Rejected For His Brother's Widow

Chapter 2 – The Blessed Mark

The silver light was still burning my throat when he said it.

"Mine."

Riven's voice didn't echo. It settled. Like a stone dropped in deep water.

He wasn't looking at Kael. He was looking at me, and his amber eyes had gone completely wolf.

Kael was still on his knees where Riven's power had forced him. The whole great hall was on the floor with him. Selene clutched the arm of my throne, her face white.

My hand flew to my neck. It wasn't blood I felt. It was heat. Molten, crawling heat spreading from the bite down my spine, into my ribs, into the hollow place low in my belly where my wolf was supposed to live.

And then —

Finally.

I gasped so loud Riven's grip tightened.

It wasn't my voice. It was deeper. Female. Furious and awake.

*Elara. I'm here.*

My knees buckled. For two years I'd prayed to hear her. For two years Kael told me I was empty. Barren. Broken.

My wolf — Lira — had just spoken for the first time since I was sixteen.

Riven lifted me like I weighed nothing, but an elder in the front row screamed.

"Blessed!"

He pointed a shaking finger at my throat. Kael scrambled up and grabbed a ceremonial shield to see my reflection.

I wished I hadn't looked.

It wasn't the red, jagged bite of a claiming. It was silver. A perfect crescent moon with a tiny star in the center, pulsing with its own light right over my pulse.

The same mark from the nursery tapestries my mother used to tell me about. The Luna the Moon Goddess kissed.

The hall split in half. Half the warriors dropped to both knees, foreheads to the floor. The other half stumbled back, making the sign against evil.

Selene whispered, "No. That's a myth."

Kael's face... gods, his face. He wasn't angry anymore. He was terrified. He reached for me. "Elara, that's not —"

Riven turned his back on an Alpha in his own hall and carried me out. "Touch her again and I take your hand."

He didn't take me to the guest chambers. He kicked open the old sanctuary door at the base of the north tower — the stone room with moon-runes carved into the walls. The room where Lunas used to hide during wars.

He set me on the furs and finally let go.

I slapped him. Hard. My palm stung.

"You marked me! In front of everyone!"

He didn't flinch. He caught my wrist and pressed it to his chest. His heart was hammering too fast for a King.

"And you left me to die three winters ago."

I froze.

He reached into his leather tunic and pulled out a small pouch. He tipped it into my palm.

A single wolf's canine tooth, carved with tiny lines. My lines. I used to carve when I was lonely.

The memory hit me like cold water.

The worst blizzard in ten years. I was seventeen, gathering herbs alone because Kael had forgotten my birthday again. I found a huge black wolf half-dead in a snowdrift, ribs showing, throat torn. I dragged him into my mother's old cabin. I stayed up for two nights feeding him broth, talking to him so he wouldn't slip away. On the third morning he was gone. He'd left only a bloody tooth on my pillow.

I stared at Riven. At the scar that ran through his left eyebrow, hidden under his hair.

"It was you."

He nodded once. "You sang to me. Off-key. You told a dying rival Alpha about the stupid mate you were waiting for back home. You said you hoped he'd be kind."

My throat closed. Lira whimpered inside me, pushing toward him.

"I came back for the girl who didn't know I was a King," he said quietly. "I found you kneeling in his pantry."

Tears burned my eyes and I hated them. For two years no one had looked at me like I was a person. Riven looked at me like I was a miracle he was afraid to break.

He brushed his thumb, so gently, over the silver mark. The heat flared and my back arched before I could stop it. My wolf purred.

"Your wolf was dormant because you were with the wrong mate," he whispered. "My venom woke her. By tomorrow you'll feel her in your bones."

The door crashed open.

Kael stood there with four guards, breathing hard. His lip was bleeding where he'd bitten it.

"I invoke Right of Reclaim," he snarled at Riven. "Ancient law. You took an unmarked Luna from her fated mate's hall. I have three days to win her back, or we fight to the death at the full moon."

Riven smiled, and it was terrifying. "Accepted."

Kael dropped to his knees in front of me, grabbing my cold hands. His eyes were red. "Elara, listen to me. My mother forced Selene on the throne. She threatened to exile you if I didn't give her pup a name. I never touched her, I swear on the Goddess —"

"Kael, darling, you're upsetting her."

Selene slid into the doorway, one hand cradling her swollen belly, the other on Kael's shoulder.

She smiled at me, sweet as poison. "Tell her the truth. Tell her why you needed a 'fertile Luna' so badly these last two years. Tell her whose pup the healers confirmed last week."

The room went silent.

Kael went gray. He didn't look at her. He didn't deny it.

My stomach dropped through the floor. For two years I'd drunk bitter teas. I'd let the healers poke and prod me. I'd cried every month when the blood came, thinking I was broken. While he...

While he was getting his brother's widow pregnant.

Lira rose inside me so fast I choked. A snarl ripped out of my throat that was not human. It was wolf. My wolf.

The silver mark flared white-hot and every candle in the sanctuary blew out.

Riven moved. One second he was behind me, the next he was between me and them, his huge body shielding mine. A low growl shook the stones.

"Get out," he told Kael, "before I let her practice on you."

Kael stumbled back, pulling a smirking Selene with him.

When the door slammed, my legs gave out. I wasn't crying. I was shaking with something hotter than grief.

Riven knelt and cupped my face. His thumbs wiped the tears I hadn't felt fall.

"In three days he will fight for a woman he let starve," he said, his voice rough. "But tonight, your wolf is awake and she is starving too. Not for food."

He leaned in, his forehead touching mine, his breath on my lips. The mark on my neck pulsed in time with his heart.

"Do you want me to teach you how to make him bleed without ever touching him, little ghost?"

I thought of the pantry. Of the throne. Of Selene's hand on her belly.

I thought of the power humming under my skin for the first time in my life.

I looked up at the King who had waited three years for me to see him, and I whispered the first true choice I'd made in two years.

"Yes."