Scent of Valor (Chronicles of Eorthe #2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

feed over the winter months, and Inali had arranged a mating with a hunter Kele had never met. A fine fate for the female who’d scorned his affection. May the bastard be fat and smell like elk ass.
    “The wild shifters aren’t thinking of war. They’re thinking of fucking and making more pups. Tell the staff so they can ease everyone’s minds.” Benic gestured toward the study’s door.
    “That soothes my heart. Fucking is something I understand much better than fighting.” Inacio’s smile grew crooked and his gaze darkened with secret promises.
    Benic had to laugh again. The act seemed strange after months of solitude and alcohol. Time healed all wounds, and what else did a vampire possess in great amounts but time? Unfortunately, Kele didn’t have many years to remain young and he’d been a romantic fool to think she could bring him any kind of joy.
    “Will you go to the mating?”
    “No.” One half of the Payami pack wanted to kill him and the other to eat his liver. “I haven’t time to fool around with such mundane things. We have a wine cellar to fill, which means we should embark on a trip to the finest market.”
    “New Berg?”
    “Yes, I think a trip to New Berg would place me in much better spirits.” He hadn’t paid his respects to the Grand Lord Weis in decades. It was about time he gave vampire politics in North Amerigo his full attention. Who knew, maybe the Nation had decided to allow vampire females to finally travel to the New World.
    He’d let the wild shifters living in his forest rot for all he cared anymore.
    The noise in his courtyard traveled through the windows. Most of his people were domesticated wolf shifters, procured during the battles as the vampires settled this new land. None remembered that time, but the vampires who remained under his care did.
    The castle shifters were nervous about the hurt feelings between him and their wild cousins. Benic’s memories of those battles had not faded yet. “We’ll send Kele a mating day present in our absence.” He scratched his chin. “What do you think would be appropriate? Something that says, ‘Sorry for stealing you and let’s try not to kill each other over it.’”
    Inacio rolled his eyes. “I’d suggest one of the new pups, but I know you’d say no.”
    “True, that’s not acceptable.”
    “Maybe one of your mother’s amulets?”
    “Jewelry?” The shifters beaded their clothes for special occasions. Some decorated their hair with feathers and wore simple jewelry. An amulet could be a good choice. “How about the one covered with small rubies?”
    “It would sparkle on Kele with her pale hair and skin. I think it’s an excellent choice.”
    “Send it now with my swiftest omega.”
    “A shifter? One of your mounted guards would arrive faster.”
    “Yes and he’d be returned in pieces. They won’t kill a submissive. Maybe they’ll just keep it.” He shrugged. “Go, I want her to receive it before the ceremony.”
    Maybe this way, she’d be thinking of him tomorrow instead of her precious Peder.

Chapter Four
     
    Peder stared at the stone ceiling of the omegas’ quarters. The comforting sound of the others breathing or snoring didn’t ease him into sleep as usual. The ache in his chest wouldn’t let him rest. He should have pursued Kele like a hunter instead of waiting on his heels as an omega, but it was difficult breaking one’s nature.
    He glanced at the sleeping others. Was it really his nature, though? Who in this room trained with the alpha? Had any of them left the safety of the den without hunters? None had spent two days in the Payami den. Maybe he’d been born a hunter. No one would ever know. Too many terrible things had happened to the Apisi, molding them into something warped and broken. The next generation of their pups, like Susan and Sorin’s, would grow to be fine shifters.
    If only he’d been born now. Without the constant struggle to survive, maybe he could have grown into