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Leif sighed. “I don’t want to be with the little – with Tessa. She and Rune are a good match, and I’m happy for them.”
“You sure do sound it. So that leaves me, then. Or maybe being a wolf isn’t all you dreamed it would be, hm?”
Leif paused, and turned toward him, hands balling to fists, a growl building in his throat. “I never–”
Ragnar grinned, fangs flashing.
Bastard.
“Stop doing that,” Leif said with a sigh, turning away.
“Doing what? Worrying about my alpha?”
“I hate you.”
Ragnar – and his low, dark chuckle – followed him as he pressed on ahead. You asked for this, he reminded himself. You could have executed him. Could have left him to rot. But even now, with his smug laughter ringing in his ears, and the overwhelming sense of his presence, the fear that Náli’s magic might not hold, the idea of taking an axe to his neck, or of him languishing in the dungeons for the rest of his days, left Leif shuddering.
Physically. Ragnar hummed a curious note behind him, but thankfully didn’t comment.
In the heart of the encampment, they’d disassembled all the tents save one: the massive, gold-braided one that had belonged to the general. It was where they’d found the dragon harness and weapon schematics, the maps and everything else deemed of strategic value. It stood forlorn and slightly askew, now, gold braid flapping in the wind. Even abandoned, it carried a threatening aura, one that Leif had felt the first time he’d lifted its flap and stepped onto its rich carpets. It wasn’t anything the soldiers and guards who’d accompanied him had seemed to feel – some sort of wolf sense. One that caused Ragnar to draw up short a good ten paces back from the flap.
All the humor and mischief had bled out of his expression; his gold brows were notched, and he worried at his lower lip with one elongated fang. Leif’s own gums ached as his fangs lengthened: his wolf pressing up close to the surface of his awareness, urging him to turn back the way he’d come.
He willed his hackles down and focused on Ragnar instead. “What’s the matter? Frightened?”
When Ragnar swallowed, the torq bobbed against his throat. Leif imagined he wanted to shift to his four-legged form – just as he wanted to himself. “These people,” he said, gaze fixed on the frostbitten serpent banner that snapped at the top of the tent, “are not natural.”
“Says the man who turns into a wolf.”
Ragnar’s gaze narrowed, and dropped to meet Leif’s. “I’ve already tried to explain it to you. If you don’t believe me, then that’s too bad for you.”
Leif shrugged, and walked into the tent.
Ragnar followed, growling softly: a deep rumble that Leif read as a warning to other wolves. A spooked beta inquiring after his alpha’s intentions.
Leif chuffed a reassuring sound before he could help himself, running on pure instinct, then shook his head and tried to think only as a man.
“Right, then. This bloody thing has rooms, and we’ve been sorting through them one at a time.” Rich tapestries and silk curtains portioned the wide space into bedchamber, war council chamber, dining room, and a smaller sleeping chamber with a crude pallet that had most likely housed the general’s valet. “The gold we’ve taken back to the palace, everything from coins to chalices, to a truly ridiculous bedframe. It’s all to be melted down and recast for our own use.”
“How noble of you.”
Leif sent him a look, and earned a one-shouldered shrug in response.
“We found charts and maps and blueprints. Most of it was written in their insufferable language, but the diagrams were plain enough, for the most part. The useful furniture is being distributed amongst the displaced villagers to replace what they lost in the fire.”
“Sounds like you have it well in-hand.” Ragnar cocked a single brow. “Which begs the question: why have you dragged me all the way out here?”
“We haven’t found anything like you spoke of: the golden bowl and the black liquid. I brought you out here to find it.”
Ragnar barked a humorless laugh. “You want me to what?”
“You heard me. We’ve not found anything like it in any of the chests, nor on any of the ships. They didn’t bury it in the snow. If you were telling the truth–”
Ragnar bared his teeth. “You know I was, damn it.”
“If you were telling the truth,” Leif repeated, “then it’s in here somewhere.”
“Maybe one of your honorable Aeretollean guards made off with it so he could sell it at a harbor market.”
