The Queen They Left For Dead

Chapter 7: Kane's Camp

Kane's camp wasn't what I expected. No walls, no gates like Damian's mansion.

Just a cluster of solid wooden buildings set back in the trees, fires already lit despite the hour, men and women moving fast the moment they saw him coming, falling into some order I didn't understand yet.

"Boss." A woman fell into step beside him, eyes flicking to me and Mira with open suspicion. "What happened?"

"Not here." Kane didn't slow down. "Get the healer. And find out who was on border watch tonight who isn't answering their radio."

The woman peeled off without another word.

He led us into the largest building, some kind of central hall, empty except for a long table and a fire already burning low in the hearth. He shut the door behind us harder than it needed.

"Explain," he said. "Now. All of it."

Mira didn't sit. "You saw what came out of those trees."

"I saw something that wasn't a wolf kill one of my men and nearly kill both of you." His eyes moved to me. "And I saw you do something to the ground that I've never seen a wolf do in my life. So yes. Explain."

I looked at Mira. She gave me nothing,no rescue this time, no stepping in to answer for me. Just a small nod, like she'd decided this one was mine to say.

"My name is Selene," I said. "Three nights ago, my husband's pack killed me during a moon ceremony. I woke up in a clearing a day's walk from here with something inside me I don't fully understand yet. Mira found me. She's been trying to teach me what I am before whoever ordered the ceremony finds out I survived it."

Kane didn't move for a long moment. "Your husband killed you."

"His mistress did. He watched."

Something shifted in his face,not sympathy,but something that looked like a man filing new information into a place he hadn't expected to need one.

"And what you are," he said slowly, "is what, exactly."

"We don't fully know yet," Mira said, before I could answer. "Old bloodline. Older than the packs. That's as much as I'm willing to say to a man I've known for less than an hour, however many favors he thinks tonight bought him."

Kane's jaw tightened, but he let it go, turning back to me instead. "That thing that attacked you. You've seen it before?"

"No."

"But it came for you specifically."

"It followed us from wherever it came from," I said. "Mira thinks it was sent."

"Sent by who?"

"We don't know that either," Mira said. "Which is precisely why standing here interrogating us is wasting time better spent finding out."

Kane looked at her for a long moment, some old irritation flickering behind his eyes, clearly not used to being spoken to like that in his own hall then let it go again, faster this time.

"One of my scouts is dead," he said, quieter now. "I want to know why, and I want to know if my land is about to become a battlefield for a war that has nothing to do with me."

"It has something to do with you now," Mira said. "Your wolf made sure of that at the river two days ago."

The room went very still.

Kane's eyes cut to me sharply. "You told her about that."

"She didn't have to tell me anything," Mira said. "I felt it happen from a mile away. You're not as unreadable as you think you are, Alpha."

For the first time since I'd met him, something almost like discomfort crossed his face — gone fast, replaced by the same flat control he'd worn at the river.

"That's not relevant to tonight," he said.

"It's entirely relevant," Mira said. "You want to know why something crossed onto your land to kill one of your men chasing after her. Maybe start by asking why your own wolf reacted to her the way it did before any of this happened. Things like that don't happen without a reason. In my experience, the reason usually finds its way to you eventually, whether you go looking for it or not."

Kane didn't answer that. He turned instead and walked to the window, arms crossed, looking out at nothing in particular, giving himself a minute I didn't think he wanted either of us to see him take.

"You can stay," he said finally, not turning around. "Both of you. Until we know what that thing was and whether more are coming. I'm not doing it out of charity. I want to understand what just happened on my land, and right now you're the only two people who might actually know."

"Generous," Mira said dryly.

"It's not generosity. It's strategy." He finally turned back. "There's a difference, and you'd do well to remember it."

His eyes found mine again, longer this time, like he was still trying to work out the shape of the problem I'd apparently become.

"You said your husband's pack thinks you're dead," he said.

"They do."

"Then that's the only advantage you actually have right now." He said it flatly, no comfort in it, just fact, the same way he'd told me to stay on my side of the river. "Whoever sent that thing knows otherwise. Which means you have days, maybe less, before this stops being contained to my border and starts being a problem for every pack around it."

"What do you suggest I do about that?"

"Get stronger," he said, "fast. Or get gone before it finds you again. Those are the only two options I'd trust, if I were in your position."

"I'm not running again."

Something shifted in his face ,not quite approval, but close enough to it that I noticed.

"Good," he said. "Then you'd better be as strong as whatever cracked that ground tonight suggests you could become. Because if that thing comes back with help, strong isn't going to be optional."

He walked past us toward the door, pausing only briefly beside me, close enough that I caught, for the first time, the low, steady sound of his heartbeat picking up pace despite the flat calm on his face.

"Rooms will be ready within the hour," he said, quieter now, meant only for me. "Get some rest, Selene. Tomorrow we find out exactly what you are, whether either of us is ready for the answer or not."

He left without waiting for a response, the door shutting solidly behind him.

Mira watched him go, something unreadable in her expression.

"Well," she said finally, turning to me. "That went better than I expected."

"He's still deciding whether to trust us."

"He's still deciding whether to trust himself," Mira said. "Around you specifically. That's a very different problem, and a much more dangerous one for him." She moved toward the fire, warming her hands, some of the tension finally easing out of her shoulders now that we were, for the moment, somewhere with walls and armed men outside them. "Get some sleep if you can. Tomorrow's going to be a great deal harder than tonight was, and tonight nearly got us both killed."

I sat by the fire long after she'd gone quiet, thinking about the sound of Kane's heartbeat, about the flat control in his voice cracking just slightly at the door, and about whatever had been sent to kill me finding its way onto his land within days of my arriving on it.

Whatever this was becoming, it wasn't going to stay small and contained much longer.