TITLE: The Alpha's Winter Debt

Chapter 5: The Mark

Elara woke up in Kael's bed alone.

For a second she panicked - cold sheets, huge empty bed, fire burned down to embers. His shirt was still on her, twisted around her thighs. The storm was gone, leaving the mountain in that strange, too-quiet silence after.

And she was alone.

She sat up, hair a mess, paint still under her nails from yesterday. "Kael?"

No answer. The bedroom door was open. Exactly how he'd left it. The blanket he'd used on the floor outside was folded neatly. Like he'd never been there.

But she could smell him. Pine and smoke and rain still in the pillows.

She found him downstairs in his office, and she wished she hadn't.

He wasn't alone.

A woman was perched on the edge of his desk. Blonde, perfect, in a tight black dress that looked ridiculous at 7am in a mountain castle. Her hand was on his arm. Kael was in yesterday's dry clothes, leaning back in his chair, looking like he hadn't slept at all, jaw dark with stubble, eyes stormy.

Elara stopped in the doorway. Barefoot. In his shirt that barely covered her thighs. Hair wild. Blue paint still faintly on her mouth from yesterday where she'd missed a spot.

The blonde looked her up and down, slow, and smiled.

"Oh," she said sweetly. "You must be the debt. Kael didn't mention you were... staying in his shirt."

Kael's eyes snapped to Elara. And gold - instant gold - bled into the grey.

"Elara," he said, his voice rough. "Go upstairs."

"Don't be rude, Kael," the woman purred, not removing her hand. "She lives here now, right? For the thirty days? I'm sure we can all be civilized."

Elara's stomach dropped to her feet. The way she said thirty days. Like she knew. Like everyone knew.

"Who are you?" Elara asked, before she could stop herself.

The woman stood, smoothing her dress, walking toward her. She smelled like expensive perfume and something musky underneath. Werewolf, too.

"Serena. Council appointed. Kael's... intended, for lack of a better word. His mother and my father thought it was time he settled and gave the pack an heir that wasn't -" She looked pointedly at Elara's human legs. "Human."

Kael stood so fast his chair hit the wall. "Enough."

"Oh, I'm just explaining pack politics," Serena said, innocent. "She should know. You're keeping a human in the Alpha house during council week. People talk, Kael. They think you've lost your mind over a pretty little painter who can't even sell -"

"Get out," Kael said quietly. Too quietly. The kind of quiet that was more dangerous than shouting.

Serena's smile faltered. "Kael, the council is waiting. And your father -"

"I said get out of my house."

The gold in his eyes was full now, glowing. Claws starting to show. Elara had never seen him actually angry. Not annoyed, not frustrated - angry. The air felt heavier.

Serena looked at Elara one more time, eyes full of pure female hatred, and left, heels clicking on stone.

Silence.

Elara couldn't move. She was frozen in the doorway in his shirt, feeling small and cheap and stupid for ever thinking yesterday in the sunroom meant anything.

"An intended?" she whispered.

"It's not -" He ran a hand through his hair, agitated, pacing. "It's an arrangement. It was arranged before I ever saw you. It means nothing. My father - the council - they want a Luna. A werewolf Luna. I told them no."

"You told them no, but she's still in your office at 7am touching your arm."

"She let herself in. Rhys must have -" He stopped, looking at her, really looking at her. Bare legs. His shirt. The way she was clutching the hem like she wanted to disappear into it. "You slept in my bed."

"You told me to."

"I told you I'd be on the floor. I didn't say you could look like that in my doorway and not drive me insane."

He crossed the room in two steps and slammed the office door shut behind her, caging her against it.

"Rule number six," he growled, hands on either side of her head, breathing hard. "You don't come downstairs in my shirt where anyone can see you. That shirt is for my bed only. For my eyes only."

"So Serena can wear a tight dress in your office but I can't wear your shirt?" She was shaking, but not from fear. From anger, from jealousy so sharp it surprised her. "Got it. Your rules only apply to the human debt."

He stared at her, chest heaving.

"Are you jealous?" he asked, voice low, surprised.

"No!"

"You're jealous." His mouth curved, gold eyes locked on hers, and suddenly he wasn't angry anymore. He was triumphant. "You are. You're jealous of Serena."

"I'm not - I don't - you don't own me enough for me to be jealous!"

"Don't I?" He leaned in, his nose brushing her cheek, inhaling. "You smell like me. You slept in my bed. You have my scent all over you. And you came down here looking for me when you heard my voice. Tell me that's not my girl being jealous that another female touched what belongs to her."

"I do not belong to you!" she hissed, but her hands had fisted in his shirt.

"No?" His hand slid down, found her bare thigh where his shirt had ridden up, warm palm on cold skin. He didn't go higher. He just held her there, marking her with heat. "Then why are you wearing my mark? Why did you leave blue on your mouth yesterday so everyone would know who painted you?"

He swiped his thumb over her lower lip, where the faint blue still was.

"Serena saw it," he whispered. "She knew. That's why she was cruel. She saw my color on your mouth and knew she lost before she even walked in."

Elara's breath hitched. "Kael -"

"Say it," he demanded, forehead pressed to hers, his hand still on her thigh, his body pressing her into the door. "Say you're mine for these thirty days. Say no one else gets to look at you like this. Say it and I will go downstairs and tell the council to go f**k themselves and that I will never take a Luna that isn't you."

The words were too big. Too much. Thirty days. Human. Werewolf politics she didn't understand.

"I can't - I can't be your Luna. I'm human. I paint beach sunsets for rent money. I don't know anything about packs or councils or -"

"I don't care what you are," he said fiercely. "I watched you for three months in a coffee shop, Elara. Three months of you drawing with paint on your fingers and that little frown when you erase. I don't want a Luna. I want you. The girl who told me I look lonely."

His mouth was so close now. One inch. The same one inch from the kitchen.

This time Rhys didn't interrupt.

This time Serena didn't exist.

This time Elara rose up on her toes and closed that one inch herself.

It wasn't a soft kiss. It was desperate. Angry. Jealous. All the tension from four days, from the sunroom, from seeing another woman's hand on his arm.

She kissed him like she wanted to bite him.

Kael made a sound like he'd been punched and then he was kissing her back, hands tangling in her hair, lifting her off the floor, pressing her hard into the door. He tasted like coffee and sleepless nights and possession.

"Blue," he growled against her mouth, licking her lower lip where the paint was. "Still blue. My blue."

"Kael," she gasped, hands in his hair, pulling.

He kissed her again, deeper, one hand sliding up her thigh under his shirt, gripping her hip, and she felt how much he wanted her, felt it against her stomach, and she should have been scared but she wasn't.

She was dizzy with it.

He broke the kiss, breathing ragged, forehead against hers, gold eyes wild.

"That," he panted, "that is why I told you not to wear leggings. That is why I have rules. Because if you keep looking at me like you want to be ruined, Elara, I will ruin you. Council or no council. Human or not human."

"Then ruin me," she whispered before she could stop herself.

His claws pricked into her hip, holding her.

"No," he said, tortured. "Not like this. Not when you're jealous and angry. Not your first time with an Alpha. When I take you, you will be soft and sure and you will be asking me for it, not to prove a point to Serena."

He set her down slowly, reluctantly, like letting go was killing him.

"Go upstairs. Put on real clothes. Not my shirt. Come downstairs and have breakfast with me like my - like my girlfriend - and then I will take you to town and buy you a new car so no one ever tows you again. And then I will face the council."

"And Serena?"

"Serena will learn that the Alpha's Winter Debt is not a debt at all." He cupped her jaw, thumb stroking the blue on her mouth one more time, tender now. "She's the future Luna. If she wants it. If she'll have me, human and all."

Elara's heart stopped.

"What?"

"You heard me, painter." He kissed her forehead, soft, completely different from the kiss before. "Now go. Before I break rule number one again and keep you in this office all day against that desk Serena touched. I need to disinfect it anyway."

She fled upstairs, legs shaking, his shirt riding up, lips swollen, blue finally kissed off her mouth.

In the mirror, she looked wrecked. Kissed. Marked.

Downstairs, she heard Kael roar, "RHYS! GET IN HERE AND CLEAN THIS DESK! SOMEONE SAT ON IT!"

And despite everything - the council, Serena, the thirty days that suddenly felt too short - she laughed, touching her swollen lips.

She had twenty-six days left.

And she had just kissed the Alpha first.