My Mate

Chapter 9 — Her Room

—Kael's POV—

They left at sunset.

I watched from the tree line as Varric and Mirelle rode out of Bramble Hollow on their black Order horses, white cloaks snapping behind them, two hunting hounds tied to Varric's saddle. Going to the Capital for the Order meeting, just like Aurora said they would.

They burned a fresh thick line of white ash around the cottage before they left. A circle to keep wolves out. And to keep Aurora in.

I waited until the dust from their horses was gone and the village bells rang for night curfew. Then I waited one more hour, because Aurora told me to.

Her window was dark, but I could smell her. Honey and wildflowers and now a little bit of my moonflower salve because she had been touching my bandage in her mind all day.

I crossed the ash line. It burned the bottom of my feet even through the mantle. White ash is poison to us when it is fresh. My wolf growled at the sting but kept walking.

Her back door was unlocked. Just like she promised.

The cottage smelled like her. Like home. Like something I had never had before.

"Aurora?" I whispered into the dark kitchen.

"Up here," her voice came from the small stairs, soft and nervous.

I went up. Her room was tiny, just a bed, a small table with her healer jars, and one window that faced the forest. My forest. She had left the window open a crack, even though her parents told her never to.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed in a simple white night dress, her black hair down, bare feet tucked under her. She had been waiting.

When she saw me in her doorway, she stood up.

"You crossed the ash," she whispered.

"It burned," I said honestly.

"Why would you -"

"Because you asked me to."

We just stared at each other for a second in her small human room that smelled like her. I was too big for it. My shoulders almost touched the doorframe. An Alpha in a little healer's bedroom.

"You are really here," she whispered.

"I am really here, Luna."

She took a step toward me, then stopped, twisting her hands together. She was nervous. Not scared of me. Nervous like this was important.

"I cleaned," she said quickly, like she needed to fill the silence. "I changed the sheets. And I... I moved my parents' shrine to the kitchen so you would not have to see it."

I looked. On her table, where there used to be a small wooden bowl of white ash and a silver thorn sigil, there was now a small bowl of moonflowers. She had picked them for me.

My chest hurt.

"Aurora, come here."

She came. Three small steps and she was in front of me. I could feel her heart beating fast, I could smell her pulse in her neck, right where I needed to mark her.

I cupped her face the way I had in the shed, and she leaned into my hands this time without flinching.

"Are you sure?" I asked, my voice low. "Once I mark you, my scent will be on you forever. Your parents will smell it. My pack will smell it. You will be mine in a way no hunter can undo. Are you sure you want that?"

She looked up at me, brown eyes bright, even though her hands were shaking where they held my wrists.

"My whole life my parents told me wolves steal girls," she whispered. "That you take us and ruin us. But when you carried me through the corn, when you knelt in the mud for me, when you let me touch your wounds... you never took. You only asked."

She took a deep breath.

"I am sure, Kael. Mark me."

My wolf almost took over right there. I had to close my eyes for a second and breathe through it, through the red that wanted to come over my vision.

"Look at me, Aurora. Don't close your eyes."

She looked at me.

I tilted her head gently to the side, exposing her neck, that soft spot under her ear where her pulse was hammering. I brushed it with my nose first, breathing her in, letting her get used to it. She shivered and made a small sound, but she did not pull away.

"Small bite," I whispered against her skin. "Just enough for the bond to take."

Then I marked her.

Not hard, not like Alphas mark to claim in battle. Soft, careful, my teeth just breaking the skin enough for my scent to sink in. She gasped and her hands gripped my arms tight, nails digging in, but she did not push me away.

I licked the small mark closed right after, the way wolves do to soothe their mate. The taste of her blood and honey and wildflowers hit my tongue and my whole body shuddered.

Mine. Mine. Mine. My wolf was chanting it.

I pulled back just enough to see it. A small, silver-white mark, like a crescent moon, right under her ear. My mark. Already glowing faintly in the dark room because the moon was out.

Aurora touched it with shaking fingers, then touched my face.

"Does it hurt?" I asked, suddenly afraid I had hurt her.

"No," she whispered, eyes wide. "It feels... warm. Like you are inside me."

She swayed a little on her feet, and I caught her and sat her down on the bed and sat with her, holding her while the bond settled.

After a minute, her breathing evened out. She leaned her head on my shoulder, right on my bandage, and I could feel her smile against my skin.

"Now you smell like me," she whispered, sleepy and soft.

"Now you smell like me forever, Luna. No hunter can cover that."

We sat like that in her small bed, her head on my shoulder, my arms around her, her window open to the forest.

Then, from downstairs in the kitchen, we heard it.

The front door opening. Boots on the wood floor.

Varric's voice, early from the Capital.

"Aurora? Why is the ash line broken?"

Aurora sat bolt upright in my arms, her hand flying to her new mark, eyes wide with terror.

Her parents were home early.