Chapter 2: The Public Demand
The great hall of the longhouse was a cacophony of everything Cole despised. Laughter boomed off the smoke-blackened rafters, the kind of hard, mirthless laughter that followed a story about a broken bone. The air was thick with the greasy scent of roasting boar and the sour tang of spilled ale. Torchlight danced over the painted pelts of conquered rivals, their glassy eyes seeming to track his every shuffling step.
He kept his head down, the wooden serving tray a heavy weight in his hands. It was laden with crude clay mugs, frothing over with the pack’s home-brewed mead. Another of his father’s elegant humiliations: playing omega servant to the visiting Alphas. His knuckles were white where he gripped the tray, his scars itching beneath his rough-spun tunic.
“Move your feet, boy,” a gruff voice muttered as he passed Beta Garen’s table. A hand cuffed the back of his head, not hard enough to spill the drinks, but hard enough to sting. A ripple of chuckles followed him.
His destination was the high table. His father sat at its center like a craggy king on a throne of worn oak, deep in conversation with Kaelen. The Crimson Dawn Alpha looked out of place here. He wore simple, dark clothes, but they were clean, tailored. He carried himself with a stillness that seemed to repel the chaos of the hall. He wasn’t drinking as heavily as the others; his nearly-full mug was set precisely before him.
Cole approached from Charles’s blind side, hoping to pour and retreat without notice. He set the tray down, the clatter lost in the din. He reached for his father’s empty cup first, the familiar fear a cold knot in his stomach. As he lifted the jug, his hands, slick with nervous sweat, betrayed him. The heavy earthenware vessel slipped a fraction, and a single drop of dark mead splashed onto the table between the two Alphas.
Charles’s head snapped around. His eyes, the color of chilled flint, locked onto Cole. The conversation at the table died.
“Clumsy,” Charles said, the word soft and lethal.
Cole’s breath hitched. “Sorry, Alpha.” He hurried to fill the cup, his movements jerky.
“He’s nervous.” The voice wasn’t his father’s. It was Kaelen’s, a low, smooth baritone that cut through the background noise. Cole dared a glance. Kaelen was watching him, those green eyes unblinking. There was no sympathy in them. It was the scrutiny of a man assessing a strange animal.
Charles waved a dismissive hand. “He’s always nervous. It’s his natural state. Like a rabbit.” He turned back to Kaelen, leaning in. “Now, as I was saying about the border patrols…”
Cole moved to fill Kaelen’s mug next. He had to reach across the Alpha’s broad chest. As he tipped the jug, the world narrowed. His pulse hammered in his ears. He focused on the mead, on the steady stream of liquid, on anything but the powerful man seated inches away.
Then it happened.
Kaelen moved. Not away, but into the space between them. His hand shot out, his fingers closing around Cole’s wrist like a steel manacle. The pour stopped dead. The contact was electric, shocking, a jolt of pure heat that shot up Cole’s arm and stole the air from his lungs. His heart didn’t just pound; it seemed to stutter and crack against his ribs.
Kaelen’s nostrils flared. He drew in a long, slow breath, his gaze intense, dissecting. He was scenting him. Right here, at the high table, in front of everyone. Cole’s subtle, anxiety-muffled omega scent—something even his own pack often overlooked—was being deliberately, publicly consumed.
A low, rumbling sound began in Kaelen’s chest. A growl. It wasn’t loud, but it carried. It was a primal sound, a vibration that cut through the chatter and the music. Conversations at the nearest tables stumbled and ceased. Heads turned.
Charles stiffened. “Kaelen? Is there an issue?”
Kaelen ignored him. His eyes never left Cole’s, who was frozen, trapped in that green gaze. The Alpha’s thumb brushed once, almost imperceptibly, over the frantic pulse point on Cole’s inner wrist.
Then Kaelen raised his voice. It wasn’t a shout, but it was a command that filled the sudden, ringing silence of the great hall.
“This one,” he said, his words clear and absolute, “comes with me tonight.”
He finally looked at Charles, his expression a mask of cold, Alpha certainty. “Or there is no alliance.”
The silence that followed was absolute. The fire crackled in the hearth. Someone dropped a mug, and the shatter sounded like a gunshot. Every eye in the longhouse was on them—on Cole’s wrist, still enclosed in Kaelen’s grip, on his father’s face, which was darkening with a dangerous, incredulous rage.
Charles leaned forward, his voice a venomous whisper meant only for Kaelen, but carried in the quiet. “What is this? He is my son. A defective. You saw him today. He’s nothing.”
“He is your son,” Kaelen agreed, his tone flat. “And your treatment of your own blood tells me everything I need to know about your honor. The terms of our agreement just changed.” He released Cole’s wrist. The sudden absence of that heat left Cole cold, adrift. “He leaves with my party at first light. As my ward. Consider it a gesture of good faith.”
“A ward?” Charles spat the word. “You want to take my omega son as a hostage?”
“I want to remove a point of contention,” Kaelen corrected, standing. He towered over the seated Alpha, a study in controlled power. “Your… focus on him is a distraction. It weakens your pack. I am doing you a favor. The alliance proceeds, but on cleaner ground. My terms are final.”
He turned, his gaze sweeping the stunned hall. It landed once more on Cole, who stood trembling beside the table, the forgotten jug still in his hand.
“Go,” Kaelen said to him, not unkindly, but with absolute authority. “Pack what you need. Be ready before sunrise.”
Cole didn’t look at his father. He couldn’t. The fury radiating from the man was a physical force. He set the jug down with a clumsy thud, turned on unsteady legs, and walked. The crowd of warriors and pack members parted for him like a sea, their stares boring into his back. He heard the muttered questions, the confusion, the rising anger.
He pushed through the heavy hide curtain at the hall’s entrance and stumbled out into the frigid night air. It was like diving into a cold lake. He gasped, doubling over, his hands on his knees. The stars above were sharp, indifferent points of light.
He was going. Just like that. One sentence, one grip of a wrist, and the axis of his life had tilted. It wasn’t freedom. It was an exchange of one master for another, a leap from the known terror to an abyss of unknown. But Kaelen had seen him. Had smelled him. Had claimed him from the high table in front of the entire pack.
A wild, treacherous hope, thin and fragile as an ice layer, began to form over the deep lake of his fear. It was the most dangerous feeling he’d ever had.
Behind him, inside the longhouse, he heard the crash of a table being overturned, and his father’s roar of fury swallowed by the night. Cole didn’t wait to hear more. He ran, his feet pounding the frozen earth, heading for the lonely outbuilding he called home, the Alpha’s command ringing in his ears like a death knell, or perhaps, a lifeline.