CHAPTER TWO

In the silence that descended, shocked and hushed and utterly confused, the pretty omega up on the wall stared down at Ero with his face frozen in a mask of combined dread, surprise, and puzzlement, tinged with a spark of something else. Something Ero didn’t think the omega was even aware of himself, but it colored his scent with a touch of wildness and made him smell so very warm, against the coolness of the night.

Perhaps that scent, drugging and hot, was what had made Ero so impulsive. He hadn’t wanted this outcome, tonight. Hadn’t wanted the blood, the broken wolf at his feet, the pack staring at him with mingled deference, apprehension, and loathing. These weren’t his people. He had no people, and had no place here.

And he didn’t need a slim, wide-eyed, lovely thing trailing in his wake on his journey south.

The alpha was petite, small, with a sleek and heavy length of raven-black hair brushed back into a knot at the nape of his neck, stark contrast against skin as pale as pearls; his face was pert and delicate as a china doll’s, a little pink rosebud of a mouth set above a pointed chin, high cheekbones setting the stage for intensely vibrant green eyes shaded by lustrously thick lashes, their color so pale a cool jade they bordered on white. He couldn’t be older than a century, maybe two, when age was deceptive among wolves—moreso among those turned than those born, though from that certain something about his richly enticing, almost exotic scent, this omega had been born this way, well after the fall of the northern Disc had changed the world and everything in it.

When Ero looked up at the fragile sylph of an omega, the call from the north grew louder in his blood, darker, hungrier, whispering dark things that almost formed words. Words of blood; words of pain; words of mindless havoc and shadow, things that didn’t belong inside him yet he couldn’t escape. He could run to the farthest ends of the earth, and he would always hear that voice.

But as he met stunned green eyes, it hissed to him of blackest promises, a warning that he was walking a dangerous path.

The gray-haired wolf who’d addressed him before finally broke his stunned silence. “What?” he choked out. “You can’t claim the alpha’s mate—”

“I defeated the alpha,” Ero said firmly, and nudged the broken body at his feet with one foot. He couldn’t back down now, couldn’t show throat, or they would rip him to shreds. Or try to, forcing him to shed more blood when he hadn’t wanted this in the first place. “That would make him my mate.” He raised his gaze to the omega again. “Come down.”

The omega’s eyes flashed sharply, with a touch of defiant pride. Regal, almost—which said quite a bit, considering how run-down and dirty this fortress was, its wolves practically reduced to barbarians in ragged hides, their weapons crude bits of sharpened salvage metal strapped to their hips. The omega himself wore a simple double-layered robe of plain homespun that had been bleached to off-white, belted over his lissome body with a length of rope; yet he wore it as if it were the final royal raiment, carrying himself with the dignity befitting even the lowliest alpha’s mate.

That dignity showed in the measured deliberation with which he moved, making it clear he was choosing to obey Ero rather than cowed into submission; Ero bit back a smile. The man at his feet had likely had quite a bit of trouble teaching this one to know his place, and clearly hadn’t succeeded.

Ero, he thought, rather liked that.

Rather than descending the ladders or the steps, the omega leaped lightly over the raised lip of the outer wall; other wolves scattered out of his way as he dropped down as gracefully as a white petal, floating downward in a flare of his robes, swirling aside to reveal pale, shapely legs. He landed soundlessly, bare feet light against the earth, and straightened with his thin shoulders squared, stepping forward to stand across the fallen alpha’s body and looking up at Ero coldly.

Yet his lips trembled, and his scent spoke of fear and uncertainty, making a lie of that brave, brave face.

Ero flicked him over with another look. “Pack your things,” he said.

The omega said nothing, and didn’t move. Ero arched a brow.

“You want to stay here?” he asked. He wouldn’t force the omega away from his pack to satisfy a whim…but something in him was snarling at him, some deep inner animal instinct, and it said not to leave this fragile thing to the chaos that would come in the coming days, as the pack re-established its order with bloody dominance. But when the omega said nothing yet again, Ero prompted, “Say something.”

That stubborn chin jutted out, and the omega spoke, his voice soft as silk, with a faint burr like a sigh of whiskey. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything of your own free will.” Ero dropped his gaze to the broken alpha. “Did you mate him by choice?”

The omega’s breath sucked in, sharp and sudden, answering even before he glanced about furtively at the silently kneeling wolves, then answered hesitantly, “No.”

Ero closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He’d suspected as much. Opening his eyes again, he asked, “Do you love him?”

Nothing, at first. Those stark green eyes flickered, that mask of regal defiance cracking, and a faint flush colored the omega’s cheeks as he lowered his eyes, his throat working. “…no.”

“Is there anyone you wish to say your farewells to?” When the omega only shook his head, eyes remaining downcast, Ero nodded. “Then pack your things and come.”

The omega hesitated, then nodded, retreating a step. He flashed one more confused, questioning look at Ero, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair back behind his ear.

Then turned on his heel and fled, robes trailing in his wake.

For long moments, he was the only moving thing in the shadowed night, before Ero sighed and flicked his fingers at the gray-haired wolf. They were waiting for him to command them, even after he had rejected leadership.

How much had this alpha cowed and beaten them, that they couldn’t act without someone’s order?

“Tend to his wounds,” Ero said, ignoring the gray-haired wolf’s startled, guttural sounds and gesturing down at the broken alpha. “Make sure he survives. And fetch the things I asked. I have many miles still to cover before dawn.”

Still no one moved, at first—and he wondered if any of these wolves had known the world before the Disc; had known anything outside of pack law and rigid structures. He understood far too well why it had to be this way; in a world turned to ash and ruins and nightmare horrors, often the way of the pack was the only way to survive.

Yet it ached, to see what their kind had become.

Be honest with yourself, Ero.

Were you ever anything more than mindless monsters?

But after that frozen moment…slowly, the wolves began to rise, one man after another; they milled aimlessly for a moment, casting him doubtful, confused looks, before they began to trickle inside; he caught murmured orders, discussing how many solar cells, how much water they could afford to give. The water, at least, wouldn’t be a problem; he could smell the cool damp stone of a well somewhere inside the keep, drawing clean water from deep underground. The solar cells, he would not take any more than they could spare. They were backup, anyway. Hope that he might find a working vehicle somewhere on the highway, just waiting for enough power to kickstart it into moving. The odds were slim, but…

Hope kept him moving, if nothing else.

Slowly the arc of cleared earth in front of the walls emptied, until there were only the three wolves loading their defeated alpha onto a rough stretcher of homespun cloth and branches, carrying him inside. For a moment the wolf’s eyes slitted open; they were amber as a sunset and dark with loathing, with hatred. He didn’t speak. Ero didn’t think he could, when his broken neck was limiting his ability to heal and regenerate.

But the vicious, hateful glare that fixed on Ero as the wolf was carried away promised revenge, if their paths ever crossed again.

Ero held the wolf’s gaze until he disappeared inside the keep, falling within the shadow of the arched main doorway. He felt no animosity toward the wolf, for all that he’d provoked this confrontation unnecessarily.

It just left him tired, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He stood alone, then. Alone, and waiting…until the wolves of the pack began to return, bringing what he’d asked for as if bringing burnt offerings to an altar. Skins of water laid at his feet; a stack of battered solar cells, cylindrical and blocky. He retrieved his belt and slung it around his hips, then his pack, and selected four of the solar cells before leaving the rest. He found room for them in his pack, tucked among his other supplies, then slung it over his shoulder and looped the straps of the water skins over his arm, letting them hang against his back. Only one more thing before he could leave…and as those near-soundless steps whispered from inside the keep once more, the wolves hovering outside formed double lines as if standing in honor guard, making a path that delivered the lovely green-eyed omega from within the keep to Ero’s feet.

He had only a small bag that looked as if it had been stitched together from two roughly cured rabbit furs, hanging limply at his side. And even if he regarded Ero with that same coolly detached bravery…

He was trembling.

Ero was stealing him from his home and couldn’t even explain to himself why he was doing it, and the pretty little thing was trembling with fear.

Let him go, he told himself.

But something inside him balked, when he feared that as the pack destabilized…

The omega of the former alpha might find himself dead by morning.

Dead, or raped by someone trying to claim him in order to claim their place as the new alpha.

Still the child said nothing—and now that Ero looked at him more closely, he was a child, no matter that he’d reached physical maturity. He couldn’t be even a century old, and already mated and given away to be an alpha’s breeding toy.

“Do your parents know you’re going?” Ero asked.

“My parents went north years ago,” the omega replied bitterly.

“I’m sorry.”

The omega said nothing else, but his stark, haunted gaze seemed to ask…

Are you?

“Come,” Ero said, and turned away from the keep, toward the dense-packed forest and its clustered mix of pines and oak. He wanted away from here. Away from the scents of fear and confusion; away from the blank stares that watched him. For a moment he thought someone would stop him; that the omega would balk, refuse.

But with one last uncertain glance back at the keep…the omega followed him, walking two steps behind and to the left of him, his head bowed and his feet rustling softly as they stepped from beaten earth onto fallen trees, twigs, straw.

Ero set his path south once more. He wanted to be clear of the scent markers of the pack’s territory by dawn, possibly even clear of this forest, though he’d rather camp under cover than out in the open; it would depend on what he found beyond the tree line, when it had been centuries since he’d taken this route south. Tense silence brimmed between them, punctuated only by the occasional soft hiss and a cracking of twigs as the omega picked his way over the ground cover. Ero could move faster, cover more ground on his own, but he kept his stride slow so as not to outdistance his newly acquired charge. And he waited nearly half an hour to speak, until he could no longer hear the confused, angry, panicked voices drifting on the wind, carrying from the keep and mingling with the night-sounds of sleeping birds, small animals darting through the brush.

“You don’t have to worry,” he said, slowing his stride until they walked side by side along a wide swath of clear earth beneath the overhanging branches; the smoothness of the earth underneath said there was probably pavement buried under his feet somewhere, as obscured as the last concrete remnants of buildings that remained scattered about under the trees, chunks buried underneath soil and grass until they became faerie mounds for a blackened world. “I’m not going to mate you.”

The omega dropped back once more, putting that same distance between them—but he seemed to catch himself, and caught up to Ero in a few quick steps, eyeing him warily. “Then why…?”

Ero wished he knew. He tilted his head back, looking up at the trees, and beyond them the faint glimpses of the stars, as if they could offer answers.

“You hated that,” he said after some consideration, choosing his words carefully. “Watching your alpha challenge me because he’s been taught that’s who he’s supposed to be. He’s been taught that power is who is the loudest, who is the angriest, who is the most abusive.” He glanced at the omega, and offered a faint smile. “So I thought I’d give you somewhere else to be.”

The omega’s eyes widened briefly, before he looked away. “Where are we going?”

“South,” Ero answered. “To warmer lands for the winter.”

“You really don’t have a pack?”

“I guess I do now.” Ero looked down at bare white toes peeking past the omega’s robe; the robe’s hem was quickly growing dirty, and even now bruises slowly faded away and into pale skin, healing gradually. “You don’t have shoes?”

With a flush in his cheeks, the omega winced. “…no.”

Ero understood, then. Understood that this lovely thing had been taught helplessness; cultivated to be dependent on an alpha, so that even if he wanted to run away…

He couldn’t.

Not without suffering, as he fought to adapt to a world that wasn’t made for soft things like him.

And suddenly, Ero wished he had drawn more blood from an alpha cruel enough to do this to his mate.

He shifted the burdens on his back to distribute them more evenly, then stepped in front of the omega and dropped to one knee.

“Come here.”

“What are you—oh!”

The omega let out a startled sound as Ero reached back and hooked behind his knees, pulling him against Ero’s back and catching him up. As he stood, carrying the omega with him on his back, the pretty little thing yelped, clutching his knees against Ero’s hips and digging his fingers into his shoulders. He was soft, so very light, and so very warm, that radiant body heat that marked the Impure, that separated them from cooler-blooded humans; his breaths curled against the back of Ero’s neck, filtering through his hood, and his scent wrapped around Ero in a cloud of warm flesh and the particular sweet musk that marked an omega.

Ero shifted his grip to support him beneath slim thighs, firmly ignoring the way his fingers sank into the soft flesh beneath thin homespun fabric; firmly ignoring the way the omega’s legs strained to spread around him, only the bags on Ero’s back keeping them from pressing too intimately together.

“Try not to kick too much,” he said, as he set forward on the path again.

After a tentative moment, the omega relaxed his death grip on Ero’s shoulders, and slowly wrapped slender arms around his neck. His voice thrummed softly in Ero’s ear. “Won’t you get tired?”

“You barely weigh anything,” Ero said, ignoring the way that soft voice pulled on him, seeming to call to the wolf inside him as alluringly as the light of moonrise. “We’ll find you some shoes to fit you and some proper travel clothing later.”

“Where?”

“Another settlement with friendlier wolves.” He frowned, turning over his mental map of the surrounding area. “Maybe Chattanooga, if the humans are still there. If they’ll tolerate us enough to trade.”

“Where’s Chattanooga?” the omega asked, sounding puzzled, and Ero almost stumbled in his tracks.

“You don’t…” He nearly swore. It was worse than he’d thought; this child was a naïve thing with no knowledge of the world outside his pack at all, wasn’t he? “You don’t know the nearby settlements.”

The omega shook his head, his pointed chin brushing lightly against Ero’s shoulder. “I don’t know anywhere but Neg.”

Ero restrained a bitter laugh. “Is that what they’re calling it now. ‘Neg.’”

“Was it ever anything else?”

“A long time ago, before Discfall, it was Fort Negley National Park. And the city that was here, before it was ruins, was called Nashville.” He turned his head enough to catch one pale green eye, and wondered what it was like to see the world only as it was, instead of what it had once been. “Someone rebuilt the fort, and now it’s…” He shook his head. “Nevermind.”

Biting his lip, a faint tremor in his voice, the omega whispered, “I didn’t know any of that.”

“It’s hard to know a world you’ve never seen. And there’s far more world than your pack, little one.” Ero shifted his grip, pulling the omega closer against him. “Does that frighten you?”

“A little,” the omega admitted softly—but underneath the fear in his scent was a spark of excitement, too, and that spark told Ero maybe, just maybe…

He hadn’t made a terrible choice, stealing this small thing away from his home.

“It should,” he said softly. “It’s terrifying. But it’s beautiful, too.”

They continued in silence for some time, then, as Ero picked up speed, the negligible weight on his back hardly slowing him down as he followed his nose toward water. There was a creek not far south of here, if he remembered correctly, and then east was a longer network of creeks and tributaries he could follow a good ways south as he made his way toward the port at New Orleans. The omega was quiet against his back, just the feel and sound of a heartbeat, of breaths, of a soft living body against him, and Ero thought for a minute he had even drifted off, until he stirred himself awake with a sleepy sound and spoke.

“What did you mean,” he asked, “did I mate him by choice?”

Ero glanced back. “What do you mean by asking that?”

“I…” The omega looked so lost, struggling, eyes flickering—as if he’d never had to articulate concepts like these in his life, as if he didn’t even have the words. “I am omega. I am given to the wolf who proves himself to my father as my mate.” He hesitated, then said as if reciting something he had been taught time and time again, “I was fortunate to be chosen by the alpha.”

“What’s so fortunate if you didn’t choose the alpha as well?”

The omega’s brows knit. “I don’t understand.”

“Consent, child. It’s called consent.” Ero sighed. The complete lack of understanding in those wide, liquid green eyes shouldn’t bother him so much. He started to say the child’s name—but then realized he didn’t even know it. He’d been out alone in the wilds for too long, going his own way, and forgotten even his manners. “What’s your name?”

“Wren,” the omega said softly. “Wren Striker.”

“Is Striker your alpha’s clan name?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s no longer yours. You’re just Wren.” Ero turned his gaze forward again. He could hear whispers in the distance; a stand of dryads must be close by, rooted near the water of the creek. He adjusted course to make for the whispers; not even the Disc-touched howling dead would dare disturb a grove, and he could think of nowhere else safer to camp. “My name is Ero. Ero Wake.”

“That’s a strange name,” Wren said, and Ero smiled.

“My parents were probably strange people,” he said, and forged on through the trees.

 

T

Wren didn’t remember falling asleep.

He’d never been this far outside the keep before; even when he’d been a small thing, before his parents had given in to the whispers from the north and straggled away, never to be seen again…he’d never been allowed to play out of sight of the keep walls, barely venturing into the trees. Farther than a few dozen yards and the world was an alien thing to him, and the only safe wall standing between him and these unfamiliar wilds was the wall of man currently carrying Wren on his back.

At first the newness of the night had been terrifying and fascinating, Wren’s pulse pounding as he slowly lost the scent of the wolves he’d known his entire life and instead picked up on new scents that before he’d only known from a distance: running water bubbling somewhere, a fox skulking through the brush, pine needles warm with feathers and down as birds made their nests and slept in them with little chirping whistles.

He wanted to experience it all, and hide from it all at once; he wanted to run, when he didn’t know what this strange wolf wanted from him, this man who was his new mate and yet said he didn’t want to mate him; this beast who fought with such brutality that he’d destroyed Connaught with the barest touch and yet handled Wren so gently; the only other wolf in this sudden pack of two, who had torn Wren’s world to pieces and left him confused and shattered and utterly adrift, with no idea what tomorrow would bring.

Ero Wake.

He didn’t make sense to Wren, and that was most frightening of all.

He couldn’t hide his fear, not from a wolf’s senses…but Ero at least let him have his dignity by not commenting on it, letting the silence stretch between them; for such a large man he moved with such lightness that his steps didn’t make a sound on the ground. He was so warm between Wren’s thighs, heat baking through his leathers, and Wren buried his face against the back of his shoulder and tried to ignore that he was wrapped around the thick breadth of a man’s bulk with rough leather scraping his bare inner thighs. He’d never been in such a compromising position with anyone but his mate.

I defeated the alpha. That would make him my mate.

He flushed, burrowing deeper into the scent of skin-warmed leather, and tried not to think about it. He didn’t know how he would feel, if he did.

How was Ero claiming him any different from being given to Connaught, really?

He hadn’t had a choice, either way.

It was with those thoughts riding his shoulders that he had drifted off, lulled by the steady rhythm of Ero’s gait. He slept without dreaming, losing himself in the dark…until a shift in Ero’s stride jostled him enough to pull him back toward consciousness. The scent and sound of water was much closer now—a bright and cheery trickle, the smell fresh and cool and a little muggy. The air was colder here, with a touch of wind that cut through his thin robes and chilled his skin.

Sleepily, he opened one eye—then stiffened as he realized he was still on Ero’s back, wrapped around him and clinging tight. Ero had stopped on the bank of a wide creek, in a tree-lined clearing at the base of a low slope. The pines and oak trees faded into trees the likes of which Wren had never seen—slender and curving things with twisted trunks that seemed to mimic the flow of bodies, as if limbs and delicate full-lipped faces blended in and out of the wood. Many of the trees twined their upper branches with each other, seeming to lean toward each other as if they would press their strange faces together in a kiss, but were forever denied. Some had even wound their trunks together, like two bodies twined together in mating, and Wren flushed hotly and looked away.

“So you’re awake?” Ero rumbled, turning his head until Wren caught one blue eye. “Will you be all right if I let you down?”

“Y-yes.”

“Brace yourself, then.”

Ero shifted to drop down to one knee, bringing Wren closer to the ground, then gently lowered his legs until Wren felt cool leaves and earth against the soles of his feet. He clutched at Ero’s shoulders, wobbling unsteadily, his inner thighs sore and aching, and as his legs tried to go out from beneath him he yelped and grabbed harder at Ero.

“Steady now,” Ero murmured, holding still and letting Wren cling to him. “You’re probably a bit stiff; you’ve been asleep for quite a few hours.”

The horizon was lightening, Wren realized; he couldn’t see much beyond the line of trees across the creek, but the sky overhead was grayish-blue, tinged with yellow far over the tops of the trees. Dawn. He was seeing his first dawn from outside the keep…and his breaths stilled as he looked up at the open sky, a strange sense of wonder filling him.

Until Ero gently drew away, leaving him to stand on his own, watching as the man hefted his bulk to his feet with powerful movements and unslung his pack and waterskins from his back. “You can bathe in the creek if you want to,” Ero said, sinking into a crouch and beginning to sweep dead leaves away from bare earth with both hands. “But don’t drink from it. The water’s still not safe where human cities were, but it’ll clear enough to drink once we get a few dozen more miles south.”

Wren bit his lip. “So the well at the keep wasn’t safe…? Didn’t it used to be a human city?”

“I’m sure it was fine as long as it was dug deep enough. Natural aquifers are usually deep enough to avoid contamination.” Ero pushed to his feet, body flexing almost sensuously, and scanned the tree line, blue eyes distant above his mask. “We’ll camp here for the day and move on with sunset. Are you hungry?”

Wren shook his head quickly. His stomach was in so many knots he didn’t think he could eat, but he didn’t know what to do, standing here helplessly. “I…is there anything I can do to help?”

Ero’s gaze shifted to him, and his mouth shifted behind his scarf in what Wren thought might be a smile. “Do you think you can gather firewood?”

Wren nodded. “I can do that.”

“Stay away from the naked branches here.” Ero gestured toward a few small fallen limbs that had been pushed to one side of the cleared circle of earth—the same pale, barkless wood as the strangely humanoid trees around them. “We don’t burn those. Look for pine with the bark still on.” He paused. “And stay where I can see you.”

Wren nodded again, backing away a few steps, then turning to pick his way up the short slope, brushing past the sparse stands of oddly intertwined trees. His body brushed one in passing, and a strange hum went through him, as if the tree had shocked him; he jerked back with a gasp, eyeing it warily, its serene face seeming to look back at him.

He circled and gave those trees a wide berth, as he bent to start picking up scattered and gnarled pine branches that had fallen from the trees along the slope.

As he worked, he watched Ero from the corner of his eye. Ero finished clearing a wide circle of earth, pulling up some loose grass, then piled a small bit of dead leaves in the center; when Wren brought back his first armload of branches, Ero took them with a terse nod and arranged them in a pyramid propped over the dead leaves, with several more larger twigs inside the pyramid and layered atop the leaves. Flint and steel came to hand from his pack, then, and he struck spark after spark until he was able to light a slender twig and hold its burning tip inside the pyramid until the dead leaves caught, the scent of scorching plant matter and smoke crackling on the air as they went up quickly, caught the twigs, burned through them with a hotter flame, then moved on to the branches, releasing the stinging scent of pine pitch with little crackling pops.

Ero did these things with a simple efficiency that seemed born of familiarity, while Wren felt as awkward as a child as he went back for another armload of branches; he was trying to think practically, think sensibly, or he’d start to panic. One armload of branches wouldn’t be enough to keep the fire going, or stave off the chilly day; he’d stock up enough to make sure the flames burned bright until sunset. If he made himself useful…

If he made himself useful, maybe this wolf wouldn’t abandon him out here to die.

While Wren gathered more and more wood, dirtying his robes with flaking bark, Ero unknotted the drawstring on his largest pack and dug out a pile of faded, ragged plaid blankets, tightly compacted into rolls and seeming to spring out from their compressed state into fluffy layers, including a padded thing with zippers covered in a shiny material that looked too thick and bulky to have rolled down to such a small bundle. Briskly Ero set up two sleeping places, one to either side of the fire—one with a few folded blankets layered into a pallet, the other piled with the fluffy padded thing that looked like…some kind of sleeping sack? as well as several more of those faded blankets.

Wren brought back his last armload of wood and piled it atop the stack to one side, then dusted himself off. “Is that enough?”

“It should be.” Ero settled down on the thinner pallet and nodded toward the thicker one. “Rest up if you’re tired. I’ll wake you when it’s time to move on.”

Wren blinked. “But…that’s the wrong bed.”

Ero looked amused. “How so?”

“It’s the big one.”

“It’s the soft one.” Ero sat cross-legged, leaning back on his hands. “I’m accustomed to sleeping on the hard ground. You’re not. We’re splitting our resources until we can get you your own bedroll, so take it for now.”

Wren didn’t understand. Was this alpha…showing him deference? But…that wasn’t…alphas took the best of everything first, then their mates, then the rest of the pack, but Ero seemed to think nothing of giving Wren the best sleeping place. But if this were Connaught…

Nothing came without a price, Wren thought, and he knew what Ero must want for this.

He bit his lip, then took a straggling step closer to Ero’s pallet; the wolf looked up at him with lazy curiosity, blue eyes half-lidded above the scarf over his mouth, and Wren tried to ignore the shaking of his heart as he dropped to his knees next to Ero’s pallet and reached for the belt buckled around the man’s hips with trembling finger.

Only for a firm—but not cruel—grip to snap around his wrist, arresting him in place and seizing his heart in a startled beat. He jerked his gaze up guiltily, meeting Ero’s eyes, fingers curling into a fist.

“Don’t,” Ero said softly, shaking his head, and gently pushed Wren’s hand away before releasing it. “You don’t have to do that.”

Wren curled his hand against his chest. Had he done something wrong already? “You…really don’t want anything from me?”

“No.” Said so calmly, yet without censure or judgment. “I don’t want a mate taken under duress. And I don’t intend to take one by force.” Pale blue eyes cut into him. “You don’t have to feel obligated to give yourself to me.”

Wren sat back on his heels. “But if I don’t, you won’t protect me.”

“Did I say that?”

Ero reached up to remove his hood, then—pulling it back to reveal an inky tumble of wild, tangled black hair streaked in silver, falling down to those broad shoulders and framing his face. He tugged his scarf down around his neck, revealing handsome features that looked like the stone statues Wren had once seen in a book back at the keep. The book hadn’t had a cover and he hadn’t known the name, but it had had photos inside and he had spelled out the letters beneath one white stone man with strange barbed wings and a beautifully tortured face, pensive and handsome and thoughtful: L-U-C-I-F-E-R. The pages had been ragged and stained, but he’d been able to make that out, read the letters every day to try to figure out how they sounded until his birth-father caught him with the book and took it away and he never saw it again.

Ero reminded him of that statue, cast in tanned flesh rather than white stone, the graceful and stubborn line of his jaw framed by a close-cropped black beard…and he was beautiful and wild and strange, with kind lines seamed around his eyes.

And he took Wren’s breath away.

Lifting one thick, brutish hand, Ero raked the fall of his hair back out of his face, further tangling and mussing it. “You’re my responsibility,” he continued. “I made the choice to drag you out here. I’ll protect you. You don’t have to do anything to earn that. The only thing you have to do is stay alive.”

Wren tore himself away from staring and looked down, curling his hands into fists in his lap. “I don’t know how to do that, out here.”

“Do you want to go back?” Ero asked softly. “I never asked you if you wanted to leave. If you want to go back, I’ll take you. I’ll make sure they take you back with no harm.”

“I…”

Did Wren want to go back?

Was there anything for him to go back to?

Even if the pack put itself back together, even if Connaught reclaimed his leadership and went on as if nothing had changed…did Wren want to go back to that, just because it was safe and familiar? Days of idle nothingness, barely even contributing to anything when Connaught had had notions about pampering him as the alpha’s mate; other omegas tended to the keep or cared for the pups or made things, but Connaught only expected Wren to remain sealed up in their chambers, practically imprisoned, only waiting for Connaught to return to rut into him as if he would get him with child and somehow, some way, make Wren look at him with the adoration the alpha had seemed desperate to force from him.

He’d always thought…

Always thought that was how it would be, until they grew to hate each other and eventually Wren was cast aside for a younger omega who might be more of what Connaught wanted—more obedient, more biddable, more enamored to be the alpha’s mate. Maybe Wren would mate again, but probably not, when no one wanted an alpha’s cast-offs. He would become a spinster, earning his keep by mending clothing or curing hides or some other small useful skill the men of the pack never wanted to bother with, and in some small way he’d been looking forward to that.

He still would have been part of the pack, part of the keep, but in some part it would have been freedom.

Yet in a single night, a single fight, Ero had changed that. Completely transformed any idea of what a future might look like, for Wren.

And while he feared the unknown outside his familiar walls, he would rather face that than return to an empty life dully waiting for Connaught to hold him down and pretend those frenetic, desperate thrusts were anything like love.

“…no,” he admitted. “I’ll stay with you. If…if you’ll teach me how to live.”

“I don’t know if I have anything to teach you.” Ero draped his arms across his knees, studying the fire; it flickered and created gold and orange highlights in his pale blue eyes. “But I’ll take you south with me, to the Silk Islands. You’ll at least be able to make your own way there.” Ero’s gaze shifted back to Wren, studying him thoughtfully. “You’ll be safe. It’s a good place to start if you want to choose your own life, instead of the one defined for you.”

Wren bit his tongue. It didn’t sound very safe to him, dropped alone in a strange place…but just because Ero had said Wren was his responsibility now didn’t mean he would want to keep that responsibility forever. “What are the Silk Islands?”

Ero’s lips creased subtly, not quite a smile. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Tell me?” Wren asked softly. “Tell me like a story to put me to sleep. So I won’t be afraid outside.”

Ero’s quiet, patient expression never shifted. “Have you ever slept outside under the sky before, Wren?”

“No. Never.”

“Then for today…” Ero lifted his chin toward the other pallet. “Watch the sky. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about the Silk Islands.”

Wren nodded, withdrawing to the other side of the fire, until it was a barrier between them, a crackling wall of flame and the good, safe smells of burning wood. “Okay,” he said, and settled on top of the pallet to brush his dirty feet off before he prodded at the zippered side.

It was a sheath, he realized, and the outer layer was waterproof while the inside was soft and insulated, even more so with the layered blankets both on top and below it. Tentatively he slipped his body inside…then let out a low sound of pleasure and burrowed deeper, snuggling down up to his shoulders with only the top of his head peeking out. The layered bedding against the yielding earth was better than any furs on hard stone, and the fire seemed to soak its heat into the material until the inside of the sheath was as warm as an embrace.

He watched Ero past the edge of the sleeping sack, curling his fingers against the seam where the soft inner material met the reflective outer material; the man held entirely still, and didn’t look as if he’d be sleeping any time soon. After several long, silent minutes of staring at the crackling fire, Ero unscrewed one of the water skins and took a drink, then shifted to lie down on his thinner pile of blankets, draping one over his hips and pillowing his head on one thickly muscled arm.

Wren bit his lip, then ventured, “You’re not what I expected.”

Ero had started to close his eyes—but now he stopped, looking at Wren through the faint haze of sparks rising between them. “What did you expect?”

“A monster,” he admitted.

For several minutes, Ero said nothing, and Wren shrank down deeper into the sleeping sack. Had he offended him? Or was he just…saying silly things that made no sense?

But finally, “I am a monster,” Ero rumbled, an edge of something pensive and dark in his voice. “But I’ve never forgotten that I’m a man, too.”

Then he shifted onto his other side, leathers and skin hissing against blankets as he gave Wren his back. Wren watched him for several lingering moments, then turned onto his back and looked up at the sky, turning pink and bloody and lush and soft with dawn. He’d never seen it this way before, with no walls anywhere in sight, and there was something about it that made him sad; that felt strange and lonely, this endless thing marching on forever, untouchable no matter how much it might want to reach down and just…

Touch.

And all around the strange trees with their living faces shifted and sighed, and Wren caught a breath as he heard their branches rub together, and in those strange sounds were words, low and dreaming.

He lives, the trees said, and Wren shivered and closed his eyes and told himself to sleep. The touched one still lives.