The moon's second daughter

Chapter 3:The Rouge

I woke up warm and that was the first strange thing because nothing in my life had ever been warm on purpose.I lay beneath a heavy quilt filled with wood smoke and lavender, while a fire crackled somewhere nearby. Pale gray light filtered through a dusty window.For a few seconds, I didn't remember where I was. Then everything came rushing back.

The Moon Hall, Gideon's rejection, the guards, the rain, the Black Pines, the rogues, the blade at my throat and the voice.

Clara, drop.

I sat up too quickly. My head swam.I pressed a hand against my temple and waited for the room to stop spinning.The room was small, with log walls and mismatched furniture. A rusted ski pole leaned against one corner, while a faded poster of a mountain had been pinned crookedly to the wall. It looked like an old lodge someone had taken over and made their own.

"Easy now," a dry voice said. "You hit your head."

I turned. An old woman sat in a rocking chair beside the fire, knitting something gray.She had a long white braid, sharp brown eyes, and fingers twisted with age.

"Where am I?"

My voice came out cracked.Somewhere safe. More or less.She placed her knitting in her lap."I'm Wren. You came in screaming at three in the morning with a bad ankle and a worse haircut. My boys carried you."I frowned.

"Your boys?"

"The rogues?"

"Aye."

I flinched."They attacked me."

"They scouted you."Wren's mouth twitched."Those three are fools, and they've been told so. They saw a wounded pack girl in the Black Pines and panicked."

She paused.

"Dax got there before any harm was done."My heart tightened.

"Dax?"

Before she could answer, the door swung open.The man who walked in was big, with dark skin, a shaved head, and a scar running through his left eyebrow.He wore a battered leather jacket and carried himself like someone who had been in a lot of fights and won most of them.His eyes were pale gold.He looked at me for a long moment, as though I were a puzzle with a piece missing.

"You're awake," he said.

I swallowed.

"Thank you for saving me."

Then I remembered the voice.The one that had known my name.The one that had told me to drop before the blade reached me.

"I'm Clara."

"Dax."

He folded his arms."I'm not sure yet if I did you a favor.

"Dax," Wren warned.

"She smells wrong, Wren. You know she does."

He crossed the room and crouched in front of me, close enough that I could see the gold flecks in his eyes.You were banished from Asterra. Why?"I refused the Alpha's rejection."His eyebrows shot up.

"You what?"

"I said no."I remembered the Moon Hall.The hundreds of wolves watching.Gideon's anger."I said no in front of the whole pack."

Wren barked out a laugh.Dax stared at me for another second.Then the corner of his mouth lifted, just barely.

"Well," he said. "That's one way to get thrown out.It wasn't a plan.Those are the best kind.

He stood."Let Wren look at you. If she says you're safe, you can stay a few days."

He walked out.

Wren pulled her chair closer to my bed and took my wrist in her dry hands."Be still, child."She closed her eyes.For a moment, she said nothing.After a minute, her brow furrowed.After two, her fingers tightened around my wrist.

"Hm."

"What is it?"

"You told Dax you were wolfless."

Wren opened one eye.

"That's what they called you?"

"The Wolfless One."

I swallowed.

"I've never shifted."

"Aye."She placed one hand flat against my chest, just above my heart.The warmth that spread through me felt like sunlight.

"And that's why."

Her voice was quiet.Because you're not wolfless, girl.

She looked directly into my eyes.Your wolf is chained.

My breath stopped.

"What?"

"There's a seal on her. A silver-blood seal, old and strong, wound around her like a snake."Wren's face tightened."It's been there since you were an infant."

My heart began pounding.

"Someone sealed my wolf?"

My voice was barely a whisper.

"On purpose?"

"Nobody does that by accident."I stared down at the quilt.All those years,the nights I'd stood at the window,the times I'd been told I was less and all the names they called me.Someone had done that to me.

Someone had taken my wolf before I'd ever had the chance to know her."Who?" I whispered.

"I can't tell you that."Wren patted my hand.

"I can only tell you it was someone powerful."

She studied my face.

"But tell me, child. Has anything strange happened lately? Since the ceremony?"

I hesitated.Then everything came out, the click in my chest,the blood that had run from Gideon's nose,the voice,the black pines,the howling,the command to get up and the moment that voice had called my name.

Wren's face went very still."A voice," she said slowly.

"In your mind."

"Yes."

"A man's voice."

"Yes."

I swallowed."He knew my name, Wren."

I looked at her.

"I never told him."

She released my hand as though it had suddenly burned her.Child...

Her voice was barely audible.

Only bonded mates can speak mind to mind.She stared at me.And you have no bond.

"I know."

“You were never claimed.”

"I know."

Wren's expression changed.So how...

She stopped.Her eyes moved to my collar.May I see your shoulder?I pulled down the neck of the nightgown someone had put me in.The crescent mark glowed faintly in the dim room.

Silver.Like a drop of moonlight pressed beneath my skin.Wren made a small, choked sound.

"What?"

I touched the mark instinctively.

"What is it?"

That mark.She stared at it.I have only seen it once.

Her voice trembled.In a book, when I was a girl.She looked at me.It hasn't been born on a living woman in over two hundred years.

"It's just a birthmark."

"It's not."Wren rubbed her face with both hands.Clara, who are your parents?

My mother is Lady Elara Vold.I looked down.My father died when I was a baby. I don't remember him.

"Elara Vold.”

Wren repeated the name.Her face closed like a door.

"Do you know her?"

"Everyone knows Lady Elara."

Wren stood and walked toward the fire.We'll talk more tomorrow.She glanced back at me.

"Rest."

I wanted to push for answers,i needed to know who sealed my wolf and why,and who the voice I keep hearing in my mind belongs to.But my head was already spinning again, and my ankle ached beneath the bandages.I lay back.Sleep slowly dragged me under.

A strange thing happened that night.I woke up around midnight,restless and hot, despite the cold air outside.

I slipped out of the lodge wearing Wren's old boots. The yard was a square of packed snow with a wooden trough in the middle. It was filled with water that had frozen around the edges.The moon hung above the pines, huge and low.I stood beneath it, breathing hard.

Then something stretched inside me.My collarbone began to burn.

Not painfully.It felt more like a candle waking up.I looked down.The silver crescent beneath my skin seemed brighter.Then the water in the trough shivered.

I froze.

A thin silver thread of water lifted slowly into the air.It rose gracefully, twisting through the cold night, and wound around my wrist like a ribbon.Behind me, the shadows of the pines slid across the snow.Long,dark and curious.They gathered around my feet like cats.

I should have screamed but instead, I held out my hand.The water settled into my palm.Cool,whole and alive.

"Great Moon," a voice whispered from the gate.

I turned.

Dax stood there holding a lantern.His face had gone gray.

"I didn't mean to," I said quickly.I don't know how it happened. I just stood here, and...

The water dropped.The shadows shrank back.Dax crossed the yard in four strides and grabbed my shoulders.

"Wolves don't do that."

His eyes searched mine.

"Nothing does that."

He shook his head.Clara, what are you?

"I don't know!"

His grip loosened.He took a long breath and released me.Wren said something strange was happening to you.He rubbed the scar through his eyebrow.

"I thought she was being dramatic."

"She isn't."

"Clearly."

He stared at the trough.Then back at me.

Come inside.His voice had changed.

"There's something you need to see."

In the main room, six rogues stood in a circle around the table.A paper lay in the middle.The ink was black against the cream-colored page.I stepped closer.

Then I read it.

WANTED ALIVE.

The Wolfless One called Clara Vold.Unharmed.

Bring her to the gates of Asterra.

Reward: ten bars of gold.

I stared at the words.

"Who sent it?"

"The Alpha's seal is on it," Dax said.

His voice was grim.But the gold they're offering doesn't come from his vault.I looked at him.Someone else is paying.

"Yes."

My hands tightened.Why would they want me back?

I looked at the paper again.

"They threw me out."

Dax's pale eyes hardened.Nobody pays that much for a servant girl.He tapped the paper.They're afraid of something.The room suddenly felt colder.Then I heard him.

Little moon.

I jumped.

The voice was in my head again.Closer than before.

Do not go back to Asterra.My heart began to pound.

Do not trust the paper.

"You're here," I breathed.

Dax stared at me.Who are you talking to?

The voice answered.Tell the old woman I said hello. There was a flicker of dry humor in his voice.She will want to know my name. Tell her. She will understand.

I looked around the room.Everyone was staring at me.

I swallowed.Then I asked the question aloud.

"What's your name?"

The answer came immediately.

Kael.

Behind me, Wren's teacup crashed to the floor.

I turned.

She stood completely still.Her face had gone pale.

"Kael," she whispered.

Her voice shook.

"Kael Draven."

Dax's expression changed instantly.

"The Northern King?"

The room fell silent.He hasn't been seen in public since he was a boy, Dax said sharply.His eyes narrowed.They say he's cursed.The voice in my head answered.

They say a lot of things.There was weariness in his voice.Something about it made my chest ache.Then he spoke my name.

Clara.

I held my breath.

I am at Blackthorn Keep, in the north.The voice became quieter.Come to me.My mother's warning immediately came back to me.

Never go north.

"My mother told me never to go north," I whispered.

Then Kael's voice changed.It went flat and cold.

Your mother...

A pause.

has told you a great many things.I thought about the click in my chest,the silver crescent,the chains around my wold,the voice that had found me in the black pines,the paper on the table with a price on my head. And suddenly, one thought became impossible to ignore.Everyone who had ever told me who I was...

had been lying.

I looked at Dax.

"I need to go north," I said.

Nobody answered.Wren stared at me as if I'd just announced my own death.Dax's jaw tightened.And somewhere inside my mi

nd, Kael was silent.For the first time, I understood what my mother's warning truly meant.North wasn't simply a place I had been f*******n to visit.It was where someone had been waiting for me.

And now that I knew he existed...

I had to find out why.

Because Kael Draven had been looking for me for twenty-four years.