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"No," he had whispered. "Not again"
He cursed as though the Divine Ones had dealt him another blow.
And still, the bond surged between them, merciless and absolute. She felt it snap into place like a closing trap, even as everything inside him recoiled from it. She felt the shame of not being enough and the sinking feeling that her mating was going to be very different from Lisna's.
She had daydreamed of joy and a male who couldn't keep his hands off her. Instead, she received a wolf who wished she didn't exist so he could join his mate in the Undercroft.
She was both salvation and betrayal, and he could not bear either.
Blaidd turned his head.
His eyes were red.
The joy she had expected—some echo of Maxen's fierce happiness—was not there. In that instant, she knew that he regretted her existence. Regretted the cruel inevitability of finding another mate when all he wanted was to reunite with the first.
But the bond gifted by the Divine Ones was relentless. It took no heed of grief.
He bonded to her with resignation etched plainly across his face.
She, foolish and hopeful, wore a crown of orange blossoms and a gown of moss-green silk. Her wolf simmered just beneath her skin, exhilarated, taking off into the forest after the ceremony, and Blaidd had followed.
She led him on a wild chase through the borderlands, laughing breathless joy, until he caught her and drove her roughly to the ground in one of the ancient caves where old magic still clung to the stone.
He did not take his time undoing her hair.
He did not remove the flowers gently.
There was only urgency and heat, no tenderness. All she felt afterwards was, What did I do wrong?
He was her first lover, so she had nothing to compare it with. Though her wolf stirred uneasily, she mistook it for nerves, for awe, for the enormity of the bond settling into her bones.
And still, she had never felt closer to another being.
They walked back together at dawn. He went ahead, silent on the return journey. She followed, clutching the remnants of a dream she did not yet understand had already cracked.
Nary a word did he say to her throughout.
She knew something was missing, but in this new pack of strangers with her sister busy learning the duties of an alpha mate and her brother training as beta, there was no one else to turn to. Everyone’s life carried on while she stood still.
Chapter 6
The northeastern border of the packlands
The snow had closed over the land like Fenrir swallowing the sun.
Familiar passes vanished under pale powder overnight, tracks erased almost as soon as they were made, and the wilderness was reduced to a white, indifferent sprawl. Blaidd had been forced to hole up in one of the old borderland caves with crude stone walls. The wind had stopped howling and an eerie silence followed like the Bean Nighe* was prowling. The cavity in the mountain was known only to those who patrolled long and far enough to need places to shelter.
A small fire burned at the mouth of the cave, its smoke threading thin and pale through a chute in the roof of the cave. A pheasant turned slowly on a split branch over the embers, fat hissing as it dripped into the crackling fire. He had set it up mechanically, with the practice from long hours spent on his own in the fringes of the packlands. Furs wrapped in oilskin were unfurled and shaken out. They were still musty, but this was luxury compared to the times he had shifted to wolf-form to ride out a blizzard.
But now there was nothing left to do but think.
There was no scouting to do, no reports to compile, and no patrol routes to mark. The snow had frozen the world, and with it, every distraction he usually relied upon until he could drift off into a dreamless sleep.
And so, inevitably, his thoughts turned to home.
* Bean-nighe: A female spirit in Scottish folklore, related to the Irish banshee, who foretells death by quietly washing clothes beside lonely streams.
He sat back against the rock wall, furs drawn around his shoulders, the heat of the fire a poor substitute for the warmth of his mate's body. All was silent, save the occasional snap of the dying fire and the drip of melting ice somewhere.
