The Last Wolf Prince

2 - The Last Straw

~~Tristan's PoV~~

“Which way did he go?”

The growl in my voice forces the other men to bow their heads in submission, as it should. They had one job: not to let the prince out of their sight and now not one of them can tell me where he is.

“We thought he was with us, Your Grace,” the head of the prince's security says to me, not raising his head. “He must have seen something and wandered off. You know what he's like.”

I look out at the vast forest from my lookout spot on the castle walls. “I know exactly what he's like, which is why I told you to watch him. Find him NOW.”

The last word is almost a roar and the men scatter immediately, shifting into their wolves as they set off to track the missing prince.

This would be enough of a problem on any given day, but today, it's the final straw to snap my already strung-out patience. We've been receiving more and more reports of our allies being attacked. That's concerning on its own, but it seems the creatures attacking them are not like any kind of creature we've come across before. Those who have survived are calling them 'The Faceless', which only feeds the hysteria the attacks are causing. It sounds to me like they're some kind of shapeshifters, able to morph not just between man and wolf like we can, but between any kind of forms.

If they're getting to our allies, they'll be here soon too. If they were to find the prince alone and unprotected out in the forest... well, it doesn't bear thinking about.

We need to find out where these creatures came from and what they want, and we need to do it fast.

And we need to keep my cousin the prince, whom I both love and despise at this moment, safe so that he can make an appeal to bring the wolf packs together. We're going to need some backup to win the war that I can see coming. Anyone who doesn't think so is fooling themselves.

“There you are.”

I stiffen as the woman's voice comes from behind me, honeyed and sweet. This is the last thing I need right now. “I'm busy, Yvette.”

“You're always busy.” She ignores the clear hint and makes her way closer to me. “You used to have more time for me.”

“You used to deserve it.”

She winces at my tone but I won't apologize, not for speaking the truth.

“So that's really it? You're going to let one silly mistake ruin everything we had together?” Bitterness begins to seep into her voice, and it only hardens my heart further. She has no right to be bitter, not when she is the one in the wrong.

“A mistake is forgetting to pass on an instruction, or addressing the King by the wrong title. Bedding the Alpha of the Black River pack is not a mistake, unless you're going to claim he simply tripped into your bed and lost his clothes along the way?”

It's only been ten days since I'd returned from my last journey where I was meeting with the pack most recently attacked by our new, nameless enemy. Although it was late when I arrived back at the castle, I decided to surprise Yvette by visiting her in her chamber.

The surprise, however, was definitely mine.

“We were together for nearly a year, Tristan,” she whispers now, her voice nearly a hiss as her anger spills forth. “A year in which you never visited my bed. Women have needs too, you know. I have needs, Tristan, but that's all it was. I don't love him; I love you.”

“If that were true, you wouldn't have betrayed me.” This was a black or white issue to me. I had thought I might love Yvette, that I could be happy with her since it seemed I was not going to be blessed with a mate of my own. But after this, any thoughts of a future for us had completely vanished. She was nothing more to me now than the daughter of the king's most trusted advisor.

“It's more complicated than that,” she insists, but I shake my head.

“It isn't. You made your bed, Yvette, and now you can lie in it. With him, or alone, it makes no difference, but it won't be with me.”

Fury turns her face red as she hears the finality in my words. “You say that like you were ever there at all. The women in the kitchen are probably right. You know what they say about you, don't you? That your c*ck doesn't even work, that's why you've never had a woman. That's why you don't have a mate, because no woman deserves to be saddled with your useless equipment. The Moon Goddess knows it as well as everyone else does.”

My fists clench at my sides as I try to keep myself under control. I have never hit a woman before, but I am dangerously close now. “Get out of my sight before I strike you, and never speak to me again.”

She opens her mouth to say something further, but luckily for her, my trembling arms make her think better of it and she turns on her heel instead, flouncing away in a huff.

Well, that's the end of that, I'm pretty certain and though I'm disappointed to have wasted so much time on a relationship that was ultimately pointless, I'm also a bit relieved too. I never felt entirely right about taking a chosen mate. That's why I wouldn't bed Yvette, no matter how much she asked me to. It was why I'd never gone to bed with any woman. My 'equipment', as she so elegantly called it, worked just fine, but I wasn't about to use it with just anyone.

There must be a reason I was nearly 30 years old and hadn't found my mate yet. She must be someone special, someone worth waiting for.

So I would wait for her. It was as simple as that.

At last, I see the search party returning with Bertie's familiar blond head among them, and breathing a secret sigh of relief, I make my way down to the courtyard to greet him.

It's only as I reach the bottom of the steps that I realize he isn't alone. There is a small boy with him, someone I have never seen before, and instantly I am on alert, pulling my sword from its scabbard.

“Identify yourself,” I call out roughly as I approach the group. What were the soldiers thinking, allowing a stranger within the castle walls? This could be one of the very shapeshifters we were trying to avoid. He smells very unusual, for a start.

In fact, as I get closer and sniff deeper, I realize that he smells rather good, actually. Like dew in the forest on a sunny morning.

I quickly shake my head at myself. Where on earth did that thought come from?

Bertie turns to the boy at his side, who still has his back to me. “I think he's talking to you.”

When the boy finally turns around, I am confronted by the most startling pair of amber eyes I have ever seen, and my wolf lets out a joyful howl in my head.

Mate!