My Mate

Chapter 3 — The Festival

—Kael's POV—

I have never been good at being human.

Wolves don't know how to hide. We take up too much space, we stare too long, we smell everything. Joren had to dump an entire pouch of dried rosemary and pine over my head to cover the wolf scent, and even then I knew any hunter worth his salt would still smell me.

But the Festival of the Moon Goddess Selene was my only chance.

Bramble Hollow was packed. Every human from every border farm had come for the night before the Blood Moon. The square was full of lanterns painted with the Moon Goddess's face, tables of roasted meat, children running with wooden swords pretending to be Silver Thorn knights.

And in the middle of it all, her parents were on the raised platform in full Order armor, white cloaks with the thorn sigil, leading the prayers. Varric's voice boomed over the crowd, talking about purity and protection and how the Order keeps the darkness in the Wilds where it belongs.

He was talking about me. About my pack. I wasn't listening. I was looking for her.

I found her at the edge of the square, behind a small wooden table covered in little glass jars. Her apothecary stall. She was selling moonflower salve and fever tea. She wore a simple blue dress, her brown hair down, a silver circlet with a tiny moonstone on her forehead for the festival. She looked like a human Luna.

My chest pulled so hard I had to stop and breathe. She was alone. Her parents were busy on stage. No guards. No crossbow.

This was stupid. Joren was right. If Varric caught me near her again, he would put silver in my heart in front of the whole town and call it justice.

I walked to her stall anyway. I couldn't stop myself. She looked up when my shadow fell over her table, and her whole face changed. Her eyes went wide, then soft.

"You," she said. "From the tree line. The trapper."

I had forgotten I told her I was a trapper. That's lie.

"Aurora," I said. My voice sounded rough even to me.

"You came," she said, like she couldn't quite believe it. "I thought... my father was very rude yesterday. I wanted to apologize for him."

"He was protecting his daughter," I said. "A father should."

She smiled, and that golden thread in my chest burned hotter. Gods, she was beautiful when she smiled.

"What is your name?" she asked. "You never told me."

"Kael," I said. It was the first true thing I had told her.

"Kael," she repeated, tasting it. "Do you live deep in the Wilds, Kael?"

"Yes."

"Is it true what they say? That the wolves there can talk? That they have a city made of stone under the trees?"

I almost laughed. A city. If only she knew it was a Temple and a few stone houses built into a mountain.

"Something like that," I said.

She leaned forward over her table, conspiratorial. "I don't think they are monsters, you know. The wolves. My parents say they are, but... I heal people who get hurt in the forest, and sometimes I find paw prints bigger than my head. And they never hurt anyone. They just watch."

My heart stopped. She had seen us. And she wasn't afraid.

"Maybe they are just watching over you," I said quietly.

She blushed. The pink went all the way to her ears.

"My mother says I spend too much time reading old stories," she said, quickly busying herself with her jars to hide her face. "Stories about the Moon Goddess and how she made the first wolf out of moonlight to protect the world. Silly stories."

"They are not silly," I said, too fast, too serious.

She looked up again, surprised at my tone.

Before I could fix it, I smelled him. White ash. Coming off the platform. The prayers were over.

Varric was walking through the crowd, shaking hands, and he was heading straight for her stall.

I should have run. Every instinct as an Alpha screamed at me to grab her and run into the forest where I could protect her.

Instead I stood there, frozen, because Aurora reached across her little table and touched my hand. Just for a second. Her fingers were warm and soft.

Her touch shot through the bond like lightning. My wolf surged so hard my eyes flashed silver. I know they did, because I saw my reflection in one of her glass jars.

Her eyes went wide. "Your eyes..."

"Aurora!"

Varric's voice cut across the square. He was only ten feet away now. His eyes were locked on me, on my hand still near his daughter's.

Aurora yanked her hand back, panicked. "Dad, this is Kael, he's -"

"I know who he is," Varric said. He was not smiling anymore. His hand was on the dagger at his belt, the same kind of moon silver dagger that killed my father. He leaned in and sniffed the air, and his face twisted. "You covered yourself in rosemary, wolf. But you can't cover what you are."

People around us started to stare. Aurora looked between us, confused and scared. "Dad, what are you talking about? He's a trapper, he's -"

"He is Nightclaw," Varric hissed. "I would know that stink anywhere."

He pulled his dagger halfway out of its sheath. The silver gleamed in the lantern light.

Every human in the square would see me shift if I defended myself. The truce would break tonight. My pack would be blamed. There would be war.

And Aurora would see me as the monster they said I was. I looked at her. Her brown eyes were full of fear, but not of me. She was looking at her father's dagger.

"Don't," she whispered to him. Not to me. To him. That one word was enough.

I stepped back from the table, raised my hands empty, human, submissive, and bowed my head to the hunter who killed my father.

"Happy Festival, Commander," I said.

Then I turned and walked away, into the crowd, feeling Varric's eyes on my back and Aurora's eyes on my back, two completely different kinds of fire.

I didn't stop until I was back in the trees. My hands were still shaking, but not from fear but form her touch.