“Trouble?” Roko asked as he saw her expression.
“My father has issued an ultimatum. I am to stop working for the refugee movement or face banishment.” The words came out in a rush. The tears she had tried so hard to suppress were close to the surface, but she didn’t know Roko well enough to allow them to spill over in his presence. Her pride would not allow a display of that nature. She knew he would be only too happy to offer a sympathetic shoulder, but that would mean dismantling a boundary that she preferred to keep intact.
“Bastard.” His features hardened. “What will you do?”
“What can I do?” Violet sighed. “I cannot accept my father’s autocratic rule, not just over myself, but over the Wolf Nation. I’ve always known he is a cruel man. I’ve seen the evidence of that throughout my life. Even when I was younger, I tried to persuade him that there were other ways to secure the loyalty of his subjects.” She laughed at the memory. “My efforts were always greeted with a sneer. When he finally defeated Anwyl and took over, his treatment of those who were loyal to the former leader was brutal.”
Roko nodded. “I know. I see the evidence of it every day. Anwyl was a good man. He led our dynasty peaceably for many years until Nevan turned against him. I want a return to those days, a return to the werewolf traits of nobility and pack loyalty. We are not a nation that turns on its own.”
Violet didn’t point out to him that the resistance was weak. Since Anwyl’s defeat, Nevan had done everything he could to stamp out any opposition. The only reason Roko was still alive was that Nevan didn’t view him as a real threat. Her father had made sure Roko had no real support. Anyone who might have considered joining the resistance was already in the refugee camp, fighting to stay alive.
“As I was growing up, my brothers and sisters tried to get me to follow their lead, to turn a blind eye to what my father was doing, but I couldn’t. That this cruelty is going on in his name makes it so much worse, because I am associated with it through my relationship to him. He makes me stand at his side when there is a formal function. I must walk next to him when he goes on his triumphant journeys through the Wolf Nation. When he took over, I had to do something—anything—to make things better for the innocent werewolf packs caught in the crossfire of his revenge.”
Violet shook her head. She hadn’t answered Roko’s question. What was she going to do? When your father was feared throughout Otherworld for violence, and within his own family for his temper, it was probably best not to openly defy him.
So why do I continue to do it? Violet wondered, not for the first time. Why the hell don’t I just accept defeat and bow down to his wishes?
The answer was obvious. Because if I give in this time, I’ll do it every time. I would abandon my principles and let down all those people who are depending on me.
Maybe this one time, I have to let go. It was a small, insidious voice at the back of her mind. She had been hearing it more and more frequently lately. No matter how hard she tried to shut it up, it refused to be silenced. She knew her father’s threat to banish her was a serious one. She didn’t have far to look for the proof that he meant what he said. After all, it had happened to one of her own brothers.
Roko cast a speculative glance in her direction. “Why don’t you come with me to the mortal realm?”
Roko had boasted before that he had friends in the human world. It had seemed so exotic when he first told her about it. The mortal realm was a mystic place, somewhere Violet had heard of only in stories. She knew there were werewolves who lived alongside mortals without detection, but it sounded like the fairy tales she had read as a child. It was another world, one she had never thought to visit.
Even though the veil between the two worlds was a thin one, with Otherworld existing unseen alongside the mortal realm, there was very little overlap between them. All Violet knew was that access to the mortal realm could be gained through a series of portals. While some hardy adventurers used these as a means of traveling regularly between the two, most beings remained within their own worlds. Those in Otherworld had an awareness of the mortal realm, but mortals remained blissfully unaware of Otherworld.
She blinked at him. “Pardon?”
“There are werewolves there who can help the refugee cause. Wealthy businessmen and women who make their money in the mortal realm. They can provide the support we need for the camp of Anwyl supporters who have been displaced by your father’s policies.”
Violet’s heart began to beat faster. “My father would never allow it.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we should tell him.” Roko grinned delightedly at the look on her face. “Your father’s beta werewolves, the goons he sends to sniff out a problem, are used to operating here in Otherworld. They’ll never be smart enough to figure out where we’ve gone.”
It all sounded so enticing, so brave, so spur-of-the-moment glamorous. There was just one problem.
“We are friends, right? Nothing more.” She had to be sure Roko knew that before she embarked on any journey with him.
His grin deepened. “Sure thing, babe.”
Babe? Had he listened to what she’d just said? Violet knew why Nevan was so opposed to her friendship with Roko. Apart from the fact that he was a rebel, her father saw her as a pawn to further his political ambitions. He wanted to marry her off to one of his powerful allies. Prospects were everything as far as her father was concerned. Prospects were something Roko lacked. He was not an alpha wolf, and his family was not noble.
Looking at Roko’s smiling, handsome face, Violet finally understood what prospects really meant. It wasn’t about whether the man she chose as her mate would further the werewolf cause with Otherworld dynasties. When the werewolves sat around the table at gatherings of the Otherworld Alliance, they met with faeries, elves, phantoms, and dryads, to name but a few of the many dynasties who made up the vast realm of Otherworld. Not to mention the age-old enemies of the werewolves. The vampire dynasty under its charismatic leader, Prince Tibor, was on the rise. Nevan wanted alliances that would make the werewolves a match for the vampires. That was what prospects meant to him.
But shouldn’t prospects also mean her mate would be able to care for her, protect her and shelter her if they made a mad dash into the mortal realm? With Roko, the answer to all of those was a resounding no.
When she looked at Roko, Violet saw the opposite of Nevan. She saw weakness instead of strength, but neither man had the true qualities needed to lead the Wolf Nation. Both were lacking the essential ingredients of compassion and empathy. It scared her that her people—her pack—were reliant on these warring individuals to provide the leadership they so desperately needed.
Oh, Roko could offer her fun...and fun had been one element that had been missing throughout Violet’s life. Now and then, she had briefly wondered if it might be worth combining business with pleasure. But Violet had realized some time ago that fun might be all Roko had to offer. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from her future mate, but it was a hell of a lot more than this.
Even though she had her doubts about the company, a proposed trip to the mortal realm offered her an escape from her father’s threats and the chance to drum up some much-needed support for her cause.
“Very well.” She nodded. “When do we leave?”
“How about right now?”
* * *
Nate jerked awake suddenly, aware that he was no longer alone in an anonymous motel room. Instinctively, his hand dived under the pillow for his gun.
“Relax. You don’t need it.” The voice of the man seated in the chair at the side of the bed was amused. The moonlight streaming through a gap in the curtains illuminated his face, and his eyes shone with a silver gleam that was unusual, but familiar.
“I