts and tokens of alliances. Lisa sat on a raised stone platform covered in furs, her posture regal despite the early hour, her eyes sharp with the intelligence of a queen who had ruled through hardship before. Raon stood beside her, his massive arms crossed over his chest, his expression grim. My mates arrayed themselves around the space, filling the stone home with their presence, their tension palpable against the ancient walls.
Alara stood in the center of them all, gathering her courage as she prepared to tell her story again, this time with Krane at her side, his hand steady on her shoulder. He was a handsome man, I noted again, his black hair falling in waves around a face that had seen its share of hardship but had not been broken by it. They leaned into each other, drawing strength from their bond, and I felt a pang of warmth seeing them together, whole and healed.
"She went to the hawk village," Alara began, her voice steady but her hands trembling where she clasped them before her. "Rina, her hawk mate and that cheetah mate of hers, they came wounded and begging for sanctuary."
I leaned forward, watching her carefully. "How did she get past your guards? Your father was chief advisor, surely he would have been suspicious."
Alara laughed bitterly, a sound devoid of humor. "Aleric. It was always Aleric. He had still been bruised from your rejection, Krys," she said, turning to me with something like apology in her eyes. "When you refused him, and he was beaten by his treatment of you by your mates, it broke something in his pride. He held his stubbornness in forming a mate bond with me, even after all the years, even after I had proven myself loyal and worthy. He could not see past his own wounded pride, past the humiliation of being refused by the prettiest female who he thought he deserved. He still did not want me."
"He took it out on you?" I asked, anger already kindling in my chest.
"Not directly," Alara said softly. "He simply... humiliated me by breaking the promise to my father. Until Rina arrived, beautiful and broken and looking at him like he was her savior. Then he remembered how to want someone. Just not me."
Krane’s hand tightened on her shoulder, his jaw clenching with suppressed fury. "I arrived in their territory shortly after," he said, his voice a deep rumble that filled the stone room. "I had come from the eastern mountains, my own tribe dwindling, no mates to be found who stirred my heart. I was a wanderer, a hunter seeking a new beginning."
"And you saw her," I said, understanding.
"I saw her," Krane confirmed, his dark eyes softening as he looked at Alara. "She was arguing with Aleric in the village square, her head held high even as he dismissed her. I asked who she was, and I was told she was promised to the chief but unwanted. I thought then, how could anyone not want her? How could anyone be blind to her strength, her loyalty, her beauty?"
Alara’s cheeks flushed, but she continued the story. "He approached me the next day, respectful, distant. He brought me a fish from his hunt, said he did not mean to intrude, only wanted to offer friendship. I refused him. I was still foolish, still holding onto the hope that Aleric might come around."
"But I persisted," Krane said with a small smile. "Not in a way that pressured her, but in a way that showed her I would be there. I helped her father repair their home. I hunted for them when her father is too old to go out and hunt. I sat with her in silence when she had no words, and I talked when she needed distraction."
"And eventually," Alara said, her voice warming, "I accepted him. I opened my heart to the possibility of happiness with someone who truly saw me. We formed our bond three moons before Rina arrived."
"While this was happening," Alara continued, her tone hardening, "Aleric had become chief. He was the strongest hawk beast in our tribe, the most powerful warrior. But strength did not equal wisdom. Even though he broke the promise his parents had made to my father, my father still held true to his oath. He still served as chief advisor, even when watching Aleric lead broke his heart."
"Then Rina came," I said, already knowing the tragedy that followed.
"She arrived at our village gates injured," Alara said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "She played the victim, the helpless female in need of sanctuary. And Aleric, foolish, prideful Aleric, was smitten with her beauty from the moment he laid eyes on her."
"He did not question her?" Soryn asked, his serpent eyes narrowing.
"Not once," Alara said bitterly. "She had only two mates with her; a young hawk beast she called Hielo, and the cheetah beast Rowen, badly injured, his wounds fresh when they arrived. Rina claimed they had been attacked by rouge beast, that they had nowhere else to go. My father objected, warned Aleric that their origin was suspicious. But Aleric played the ever so kind host. He allowed her to stay despite my father’s warnings."
"She planned it all," Krane said, his voice hard with remembered rage. "The injury, the vulnerability, the gratitude. She knew exactly how to play him. Within a week, she had him wrapped around her finger. Within a month, she was sharing his bed and whispering poison in his ear."
"She spoke of a new order," Alara continued, her hands clenching into fists. "Where females would serve their mates absolutely, where the old ways would be cast aside, where strength alone would rule. Aleric listened. He liked the sound of it, liked the idea of being absolute ruler, of taking what he wanted without the bother of consent or tradition."
"And your father?" I asked, though I feared the answer.
"He discovered their true plan," Alara whispered, tears gathering in her eyes. "Rina was building an army, recruiting the discontented, the ambitious, the cruel. She intended to take over neighboring territories, to establish a kingdom where she ruled through her mates, where females were property and males were weapons. My father confronted Aleric, tried to reason with him, to remind him of his duty to our people."
Krane pulled her closer, his arm wrapping around her waist. "Aleric would not listen. He called your father a fool, an old man clinging to outdated traditions. And when your father threatened to expose Rina, to warn the other tribes..."
""Rina killed him and to make Rowen chief she killed Aleric," Alara finished, her voice breaking. "She had waited until a celebration, when the tribe was gathered and the wine flowed freely. She poisoned everyone with Merlroot, a plant that keeps you drowsy and confused, makes your wings heavy and your mind fogged. But Krane and I, we did not trust her. We never drank from her offered cups. When my father confronted Rina, accused her of betraying our ways, her cheetah mate struck him down where he stood. The others tried to fly away, to escape, but the drug had already taken effect. Their wings failed them. They fell from the sky, easy prey for Rina’s warriors."
"We tried to flee," Krane said, his voice grim. "But they caught us at the border. Rina’s cheetah mate, he is fast, vicious. He led the attack. They cut the wings of any who tried to resist, crippled them so they could not follow, could not warn others. Alara and I were the only ones who escaped with our wings intact, because we had not drunk the poison, because we could still fly while the others could not."
The room was silent, the fire crackling, the weight of their story pressing down on all of us like a physical force.
"She has an army now," Krane said, looking at each of us in turn. "Males who believe in Rina’s words, who want to take females without forming proper mate bonds, who see her vision of a world without the old laws as freedom rather than tyranny. Beast men who share her mindset, her hunger for power without constraint. They have flocked to her banner, drawn by the promise of dominance over those they once had to court and respect. And she is coming here. She spoke of it often, of the female who had humiliated her, of the mates she would take and break. She wants vengeance, but more than that, she wants to prove that her way is stronger than yours."
I felt my mates shift around me, their protective instincts flaring, their bodies coiling with readiness.
"Then she will have to go through us," Leon growled, his dark eyes burning with fury.
"All of us," Lisa said, rising from her seat, her voice ringing with the authority of a queen. "We will not cower. We will not surrender. We will fight, and we will win, or we will die trying. But we will not let her destroy what we have built."
I looked around the room, at my mates, at Alara and Krane, at Lisa and Raon, and I felt the first stirrings of hope. We were not alone. We had allies, we had strength, we had right on our side. And perhaps, just perhaps, that would be enough.
"We need to unite all the tribes who will stand with us. This is not just our fight anymore. It is everyone’s." I said.
I continued, "We will send messengers at dawn. And we will prepare for war. We will send word to Aureon’s tribe, Rhonda mate; Darius’s tribe, and all others who have allied themselves with us. Every hand that will fight beside us, every heart that still believes in the old ways, we will gather them."
Raon nodded, his massive frame straightening with purpose. "Then it is decided. We ride at first light."
The planning continued into the night, strategy and alliance and defense discussed until our voices grew hoarse and our eyes heavy. The impending war didn’t feel so bad now, I felt like we might actually have a chance. Not because we were the strongest, not because we were the most powerful, but because we were united.
And in the end, I was learning, that was the only thing that truly mattered.
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