Chapter Twenty-Three
They spent the rest of their evening at the party, talking and eating. Ronan introduced Noah to everyone who was there, including his brother. Noah was a bit put out that he hadn’t mentioned having a brother before, but he got over it when Ronan brought him a large slice of fudge cake to make up for it.
Griffin stayed until early evening, though he kept to the background, like normal. Ronan always felt that their leader liked the atmosphere of these kinds of gatherings but not being in the spotlight.
When they returned to their rooms, Noah, energized by their evening, was in the mood to talk.
“What kind of training is Griffin talking about?”
“I guess you’ll find that out tomorrow,” Ronan replied, tugging off his shirt.
“You don’t know?”
“I’m not sure exactly what Griffin has in mind for you. But I trust him. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Who is he?” Noah asked. “Where did he come from, how did he end up here?”
Ronan turned to face the inquisitive omega, leaning back against the dresser. “Those are questions best asked of him, not me. It’s his story to tell.”
“What about you?” Noah asked. “How did you get here. What’s your story? You already know mine.”
His mate had a point. It was time Ronan shared a glimpse into his past.
“Let’s get more comfortable first.”
“Here, on the bed?”
“I was thinking more the training room. I could do with a workout.”
Noah followed behind him as they made their way there. The omega sat crossed-legged on the ground while Ronan went to the pull-up bar and started a familiar routine. Something to keep his hands and body busy while he spoke.
“You know wolf shifters aren’t common, right?”
Noah nodded.
“What else do you know about them?”
“The knotting thing,” Noah said with a blush and a smile.
“Anything else?”
“You’re good at tracking. And at fighting.”
“Right. If you were going to pick the top two shifter species for combat, you’d choose wolf and—”
“Bear,” Noah finished.
“Exactly.” Ronan glanced up at the ceiling, staring at it for a long moment before looking back to Noah.
“When I was seven, my pack decided that they wanted me to be formally trained as a fighter. They sent me away to be trained.”
Noah sat forward, listening intently.
“The idea of these places is that they turn out the ultimate fighters, the pinnacle of strength, of bravery. All the benefits of being an alpha without the limitations.”
“Limitations?”
“An alpha in rut is seen as dangerous by some and weak by others. An alpha who encounters a potential bond mate can become distracted by them, to the detriment of their duties. And an alpha who is mated will drop everything at the first sign that their mate is in trouble. They sought to eliminate that from the fighters they trained.”
Noah was frowning, his eyebrows knitted together. “But how would they… wait… your scars?”
The omega put it together much faster than Ronan had expected.
“They take you in around the age of seven and train you until you’re seventeen. Each and every year you’re with them, you undergo a ceremony where they make a cut across the back of your neck. It inhibits our alpha nature. The idea is that by the time you reach seventeen, the cuts have rendered bonding impossible. You won’t go into rut or get mating urges or knot. You’ll be the perfect, balanced, fighting machine.”
“What happened?” Noah asked, his voice a hushed whisper.
“My pack got greedy. They sent my little brother to be trained as well, and I learned they were going to sell him to another, upper-class pack. They’d keep me for their own protection while he funded our alpha’s lavish lifestyle. So, Quinn and I made a pact, and we escaped.”
“Just like that?”
“Getting away was the easy part. Staying free was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. We were so close to getting caught again, a dozen times over. Six months on the run, never staying anywhere more than a day or two. Always sleeping with an eye open, listening out for trouble.”
“How’d you manage to stay free?”
“The training school weren’t the only people looking for us. There were others who knew our value and wanted to take advantage. Or simply sell us back to them and make a profit. A group of bounty hunters banded together and caught us. We thought that was it. We were done.”
He stopped his workout, pacing to the window and staring out. Even all these years later, he still felt that jolt of fear when he realized they were done running.
The sound of footsteps behind him was followed by a set of arms sliding around his waist, Noah hugging him from behind.
“The bounty hunters were arguing over who to sell us to. They had a few potential buyers lined up, including the training school. One of them had the bright idea to double-cross them, take money from all of them and then let them fight it out. But someone tipped the buyers off, and they all arrived at the place they were holding us.”
Ronan placed his hands over Noah’s, feeling the press of the omega’s face against his back.
“We could hear the fighting going on outside, but we couldn’t do anything except sit and wait to see who won. Then, in the middle of it all, the door opened, and this omega kid poked his head in. Asked us if we wanted to get out of there. I was so sure it was a trap or a trick, but what choice did we have? So, we went with him.”
“That was Griffin?” Noah asked. “Griffin rescued you?”
“He did.”
“How? Why?”
“I’ve wondered that myself a lot since then. The best answer I can come up with is that he was lonely, and he saw us as kindred spirits of a sort.”
He knew Noah wanted to ask more but stopped him. “You’ll understand more when you hear his story. But that’s mine.”
Turning until they were face-to-face, he stroked Noah’s cheek. “We all have scars. You’ve shown me yours, and I’ve shown you mine.”
“You did all that to protect your brother?”
“He was the one person in all the world I’d have died for. It wasn’t until then that I really saw what they were doing to us and how wrong it was. Just like what your pack planned for you was wrong. You didn’t choose your scars, didn’t choose the path you walked. But that’s changed. Back at the boarding house, you made a choice. And you’ve been making them ever since.”
“I’ve always been at the mercy of someone else,” Noah said. “When I was younger, my brother tried to protect me. But I think later he felt embarrassed by me. My parents never really cared. I was like a piece of driftwood, I went where the tide took me.”
A smile lit up Noah’s face as he spoke. “But then I found you and you anchored me. I can choose my own path because I know which way is north. Because you’re my north.”
Ronan hugged Noah to him.
“If you can find north, you’ll never be lost.”