The Alpha's Concubine (Historical Shifter Romance) (31 page)

"I was just careless. I am sorry I worried you all." She lowered her voice to a whisper, then leaned in close so that only Fern could hear. "I will tell you what happened later."

The other girl looked concerned, but their reunion was soon interrupted by Hawk, who tugged Fern away and fixed Netya with a severe look.

"Are you sure you aren't hurt?" he said.

Netya nodded, her air of confidence shrinking a little in the hunt leader's presence.

"Good," Hawk continued. "I'm relieved to have you back safe. There is no greater tragedy than losing a fresh apprentice on their first hunt." He did seem genuinely pleased to see her, but it was clear that she was in trouble. His stern tone was that of a father ready to reprimand a disobedient child. "Still, you have caused us a great deal of worry. I was forced to keep nearly a third of our hunters back to look for you today."

Netya averted her eyes, cheeks warming. "I apologise. I did not intend to hold back the hunt."

"I do not care for apologies. Accidents are not made by intention, and by the look of you I am sure you have suffered enough for your carelessness already."

"Thank you." Netya bowed her head respectfully. "Your patience with me is very kind."

"You understand, though, that I have no place in my hunts for an apprentice who makes such mistakes. We have been delayed a full day, and may have lost many kills already."

"I will gladly make up for it!" Netya said. "I can hunt again tomorrow, and there will be no more accidents."

"Covered in bruises and with a broken weapon?" Hawk shook his head. "You will only be a burden on the rest of the pack."

"Please!" Fern exclaimed. "Netya has to make a kill of her own."

"Fern, I know you are disappointed, but I have tolerated your stubbornness all day. There will be another great hunt for you next year."

"I can mend my spear tonight," Netya said. "And it is only a few scratches and bruises, they will be better in no time."

Hawk frowned, and for a moment he seemed to be contemplating, but then Vaya stepped forward.

"Remember, this is not the first time the Sun girl has hindered us this hunt," she said. "I lost my kill yesterday because of her, and who knows how many more have slipped through our fingers since. She will only be a burden. Her kind hunting with ours makes for a poor mix."

The huntress's smug expression drew a glare from Netya.
No, Vaya,
she thought.
The only one I don't mix with is you.

"I'm afraid I must agree with Vaya," Hawk said. "You have been given as fair a chance as any apprentice, but every member of a hunt must work in unison for us to claim victory. I am sending you home with Fern tomorrow morning, and you will not be chosen for any more of my hunts this year."

"Nor mine," Vaya said with a curl of her lip.

Netya's fingers tightened around her spear, and she felt her eyes burning. This was unfair. She had accomplished more in the last two days than she had ever thought herself capable of, and yet, because of Vaya's interference, she was to be punished for it.

"None of the hunters will ever take Netya on as an apprentice if both of you snub her like this!" Fern said.

"Good," Vaya replied. "Then they will be spared from her incompetence as well."

Hawk silenced the huntress with a reprimanding look, then stepped forward and put a hand on Netya's shoulder. "It is always hard to accept disappointment, but not everyone is destined to become a hunter. Perhaps your calling lies elsewhere."

"I want to hunt," Netya said stubbornly, swallowing a lump in her throat. "I have only just begun to learn."

"And perhaps in a few years you may have learned enough to warrant consideration as an apprentice once again. I am sorry, but for now there is no place for you among my hunters. I must think first of what is best for the pack, and what is best for you. The alpha would agree."

Netya opened her mouth to speak, but she could feel her emotions welling up inside her. What would she do? Beg? Lash out and spill the truth about Vaya? Every time she had let her reckless impulses guide her actions it had ended badly for her. No matter how hard it was, she had little choice but to hold her tongue. When she protested no further Hawk nodded, looking relieved that he was done dealing with the matter.

As she and Fern made their way back to their fire Netya fixed her eyes on the ground to keep from looking at Vaya. She knew the huntress was smiling at her, arms folded in satisfaction, as if excluding her from the hunts had been the easiest victory she had ever won.

Getting her spear back no longer seemed like much of a consolation, and she had clearly not garnered any respect from her rival in doing so. Shame and anger burned within Netya, and she had no way to let it out. She did not even want to tell Fern the truth before they were safely away from the hunting pack in case the more hotheaded girl confronted Vaya and made things worse.

She tried not to think about arriving back at the outcrop tomorrow, seeing Erech's hopeful face fall in disappointment, explaining to the others what had happened, and waiting for Khelt to give her tender reassurances that would never come. Oh, the alpha would comfort her, yes. She might even lose herself in the pleasure of his embrace for a short while and forget about what had happened. But when she tried to talk to him after, to open her heart and seek the intimacy she needed, his brow would crease in contemplation as it always did, and he would start treating her like yet another problem to be solved by the alpha, not a mate who needed the warmth and tenderness of his soul.

Just as she had begun learning the ways of the hunt, her apprenticeship had come to a swift and bitter end.

Hawk sent them on their way at first light the following morning before he and the rest of the group broke camp to catch up with the main hunt. They were joined by three others who had been wounded in the ravine, along with five of the bearers to speed them home on the backs of their wolves. There had been many more injuries during the first failed hunting attempt, but most of them were of the sort the Moon People could heal overnight. None of their travelling companions were hurt much more severely than Fern, but two deep gashes and a badly strained shoulder were enough to keep them from hunting as their wolves.

All the way home Netya stared dejectedly at the back of the wolf carrying her, wondering what she would do now that a future as a hunter had been denied to her. Even the endless landscape, still so beautiful and foreign to her after a life lived in the forests, could not capture her attention that day. She felt like she had failed, despite telling herself that it was Vaya who had ruined her chances. Perhaps if she had managed to fight off the mountain cat she would not have incurred the huntress's anger. If she had let her spear go, the pack would not have had to waste a day looking for her. She would have at least had a second chance to prove herself when they caught up to the horses again. But then, she thought, how would she have been able to hunt without her weapon? She was hopeless with the javelin, and everybody else had their teeth and claws to rely on.

What would she do now? Go back to existing for the sole purpose of being Khelt's concubine? Stop taking Adel's herbs so that she could have his child and join the mothers? The idea of status had held little value to her when she first came to the Moon People, but she had since learned that it was through excelling at their skills—the things they were most passionate about—that her fellow pack mates achieved such status. It was not so much the recognition she desired, but the same fulfilment of taking on a role and learning to master it. She wanted to live her life with the same enthusiasm as the hunters who stayed up all night debating how best to ensnare tomorrow's prey, or the craftspeople who worked a shard of flint or a piece of wood single-mindedly until it was honed into a perfect tool.

Only one thing had given her that sense of identity these past few months, and she had very nearly lost it. She ran her fingers over the decorated crosspiece of her spearhead, now tied securely to her waist wrap by a piece of twine. Even if she was not a hunter, she still had this. Her father's spear, part old, part new, was a symbol of the woman she wanted to become. She did not know what it took to make a talisman of true power, but she felt that her spear was something more than just a piece of decorated wood and flint now. She would mend it, and keep it close, vowing never to let anyone take it away from her again.

By the time they arrived back at the outcrop it was almost evening, and Netya pretended her aching body was troubling her so that she could escape back to her tent and lie down. The Moon People thought her so fragile that they did not question it, and one of the seers even stopped by later to offer her tea for the pain.

Netya was happy to let the others explain what had happened as she curled up and tried to sleep, and she managed to doze for a few hours before Fern roused her, equal parts concerned for her wellbeing and curious to hear the truth about what had happened two nights ago.

Netya sipped the cold tea the seer had brought as she explained everything, from being cornered by Vaya to meeting up with Caspian, even including how she had asked him to let her make the return by herself.

"I cannot believe her!" Fern fumed. "If you had told me I might have thrown her down the side of that valley myself."

"That was why I did not tell you. It would only have made things worse. Vaya is smarter than I thought, and now she has made sure I will never become a hunter."

"She may have succeeded in that, but Vaya is no wise woman," Fern snorted. "I have known her all my life. She acts without thinking, and sometimes she is fortunate enough to wrestle victory from the consequences. She was only trying to intimidate you that night."

Netya sighed. "You did not speak of her so harshly when I first arrived. I have made a rift in your pack just by being here."

"Vaya has done that all on her own. Do you want me to speak to the alpha with you? He disciplined her last time."

Netya shook her head wearily. "Caspian already asked me the same. I only hope Vaya will leave me alone now that I am not there to intrude on her hunts."

"You should not let her get away with this."

"I do not want to, but I cannot see any other way." Netya shrugged. "Perhaps if I was cunning like Adel I could think of some plan to shame her." She shivered as soon as she had said it, regretting voicing such a thought.

Fern seemed to be contemplating something for a moment, but she allowed the matter to drop soon after, and she and Netya curled up together beneath their warmest fur blanket to let sleep soothe their healing injuries.

It was another five days before the hunters returned home. Netya spent the time mending her spear and trying to avoid discussing what had happened with the others. Erech and some of the mothers were kind, reassuring her, as Hawk had done, that perhaps she was simply not destined to be a hunter. It all sounded to her like a gentle way of saying she had failed. Still, she thanked Erech for the talisman he had given her, promising to wear it in her hair always. Even though her first—and perhaps last—hunt had ended badly, had it not been for a little good fortune it might have gone far worse.

She mended her spear diligently, finding a new shaft and remaking the bindings and decorations that trailed down the handle. This time she managed to make it a little sturdier, using a dark glue one of the craftsmen made from heating tree bark in a sealed clay pot. With a little whittling she was able to fit both pieces of her spear together more elegantly, and with the addition of the glue and new bindings it felt a lot sturdier than before. But the weight was different, and she found herself having to practice using her weapon all over again to adjust to the change.

Khelt called her to his bed again the night before the hunters returned, and despite the alpha acting exactly as she had expected, Netya still found some contentment in his embrace. It had been several days since she last made love, and the release helped to soothe some of the feelings that had been trapped inside her, reminding Netya that there was more to life than the things she had become preoccupied with recently.

When the hunters returned the next day every man, woman, and wolf was heavily laden with the spoils of their victory. The empty sacks the bearers had carried on the way out were now stuffed with meat, most preserved for the journey, but some still fresh, and many others carried trophies of bone and horse hair. The procession was met with even greater ceremony than the hunts of last summer, with the alpha himself stepping forward to conduct the greeting ritual. It seemed that no single hunter had distinguished themselves above and beyond what was expected, so the hunter's prize was Hawk's to claim for leading a successful expedition. Having butchered much of their kill so far from home, there was no fresh blood for Hawk to symbolise his victory with, so he drank instead from a bowl of the pack's fiery drink when Khelt offered it to him.

With his victory secured, the seasoned hunt leader could have claimed any man or woman he desired for his prize, but as soon as the ceremony was finished he set his eyes firmly on his mate and went to embrace her, whispering something into her ear before the two of them kissed.

"You are the only prize for me," Fern mused with a wistful note in her voice as she watched them. "That's what I think he said."