My Mate

Chapter 12 — The Truce Line

—Kael's POV—

The war bell rang once more while I was still holding Aurora in the shed.

Joren's howl came right after it. Not the howl for rogues. The howl for Order hunters crossing the truce line with silver out.

Aurora sat up straight in my arms, hand flying to her scarf to cover my mark even though we were alone in the shed.

"That is my father's bell," she whispered. "He only rings it when..."

"When he wants war," I finished for her.

I stood up and pulled her up with me. My wolf was already pushing up under my skin, claws fully out now, eyes silver. The bell and Joren's howl were calling the Alpha to the line. If I did not go, my pack would go without me, and they would meet Varric without me there to stop them from killing each other.

"Kael, don't go," Aurora grabbed my mantle. "If he sees you now, with my scent all over you, he will know."

"He already knows, Luna," I said. "That is why he rang the bell."

I tilted her head and kissed my mark on her neck once, hard enough that she gasped, so my scent would be fresh and strong on her. So any hunter who got close to her tonight would smell Alpha and think twice.

"Stay in the shed until I howl for you. One howl means safe. Two howls means run to the Temple and do not look back. Do you understand?"

She nodded, eyes bright with tears but not crying.

"And Aurora," I said at the broken door, looking back at her small in her scarf. "Pack your bag tonight. Small. Only what you need. Leave the white ash. I will be at your window at first light. We are leaving Bramble Hollow."

She nodded again, holding her scarf over my mark like a promise.

Then I ran.

I ran through the corn, through the ash line that burned my feet again, through the Wilds that smelled like fear and silver and ten angry hunters.

The truce line is an old dry riverbed that cuts between Bramble Hollow and the Wilds. On the human side, white stones painted with silver thorn sigils. On our side, black stones with claw marks. No human is supposed to cross to our side, no wolf to theirs, without a flag of truce.

Varric was standing on our side.

He had crossed. With ten hunters behind him, all with torches and silver daggers out, white ash burning in bowls they carried. He was breaking his own law that he wrote ten years ago.

Joren and six of our wolves were on the riverbed facing them, half shifted, growling. Joren had his arms out to keep our wolves from charging.

I landed in the middle of the riverbed between them in a crouch, mantle flaring, claws digging into the dirt. My wolves immediately dropped their heads. Even half shifted, they showed neck to me.

Varric did not drop his head. He stared at me, torch high, face twisted with something that was not just hate. It was betrayal. Father's betrayal.

"So it is true," Varric said. His voice was low but every wolf heard it. "My daughter did not come home last night because she was in your shed. And now she smells like you."

He threw something into the riverbed dirt between us. It was a strip of white cloth. Aurora's scarf. The one she had been wearing all day to hide my mark.

My blood went cold. He had found it? Or she had dropped it running to the shed?

"She dropped it in the market when your little wolf pup gave her your note," Varric said, like he read my mind. "I picked it up. It smells like wet dog and honey. And underneath the honey, it smells like blood. Like a marking bite."

Joren looked at me sharply. He had not known I had marked her already. Now he did.

"Where is she, beast?" Varric stepped closer, silver dagger up. "Where is my daughter?"

"She is not here," I said. My voice was pure Alpha growl now, no human left in it because of the moon and the ash and the rage of seeing him standing on my father's side of the line holding my mate's scarf. "And she is not your daughter anymore if you are going to call her honey and wet dog."

Varric flinched like I had hit him.

"She is seventeen winters old? No, she is twenty three but she is still my little bird. You bewitched her. Wolves bewitch human girls on Blood Moon, everyone knows that. You marked her without her consent."

"She asked me to," I said, and I stood up to my full height. I am a head taller than Varric even without shifting. "She came to my shed. She asked me to mark her. She said your house smells like ash and fear and mine smells like home. She chose, Varric. Not me. Her."

"She does not know what she chooses," Varric shouted, and for the first time I heard real fear under his anger. "She is a healer, she thinks she can heal monsters. You will ruin her and then kill her like wolves kill all human girls they steal."

"I knelt for her," I said. I said it loud enough for every hunter and every wolf to hear. "On Blood Moon night at the waterfall. Your men were there. Ask them. I knelt in mud to a human because I did not want her to see me kill you. Does that sound like a monster who steals girls to you?"

The four hunters who had been at the waterfall on Blood Moon night looked away. They remembered. They had told Varric, but he had not believed them.

Varric's hand holding the dagger shook. Just a little.

"Give her back," he said, quieter now. "Give her back and we keep truce. I will forget the mark. I will take her to the Capital where your stink can be washed off her."

"No."

One word. Final. Alpha word.

Varric stared at me for a long time, torchlight making his face look like a skull. Then he did something I did not expect. He put his silver dagger down on the ground on his side of the line, hilt toward me.

Old hunter law. Dagger down means, (come to talk, not to kill, but I am still armed if you betray me.)

"If she crosses into your Wilds, if she lives in your Temple, she is dead to the Order," he said. "Her name will be burned from our family registry. Her mother and I will mourn her as dead. She will never come home again. She will be Luna to beasts who will never truly trust a human. Is that what you want for her?"

It was the cruelest thing he could have said, because it was true.

I thought of Aurora's small room, her healer jars, her mother's braids, her father's stories. All the human things she would have to leave if she came with me at first light.

Then I thought of her touching my wolf nose and saying.

You are not what they said you were. Of her holding my father's mantle dry while she was soaking wet. Of her whispering I feel found.

"She was already dead to your Order the day you taught her to fear her own heart," I said.

Varric picked his dagger back up. Truce talk over.

"Three days," he said. "You have three days to bring her back to the ash line clean and unmarked, and I will forget tonight. If she is still marked after three days, I will come with the full Order from the Capital and burn your Temple to the ground with white ash and silver. And I will start with the girl who was my daughter."

He turned and walked back to his side of the riverbed, hunters following him, torches going back to Bramble Hollow.

I stood in the riverbed until their lights were gone, holding Aurora's scarf tight in my clawed hand, breathing hard.

Joren came up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder.

"You really marked a Silver Thorn girl," he whispered, half in awe, half in fear. "Your father would be proud and terrified."

"She is coming to the Temple at first light," I said. "Whether the pack wants her or not."

Joren looked at the ash burns on my feet, at the scarf in my hand that smelled like honey and Luna, at the line where ten hunters had just stood on our side.

"Then we better clean the Luna chambers," he said. "And hide all the silver."

I howled once. One howl. Safe.

From far away in the shed direction, I heard a small, human, broken answering sound that was not a howl but meant the same thing.

She had heard me.

At first light, I was at her window.

I did not need to tap. It was already open a finger width, just like I told her.

She was ready. Small bag packed, hair braided, scarf gone. My mark on her neck was uncovered now, silver white and glowing in the dawn light, proud and clear.

Her parents' bedroom door was still closed. She had waited until they fell asleep after patrolling all night.

She climbed out the window and into my arms like she had done it a hundred times before. No hesitation this time.

Behind her on her bed, she had left her white cloak and her silver thorn necklace. She did not take them.

"Did you leave a note?" I whispered as I set her on the ground and we ran for the corn, her hand tight in mine.

"No," she whispered back. "If I leave a note, he will come after me to bring me back. If I leave nothing, he can pretend I was taken by rogues. It will be easier for him to mourn me as dead than as a traitor."

My brave, clever Luna.

We crossed the ash line together. It burned her bare feet a little too now, because my scent was on her. She hissed but did not stop.

At the tree line, my whole pack was waiting. Twenty wolves, half shifted, silent. Joren in front.

They smelled her before they saw her. Human and Alpha mark and honey. Their eyes went wide.

Aurora froze, gripping my hand so tight her nails dug in, suddenly realizing she was about to walk into a pack of wolves who had every reason to hate a hunter's daughter.

I lifted our joined hands high so they could see my mark on her neck in the first light.

"My Luna," I said, voice carrying through the trees. "Aurora of Moon Temple."

For three heartbeats, no one moved.

Then Joren knelt. On one knee, head bowed, right fist to chest. Wolf pledge to Luna.

One by one, the rest knelt too. Even Elder Hark, after a long look at my mark on her, knelt.

Aurora started crying silently beside me, hand over my mark.

I picked her up and carried her over the truce line, into the Wilds, into the Temple, where Varric can never reach her.

Behind us, from Bramble Hollow, the Order bell rang three times. Not war bell. Mourning bell.

Varric was burning her name from his family registry, just like he promised.

She buried her face in my neck and did not look back.