Chapter 12
867 Words
But—and this mattered more than Aurora wanted to admit—Mikhail had told her one thing he hadn't been obligated to tell her.
He had chosen to tell her.
"Thank you," she said.
He inclined his head. "Be careful tomorrow."
"I always am."
She stepped back into the darkness to finish her circuit.
The strange frequency still lingered at the edge of her awareness.
When she listened for it, it answered.
Fainter than a voice. Stronger than imagination.
It seemed a little clearer than it had been at sundown. Or perhaps she was simply learning how to hear it.
Whatever waited ahead, she was walking toward it.
Tomorrow would finally begin to tell her why.
Morning arrived gray and damp.
Mist clung to the lower branches, and the hemlocks dripped with the night's rain. The fire had burned down to a patient orange glow, carefully tended by Marcus long before anyone else stirred.
Aurora hadn't slept much.
Every time she closed her eyes, the conversation with Mikhail returned.
Bloodmoon is the safest place you can be.
Not because he wanted it to be.
Because of circumstances he still refused to name.
Those words followed her into the morning.
Before the others broke camp, she wandered to the edge of the trees and rested her palm against the rough bark of an old hemlock.
Cool. Solid. Unmoving.
She wasn't sure what she expected.
The strange sensation she'd been noticing since Mooncrest was quieter here, nearly swallowed by the forest itself.
Nearly.
She closed her eyes.
There. Faint. Steady. Ahead.
She lowered her hand and turned back toward camp.
They reached Bloodmoon territory just before midday.
The forest changed gradually with older trees under a thicker canopy. Undergrowth trimmed with quiet intention instead of left to chance.
This wasn't wilderness, it was cared for.
The gate appeared between the oaks.
Aurora saw it long before they reached it.
The frequency shifted, not louder, closer.
The carved stone pillars rose above her, wrapped in symbols she didn't recognize. Something about them caught low in the back of her throat, stirring a feeling she couldn't name.
She kept walking. Inside, her wolf had gone utterly still. Not with caution, but with attention.
The kind that came in a heartbeat before recognition.
Home.
The word wasn't spoken, it settled somewhere deep inside her anyway.
She almost faltered. Almost.
The gates opened before they arrived.
Bloodmoon wolves stood waiting, calm and unhurried, as though they'd been watching the tree line for some time.
A man stood at their center.
He didn't need anyone to announce who he was.
Alpha Damien Bloodmoon.
His attention moved first to Mikhail, then the rest of the team.
Aurora was last.
His gaze found hers.
Something flickered across his face.
Gone almost before she saw it.
Not surprise.
Not suspicion.
Recognition.
Not of her.
Of something.
Something he had expected.
By the time the thought had formed, his expression had settled again.
"Alpha Silverclaw," Damien said. "Welcome to Bloodmoon. We're glad you've come."
Mikhail stepped forward, clasping Damien's forearm.
"Alpha Bloodmoon. We appreciate your hospitality."
"The circumstances make hospitality easy."
Damien glanced once more across the team before turning toward the gate.
"Come. Your quarters are ready. Then food. We can talk afterward."
The team followed him inside.
Aurora crossed the threshold.
Warmth washed through her.
Not physical warmth, something deeper.
Her wolf went completely still.
Not tense.
Content.
As though she had wandered for days without realizing she was searching for this exact place.
The runes carved into the gate stood only a few feet away.
She didn't touch them.
She didn't need to.
Something moved between stone and skin anyway.
A pulse.
A whisper.
A welcome she couldn't quite understand.
She kept walking.
Marcus fell into step beside her.
He said nothing. He didn't need to.
Four years together had taught him to read the smallest changes in her.
Aurora lifted one hand only slightly.
Wait.
Questions later.
Marcus gave the smallest nod.
And waited.
The pack house rose from the center of the clearing, stone and timber weathered smooth by generations of wind and rain.
It felt older up close.
Not neglected. Settled.
The kind of place that had stood long enough for the forest to accept it as part of itself.
Aurora's gaze drifted over the runes carved into the outer walls.
They were deeper than the ones at the gate.
Older.
Layered over one another as though each generation had added its own careful mark.
As she passed, something stirred.
Not in the stone, in her.
The same strange awareness she'd been carrying since Mooncrest.
The runes seemed to notice her.
Not with light or movement, only with the quiet certainty of walking into a room where everyone already knows your name.
Her steps faltered for the smallest fraction of a second.
She had never been here, she knew that as surely as she knew her own name.
Whatever this feeling was, it wasn't memory.
The moment passed.
Voices filled the courtyard as the team dispersed. The quiet rhythm of experienced operatives settling into unfamiliar territory.
Aurora climbed to the third floor and let herself into the room she'd been given.
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