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With enough time and effort, I could get through the metal and stone door of sorts. I was confident in that.
But how long did I have before he touched her again?
Hurt her?
Tried to force her to mate with him?
A roar escaped me, and I fought hard to think through the fear pounding in my head.
“If he hears us trying to get in, he’ll do something drastic,” Ervo said in a low voice. “I think we’re going to have to wait him out.”
“She dreams of the future every night,” I snarled back. “Of us, together. Or of the war. She can’t sleep in there with him.”
Mare’s voice was gentle when she replied, “I don’t think she has a choice.”
Bovay walked up to me, Ervo, and Mare, his expression hesitant.
That hesitance was a good call, because as soon as my female was in my arms, we’d be fighting to his death.
“Clevv eats with us every night. He won’t have enough food with him to last them more than two or three days,” Bovay said in a low voice. “Eventually, she’ll get hungry, and the instincts to feed and care for his mate will force him to emerge. When he—”
“She’s not his fucking mate,” I roared back, white-hot anger pumping through my veins as I grabbed the bastard by the throat. “North belongs to me, of her own free will. I gave everyone the chance I was obligated to give, and the whole damn time, she dreamed of our future together. If Clevv so much as pulls one hair from her head, I’ll make your death so long and painful that you’ll beg Vevol to end your life with every excruciating thought that crosses your mind.”
He didn’t flinch or shrink away.
Just stared at me as I glowered at him.
Finally, I dropped my hold on his throat and stepped back.
I started pacing again.
Bovay walked back to the group of traitors.
If they were wise, they would’ve taken the opportunity to put as much distance between us as was possible.
“You need to eat something,” Mare said to Ervo. “We were flying for a long time.” She looked at me. “You do too, Priel.”
“My mate is locked in a cave with a man who thinks she belongs to him. I’m nothungry,” I snarled back.
“Brother.” Ervo’s cold gaze was furious. Not many people knew him well enough to read his emotions, but I was one of them. “Don’t speak to her that way.”
I glowered back at him, but jerked my head in a nod.
He wouldn’t get an apology.
Mare wouldn’t, either.
They were the ones who had shown Clevv the location of the cave. They were at least a part of the reason she was down there. And though there was likely a reasonable explanation for that, I wasn’t interested in hearing it.
“I’ll show you which plants are edible,” Ervo told Mare, his hand touching her lower back lightly as he led her into the forest, in the opposite direction of my packmates.
I halted when the answer to my problem hit me in the fucking chest.
Her name.
I had her name.
Pride and relief swelled within me.
