Mine In Every lifetime

Chapter 3

Chapter Three — *Go Home, Mara*

She went anyway.

Sali called after her from the doorway. Mara kept walking.

The hall was louder than the night before. More bodies. More heat. The kind of crowd that presses against you from all sides and makes you feel like the walls are breathing.

Mara found a spot near the left wall and put her back against the stone and told herself she was just here to watch.

Her wolf called her a liar immediately.

The pull hit the second she stopped moving. Both directions. Both of them already in this room. She felt it the way you feel weather changing not one specific thing, just everything shifting at once.

She pressed her hand to her chest and kept her face empty.

She found Zane first.

He was at the right edge of the platform, Beta position, and he was already looking at her. Not scanning. Not pretending. Looking directly at her like he had known exactly where she would stand.

He shook his head once.

She looked away.

She found Caius on the platform. Back mostly to the room. Talking to the Elder. But his shoulders were wrong too tight, too controlled, the posture of a man holding something in place by force.

As she watched, his hand closed into a fist at his side.

Opened.

Closed again.

She looked away from that too.

The woman appeared beside her three minutes in.

Older. Fourth rank. Sharp eyes that had seen too many things to be surprised by most of them. She did not look at Mara when she spoke.

"You were here last night," she said.

"So were you," Mara said.

"I was. I saw your face when it happened." A pause. "I know that face. I had it once."

Mara kept her eyes on the platform. "And."

"And the woman who had it before me is buried in the lower ground." She said it the way people say facts. No drama. No softness. "The one before her too."

Mara's jaw tightened. "What is your name."

"Renata."

"Renata." Mara turned to look at her. "What happened to them."

Renata met her eyes. "The Council decided the bond was a problem. Problems in Ironveil get handled quietly." She looked back at the platform. "You understand what I am telling you."

"Yes."

"And you are still standing here."

"Yes."

Renata was quiet for a moment. Then very quietly:

"Good girl," she said. "Just make sure you are still standing when they come for you."

Mara felt it before she saw it.

The pull shifted. Both directions at once, pulling tighter, like two ropes going taut at the same time.

She looked up.

Caius had turned around on the platform.

The Elder was still speaking. The crowd was still watching. But Caius had turned and his grey eyes were moving through the lower section with a focus that had nothing to do with the ceremony.

He found her in four seconds.

His expression did not change.

But she watched his chest rise. Fall. Rise again slower.

He looked away.

Then Zane stepped back from his position.

One step. Two. Off the platform edge. Moving along the crowd without drawing attention, circling around to her side until he was standing directly behind her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him without touching.

"You came," he said near her ear.

"I did."

"I told you not to."

"You did."

A pause.

"Are you always like this," he said.

"Like what."

"Like someone who hears a warning and walks toward it anyway."

Mara kept her eyes forward. "Only when the warning does not make sense."

"I told you it was dangerous."

"You told me to stay away. You did not tell me why. There is a difference." She paused. "Renata told me why."

She felt him go still behind her.

"What did she tell you," he said carefully.

"Enough." Mara glanced sideways without turning fully. "Two women. Same bond. Both buried in the lower ground." She let that sit for a second. "Did you know that when you came to the records hall this morning."

Silence.

"Zane."

"Yes," he said quietly. "I knew."

The word landed like a stone.

Mara breathed through it. Steady. Controlled. She was not going to fall apart in the middle of the Gathering Hall. She was not.

"And you still did not tell me," she said.

"I was trying to protect"

"Do not." Her voice was flat and low. "Do not tell me you were protecting me by hiding the thing that could get me killed. That is not protection. That is control." She paused. "I have had enough of that too."

Zane said nothing.

She could feel him behind her the tension in him, the pull of the bond doing what it always did when they were close, making the air between them feel smaller than it was.

"I am sorry," he said finally.

Three words. Simple. No defense attached.

She had not expected that.

She did not answer.

On the platform the Elder was finishing his address.

Caius was supposed to step forward. This was the moment the formal presentation, the Alpha pledge, the thing the entire pack had gathered for two nights in a row.

He did not step forward.

He turned around instead.

Walked off the platform.

Again.

The Elder stopped mid-sentence.

The crowd went quiet the way crowds do when something happens that breaks the script total silence, confused, slightly frightened.

Caius came through the lower section the same way as before. Wolves moved without being asked. Nobody blocked him.

He stopped in front of Mara.

Zane stepped to the side without being told.

Caius looked at her for a long moment.

Then he said: "You are the most difficult person I have ever encountered in my life."

"You do not know me," Mara said.

"No." His jaw was tight. "But my wolf does. And right now my wolf is making it very hard to stand here and have a calm conversation."

"Then stop being calm."

Something flashed in his eyes. "That is exactly what I cannot do. Not here. Not in front of"

"Caius." The Elder's voice cut across the hall. Sharp. Public. The kind of voice that was not just speaking to one person. "The ceremony."

Caius did not move.

Did not turn.

The entire pack was watching.

Mara felt it three hundred pairs of eyes, all of them landing on her, the Hollow girl in the grey dress that the future Alpha had walked off his own platform for. Twice.

Her skin went cold.

This was bad.

This was very bad.

"Go back," she said quietly. Just for him. "Go back up there. Do the ceremony."

He looked at her. "And then what."

"And then we figure the rest out somewhere that is not in front of your entire pack."

His eyes searched her face.

"You are telling me to go," he said.

"Yes."

"Last night you told me no."

"Last night the Elder was not watching." She held his gaze. "Go Caius. I will still be here when it is over."

Something moved through his expression. Complex and fast and gone before she could name it.

He looked at Zane.

Something passed between them. Silent. The communication of two people who had known each other long enough to have a whole conversation without words.

Zane gave one small nod.

Caius looked back at her.

"Do not leave this hall," he said quietly.

"Okay."

"I mean it."

"I know."

He held her gaze for one more second.

Then he turned and walked back to the platform.

The crowd exhaled.

The Elder resumed speaking, voice tight with something he was saving for later.

Zane stepped back beside her.

"That was smart," he said quietly.

"He was about to destroy himself in front of everyone," she said. "That helps nobody."

"Most people would have let him."

"I am not most people."

Zane was quiet for a moment.

Then: "No. You are really not."

The ceremony finished twenty minutes later.

The crowd began to move. Lower section dismissed first, the way it always was. Mara stayed against the wall and watched the ranked wolves file toward the upper exit and told herself she had handled that well.

She had handled it well.

Everything was fine.

Then Renata appeared at her elbow.

"They were watching you," she said. No greeting. No preamble.

Mara turned. "Who."

Renata tilted her head slightly toward the upper section. Mara followed the direction.

Three men. Elder's Council. Standing together near the upper exit, not moving with the crowd. One of them was holding something a small notebook, pen moving.

Writing.

"What are they writing," Mara said.

"Your description," Renata said simply. "Name. Rank. Location." She paused. "They do it before they file the order."

Mara's stomach dropped.

"What order."

Renata looked at her with those steady eyes that had seen too much.

"The same order they filed for the two women before you," she said quietly.

The hall was still emptying around them. Normal wolves going home. Normal night.

Mara looked at the three Council men.

One of them looked up from his notebook.

He looked directly at her.

And smiled.