The heat from Kaelen's body was a physical weight, a stark contrast to the icy rain that still slicked my skin. I stared at our joined palms. The blood,his dark and thick, mine shimmering with a strange, pearlescent hue,didn't drip. It soaked into our skin as if the pores themselves were hungry for the connection.
"What did you do?" I whispered, my voice trembling.
The hollow ache in my chest from Jace's rejection hadn't vanished, but it was being crowded out. It was like a dying ember suddenly doused in gasoline. The Blood-Bond wasn't a tether; it was an invasion.
"I didn't do anything your own soul wasn't screaming for," Kaelen replied. His voice was a low vibration that I felt in my teeth. He didn't let go of my hand. Instead, he laced his fingers through mine, forcing the wound against the wound. "You were dying, Elara. A rejected mate's heart withers in hours. I simply gave yours a reason to keep beating."
"By binding me to a monster?" I pulled back, but it was like trying to move a mountain.
Kaelen's golden eyes flared. "In this forest, the monster is the one who keeps you alive. The 'hero' is the one who left you in the mud."
He released my hand and turned, gesturing toward the deeper shadows of the Obsidian territory. "Walk. My pack house is three miles east. If you drop, I won't carry you. An Oracle must learn to carry herself."
*Oracle.* There was that word again.
"I'm an Omega," I snapped, tripping over a protruding root as I tried to keep pace with his long, predatory strides. "I've been tested a dozen times by the Silvermoon Elders. My rank is the lowest. My wolf is small. I am nothing."
Kaelen stopped so abruptly I walked right into the wall of his back. He turned, his face inches from mine. The scent of cedar and iron intensified. "The Silvermoon Elders couldn't see a diamond if it was buried in their own marrow. They saw a girl who didn't shift on command and called it weakness. I see blood that glows like the moon and a spirit that didn't break when a future Alpha tried to crush it."
He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw. "You are no Omega, Elara Vance. You are the key to a curse that has rotted my pack for a decade. And tonight, you became the most hunted woman in the Shadow-Vale."
---
The Obsidian Pack House was not the sprawling, white-columned mansion of the Silvermoon. It was a fortress of black stone and ancient timber, built into the side of a jagged cliff. Torches burned in iron brackets, casting long, dancing shadows against the walls.
As we crossed the threshold, the air changed. It was heavy with the scent of a hundred wolves, but there was an underlying note,a sickly, sweet smell of decay.
*The Rot.* I remembered the rumors now. The Obsidian Pack was supposed to be the strongest, but for years, their pups had been born weak, and their elders had fallen to a wasting sickness that no healer could touch.
"Alpha!"
A tall woman with a jagged scar running from her ear to her chin stepped out of the shadows. She wore leather armor, and her eyes,a sharp, icy blue,darted immediately to me.
"You brought a Silvermoon stray into the heart of the hold?" she hissed, her hand dropping to the hilt of a bone-handled dagger. "Kaelen, the council is already restless. The sickness took two more Omegas tonight. We don't have time for toys."
"She is no toy, Vara," Kaelen growled, his voice dropping an octave into a true Alpha Command. The woman, Vara, winced, her head bowing slightly against her will. "She is the solution. Get the healers. Tell them to prepare the Chamber of Tides."
Vara's eyes widened. "The Chamber? Kaelen, that's only for,"
"Now," Kaelen barked.
Vara cast one last, murderous look at me before disappearing into the gloom of the stone corridor.
Kaelen turned to me, his expression unreadable. "You're shivering."
"I'm cold, I'm wet, and I've been rejected, exiled, and kidnapped in the span of two hours," I said, my voice rising with a frantic edge. "I think I'm allowed to shiver."
Kaelen's gaze softened,only for a fraction of a second,before it hardened again. He stripped the heavy fur cloak from his shoulders and draped it around me. It was warm, smelling intensely of him, and so heavy it nearly knocked me over.
"You weren't kidnapped," he said, stepping closer until I was backed against the cold stone wall. "A kidnap victim has somewhere to go back to. You have nothing but the bond I gave you."
He leaned in, his lips brushing my temple. "Tonight, you sleep. Tomorrow, we see if your blood is as royal as I think it is. If it isn't..."
"If it isn't?" I challenged, my heart hammering.
"Then I've started a war for a girl who will be dead by sunset," he whispered. "Because Jace is coming for you, Elara. Not because he wants you, but because an Alpha cannot stand to lose what he thinks he owns."
He gestured to a heavy wooden door. "Go. There is dry clothing and water inside. Do not try to leave. My guards don't share my... curiosity."
I walked into the room, the heavy door thudding shut behind me. It was a simple room,a bed covered in furs, a washbasin, and a window that looked out over the dark canopy of the forest.
I collapsed onto the bed, the weight of the day finally crushing me. I expected to cry. I expected to mourn Jace. But as I closed my eyes, all I could feel was the strange, rhythmic pulsing in my palm where Kaelen had cut me.
It felt like a heartbeat. But it wasn't mine.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled,a mournful, silver sound. It was the Silvermoon signal for a hunt. Jace was already in the woods.
I pulled Kaelen's cloak tighter around me, the scent of cedarwood lulling me into a dark, dreamless sleep. I had been shattered by a boy I loved, only to be put back together by a man I should fear.
The war hadn't even begun, but as I drifted off, I knew one thing for certain:
The girl who had knelt in the mud of the Silvermoon ritual grounds was dead. And whatever was waking up in her place had teeth.