Marked In The Dark

CHAPTER 5

Gerald signed the initial agreement that same evening.

I was not consulted. I was told.

I was to go to Ironpeak in two days to begin the transition period before the formal binding ceremony. The binding itself would happen within the moon cycle. This was tradition, this was treaty, this was not a conversation I was having any input into.

Damien found me by the side of the hall as the gathering wound down.

He looked uncomfortable. He always looked uncomfortable when he knew he had done something he could not logic his way out of.

"Nora."

"Don't." I kept walking.

He kept pace with me. "I just wanted to say, you don't have to do this. You could stay. You could…"

I stopped walking and turned to look at him.

He was handsome. He was kind in the way that people are kind when kindness is easy. He had been important to me. He had also, without a second of apparent struggle, let me walk out of his door on the most significant night of my life.

"I'm going to Ironpeak," I said.

"He's dangerous, Nora. Everyone knows what he does to packs that…"

"Damien." I kept my voice very even. "You made your choice. I'm making mine."

"This isn't a choice, this is…"

"It is the only one I have." I looked at him directly. "And I would appreciate it if you let me go make it without making me feel worse about it than I already do."

He stopped walking. I kept going.

Lena was waiting by the door. She had seen the exchange and she watched me with those measuring eyes as I passed her.

"Brave little Nora," she said softly.

I did not answer her.

Outside, the night air was cool and I tilted my face up to it and breathed.

Lillian appeared at my elbow.

"I'm coming with you to Ironpeak," she said simply.

"Lil, you don't have to…"

"I know." She took my arm. "Let's go home and pack."

I lay in my bed that last night in Clearwater and stared at the ceiling and thought about the scar.

It could be a coincidence. Forearm scars were common. The dark had altered my perception. I had been in the middle of a lot of emotion and heat and grief and it would be completely rational to have misremembered or overlaid one face onto another.

But the warmth at my neck had flared.

And his voice. Low, even, the kind of voice that expected to be obeyed not because it was loud but because it was certain.

Leave her alone. Don't make me say it a third time.

I closed my eyes.

If it was him, if the man who had held me in the dark and marked me without asking and called me mine in a voice that had rearranged something inside me, if that man was Alpha Caden of Ironpeak…

Then I was moving into his house as his arranged wife.

Carrying his mark.

Not knowing if he knew. Not knowing if he had recognized me. Not knowing if this was some kind of calculation or if he genuinely had not seen my face clearly in the dark either.

And if he found out who I was before I figured out who he was to me, if he discovered his arranged bride was already his marked mate and had run from him without a word…

I pressed the back of my hand over my mouth and stared at the ceiling.

I had no wolf, no power, no standing, no allies except one small fierce friend who was packing a bag down the hall.

Tomorrow I was walking into the most dangerous man in the region's home and living inside the question of whether he already knew my secret.

And there was nothing, nothing, I could do except go.

The next morning, Caden's car came for me.

Black. Long. Quiet in the way that expensive things are quiet.

The Beta stepped out to meet me. He was younger than I expected, not much older than me, with an open face and careful eyes.

"Nora Coles?" he said.

"Yes."

"I'm Rowan. Beta of Ironpeak." He took my bag from my hand before I could object and put it in the car. "Alpha Caden sends his apologies. He had a border situation this morning, he asked me to bring you over and make sure you're settled."

"Okay," I said.

Lillian climbed in beside me without asking whether she was allowed. Rowan glanced at her and then back at me.

"My friend," I said. "She's coming."

Rowan looked at her for a moment. "What's your name?"

"Lillian. I'm a pack nurse. If your Alpha has a problem with that, he can speak to Nora about it himself."

Rowan blinked. Then a short, surprised smile crossed his face. He got in the front without further comment.

The car moved through the forest road toward Ironpeak, and I watched the trees pass and pressed my hand against the mark at my neck that no one could see.

Lillian found my other hand and held it.

I held on.

Ironpeak's packhouse was a long stone building set into the side of a hill. Large without being ornate. Functional. The kind of structure that had been built for stability over beauty.

Rowan showed me my rooms. They were clean and plainly furnished and had a window that looked out over the forest.

"Alpha Caden will want to meet with you tonight," Rowan said at the door. "He eats at seven. He'll expect you to join him."

"Will there be others?"

"No." He paused. "He eats alone, usually. This will be different for him." Another pause, and then something moved in his expression… consideration, or calculation, I was not sure. "He's not, he isn't warm, in the way some people are warm. But he's fair. I want you to know that."

I looked at him. "Why are you telling me that?"

Rowan studied me for a moment. "I'm not sure yet," he said honestly. "I'll come for you at ten to seven."

He left.

I stood in the middle of my new room in a house that felt like a held breath and thought about what I would say at dinner.

Whether I would look at his forearm.

Whether he would look at my neck.

What either of us would do if we both already knew the answer to the question neither of us had asked yet.

The mark burned warm against my skin.