Bind Me in Steel Read online

  But as he met stunned green eyes, it hissed to him of blackest promises, a warning that he was walking a dangerous path.

  The gray-haired wolf who’d addressed him before finally broke his stunned silence. “What?” he choked out. “You can’t claim the alpha’s mate—”

  “I defeated the alpha,” Ero said firmly, and nudged the broken body at his feet with one foot. He couldn’t back down now, couldn’t show throat, or they would rip him to shreds. Or try to, forcing him to shed more blood when he hadn’t wanted this in the first place. “That would make him my mate.” He raised his gaze to the omega again. “Come down.”

  The omega’s eyes flashed sharply, with a touch of defiant pride. Regal, almost—which said quite a bit, considering how run-down and dirty this fortress was, its wolves practically reduced to barbarians in ragged hides, their weapons crude bits of sharpened salvage metal strapped to their hips. The omega himself wore a simple double-layered robe of plain homespun that had been bleached to off-white, belted over his lissome body with a length of rope; yet he wore it as if it were the final royal raiment, carrying himself with the dignity befitting even the lowliest alpha’s mate.

  That dignity showed in the measured deliberation with which he moved, making it clear he was choosing to obey Ero rather than cowed into submission; Ero bit back a smile. The man at his feet had likely had quite a bit of trouble teaching this one to know his place, and clearly hadn’t succeeded.

  Ero, he thought, rather liked that.

  Rather than descending the ladders or the steps, the omega leaped lightly over the raised lip of the outer wall; other wolves scattered out of his way as he dropped down as gracefully as a white petal, floating downward in a flare of his robes, swirling aside to reveal pale, shapely legs. He landed soundlessly, bare feet light against the earth, and straightened with his thin shoulders squared, stepping forward to stand across the fallen alpha’s body and looking up at Ero coldly.

  Yet his lips trembled, and his scent spoke of fear and uncertainty, making a lie of that brave, brave face.

  Ero flicked him over with another look. “Pack your things,” he said.

  The omega said nothing, and didn’t move. Ero arched a brow.

  “You want to stay here?” he asked. He wouldn’t force the omega away from his pack to satisfy a whim…but something in him was snarling at him, some deep inner animal instinct, and it said not to leave this fragile thing to the chaos that would come in the coming days, as the pack re-established its order with bloody dominance. But when the omega said nothing yet again, Ero prompted, “Say something.”

  That stubborn chin jutted out, and the omega spoke, his voice soft as silk, with a faint burr like a sigh of whiskey. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Anything of your own free will.” Ero dropped his gaze to the broken alpha. “Did you mate him by choice?”

  The omega’s breath sucked in, sharp and sudden, answering even before he glanced about furtively at the silently kneeling wolves, then answered hesitantly, “No.”

  Ero closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He’d suspected as much. Opening his eyes again, he asked, “Do you love him?”

  Nothing, at first. Those stark green eyes flickered, that mask of regal defiance cracking, and a faint flush colored the omega’s cheeks as he lowered his eyes, his throat working. “…no.”

  “Is there anyone you wish to say your farewells to?” When the omega only shook his head, eyes remaining downcast, Ero nodded. “Then pack your things and come.”

  The omega hesitated, then nodded, retreating a step. He flashed one more confused, questioning look at Ero, reaching up to tuck a loose strand of hair back behind his ear.

  Then turned on his heel and fled, robes trailing in his wake.

  For long moments, he was the only moving thing in the shadowed night, before Ero sighed and flicked his fingers at the gray-haired wolf. They were waiting for him to command them, even after he had rejected leadership.

  How much had this alpha cowed and beaten them, that they couldn’t act without someone’s order?

  “Tend to his wounds,” Ero said, ignoring the gray-haired wolf’s startled, guttural sounds and gesturing down at the broken alpha. “Make sure he survives. And fetch the things I asked. I have many miles still to cover before dawn.”

  Still no one moved, at first—and he wondered if any of these wolves had known the world before the Disc; had known anything outside of pack law and rigid structures. He understood far too well why it had to be this way; in a world turned to ash and ruins and nightmare horrors, often the way of the pack was the only way to survive.

  Yet it ached, to see what their kind had become.

  Be honest with yourself, Ero.

  Were you ever anything more than mindless monsters?

  But after that frozen moment…slowly, the wolves began to rise, one man after another; they milled aimlessly for a moment, casting him doubtful, confused looks, before they began to trickle inside; he caught murmured orders, discussing how many solar cells, how much water they could afford to give. The water, at least, wouldn’t be a problem; he could smell the cool damp stone of a well somewhere inside the keep, drawing clean water from deep underground. The solar cells, he would not take any more than they could spare. They were backup, anyway. Hope that he might find a working vehicle somewhere on the highway, just waiting for enough power to kickstart it into moving. The odds were slim, but…

  Hope kept him moving, if nothing else.

  Slowly the arc of cleared earth in front of the walls emptied, until there were only the three wolves loading their defeated alpha onto a rough stretcher of homespun cloth and branches, carrying him inside. For a moment the wolf’s eyes slitted open; they were amber as a sunset and dark with loathing, with hatred. He didn’t speak. Ero didn’t think he could, when his broken neck was limiting his ability to heal and regenerate.

  But the vicious, hateful glare that fixed on Ero as the wolf was carried away promised revenge, if their paths ever crossed again.

  Ero held the wolf’s gaze until he disappeared inside the keep, falling within the shadow of the arched main doorway. He felt no animosity toward the wolf, for all that he’d provoked this confrontation unnecessarily.

  It just left him tired, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  He stood alone, then. Alone, and waiting…until the wolves of the pack began to return, bringing what he’d asked for as if bringing burnt offerings to an altar. Skins of water laid at his feet; a stack of battered solar cells, cylindrical and blocky. He retrieved his belt and slung it around his hips, then his pack, and selected four of the solar cells before leaving the rest. He found room for them in his pack, tucked among his other supplies, then slung it over his shoulder and looped the straps of the water skins over his arm, letting them hang against his back. Only one more thing before he could leave…and as those near-soundless steps whispered from inside the keep once more, the wolves hovering outside formed double lines as if standing in honor guard, making a path that delivered the lovely green-eyed omega from within the keep to Ero’s feet.

  He had only a small bag that looked as if it had been stitched together from two roughly cured rabbit furs, hanging limply at his side. And even if he regarded Ero with that same coolly detached bravery…

  He was trembling.

  Ero was stealing him from his home and couldn’t even explain to himself why he was doing it, and the pretty little thing was trembling with fear.

  Let him go, he told himself.

  But something inside him balked, when he feared that as the pack destabilized…

  The omega of the former alpha might find himself dead by morning.

  Dead, or raped by someone trying to claim him in order to claim their place as the new alpha.

  Still the child said nothing—and now that Ero looked at him more closely, he was a child, no matter that he’d reached physical maturity. He couldn’t be even a century old, and already mated and given away
to be an alpha’s breeding toy.

  “Do your parents know you’re going?” Ero asked.

  “My parents went north years ago,” the omega replied bitterly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The omega said nothing else, but his stark, haunted gaze seemed to ask…

  Are you?

  “Come,” Ero said, and turned away from the keep, toward the dense-packed forest and its clustered mix of pines and oak. He wanted away from here. Away from the scents of fear and confusion; away from the blank stares that watched him. For a moment he thought someone would stop him; that the omega would balk, refuse.

  But with one last uncertain glance back at the keep…the omega followed him, walking two steps behind and to the left of him, his head bowed and his feet rustling softly as they stepped from beaten earth onto fallen trees, twigs, straw.

  Ero set his path south once more. He wanted to be clear of the scent markers of the pack’s territory by dawn, possibly even clear of this forest, though he’d rather camp under cover than out in the open; it would depend on what he found beyond the tree line, when it had been centuries since he’d taken this route south. Tense silence brimmed between them, punctuated only by the occasional soft hiss and a cracking of twigs as the omega picked his way over the ground cover. Ero could move faster, cover more ground on his own, but he kept his stride slow so as not to outdistance his newly acquired charge. And he waited nearly half an hour to speak, until he could no longer hear the confused, angry, panicked voices drifting on the wind, carrying from the keep and mingling with the night-sounds of sleeping birds, small animals darting through the brush.

  “You don’t have to worry,” he said, slowing his stride until they walked side by side along a wide swath of clear earth beneath the overhanging branches; the smoothness of the earth underneath said there was probably pavement buried under his feet somewhere, as obscured as the last concrete remnants of buildings that remained scattered about under the trees, chunks buried underneath soil and grass until they became faerie mounds for a blackened world. “I’m not going to mate you.”

  The omega dropped back once more, putting that same distance between them—but he seemed to catch himself, and caught up to Ero in a few quick steps, eyeing him warily. “Then why…?”

  Ero wished he knew. He tilted his head back, looking up at the trees, and beyond them the faint glimpses of the stars, as if they could offer answers.

  “You hated that,” he said after some consideration, choosing his words carefully. “Watching your alpha challenge me because he’s been taught that’s who he’s supposed to be. He’s been taught that power is who is the loudest, who is the angriest, who is the most abusive.” He glanced at the omega, and offered a faint smile. “So I thought I’d give you somewhere else to be.”

  The omega’s eyes widened briefly, before he looked away. “Where are we going?”

  “South,” Ero answered. “To warmer lands for the winter.”

  “You really don’t have a pack?”

  “I guess I do now.” Ero looked down at bare white toes peeking past the omega’s robe; the robe’s hem was quickly growing dirty, and even now bruises slowly faded away and into pale skin, healing gradually. “You don’t have shoes?”

  With a flush in his cheeks, the omega winced. “…no.”

  Ero understood, then. Understood that this lovely thing had been taught helplessness; cultivated to be dependent on an alpha, so that even if he wanted to run away…

  He couldn’t.

  Not without suffering, as he fought to adapt to a world that wasn’t made for soft things like him.

  And suddenly, Ero wished he had drawn more blood from an alpha cruel enough to do this to his mate.

  He shifted the burdens on his back to distribute them more evenly, then stepped in front of the omega and dropped to one knee.

  “Come here.”

  “What are you—oh!”

  The omega let out a startled sound as Ero reached back and hooked behind his knees, pulling him against Ero’s back and catching him up. As he stood, carrying the omega with him on his back, the pretty little thing yelped, clutching his knees against Ero’s hips and digging his fingers into his shoulders. He was soft, so very light, and so very warm, that radiant body heat that marked the Impure, that separated them from cooler-blooded humans; his breaths curled against the back of Ero’s neck, filtering through his hood, and his scent wrapped around Ero in a cloud of warm flesh and the particular sweet musk that marked an omega.

  Ero shifted his grip to support him beneath slim thighs, firmly ignoring the way his fingers sank into the soft flesh beneath thin homespun fabric; firmly ignoring the way the omega’s legs strained to spread around him, only the bags on Ero’s back keeping them from pressing too intimately together.

  “Try not to kick too much,” he said, as he set forward on the path again.

  After a tentative moment, the omega relaxed his death grip on Ero’s shoulders, and slowly wrapped slender arms around his neck. His voice thrummed softly in Ero’s ear. “Won’t you get tired?”

  “You barely weigh anything,” Ero said, ignoring the way that soft voice pulled on him, seeming to call to the wolf inside him as alluringly as the light of moonrise. “We’ll find you some shoes to fit you and some proper travel clothing later.”

  “Where?”

  “Another settlement with friendlier wolves.” He frowned, turning over his mental map of the surrounding area. “Maybe Chattanooga, if the humans are still there. If they’ll tolerate us enough to trade.”

  “Where’s Chattanooga?” the omega asked, sounding puzzled, and Ero almost stumbled in his tracks.

  “You don’t…” He nearly swore. It was worse than he’d thought; this child was a naïve thing with no knowledge of the world outside his pack at all, wasn’t he? “You don’t know the nearby settlements.”

  The omega shook his head, his pointed chin brushing lightly against Ero’s shoulder. “I don’t know anywhere but Neg.”

  Ero restrained a bitter laugh. “Is that what they’re calling it now. ‘Neg.’”

  “Was it ever anything else?”

  “A long time ago, before Discfall, it was Fort Negley National Park. And the city that was here, before it was ruins, was called Nashville.” He turned his head enough to catch one pale green eye, and wondered what it was like to see the world only as it was, instead of what it had once been. “Someone rebuilt the fort, and now it’s…” He shook his head. “Nevermind.”

  Biting his lip, a faint tremor in his voice, the omega whispered, “I didn’t know any of that.”

  “It’s hard to know a world you’ve never seen. And there’s far more world than your pack, little one.” Ero shifted his grip, pulling the omega closer against him. “Does that frighten you?”

  “A little,” the omega admitted softly—but underneath the fear in his scent was a spark of excitement, too, and that spark told Ero maybe, just maybe…

  He hadn’t made a terrible choice, stealing this small thing away from his home.

  “It should,” he said softly. “It’s terrifying. But it’s beautiful, too.”

  They continued in silence for some time, then, as Ero picked up speed, the negligible weight on his back hardly slowing him down as he followed his nose toward water. There was a creek not far south of here, if he remembered correctly, and then east was a longer network of creeks and tributaries he could follow a good ways south as he made his way toward the port at New Orleans. The omega was quiet against his back, just the feel and sound of a heartbeat, of breaths, of a soft living body against him, and Ero thought for a minute he had even drifted off, until he stirred himself awake with a sleepy sound and spoke.

  “What did you mean,” he asked, “did I mate him by choice?”

  Ero glanced back. “What do you mean by asking that?”

  “I…” The omega looked so lost, struggling, eyes flickering—as if he’d never had to articulate concepts like these in his life, as if
he didn’t even have the words. “I am omega. I am given to the wolf who proves himself to my father as my mate.” He hesitated, then said as if reciting something he had been taught time and time again, “I was fortunate to be chosen by the alpha.”

  “What’s so fortunate if you didn’t choose the alpha as well?”

  The omega’s brows knit. “I don’t understand.”

  “Consent, child. It’s called consent.” Ero sighed. The complete lack of understanding in those wide, liquid green eyes shouldn’t bother him so much. He started to say the child’s name—but then realized he didn’t even know it. He’d been out alone in the wilds for too long, going his own way, and forgotten even his manners. “What’s your name?”

  “Wren,” the omega said softly. “Wren Striker.”

  “Is Striker your alpha’s clan name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it’s no longer yours. You’re just Wren.” Ero turned his gaze forward again. He could hear whispers in the distance; a stand of dryads must be close by, rooted near the water of the creek. He adjusted course to make for the whispers; not even the Disc-touched howling dead would dare disturb a grove, and he could think of nowhere else safer to camp. “My name is Ero. Ero Wake.”

  “That’s a strange name,” Wren said, and Ero smiled.

  “My parents were probably strange people,” he said, and forged on through the trees.

  T

  Wren didn’t remember falling asleep.

  He’d never been this far outside the keep before; even when he’d been a small thing, before his parents had given in to the whispers from the north and straggled away, never to be seen again…he’d never been allowed to play out of sight of the keep walls, barely venturing into the trees. Farther than a few dozen yards and the world was an alien thing to him, and the only safe wall standing between him and these unfamiliar wilds was the wall of man currently carrying Wren on his back.