Moonblooded

Chapter 8 Mate

She was back in her room ten minutes later when Merek arrived.

No warning.

No pleasantries.

He shut the door behind him and leaned against the wall, arms folded.

Selene sat on the bed, silent.

“You’re fast,” he said. “Faster than you should be.”

She didn’t reply.

“And strong,” he added. “Even accounting for adrenaline.”

That made her flinch.

Merek’s eyes softened, just slightly. The healer had been kind, a trait of his trade he saw her as a person not just some rogue wolf.

“I don’t know what you are,” he said. “But you’re not just rogue. And if you keep showing them this much power, the Council won’t need an excuse.”

She looked up. “So they’re already watching?”

Merek nodded “You need to stop giving them a reason to stare harder.”

Selene’s fists clenched.

“So I’m supposed to just let them insult me? Pretend I’m not a threat?”

Merek pushed off the wall, stepping closer. “You don’t have to pretend. You just have to hide. For now.”

She didn’t answer.

“I’ve seen wolves stronger than you fall to fear alone,” he said. “Don’t let pride make you careless.”

He left after that, the warning hanging thick in the air.

Selene stood at the window again that night.

The sky was streaked with deep violet and black. The estate lights glowed like embers. Somewhere in the distance, wolves howled.

She didn’t know if it was training or grief.

Lira stirred.

“You didn’t lose control.”

“I wanted to.”

“Good. That means you can choose when to unleash it.”

Selene closed her eyes.

The glow beneath her skin had faded, but it was still there.

Later the next day the training yard buzzed with movement, boots slamming into sand, punches cracking against reinforced pads, the sharp bark of commands echoing off stone.

Kade stood in the center of it all like a storm trapped in skin.

He wore a fitted black training shirt rolled to the elbows, exposing forearms marred with faint scars and calloused strength. His blue eyes swept the warriors without expression, every step a reminder of who ruled here.

They watched him.

They always did.

And today, he let them.

“Alpha,” said a sultry voice behind him.

He didn’t turn immediately. He didn’t have to.

Mira.

One of the newer female warriors, young, aggressive, and ambitious. Her strength in training was decent, her ambition stronger.

She stepped into his periphery with a calculated sway to her hips, a towel slung around her neck and sweat glistening on her collarbone.

“You sparring today?” she asked, her tone playful.

“Not with you,” Kade replied dryly.

She pouted slightly. “Why not? Afraid I’ll knock you on your ass?”

A few of the nearby warriors chuckled.

Kade turned to face her fully now, smirk tilting his mouth. “You want a taste of Alpha strength?”

“I want a reminder,” Mira said, stepping closer.

He let her come. Let her place a hand on his chest. Let her flirt in full view.

Because that’s what they expected of him.

The brutal Alpha.

The unclaimed predator who devoured power and beauty at his leisure.Let them believe it.Let them think Selene meant nothing.

Mira’s fingers brushed over his collar.

Varric roared inside.

Enough. She is not ours.

She is not her.

The wolf surged once, rattling beneath his skin.

Kade’s control wavered, just for a second.

Then he grabbed Mira’s wrist, lightly, but firm enough that her breath hitched.

“You couldn’t handle me,” he said with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

Her laughter was breathy. “Try me sometime.”

He leaned down, voice brushing her ear.

“Careful what you wish for.”

She giggled as he walked away.

He didn’t go far.

Didn’t train.

Didn’t speak.

He went straight to his suite and locked the door behind him.Silence engulfed the room.

And then the mask cracked.

Kade slammed his fist into the wall hard enough to send a spiderweb of cracks through the concrete.

He didn’t stop.

The second punch landed against the mirror above the sink. Glass shattered. Blood streaked the frame.He stared at his reflection,fractured and bleeding, dozens of versions of himself staring back.

All of them liars.

Varric paced furiously inside him.

You humiliated us. For what? So she wouldn’t see the truth? So they wouldn’t guess?

Kade breathed hard, shoulders rising and falling with effort.

“She can’t see me like this.”

You mean she can’t see the part of you that’s too much of a coward to reach for her.

Kade bared his teeth.

The bond had pulsed the moment Mira touched him. Not with connection.

With rejection.

His wolf had hissed at the contact like it was poison.

Because only one scent could calm the storm in his chest.

Only one presence could still the shaking in his hands.

And she was locked away, alone, confused, watched.

Because of him.

He wrapped his bleeding knuckles in a towel, blood soaking through the white in seconds.

The pain didn’t ground him.

Nothing did anymore.

Only the bond.

Only her.

The moon was high when Selene woke.

No dream stirred her. No nightmare pulled her from sleep.

It was the pressure.

A weight pressing against her chest, not pain, not fear. Just something deep and low and aching.

The air in the room felt thick. Charged.

Selene sat up slowly, her sheets rustling like whispers. The silver cuffs remained, cool, but her skin prickled with awareness.

The bond was there again.

Lira stirred beneath her ribs.

“He feels it too.”

Selene rose, walking barefoot to the window. The floor chilled her feet, but she barely felt it. Her hands found the cold glass, eyes scanning the forest beyond.

She didn’t know his name.

Didn’t know what this pull meant. Not yet.

But she knew it centered on him.

She’d never even seen his face.

Only shadows behind glass. Orders relayed through others. The way the air changed when someone mentioned the Alpha.

But that scent,pine, smoke, leather,it followed her in every room.

And tonight, it burned like fire in her lungs.

“Why is he running?” she asked quietly.

Lira’s voice was gentler now.

“Because he fears what he already knows.”

Selene’s fingers curled against the window frame.

Outside, the estate slept.

But she felt him awake.

Fractured.

Watching.

Somewhere.

Maybe not with his eyes, but through this invisible thread that wound through her chest like silk spun from moonlight and claws.

She didn’t think about the guards. Or the walls.

Or the danger.

She just whispered, voice so soft it could’ve been mistaken for wind:

“You don’t have to run from me.”

Far across the estate, Kade stood on his balcony.

Blood still dried on his hand, wrapped tight beneath fresh gauze.

His eyes were trained on the treeline, though his thoughts were nowhere near it.

He hadn’t slept.

Couldn’t.

Not when the bond thrummed against his spine like a second heartbeat.

He’d thought distance would weaken it.

He’d been wrong.

It only made it louder.

Varric prowled beneath his skin, more restless than ever.

And then—

Her voice.

Not through ears.

Not through sound.

But through the bond.

Soft. Steady. Frightening in its tenderness.

“You don’t have to run from me.”

Kade’s breath caught.

His spine locked.

For a full heartbeat, he stood still unmoving, unblinking, as the words rippled through his bones.

Not a command.

Not a plea.

Just truth.

His fingers curled around the railing, metal bending beneath his grip.

Varric’s voice followed in the silence.

She sees you. Even from here.

Kade closed his eyes.

Not from pain.

From something worse.

Because for the first time in years, he wanted to be seen.

And that meant he was already losing.

The guards collected Selene just after dawn no explanation, only a clipped “Follow.”

They marched her through corridors that smelled of gun-oil and polished stone, up one flight of stairs, then down a hall lined with black-framed photographs of previous Blackfang Alphas. Every step tightened the invisible thread in her chest until it pulled like a leash.

Lira’s presence hovered, alert.

“Steady,” the wolf whispered. “He’s near.”

Selene’s escort stopped outside a double door and opened one half.

Merek waited inside beside a portable medical console, gloves already on, eyes sharp. But he wasn’t what stole her breath.

Kade stood behind him.

Arms folded, eyes iced over, posture a statue’s. No leather jacket today, dark Henley, sleeves pushed to the forearms, the faint scent of pine-smoke and combat sweat swirling in the air the moment she crossed the threshold.

Everything inside Selene seized and then ignited.

The bond flared so hard her vision speckled.

One word tumbled from her lips without permission, half breath, half prayer.

“Mate.”

The silence that followed was volcanic.

Merek’s gaze flicked between them, comprehension dawning.

But Kade?

He didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Only the pulse in his jaw betrayed life at all.

“Sit,” he said, voice a polished blade.

Selene’s heart hammered, confusion spiralling with the heat that licked across her skin. She lowered herself onto the exam bench, silver cuffs clinking, eyes never leaving his.

Lira muttered, low and indignant.

“He heard. He feels it. The wolf knows perfection when it scents it—

the human is the fool.”

Merek adjusted a sensor patch on Selene’s collarbone, murmuring vitals to his tablet. “Pulse elevated… no surprise. Healing markers continue to climb.”

Selene tried to steady her breathing. Each inhale dragged more of Kade’s scent into her lungs, a paradox of comfort and ache. She forced herself to focus on Merek’s calm hands.

He pressed a finger to her wrist just below the cuff. “Any numbness?”

“Only where the metal touches.” Her voice sounded strange, smoky, unravelled.

Kade stood silent while Merek drew a sample of blood. He watched every motion without comment,the clinical detachment so complete it felt rehearsed. When Selene finally looked up, she caught a flicker in his irises: a rim of molten gold burning through the blue before he shuttered it.

He’s fighting it.

Merek sealed the vial. “Reflex test.” He tapped her knee; it jerked. “Good.”

Selene risked a question. “Why… is he here?”

Kade answered before Merek could. “Observation.” Two syllables. Hollow.

Selene’s chest tightened. “Observation,” she echoed, tasting the word like poison. “Even after saving me?”

“Saving doesn’t mean trusting,” he said.

His indifference sliced deeper than any cruelty. Selene’s wolf bared her teeth inside. The cuffs burned.

Merek finished with a soft click of his datapad. “All done.”

Kade nodded once. “Escort her back.”

Selene rose but couldn’t stop the whisper. “Why do you pretend?”

Kade’s expression didn’t move. “You’re free to walk the grounds,” he said, addressing the guards, not her. “Keep her away from my wing.”

That was all.

He turned away sharp, decisive, final.

The bond throbbed like a wound.

But Selene caught something as he pivoted, a heartbeat of rawness beneath the mask: a pulse in his throat, a twitch of his hand—as if Varric clawed at his skin from the inside.

Merek watched it, too. His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

The guards guided Selene out. She didn’t look back.

Kade waited until her scent faded from the corridor before allowing himself a breath.

You’re ice, he told himself. Ice does not bleed.

Inside, Varric slammed against his control.

Coward. She called you mate and you fed her lies. We hurt her.

Kade’s nails dug crescents into his palms. He kept his back to the door, jaw locked.

“I protect her this way.”

You destroy us this way.

Neither of them had an answer that didn’t taste like defeat.