Whispers of the Winter Wolf

Episode Six

Part 17: The Morning and the Mark

I woke slowly, which was, in itself, a terrifying novelty.

For three years, I had woken like a rabbit, jolted from sleep by the snap of a twig or the distant cry of a hawk. Sleep was a shallow, nervous state, never a true rest.

But this morning, I woke in layers. The first sensation was warmth. A deep, penetrating, living warmth that I hadn't felt since I was a pup sleeping in a pile with my den-mates. My body felt heavy, boneless, and utterly, profoundly safe. The air was not cold. The stone was not hard.

My subconscious, primitive wolf-self had taken over in the night.

My eyes snapped open. The light in the lodge was a dim, pearly gray. The fire was a pile of glowing orange embers. And the warmth I felt was not from the hearth.

It was from him.

I hadn't just moved. I had migrated. Sometime in the deep, defenseless hours of the night, I had unconsciously sought him out. I was no longer on my side of the bed. I was pressed against him, my back to his front, tucked into the curve of his body as if I had been carved to fit there. One of his heavy, muscled arms was draped over my waist, a possessive, sleeping claim. My head was pillowed on his bicep, and his steady, slow breathing stirred my hair.

I was enveloped. Caged in by a solid, living wall of heat and power.

The panic that surged was so cold and so total that it stole my breath. It was a visceral, screaming NO. My body had betrayed me, seeking comfort from the very thing I feared—a dominant male. My hard-won independence, my three years of solitude, all of it undone by a simple, animal instinct for warmth.

I tried to scramble away, but his arm was a steel band. The moment my muscles tensed, his arm tightened instinctively, pulling me closer. A low, sleep-rough growl rumbled in his chest, a sound that said mine... stay.

"Draven," I choked out, pushing against his chest.

He came awake instantly. Not groggy, but like a predator, all senses firing at once. His golden eyes snapped open and, in the dim light, they were bright, molten, and focused entirely on me.

He registered the situation—my panic, our position, the way he was holding me.

And he let go.

He didn't just let go; he recoiled as if he'd been burned, pulling his arm back and rolling onto his back, putting immediate, stark distance between us. The sudden loss of his heat was a physical shock, and the cold air of the lodge rushed in to replace it.

I scrambled backwards across the vast bed until my back hit the cold, hard wood of the headboard, pulling the furs up to my chin. My heart was hammering so hard it felt like a bird trapped in my ribs. I was shaking.

Draven sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, giving me his back. The muscles in his shoulders and back were coiled tight.

"I apologize," he said, his voice a low, rough gravel.

I stared at him, bewildered. "What?"

"I apologize, Lyra," he repeated, not looking at me. "That was... an unconscious action. I did not mean to trap you. It will not happen again."

He was... ashamed. He wasn't smug. He wasn't triumphant that I had come to him. He was furious with himself for breaking his word, for touching me—even in his sleep—before I was ready.

The profound, startling understanding of that silenced my panic. He hadn't trapped me. His instinct had claimed me, but his mind—the man himself—was honoring his promise.

"I..." I swallowed, my throat dry. "I was cold. I think... I think I moved first."

He was quiet for a long moment. "The bond," he said, still not looking at me, "is not a polite request. It is a primal gravity. We will both find ourselves... moving toward the center. It does not excuse my actions."

He stood and walked to the fire, stoking it back to life. He was magnificent in the growing light, a creature of shadow and coiled power, and he was actively fighting his own nature for me.

"Jared," I whispered to his back, "the night he... he said the bond made him feel... trapped. Sick."

Draven tossed a log onto the fire, and it cracked, sending a shower of sparks into the air. He turned, his face illuminated by the new, bright flames. His expression was fierce.

"What that boy felt was not the bond, Lyra. It was guilt. It was the weakness of his own character fighting against what the Moon Goddess told him was true. He was too cowardly to have you, and too cowardly to let you go. What he felt was his own failure."

He stalked to the chest that held my—his mother's—clothes. He pulled out a pair of dark leather breeches and a thick, dark-gray linen tunic. He tossed them onto the bed, not looking at me.

"Today, we meet with the scouts. The drought is worsening, and the borderlands are becoming unstable. Kaelen will be at the war table. She will try to undermine you." He finally met my gaze, his eyes burning with a new intensity. "She will fail. Because you will be at my side. Where you belong."

He turned and grabbed one of his own black tunics from a hook. He threw it on top of the other clothes. It was heavy, and smelled overpoweringly of him.

"Wear that," he commanded.

I stared at the tunic. "Why?"

His lip quirked in a humorless, almost savage smile. "Because you left my bed this morning, and the entire pack will know it. But you will walk into that hall smelling of your Alpha. You will wear my mark. And it will be a message to Kaelen, and to any other wolf in that room, that you are not to be touched, not to be challenged, and not to be questioned."

He was handing me a shield. A weapon. He was arming me with his own identity.

"Get dressed, Lyra," he rumbled. "The war has begun."