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

someone he’d be proud of.
    Who knew? These nighttime musings would probably fade into the shadows with the morning light, except the fact remained that he was unhappy. His parents had passed away when he’d been a pup and the pack had raised him, so in moments of deep doubt, he didn’t have anyone to confide in.
    He rolled over and punched his thin pillow into a better shape. Why bother trying to sleep? It would be dawn soon. He growled at the wall. Kele would be mated by the afternoon. Would she choose to stay with this hunter after their first pup?
    “Peder, go walk it off. Some of us are trying to sleep,” one of his fellow male omegas whispered across the room.
    With heavy limbs, he rose to his feet and gathered his clothes. How would he survive the day?
    Out in the canyon, the air still held some of winter’s bite. He had his leather kilt untangled from his worn sweater when a dark, heavy shadow moved at the far end of the canyon by the den’s only gate. Peder dropped his clothes and crouched low, scanned the top of the walls for the hunters guarding their home, but saw no one.
    He melted into the shadow and shifted to feral form. If this turned out to be some animal, he’d never stop hearing about it from the hunters. Whatever he’d seen had either gone very still or left, since he couldn’t make out any shape from this distance or scent their presence. Moving as Sorin had taught him, he crept close to the ground and kept to the darkest parts of the night.
    As he drew near the door, an itch developed between his shoulder blades as if something hung close to touching him. He spun around and, upon seeing the familiar face, clamped his muzzle shut before he howled in relief.
    Sorin stood behind him in civil form, grinning like a fool. “You did well.”
    Peder leaned against the canyon wall, panting. It took all his strength to keep his knees from knocking. “There are kinder ways of killing me than this. What are you doing awake?”
    “Waiting for you.” Sorin returned to the spot by the gate where Peder had first seen the shadows move. “Took you long enough.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Aren’t you going after Kele?”
    He hadn’t planned on it, but since Sorin mentioned it, that seemed like a fine idea. “How would I sneak into her den to grab her?”
    Sorin leaned his chin in hand. “You’ve no idea what to do.”
    Peder fell to his knees. “Of course I don’t. I’m so fucking confused. She stopped answering my letters months ago. I might just make a fool of myself.”
    “And?”
    He jerked as if struck by the question. “And I don’t want to?”
    Sorin smacked him across the forehead hard enough to make the den spin. “Stop being an ass. If you want the female, you have to challenge the hunter.”
    “Oh, is that all?” Peder couldn’t withhold his sarcasm, not after his bellyaching all night.
    “You can do this. The worst that will happen is he’ll win and take her as a mate. That’s going to happen anyway if you stay home and hide.”
    “I’m not hiding.” He snapped his teeth at his alpha before his civil mind restrained his feral instincts. Falling to his stomach, he touched Sorin’s foot. “I’m sorry, Alpha. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
    Sorin petted his furred head. “First, you’re in feral form within the den. That never ends well. Second, you’re young and in love. That rarely ends well either.” He tapped Peder’s shoulder for him to sit up. “I’ve taught you everything you need to know about fighting challenges. The only thing left for you to do is to have the courage to enter a ring.”
    The alpha’s words clicked inside Peder’s head as if they were a missing piece of a puzzle. Courage. He’d never lacked it before, not even when faced with a castle filled with vampires. What he lacked was confidence. No one would hand that to him on a silver platter.
    He’d fight for Kele if she loved him or not. If he won, he’d give her the choice of