Chapter 4
1549 Words
I woke to a stone ceiling.
For several seconds, I didn't move. I listened instead. No forest. No attackers. No branches snapping in the dark. Just the low crackle of a fire somewhere nearby and the faint sound of wind against stone.
I pushed myself upright. Pain pulled sharply through my side, but it was nothing like the pain I remembered from the attack. I lifted my shirt and examined the wound. Someone had cleaned it properly, stitched the deepest part, and wrapped it with fresh bandages. The work was good. Better than good.
I pressed two fingers against the skin around the wound and frowned. It was already closing.
That shouldn't have been possible. Not this quickly.
I reached for my Resonance instinctively, then stopped.
I hadn't used it.
The healing had happened on its own.
Before I could make sense of that, the door opened.
The man from the forest stepped inside. In the daylight, he looked even more intimidating. Tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in dark clothes that somehow made him look more like a soldier than an Alpha. His face was controlled, but his eyes went immediately to my wound.
“You're awake.”
I pulled the blanket higher over myself. “Where am I?”
“My keep.”
I waited, but he seemed to realize that wasn't enough.
“Kade Ashwood. Alpha of the Northern Wastes.”
Northern Wastes.
I had heard the name before. Everyone in the shifter territories had. Remote. Severe. Difficult to enter. Even more difficult to survive if you weren't wanted there.
“You brought me here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you were injured.”
I stared at him. “That isn't an answer.”
“It is the answer.”
There was something strange about the way he spoke. No charm. No attempt to soften anything. He simply said what he meant and expected the world to deal with it.
“You're safe here,” he continued. “No one will make you stay. When you're strong enough to leave, you can.”
I studied him carefully. “You said that in the forest too.”
“I meant it then.”
“And now?”
“I still mean it.”
Something in my chest loosened, though I didn't trust the feeling enough to let it stay.
I looked around the room. Stone walls. Heavy wooden furniture. A fire burning low in the hearth. No guards inside.
“You don't lock your guests in?”
“Guests don't need to be locked in.”
“I was attacked less than a day ago.”
“Yes.”
“And you're not worried I'll leave?”
Kade's expression didn't change. “That's your decision.”
I didn't know what to do with that. In Ashgrove, every decision I'd made had somehow belonged to someone else.
I looked down at my hands, then remembered the moment in the forest. His hand around mine. The strange force that had gone through both of us.
“What happened when you touched me?”
Kade went still.
“You felt it.”
“That doesn't answer my question.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“Mate bond.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed. “No?”
“No as in that isn't happening.”
“It already happened.”
I stared at him. “A bond doesn't mean I owe you anything. It doesn't mean I belong to you, and it doesn't give you the right to decide what happens to me.”
“I know.”
His answer came so quickly that I almost missed it.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
I watched him for a moment. He looked almost uncomfortable.
“I've spent my entire life certain I'd never bond to anyone,” he said.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
That wasn't entirely true. I could see it in his face.
There was something he wasn't telling me.
“And now?” I asked.
His eyes met mine.
“Now I don't know what I believe.”
For the first time since I met him, Kade looked less like an Alpha who had every answer and more like a man who had just discovered that one of his oldest certainties was wrong.
I remembered the attackers. “The men who came after me had a mark.”
Kade's expression changed, just slightly.
“What mark?”
I described it. Three curved lines meeting at a single point.
His silence lasted too long.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I don't know enough yet to tell you.”
“You recognized it.”
“I recognized the symbol. That doesn't mean I know who sent them.”
“But you know it's important.”
“Yes.”
That was all I got.
I should have been angry. Instead, I found myself wondering what else the Northern Wastes Alpha wasn't telling me.
Before I could ask, another thought forced its way to the surface.
There was no point hiding it. Not here. Not after everything that had happened.
“I'm pregnant.”
Kade didn't move.
For the first time, I saw genuine surprise cross his face.
“With Julian's child?”
I nodded.
His eyes dropped briefly to my stomach before returning to my face.
I waited.
This was the part where things usually changed. The moment someone discovered what I was carrying, I stopped being Wren. I became an heir. A bargaining chip. A future Alpha's child. A reason for someone to decide my life for me.
Kade simply exhaled.
“That's not a problem.”
I blinked. “You're not going to ask me to leave?”
“No.”
“You're not going to tell me what I should do?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it's your child.”
He paused before adding, “And because it's not my place to decide for you.”
Something inside me went painfully quiet.
“You can stay here until you're healed,” he said. “After that, if you want to leave, you leave.”
“And the bond?”
His eyes hardened.
“I won't use it against you.”
Before I could respond, a knock sounded at the door.
Kade turned. “Enter.”
A warrior stepped inside, still wearing his patrol gear.
“Alpha.”
Kade's posture changed immediately. “What happened?”
“We found one of the attackers near the eastern boundary.”
“Alive?”
The warrior hesitated.
“No.”
My stomach tightened. “How?”
“We don't know. His own people killed him, from the looks of it.”
Kade's gaze sharpened. “What makes you think that?”
“There was no sign of a fight with our patrol. His injuries were deliberate.”
The warrior reached into his coat and pulled out a piece of burned wood.
The same symbol had been carved into it.
Three curved lines meeting at a point.
Kade took it. His face became unreadable.
“Anything else?”
“The body was left where we'd be certain to find it.”
Kade's fingers tightened around the wood.
“Double the eastern patrols.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“And no one travels beyond the inner boundary alone.”
The warrior nodded and left.
The door shut.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
“They knew I was leaving Ashgrove,” I said.
Kade looked at me.
“They knew the gate I'd use.”
“And they knew when.”
His expression hardened.
“Someone told them.”
A chill moved through me. I thought of the guards. Elena. Julian. The healer's kit that had been disturbed.
Someone hadn't simply wanted me gone.
Someone had been waiting for me to leave.
Kade stepped closer. “Your wound.”
I looked down.
The bandage was loose. I hadn't noticed.
I pulled it away.
The cut beneath it had almost completely closed.
Kade stared. “You didn't use your Resonance.”
“No.”
“How long have you been able to heal like that?”
“I haven't.”
His gaze remained fixed on the wound.
“Then something has changed.”
I swallowed. “My Resonance has been strange since I was attacked.”
“Not just your Resonance.”
I looked at him. “What?”
He moved toward the door and stopped.
“This keep has been the same for generations.”
“That doesn't tell me anything.”
“No.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“But it has never felt like this before.”
“Like what?”
Kade's voice lowered.
“Awake.”
A shiver moved through me.
He looked toward the stone beneath his feet. “It started the night you walked through the gate.”
Neither of us spoke.
I looked down at my hands again, at the wound that had healed without me touching it and the strange warmth moving beneath my skin. At the faint pull I'd felt the moment Kade touched me.
This wasn't my Resonance getting stronger.
Something else had noticed I was here.
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