Heart of Iron

Chapter 20: Iron Made

CASIMIR

The voices of my squad leaders droned on and mashed together into something incoherent. I was present but my mind was somewhere else. Days and days of preparations and planning for the Alpha summit were driving me to the edge of madness.

My wolf wanted to be anywhere but this cramped space, and I was of the same mind. There was only so much paperwork that I could handle. Thalia was the one who did most of the office work. I preferred to be down in the action. But this situation needed all of my most loyal and detail-oriented leaders.

Damn those old fools for forcing this onto me.

I flipped my pen back and forth between my fingers, trying to work out the excess energy I had.

Beau was going over the seating arrangements for the banquet.

"No, you can't sit the Alphas of Crimsonclaw and Goldencreek next to each other. That's asking for a fight," Thalia interjected.

Annoyance wiggled around in my chest as I watched my Beta begin to reconfigure the seating once more.

"That won't work either," Marco said.

Thalia took a step back from the board; both her and Beau were searching for the problem.

"From the intel we've gathered, Crimsonclaw are attempting to make an alliance with those techies from Copperhead."

"Crimsonclaw has been trying to build a private fight force that could rival us for years," Thalia grumbled.

"Maybe we should try to get the Alpha of Copperhead on our side. I'm curious what kind of weapons they could build us with their tech," Beau replied.

All this bureaucratic bullshit was going to be the death of me.

"Of course that's what you're thinking about..." Marco huffed.

There was a pounding behind my eyes and my wolf was pacing around in my mind, making my skin crawl and my bones itch.

I slapped my pen down on my desk. The three of them turned in my direction, surprised by my sudden outburst.

"I need a break. Don't mind me."

I didn't give Thalia the opportunity to try and stop me, because I knew she would. I practically fled the room and made my way to Rowan's room. Maybe another trip through the garden maze would take the edge off.

It was only when I was almost to her bedroom that I remembered that she had told me last night before we fell asleep that she was doing dagger work with Mariel this afternoon.

A growl caught in my throat.

I stood in the hallway for a moment then made the decision that I check on my mate and see the progress she was making. There was nothing strange about that. I checked on the other cadets often too.

***

The Pit was quiet this afternoon. Mariel had most of her cadets working in the weight room. A few of them were watching the sparring from up in the gallery. It didn't take long for me to find Rowan.

She was partaking in some kind of round robin sparring with cadets that Mariel had hand picked.

I approached Mariel, trying not to draw too much attention to myself.

"How's she doing?"

Mariel shouted a suggestion to a cadet at the bottom of the group. Then she glanced my way, meeting my gaze for a moment before focusing back on the sparring.

"She's held steady in second place."

I nodded, watching as the partners switched. Rowan moved from second place square into the first place square.