The Boarder 1

KAEL

I had never slept well. Not really slept. I dozed. One eye open since I became Alpha at nineteen.

Warriors on rotation outside my door, council papers on my desk, my cousin in High Hill writing letters to my elders about my bloodline being weak, Sienna’s father counting his east funds. You don’t sleep when everyone wants your chair and everyone is counting your mistakes.

The bleeding had stopped. Jace gave me a calming tonic after the Hall. Bitter, mint and something earthy that coated my tongue. It knocked me out for maybe an hour, black and heavy, no dreams.

Then my wolf ripped me awake.

One second I was out. The next my chest was on fire. Like someone grabbed the bond inside me, that thin stretched rope that should have snapped clean after a rejection, and yanked it hard north. Under the yank, the cold missing piece pulled with it. The thing that had gone out of me when she spoke.

I sat up. Sheets stuck to my back with sweat. Heart hammering too loud, wrong rhythm, fast and uneven. My wolf was right up front, pushing at my skin from inside, claws pricking inside my forearms, growling inside my head so loud my teeth ached and my jaw locked.

Mine. Gone. Mine going. Border. Now. Move.

“Lily.”

I said her name before I was even fully awake. Voice wrecked, hoarse from howling in the Hall, from the bond cracking.

I hadn’t said her name out loud in months. Maybe a year. Omegas didn’t get called by name in my office. They got told to put the tray down and leave. She always did. Head down, soft voice, trying to take up less space so I wouldn’t get annoyed and send her back to kitchens. Two winters ago she sat outside that same office till dawn with a border list I had forgotten. I stepped over her feet and told her to leave it with Jace. I did not ask her name then either.

But my wolf said it like a claim, like a prayer.

I smelled her. Even through walls, through stone, through rain starting to patter. Panic, sharp and metallic. Anger, hot. That thin sweet scent she had, too soft for a wolf, getting fainter by the second. Moving fast. North. To the border.

She was running.

I didn’t think. I was out of the bed barefoot. Sweatpants, no shirt. Cold stone under my feet made my calves jump. I didn’t bother with boots. The bond pulled so hard it made my molars grind.

I hit the hall running. Second floor dark. Warriors on night watch saw my eyes and moved out of the way without me saying a word. Black. Wolf black. Pupils blown wide, eating the gray. They knew not to step in front of me when my wolf was like this.

“Kael?” Jace called from the stairs below, voice sharp, awake instantly. “Kael, where—”

“Border,” I said, and kept going. “If Rorik asks, I went to check the north post. Not her.”

I took the stairs three at a time, bare feet slapping.

Her scent cut through all of it. Old canvas from her backpack. Herb pouch, yarrow, mint, that bitter black root Myra used to kill scent when a wolfless didn’t want to be found. Ink from ledger pages. And that neutral passage paper Marcus handed out, the ones I told him to stop giving to unmated females without my permission last winter. He did it anyway. Said trade roads needed to stay open for humans. East hated those papers. A girl with a seal could walk grain talk straight to High Hill.

She was using one tonight. I smelled the wax, pine resin and neutral ash.

I pushed the back door open. Cold night air hit my bare chest and made sweat turn to ice.

She was ahead of me, small shadow in the dark, backpack too big for her frame. She ran like she was never taught, because omegas weren’t taught to run. They were taught to carry, to clean, to mend, to keep head down so ranked wolves didn’t notice them.

She was ten feet from the creek. Ten feet from where our scent stopped and law changed. Past that line, she wasn’t pack anymore. I couldn’t order her back without cause. Neutral could shelter her and I couldn’t cross without starting a border incident Sienna’s father would write to my cousin about tonight: Alpha cannot even hold a wolfless omega, cannot control border. That letter would cost me warriors by morning. It would also cost east the story they wanted, the story where she was a thief and not a girl who spoke first.

I got in front of her. One move. Alpha speed. One second I was behind her on the trail, mud sucking at my feet, the next I was blocking the trees, bare feet in cold mud, chest heaving, fists clenched so my claws didn’t come out and scare her more.

She stopped hard. Almost fell. Her hands flew out to catch balance, fingers splayed.

Her feet were bleeding a little on the sharp stones. Small cuts, red on pale.

Then she looked up at me.

And I saw it.

For three years, every time she walked into a room, into my office with a tray, into the kitchen with wood, she looked down. At my boots, at the floor, at her hands. Not tonight.

Tonight she looked straight at me. Pure hatred. Like I was already dead to her and she was just waiting for my body to catch up and fall over.

My hand closed around her arm before I thought about it. Not hard enough to bruise. Just enough to stop her from taking those last ten feet. Her skin was cold, goosebumps under my palm.

“Lily, where are you going?” My voice came out rough, wrecked, too loud in the quiet trees.

“Anywhere but here.” Her voice didn’t shake. That was new. In my office, it always shook.

“You can’t cross. No permission. You’re pack. You need Alpha permission to cross north after dark. It’s law.”

“I don’t need your permission.”

“You do. You’re under me. You are—”

I stopped myself. I was going to say mine. My wolf pushed it hard against my teeth, pushed my mouth to shape it.

Say mine. Say mine now. Mark her so she can’t run. Bite so she can’t reject.

I didn’t say it. If I said mine after what happened, the elders would have it written down by morning. Alpha claimed wolfless omega after public rejection, unstable, unfit. Rorik would send it to my cousin before the ink dried. East would add the dress receipt and call the whole night a plot.

Claws pricked my palms because I was holding the mark back. Blood beaded, hot. I curled my fists so she wouldn’t see it drip.

She laughed. One short sound with no humor in it. Cold. Empty. Like wind through dead trees.

“You care about law now?” she said, looking at my hand on her arm, then at my face. “You didn’t care about law when you stepped over me outside your office and told me to leave the list with Jace. You didn’t even ask my name.”

That landed harder than the bond.

“What happened?” I tried, softer, because the laugh cut. “You already rejected me, you don’t need to run. Who talked to you? Was it Sienna? Did she say something in the Hall after you left? Did Rorik tell you—”

Because Sienna was loud. Sienna said shit to omegas when I wasn’t listening. Sienna told kitchen omegas they would never be Luna because their blood was dirty and wolfless blood should be washed out. I knew that. I let it go because Sienna’s father held east funds and I needed east funds to pay warriors after Rig Coast raided our border last winter. I told myself I would deal with it after the Gathering, after I secured the throne. That was the deal I had made with myself. It had a body now, and the body was looking at me like I was already buried.

She looked at me like I was the dumbest Alpha she had ever seen.

“Stop pretending you don’t know,” she said, each word separate, flat, like stones dropping.

“I don’t,” I said, and it sounded weak even to me, pathetic. Like a pup caught lying. “Lily, I swear I don’t know what vessel means, I never said—”

“Don’t say my name,” she cut me, sharp, eyes flashing, shoulders pulling back. “Don’t.”

My wolf snarled inside my head, angry, hurt.

She is ours. She must let us say her name. She has to.

“Then tell me,” I said, hand still on her arm, not letting go even though she pulled, “You said vessel. Where did you hear that word? Who told you that word? Tell me who—”

She yanked her arm out of my hand. Hard. I let go too fast, like she burned me. My hand stayed up, empty, where her arm was. Fingers still curled.

She stumbled a half-step back, catching herself on a root. She had used black root on her neck, I realized now. Scent gone for three seconds when she moved fast. Just gone. Nothing.