Chapter 55

Jaxson

I leave Aurora behind for the afternoon, setting her up with some lunch and watching her demolish her plate before promptly falling asleep with Snowflake in grip. I was able to move her to the bed this time, watching her settle into the pillows, and I leave for the village pack nearby. I won’t be long, and I would smell a rogue anywhere within a hundred miles from this place, so I’m not too worried about brother dearest showing up.

I have yet to tell Aurora just how close her friends are but I need her to rest and not worry any more about what is going on. She is worried enough. Sure enough, I spot the two I need to make this plan work, both of them working to split wood, a task I am sure the eccentric Alpha of this pack probably put them up to. Aurora will enjoy meeting him later when she is better healed.

Paul hesitates with an axe while Row is busy tossing logs into a pile against a small hut before Paul throws a log over in his direction. Both of them stare at me expectantly, nervously, and I try to tone down my severity of a tone around them both. They don’t like me, it’s obvious, but to see them outright fear me makes me feel guilty.

“How is she?” Row asks, wiping the sweat and sawdust off his forehead. “Is she awake?”

“She is,” I say simply, trying to steer clear of how she acts like a new person, terrified of the world and of her dreams. “I had her map down the packhouse where Xander is,” I add, watching their faces turn uplifting. “I’m going after Luke.”

Paul drops his axe, his face glimmering in exhaustion. “We’re coming to help.”

“Yes, you are,” I agree. “I need a little bit of a distraction, though.”

“Whatever it is, we’re in,” Row says, happily obliging to save their friend who has made several romantic passes at my mate.

I want to tell them to figure it out for themselves, go after Luke without me, but I’m doing this for Aurora. When Xander took her from me the first time, Luke didn’t sleep or eat until she was found. He is a weak commoner, a poor fighter by any standard, but he held his own and went head-to-head with Xander alongside me. He did it for my mate. I have to do this for him.

“Who makes the potions?” I ask, watching both of them tense.

It’s highly illegal under my father’s rule as king Alpha but I know at the casino when I found my mate that she was heavily under the influence of potions. I’ve seen bits of them taking it in her memory to mute their scents but I can’t recall who had made it out of her secondhand memory.

“That would be me,” Paul says, tentative.

“We need a distraction, and that means I’ll need you to conjure something special,” I reply.

“What exactly are you looking for?”

“Something to mute my scent,” I say, watching them furrow their brows. “Just one vial, though. I’m not going to mute your scents.”

Row coughs a laugh. “Two commoners being sniffed out by the exiled prince who hates anyone who isn’t a royal. He will have our heads.”

“He will try,” I shrug. “But that’s the distraction I need to get into the packhouse uncontested.”

“Diversions,” Paul gusts, his mouth hitting the ground is shock. “You want us to be diversions to that murderous freak?”

Row shakes his head, too shocked to speak for a long moment. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Do you want your friend back, or not?”

They exchange hesitant looks, both of them on the cusp of wanting to bail out of this idea but not enough to overshadow the fact that if we don’t do something quick, Luke will be dead. They both nod in agreement, although they don’t seem too pleased with it.

Ann strolls up from out of the woods nearby and Paul swings an arm around her and keeps her pinned to his side, almost shielding her from me. They might see me as any other royal asshole who hurts commoner females, like the rest of my father’s pack, but I simply offer her a warm, welcoming grin.

“Aurora will need company when we go after Luke,” I say, tipping my head toward the petite female under Paul’s shoulder. “Can you keep an eye on her when we go for my brother?”

She nods, her light eyes seemingly so far away in thought.

I turn to leave, to formulate the rest of this plan but a light voice stops me in my tracks.

“Why do you need their help?” Ann asks, almost snarky in tone. “You’re a royal prince and you want these guys to risk their lives for Luke who is in danger because of you. None of this would have happened if royals weren’t such entitled jerks.”

I don’t turn, feeling my mate slowly stir awake in the distance. She is weary, outside the hut, and I want to be with her more than anything right now but I know Ann is right.

“I’m not a royal,” I hum, my heart sputtering to a slow, dull pulse. “I’m rejecting my father’s pack so I can be with my mate in peace. I’m not asking my father’s royal pack to help because as it stands, they seem to agree with Xander’s view of commoners.”

“And your view is?”

I look ahead, my wolf whining to be with out simple, common mate. “It used to be the same as my father’s view. Now, after finding my fated mate and seeing the people in her life, I realize I am wrong. Luke took Aurora from the blue moon gala when she was in trouble and it didn’t matter if I was a royal. He wanted to protect her. I need to look past people’s linage and judge them on who they are, not where they came from.”

I flick a look back to the group, seeing them all a little more relaxes at my words.

“We leave in two days to get Luke back. Try to get that potion ready before then. I’ll reject the royal pack tonight and we will all be equal. Deal?”

Everyone nods and I finally break from the group, shifting so I can cross the village quicker and be with my mate. She is curled up in a blanket on the beach, wavering side to side as if watching the waves has her dizzy. She is curled up to appear smaller than normal, cowering under the sunshine, inhaling a deep, calm breath as she meets my eyes.

I sit beside her on the beach, surprised when she curls against my body and rests her head on my shoulder. I hesitate, wanting to grab her and smother her in an embrace, but I refrain.

“I’ll get Luke back,” I hum, feeling her tense at his name in my tone. “But tonight I’m going to reject my father’s pack.”

She moves her face up, still perched against my arm. “Will he be mad?”

“Most definitely,” I reply. “But that doesn’t matter, sweetheart. If I have to choose changing the entire royal pack and their misconceptions about commoners, or leave to be with my mate in peace, then I will go to where I feel more needed. And that’s here with you.”

She offers a hint of a smile that is just as triumphant as the smile she displayed when I brought Snowflake here to our new hut. “Once Luke is safe, what will happen to the royal pack?”

I swallow hard, knowing with me out of the way, Xander will view it as an opportunity to attack our father. He will challenge him to be Alpha, to be the one thing he has ever wanted to be, and it worries me to think about what will happen if Xander becomes king Alpha. My father can surely fight him off, and the royal pack has trained every day for generations to prove they are the strongest pack alive, but I don’t want to focus on any of that anymore.

I want to sit on the beach, protecting my mate and watching her heal, one day taking back her rejection and letting us be mates. I picture having pups with her, building a small pack like this one near the beach and living in a small, picturesque community. Even made of commoners, I don’t care anymore, I just want to be able to live the best life possible with my mate and it’s not being in the royal pack.

Father, I reach out, finally dropping the mind link block for the first time in weeks. You’ve taught me to be a strong wolf, a ruthless fighter, but my mother taught me to love my subnitrates as equals. I’m taking her advice now more than ever.

I reject the royal pack and I reject Alpha king Kennedy as my Alpha once and for all.