My Mate

Chapter 7 — The Hunt

—Kael's POV—

"That's my father's horn. That's the call for a kill."

The torchlight was getting closer. I could count them now through the trees. Six lights. Six hunters. Varric in front, and I knew that walk even in the dark.

Aurora froze holding my father's mantle around her shoulders, still holding the skull of my thoughts? No, that was later. Right now she just held her own cloak, her eyes wide in the red moonlight.

"They followed me," she whispered. "He must have seen me leave."

If Varric found her here with me at the Moon Temple waterfall, on Blood Moon, with a wolf half shifted and claws out, he would not ask questions. The Order shoots first and burns the body after.

And he would see the rogue's blood still in my mouth. He would think I had attacked her.

"Aurora, you have to hide. Now."

"Where?"

I looked around. The waterfall pool, the sacred stones, nowhere to hide a human scent from hunters who were trained to track wolves. Varric would smell her honey and wildflowers in a second.

Except one place. Where no hunter would ever look. Because no hunter knows it exists.

I grabbed her hand, claws and all, and pulled her behind the waterfall itself. The water was ice cold, even under the Blood Moon. It cut through the rock and left a hollow cave behind it, just big enough for two people. My father showed it to me when I was a pup. He said, if you ever need to hide your Luna, hide her where Selene weeps.

I pushed her into the hollow. The water fell in front of her like a silver curtain.

"Stay here. Do not make a sound. Do not come out until I come for you. No matter what you hear."

"Kael -"

"I will not let them take you. I swear on my father's grave."

I let go of her hand and stepped back through the water. By the time the first torch broke into the clearing, I was standing alone in the middle of the sacred stones, in my father's mantle, trying to look human. My eyes were still solid silver, my claws still out. I could not hide what the Blood Moon was doing to me.

Varric entered first. White cloak, silver dagger already in his hand, torch high. Mirelle right behind him with her bag of white ash. Four other Silver Thorns behind them.

He saw me and stopped dead.

"You," Varric said.

I said nothing. I kept my hands visible. Empty. Just like I had at the festival.

Varric's eyes went to the blood on my mouth, on my hands, then to the ground where Aurora's bare footprints were still wet in the mud leading to the waterfall.

"Where is she?" His voice was low and dangerous. "Where is my daughter, beast?"

My wolf wanted to rip his throat out. This was the male who killed my father. Who kept his skull. Who was now hunting my mate on Blood Moon night. My claws flexed on their own.

But if I killed him here, Aurora would never forgive me. And his men would see it and the truce would break tonight and the whole forest would burn.

"There is no girl here, hunter," I said. My voice was more growl than words because of the moon. "Only me. And the rogue your daughter's scent lured in."

I pointed behind me, toward the human side of the forest, away from the waterfall. "I killed it near your cottage an hour ago. It is still by your back door if you want to check. Your daughter was never here."

Varric stared at me. He did not believe me. Hunters never believe wolves.

"Then why are you bleeding?" Mirelle said sharply, looking at my shoulder where the rogue had scraped me earlier.

"Rogue blood," I said. "Not mine."

Varric took a step closer, his silver dagger catching the red moonlight. I could smell the silver, it made my nose burn. He looked at the footprints again. Small, bare, human. Leading right to the waterfall I was standing in front of.

"Move," he ordered.

"No."

It was one word, but I put every bit of Alpha into it. The four hunters behind him actually flinched. Varric did not.

"This is Moon Temple ground," I said. "Truce law says no hunter steps past the waterfall on Blood Moon. You know the law, Varric Silver Thorn. You helped write it before you broke it ten years ago."

His face went white when I said that. He knew I knew. For a second I thought he would lunge anyway.

Then, from behind the waterfall, from the hollow where I had hidden her, there was a small splash. Aurora had slipped on the wet stone.

Varric's head snapped toward the sound.

Aurora held her breath in the cave. I could hear her heart beating like a trapped rabbit. So could he.

I had one second to decide.

I dropped to my knees in the mud. In front of Varric. An Alpha on his knees to a human.

"Please," I said, looking up at him. I hated how broken my voice sounded. "There is no girl here. Go home. The Blood Moon makes my pack wild. If they find you this deep in the Wilds, I cannot stop them from killing you. Go home to your daughter."

It was the only thing that could work. Varric loved Aurora more than he hated wolves. If he thought she was safe at home, he would leave to protect her.

Varric stared down at me, at an Alpha kneeling in his father's mantle in the mud, and for a second something like confusion crossed his face.

Then Mirelle grabbed his arm. "Varric, the girl's lantern is still at the cottage. I saw it from the window. She is asleep. This beast is trying to lure us deeper."

Varric looked at the waterfall one more time, at the footprints that ended at the water, then at me on my knees.

"Burn the truce line with white ash in the morning," he said to his men. "If any wolf crosses it again, shoot on sight."

He turned and walked away, torchlight bobbing back toward Bramble Hollow.

I stayed on my knees in the mud until the last torch disappeared through the trees. Until I could not smell white ash anymore.

Only then did I stand up and go back through the waterfall.

Aurora was pressed against the back wall of the hollow cave, soaking wet, her cloak plastered to her body, shivering so hard her teeth cattered. But she was holding my father's mantle, the one I had dropped, dry against her chest to keep it safe for me.

"You knelt," she whispered when she saw me. "For me."

"You were worth kneeling for, Luna," I said.

I picked her up, water and all, and carried her out of the cave. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my bloody shoulder like she belonged there.

"I have to go back before they check my room," she whispered against my skin.

"I know."

"I will come tomorrow. Same time."

"No," I said. "They will watch you now. Meet me in two nights, at the old apothecary shed at the edge of the Wilds. Not the Temple. It is safer for you."

She nodded, still holding me tight.

I carried her all the way to the edge of Bramble Hollow, through the shadows where no hunter looks, and set her down by her back door where the rogue's body still lay. Her parents were inside, arguing about the ash.

She looked up at me one more time, soaked, shivering, and brave.

"You are not what they said you were," she whispered.

And then she slipped inside.

I stood in the forest and watched her window until her light went out, covered in rogue blood, in red moonlight, on my knees still in my heart if not on the ground.