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That right there was the crux of the argument of the frontier.
“After everything I’ve seen in the last two months, I think you’re right,” I told Magnus with a sigh. “It’s one thing to claim to be free and fierce, but words mean nothing when you’re skin and bones, when all you have to eat is what you’ve hunted, foraged, or stolen from a city, and when you don’t even have faires at which to buy new clothes, shoes, tools, and weapons.”
“So the wild wolves, as you call them, are in dire shape?” Olympus asked. He wore the expression of a man for whom everything we were talking about was new, like he was still trying to piece together the puzzle.
I made a face and rubbed my head. Maybe it was the prolonged lack of water, or not enough rest, or the mild injuries I’d sustained escaping and rowing, but I was starting to get a headache.
I glanced to Lefric, and he immediately handed me my glass of water, but he monitored me and wouldn’t let me drink more than a few sips.
That all gave me enough time to think about my answer to Olympus’s question.
“It depends on what you consider good or bad shape,” I said. “The term ‘feast or famine’ is taken literally in the eastern forest. Some wolves, the ones with power and strength, eat like kings. Well, kings with a limited array of food sources. They maintain their strength, which helps them maintain their power. Others are pitiful and will do anything for food. Which those stronger wolves use to their advantage.
“They pride themselves on being lone wolves or running in small packs, but they’re forming together into larger and larger packs all the time,” I went on. “Some of those supposed small packs are a hundred, two hundred, even five hundred wolves strong now.”
“Are those the ones who have taken over cities like Berlova and Novoberg, or are they still living in the forest?” Magnus asked.
“A little of each,” I answered. “As you can imagine, it’s hard to sustain a pack with that many wolves just wandering around the forest like nomads. But as Ludvig and I learned, several times, when the leader of one of those larger packs moved into one of those abandoned cities, they lost their men to fighting or desertion as soon as they had full bellies, or the whole group just fell apart because the wolves who were part of the whole are against any sort of pack structure at all.
“Like trying to build a sand castle out of dry sand,” Olympus said with a frown. We all turned to him and he said, “You can put as much sand as you like in a mold, but if there isn’t anything holding it together, the second you turn the mold over, the sand just disburses.”
“That’s an excellent analogy, Oly,” Lefric said with a proud smile.
Olympus winked suggestively at him. Lefric blushed and winked in return.
I didn’t need any more information to know that whatever relationship the two of them had, it was hot.
Unlike my relationship with Ludvig. It felt strange to be telling the others about finding small packs and lone wolves, about possible new passages across the mountains, and about the way things were organized in the abandoned cities, when the truly momentous things that had happened during those early weeks of our mission were the conversations Ludvig and I had had.
Things had been simmering between us for a while. I think one of the reasons I didn’t see Ludvig’s blunt question coming was because we didn’t hate each other. There was no resentment between us, like there’d been between Jace and Edik. Ludvig and I were still very much friends.
But about a week after we’d set out into the forest, after we’d come across a small pack led by a man Ludvig knew and Ludvig and his friend spent the night together while Ludvig encouraged me to go to bed with his second in command—a gorgeous man named Randy who had made me exactly that, so randy I was willing to let a stranger fuck me—Ludvig had asked me straight out if I still wanted to be with him.
I would never forget that conversation. We’d reached a small stream, and it was just the two of us. It was a beautiful, peaceful summer day. My ass was still sore from fucking with Randy. Ludvig had asked first if I’d enjoyed myself, and blushing, stammering, and feeling like I was guilty of betrayal, I’d confessed that I had. Very much.
Ludvig asked if I’d ever felt that way with him. The question had hit me like a blow in the gut. I’d owed him honesty. I forced myself to tell him that no, I hadn’t. He’d asked me if I was physically attracted to him, and again, I’d been forced to confess I wasn’t. Peter and Neil loved Magnus, and Conrad had told the rest of the Sons more than once that he was attracted to older men and loved Dushka. It looked like Lefric still liked them older too. But I was much more attracted to men my own age.
Randy might have been second in command of a small pack, but he was only a few years older than me. I liked fucking around with the other Sons too. Maybe it was shallow of me, but, the thing with my father aside, I liked young, fit, muscular bodies. I got hard at the sight of unblemished skin and the virile energy that younger men had.
I hadn’t wanted to hurt Ludvig’s feelings, but when he finally asked me right out if I still wanted to be with him, I’d been honest. The forest rustled around us, birds were singing in the sunshine, the stream we sat beside gurgled happily, sunlight dancing off of it like diamonds, and I had to look Ludvig in the eyes and tell him I didn’t want to be with him anymore.
I’d felt like the worst kind of villain. I felt like a whore, like I’d been a whore for him for nearly two years. I felt like I’d whored myself out to Randy, and even worse, I’d enjoyed it.
Ludvig had smiled at me and rested a hand on my knee and told me it was alright, he didn’t hold it against me. He’d told me he’d known I wasn’t happy with him, that I wanted to be released from more than just the status of pup. He thanked me for giving him two wonderful years and for being his friend when he needed one.
I’d cried. It was embarrassing, but I wept as if he’d broken things off with me instead of it being a mutually agreed upon split. He’d held me and promised me he had no hard feelings, that we’d still be friends. Looking back, it had actually been nice. We’d slept together that night, but we didn’t fuck. We hadn’t fucked since either.
Everything changed between us that night. I still loved Ludvig, but I didn’tlovehim. I never had.
“Anton? Are you alright?” Magnus asked, resting a hand on my shoulder and bringing me out of my thoughts. “We don’t have to do this right now. We could wait until you’ve had more rest.”
“No,” I shook my head and took another long drink. “I want to tell it all and never think about it again.”
“Fair enough,” Magnus said with a nod. “What came next? Can you tell us more about this potential southern mountain pass? Who ordered its construction? How did you find out about it?”
“A group of the lone wolves and small pack leaders thought up the idea,” I said, glad to move on to less sensitive topics. “From the sound of things, they’ve been working on it for years, which is probably why no one knows about it. Progress has been slow, and honestly, I don’t even know where it is. Ludvig and I never got that far. But everyone east of Kettering, where the Wolf River forms as it comes down from the mountains, talks about it all the time.
“Dmitri knows where it is,” I said grimly. “He was with a group of other men at a larger settlement close to the base of the mountains, about three or four days north of Kettering. That was one of the larger settlements we’d come across, but it was filled with unrest, with wolves coming and going. Ludvig was convinced we could recruit at least half of the wolves living there to move to the Wolf River Kingdom.”
