The Prince's Fated Mate: M/M Alpha/Omega Paranormal Werewolf Romance (Norvargen Wolves Book 1) (10 page)

Will was running near the back of the group, keeping pace with the others. He was thankful that Pa worked him so hard around the inn; his muscles were well-developed, and he had the stamina and strength to match these well-travelled wolves.
 

They stopped at nightfall, making camp in a clearing, and a few wolves went out to hunt for food.
 

While waiting, Will, having shifted back to his human form, went to fetch his bag from the pile the servants had made, and he carried it to his own private nook, a slight distance away from the others. He was the only one who was an outsider here. Everyone else, even counting the servants, came from the Den, and they already had their friends to seek company with. He could see Prince James was busy, deep in talks with a couple of the advisors who had tagged along for the journey, Advisor Keanes being one of them. So he stalked off with his bag and sat against a large tree, pulling out one of the three books he had decided to pack.
 

He had been debating bringing more along, but wisdom won over desire; too many books would have been unwieldy to carry, and unfair on the backs of the servant wolves who’d have to bear the weight of the luggage. Either way, these three would be enough to keep him sated, as long as he didn’t read too quickly and burn through all the pages.

“Are you all right there?” said a voice, and Will looked up to see one of the servants smiling hesitantly at him.

“Me?”

The servant nodded.

“Oh, yes, yes, I’m fine,” Will said, politely.

The servant, a young man with dark blond hair, smiled pleasantly. “I’m Adrian, by the way.”

Will stood up, extending his hand out. “I’m William — ”

“Oh yes, I know,” said Adrian, laughing brightly. “Nice to meet you, Master Translator.”

Will blushed at that silly name.
 

“When dinner comes back, you can come eat with me and the other servants, if you’d like,” said Adrian.

 
“Thank you,” said Will to that invitation. “I suppose the prince will be busy then?”

Adrian nodded. “Normally the Alpha’s family eats with the advisors only.”

Will fought the urge to pout. He had been hoping that the eating arrangements might be a bit more free-flow, and he’d have the chance to sit with and talk to the prince.

“Well,” he said, trying to look on the bright side of things. “At least I won’t have to be around that advisor.”

Adrian’s laughter was light and infectious. “Talking about Advisor Keanes, are you?” he said, winking. “He’s the worst of them all, that big bully. Terrible temper, terrible everything. Can’t stand things not going his way, and he snaps quickly at you if you cross him just once. Well, he has been mellowing out a little bit in the past few years, but still. He likes lecturing you a lot, so just do your best to steer clear of him. Not even the Alpha’s children could avoid his wrath, you know. The young ones loved to play pranks on him ”

None of this was surprising to Will.
 

“But, he is a respected figure in the Alpha Court,” said Adrian, sighing. “Typical, isn’t it? Bit of power makes them a little insane, that’s what I think. Or rather, having a bit of power and then losing it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hmm? Oh, no, I’m just joking, Master Translator. Advisor Keanes used to be commander of the army, you know, in charge of all the warrior wolves. Now, he’s an advisor, and that’s even more respectable, but he’s not as in control of all the decisions like before, of course. Now he’s just one voice amongst the many other advisors, whereas he used to be the only one in command back in the army. The other servants and I like to say that’s why he’s such a nag over every little thing. He can’t control an entire army anymore, so he just nitpicks the little things instead.”

“Bothersome old man,” said Will.

“Oh, he most definitely is,” agreed Adrian. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go tidy up the tents for the advisors — they get special tents away from us while we’re stuck roughing it out. Then we’ll need to get the tea brewing… Well, have fun with your book!”

Will said goodbye and sat back down, pulling out his book again.
 

‘
The Silent Swordsman,
’ he read, translating it as he went along. His mother had given him this book when he was seven, and notes written with her clean handwriting were scrawled over the margins. She liked to annotate the stories for him, adding definitions to words he did not know, sometimes even adding her own random comments by the side. He never knew for certain why she did that, but he was thankful for it now. It kept her alive, her voice and her thoughts. He was a chapter in, and the lone warrior was meeting with his long-time rival at the edge of a cliff.

“What are you reading?” another voice intruded on his concentration.
 

It was Prince James, settling down by the ground beside him.

Will jerked in surprise.

“Sorry,” said the Prince, looking apologetic. “I just saw you sitting here by yourself, and thought I’d check on you.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” said Will, knowing he must look a bit of a loner sitting so far away from the group. “I just thought I’d read a bit before dinner came.”
 

Prince James smiled handsomely. “How did you cope with today’s journey?”

“Very well,” said Will.

“Good,” said the prince, laughing. “Do your best to prove Advisor Keanes wrong, Master William. I liked very much how you talked back to him at that meeting, you know.”

“Oh?” said Will, taken aback.

Prince James nodded. “Not many dare to do it, not to a member of the Alpha Court, but I find it refreshingly pleasant to see that man put in his place a bit.” He grinned. “He was being rather rude, after all.”

Will blushed, happy at that bit of encouragement. “Thank you,” he said, not knowing what else to say. Was this why the prince was being just a little bit more open with him now? Because he had the gall to talk back to Advisor Keanes? Was that really something so special?
 

“Now, what’s the book you have there?”

He held up the book. “It’s just a children’s story, nothing special.”

“The pages are scribbled all over,” Prince James pointed out curiously.
 

Will smiled. “My ma made a lot of notes. She was a messy reader, you could say. She liked scribbling all over anything she could get her hands on.”

Prince James laughed. “I can’t say I relate to that. All my books are kept clean and pristine. No corners folded over, and not a drop of extra ink on the pages.”

“I’m not exactly the same as my Ma, but I do take some notes here and there,” said Will, pointing to one particular scribbling in the right margin. “I feel it personalises the book.”

“‘Personalises the book,’” Prince James repeated, sounding amused. He didn’t have the mask of politeness around him anymore, and he seemed more comfortable, which made Will very happy, even though he didn’t understand the reason why. “I didn’t think books were made for personalising.”

“Of course they are,” said Will, confused. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

“Well, you read a book, you take what information you can from it, and then that’s it, isn’t it? What good is it writing your opinions all over it?”

“Well, I suppose you could look at it that way. But what about how you felt at some bits, how you like or don’t like a character, and all that?”

The alpha prince quirked a bemused smile at him. “Maybe I’ve just been trained to not tarnish any book with my own thoughts. All the books I’ve read are from the Den’s library, of course, so it’d be frowned upon to scribble my feelings over them.”

“You don’t have any of your own?”

“My father never saw the point of that. He liked me to read, but the Den’s library so vast that there’s not much point owning my own copies.”

“Oh,” said Will, finding that hard to imagine. Hemslock didn’t have a single library, and any book Will could get his hands on would eventually find its way to his own bookcase in his room. The Prince’s life was more regimented than his, he supposed.

“This isn’t in common tongue, is it?” said the alpha, leaning over to peer at the pages.

Will blushed at how close the First Son was. His scent was so strong, overpowering, and for the first time Will realised just how domineering Prince James would be when he became Alpha of the pack.

It’s a good thing I drank the broth this morning
, he thought to himself. He reminded himself to nibble a root later before sleeping, when he could sneak it without anyone watching. He didn’t want to give Advisor Keanes another reason to judge him.
 

“No, it’s not,” said Will, stroking the pages. “My ma gave me this book.”

“Ah, she was from the west, your father said,” the prince recalled. “So you learned how to speak this language from her?”

Will nodded. “She wanted me to know it, even though I’d probably never go to the west. Whenever we had a guest coming from the western territories, she’d make me follow her around and learn from her.”

“Sounds similar to what my father had me do as a child,” Prince James laughed. “You know, I think it’s quite lovely how you refer to your parents. Ma, Pa. Very charming.”

Will looked at him, suddenly self-conscious. He didn’t have any other words to refer to his parents — they had always been Ma and Pa, and he couldn’t imagine calling them anything else. “Really?” he asked, a little puzzled. Ma and Pa were what all of Will’s friends called their parents too; Kytes had two fathers, and he called Byron Pa, and his other father Dad. “What do you call yours?”

“Father and Mother,” said James. “I can’t imagine calling them anything other than that. They’d probably have my head if I ever did try to call them Pa and Ma.”

How stuffy
, Will thought. He imagined calling Pa ‘Father’ and cringed. Too formal, much too formal.

“I guess things are different when you’re the son of the Alpha,” said Will.

Prince James tensed. “You could say so,” he admitted, and Will wondered if he had touched a nerve.

Do I dare ask more?
It was dangerous business, poking one’s nose into another’s matters, even if that person was your fated mate.
 

“Do you — ” Before he could say another word, a trio of wolves returned with dinner, and the smell of raw, freshly captured meat permeated his senses. Saliva gathered in his mouth as he realised just how hungry the day’s journey had made him.
 

“Let’s eat,” said Prince James, and he added with a wink, “before the advisors try to steal the best parts for themselves.”

Too hungry and too charmed by that wink to say anything else, Will nodded and tailed after him to get dinner.

*

The next two weeks followed much like that. They’d run from sunrise to sunset, the western border drawing nearer and nearer with every passing hour. At nighttime, when they had set up their camp, Will would talk a little with Adrian and the others, passing the time together until the servants had to attend to other matters. Then he’d steal away, waiting with one of his books, until Prince James was free to join him. Will was finding himself coping with being away from his family and friends for the first time surprisingly well. Maybe it was because he felt like he was slowly, ever so slowly, drawing closer to his fated mate.

“Read a bit to me,” Prince James asked one night, pointing to the page Will was on.

“But you won’t understand it,” replied Will, confused.
 

“Then translate it for me,” said James, laughing. “You can do that, can’t you, Master Translator?” He had overheard some of the servants jokingly calling Will that, and thought it hilarious.

Will blushed at the obviousness of his response. “It’s a story for children, you wouldn’t like it,” he said.

“I don’t see why I wouldn’t,” argued the First Son. “I’ve enjoyed many a tale for children in my life. Come on. Your Prince is ordering you to read him a story, and you ought to obey.”

Will hemmed and hawed, and then reluctantly started translating the first line of the page, until he was stopped suddenly.

“I was joking about that,” said Prince James, sounding concerned.

“About wanting me to read?”

“No, about ordering you to do it,” said the prince. He looked guilty, for some reason, and he fiddled with his engagement ring. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, I mean. Sorry.”

Will struggled, not comprehending what was going on.
 

“It’s not often I meet people who I can relax with,” said the prince. “Most people aren’t able to put aside the fact that I’m the First Son, and that makes them uncomfortable, a bit more reserved and artificial. I don’t want you to feel like you have to obey me.”

“But don’t I?” pointed out Will. “You are still the First Son.”

Prince James looked at him, his ice-blue eyes piercing through. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want normal friends.”

Will set down the book on his lap and closed it. “What do you mean by normal friends?”

“Friends I can be comfortable with and who are comfortable with me. That’s all,” said Prince James, giving a sort of half-shrug. “I … thought you might be able to do that when I saw how you responded to Advisor Keanes back in the meeting when he was giving you a hard time. You didn’t hold back on him, and I don’t want you to hold back on me.”

You better watch what you say, or I’ll stop taking my wagsroot
, Will thought cheekily. But more seriously, he was elated at what James was saying to him — he hadn’t yet recognised him as a fated mate, but Will was being upgraded to friendship at least.

“Well, if that’s what you want — ”

“Is that what
you
want?” James prodded, raising his eyebrows.
 

“Yes,” said Will, decisively.
 

The alpha prince grinned. “Good. I mean, I’m happy. You’re not just saying that because you’re scared of me being the prince, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

He let out a sigh of relief. “And you can just call me James, you know. No need for ‘Prince’ or ‘First Son’. Just James.”