My Mate

Chapter 5 — Touched

—Kael's POV—

I was embarrassed for both of us.

I forced myself to shift back. It is not a pretty thing to watch, shifting back. Bones cracking, fur pulling back into skin. I did it with my back to her, grabbing my father's mantle from where I had dropped it on the ground when I shifted.

When I turned around I was human again, breathing hard, naked under the leather mantle, blood on my mouth and on my hands.

She should have looked away. Human women are taught to be modest.

She didn't. She looked at my face, at the blood, at the silver still glowing faintly in my eyes because I was so worked up.

"You were the wolf," she said. It wasn't a question anymore.

"Yes."

"You killed it. To protect me."

"Yes."

She took a step closer. Then another. She was not afraid of the blood. Of course she wasn't. She is a healer.

"You are hurt," she said, pointing at my shoulder where the rogue had scraped me. It was already healing, wolf healing is fast, but it was still bleeding a little.

"It's nothing."

"Let me see."

"Aurora, your parents -"

"Are asleep. And if they wake up and find a dead rogue wolf ten feet from their back door, they will think it was me who lured it here with my stupid moonflowers. Let me see your shoulder, Kael."

She said it like an order. Like a Luna already.

I let her come closer. She pulled my mantle aside just enough to see the claw marks. Her fingers were cold now from the night air. When she touched the wound, my whole body shuddered. Not from pain. From her.

The mate bond was roaring now that she knew. Now that she had touched me in both forms and not run. It felt like a golden thread tied around my ribs was pulling tighter and tighter, trying to pull her into my chest.

She felt something too. I could see it in the way her breath caught, in the way her brown eyes went a little unfocused.

"What is this?" she whispered, her hand still on my shoulder. "Why do I feel... when you touch me, why does it feel like I've known you forever?"

I should have lied. I should have told her it was just shock from seeing a wolf shift. That humans sometimes feel strange around the Wilds.

I couldn't lie to my mate.

"Wolves have fated mates," I said, my voice low. I kept my eyes on her face so I wouldn't look at her mouth. "One person, made for us by Selene herself. One soul that fits ours perfectly. Most wolves never find theirs. I thought I never would."

Her hand froze on my shoulder. "And you think..."

"I don't think, Aurora. I know. The moment I smelled you at the tree line yesterday, my wolf knew. You are mine. And I am yours, if you will have me. That's why I can't stay away. That's why it physically hurts to be away from you."

She stared at me, her lips parted. I expected her to pull away. To call me crazy. To laugh at the trapper who thinks a healer's daughter is his moon given bride.

Instead her eyes filled with tears.

"No one has ever looked at me like I was made for them," she said. "My parents look at me like I am something fragile they have to lock away. The boys in town look at me like I am a pretty thing that will give them strong sons. You look at me like..."

"Like you are my Luna," I said.

"Luna?"

"The moon. My moon."

She made a small, choked sound and then she did something that broke every piece of control I had left.

She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against mine. Her skin was cold. Her breath was warm against my bloody mouth.

"You are not a monster," she whispered. "You are Kael."

My hands came up without permission and tangled in her hair, in that silver circlet she still wore from the festival. I wanted to kiss her. Gods, I wanted to mark her right then, to bite that soft spot where her neck meets her shoulder so every wolf in Eldra would know she is taken.

I didn't. If I marked her now, while she is still human, the change would start and her parents would see it and kill her.

"Aurora," I breathed, my forehead still against hers. "You have to go back inside. If Varric finds you out here with me, with blood on the ground -"

"I know," she said, but she didn't move.

From the cottage, a light flickered on. An upstairs window. Her mother's window.

Mirelle's voice, sleepy and sharp, called out. "Aurora, is that you out there?"

Aurora jumped back like she had been burned. She looked at the cottage, then at me, panicked.

"Go," I whispered. "Tomorrow. After the Blood Moon. Meet me at the Moon Temple waterfall. Just past the truce line. I will explain everything. I swear."

She nodded, grabbed her fallen lantern, and ran back toward the house, bare feet silent in the grass. At the back door she stopped and looked back once. Even in the dark I could see her eyes shining.

Then she was gone. The door closed softly.

I stood there in my father's mantle, covered in rogue blood, my mate's touch still burning on my skin, the scent of white ash and wildflowers all mixed together in the air.

Tomorrow is the Blood Moon. My pack will be at its strongest and at its wildest. The Order will be on high alert.

And I just promised my mate, the daughter of my father's killers, that I would tell her the truth.

The Blood Moon is not romantic for wolves. Humans think it is.

Humans think we howl at it because it is beautiful. We howl at it because it hurts.