Chapter 39: I Made A Bet. With My Entire Dignity On The Line!
Neve was still staring at his hand that was wrapped with Ryker’s thick hand. The announcement that he made was still on everyone’s lips. The tiger tribe were even wondering if something was wrong with their chief.
Of course, something was definitely wrong with him. If he was normal, he wouldn’t have made such a ridiculous announcement in front of everyone.
"Chief..." One of them tried to speak, but Ryker shot him a death glare. He immediately pressed his lips into a thin line.
"No one will speak against it. I’ve made my decision."
Just like Ryker said, no one dared speak. He kissed Neve’s hand again, and Neve felt his body vibrate as Cael’s grip around his body tightened.
Isabella stepped forward. Of course, if no one would dare talk, she would be against it.
’Here we go,’ Neve thought.
"He’s a man," she said. Not to Neve. To the gathering, to Ryker’s people specifically, the tiger tribe members who had come here with their chief and were now watching him sit on the ground with his hands on a man’s hand. "He cannot carry the chief’s cubs. He cannot be an heir. Whatever feelings Ryker has for him—" she looked at Ryker directly "—they cannot come before the tiger tribe’s future."
Ryker’s jaw moved, but he said nothing.
"The chief needs someone who can lead beside him," Isabella continued. "Someone who can give the tiger tribe the next generation. Someone—" she paused just long enough "—suitable."
She did not say her own name.
She didn’t have to. The implication sat in the air perfectly clearly, and several members of the tiger tribe were nodding in the careful way of people who agreed but didn’t want to be seen agreeing too visibly.
Neve watched Ryker’s face.
He could see the weight of it landing. The specific heaviness of duty and expectation pressing down on something that wanted to go a different direction. Ryker was a chief. He had people behind him whose future was his responsibility. Isabella was not wrong about any of the practical points she was making.
She was just using them as weapons, which was different from them being wrong.
Neve looked at the favourability meter above Ryker’s head.
{Ryker — 44%}
He was going to be Neve’s regardless. The system had decided. The world had decided. Whatever Isabella said tonight, that number was going to keep moving in one direction.
But Neve let Ryker sit in it for a moment.
Isabella looked at Neve.
Her expression was saying something like:
’Say something. Show them you don’t care about Ryker’s tribe. Give me the opening.’
Neve said nothing, and her expression sharpened.
"He doesn’t even care," she said, switching targets smoothly. "Look at him. Ryker stands up in front of everyone and announces something that affects the whole tiger tribe, and Neve says nothing. Because the tiger tribe’s future means nothing to him. He only cares about what he can get."
A few more nods from the tiger tribe side.
Cael opened his mouth.
"He already has a lot on his plate," Cael said. His voice was flat and certain in the way it always was. "He treated my brother when no physician in the territory could. He taught this tribe to cook for winter. He prepared our stores." A pause. "He has more on his plate than anyone here. He doesn’t need to prove what he cares about."
He glared at Isabella once. Then he looked away. Isabella felt her body tense at that glare.
"Also," Cael said, "he’s been marked by the dragon king."
The gathering stopped. Everyone looked at Neve’s neck.
They had been looking at the mark since the tiger tribe arrived. Neve had noticed the glances... the curious, slightly nervous looks of people who recognised the mark and didn’t know what to do with the fact of it. Nobody had said anything directly because nobody wanted to be wrong.
Now someone had said it directly.
The response was immediate.
Tiger tribe, leopard tribe, everyone present, reacting at once. Voices overlapping. Someone said ’the dragon king’ twice, like saying it again would confirm it. The chief of the leopard tribe was laughing; he was genuinely pleased that his tribe’s position had just been dramatically elevated in front of their guests.
Neve sat in the middle of all of it and waited.
Isabella looked around at the gathering. At the attention that had been directed at Neve again, at the conversation that had shifted again, at her opening and closing again.
She walked toward Neve.
"You’re a fake," she said.
The gathering went quieter.
Neve looked up at her. "What do you mean, fake?"
"That mark." She gestured at his neck. "You put it there yourself. Or someone put it there for you." She looked around at the crowd. "The dragon king marking a man? A red panda nobody had heard of before this season? It doesn’t make sense."
Neve tilted his head. "You think I faked a dragon lord’s bond mark."
"I think you’ll do whatever it takes to stay in a tribe that would otherwise have thrown you out," she said. "And I think tomorrow, at the festival, when the dragon king is present and doesn’t recognise you, everyone will see it."
Neve looked at her.
The people behind her are listening.
At Ryker, who was watching with an expression that was carefully neutral but whose eyes were paying close attention.
"Okay," Neve said.
Isabella blinked. She had expected more resistance.
"If the dragon king recognises me as his mate tomorrow," Neve said, "you’ll apologise. In front of both tribes. On your knees."
A sound from the crowd. Not quite a gasp. The particular noise of people recalibrating the situation.
Isabella laughed confidently. "And if he doesn’t?"
"He will," Neve said.
"But if he doesn’t?"
"He will," Neve said again, pleasantly. "But since you’re so sure he won’t — what do you lose by agreeing?"
Isabella looked at the crowd around them. At her tiger tribe, supporters nod. At the position she was in, which was confident and backed, and apparently winning.
"Fine," she said. "If the dragon king recognises you, I will grovel. In front of everyone."
"Good," Neve said.
He stood up.
Cael stood immediately beside him.
Neve looked at Ryker, who was looking back at him with an expression that had shifted somewhere more complicated.
"Tomorrow," Neve said, to no one specifically and everyone generally.
The chief waved his hand from across the fire. "Go rest. Take Cael. He’s useless to anyone here when you’re around anyway."
Laughter from the leopard tribe. Cael’s expression did not change, but his ears went slightly pink.
Neve looked at Isabella one more time.
Her jaw was tight. Her fake smile was still present even if she was trying hard not to care about the fact that Cael was following Neve around.
He smiled at her.
Then he took Cael’s hand.
"I need him tonight anyway," he said easily, loud enough to carry. "We’ve both got a long night ahead." He started walking. "And a lot of things to prepare."
He felt her eyes on his back the entire way across the gathering and did not look back.
.
.
The cave was dark when they got inside.
The bedroom was dark because he had kept the lamp in his inventory before leaving. Which meant the main space was lit only by what came through the entrance. The kitchen had the banked coals from earlier, but nothing bright.
Neve stood in the centre of it and exhaled. The kind of breath that was released during a whole evening of performance.
The gathering noise was still audible from outside, but distant now. The first snow hadn’t started yet, but the air coming through the cave entrance had that specific quality that said it was very close.
Tomorrow was the festival.
Tomorrow, the dragon king was going to be there.
Tomorrow, Neve had a bet on the line that required Vaelthorn to publicly recognise him as his mate, which was going to be an interesting conversation, given that Neve had never actually seen the man’s face.
He also had a pheromone count of ninety five percent.
And a promise he had made to Cael.
Cael, who was standing behind him in the dark cave, close enough that Neve could feel the warmth of him, which in the cooling evening air was extremely noticeable.
"We should probably light some fire and—" Neve started.
"There’s no need for fire, Neve."
Cael’s low voice came from directly behind him. It was the same way it had always been, but with something different underneath it. The something that had been building since the woods. Since the kiss. Since Neve had gone to his knees on the cave floor, and Cael had put his hand in his hair.
"Let’s just start with the mating," Cael said.
The cave was dark. Neve’s heart was doing something unreasonable.
’It’s finally time,’ he thought.
He stood very still in the dark cave with winter starting outside and Cael warm behind him.
’It’s finally time to sleep with a man,’ he told himself.