between them was that Roko was able to speak openly about his beliefs. Violet didn’t dare.
It had been easier to pretend her closeness to Roko was friendship than to tell her father the truth. If he discovered she was working secretly with the resistance to help the refugees, those werewolves made homeless by Nevan’s cruelty, the storm breaking over her head would have become a tempest.
Since becoming leader, Nevan’s fury against Anwyl’s followers had been boundless. The two main islands that comprised the Wolf Nation were Reznati and Urlati. Until recently, Reznati had been the base of Anwyl and his followers. Urlati had always been Nevan’s home. Following Anwyl’s defeat, Nevan had exacted terrible retribution upon the people of Reznati, burning villages and driving men, women and children out of their homes.
Violet drew a breath as she exited Nevan’s study. In the most recent confrontation, her father had forbidden her from seeing Roko. He had forbidden her many things during her life, most of which she had disobeyed.
Leaving the house, the beautiful mansion known as the Voda Kuca that occupied a prominent position on the island of Urlati, she made her way to the nearby forest where she knew Roko would be waiting. Sure enough, he was lounging against a tree trunk.
Faced with her father’s atrocities toward his enemies, Violet had no choice other than to turn to the resistance for help. But both Roko and her father made a huge assumption if they believed her interest in the rebel leader was romantic. Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough to convince either of them. She experienced a pang of guilt as Roko’s handsome features lit up with a smile when he saw her. She had never given him any encouragement, but that look told her she might not have given him a clear enough signal that friendship and a working relationship were all she had to offer. Her conscience prodded her again. Maybe a part of her had enjoyed inflaming her father’s anger even further by hinting that this was something more.
“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
