The Boarder 2

My wolf panicked in those three seconds, whining high, pacing, Gone, gone, gone, scrambling at the inside of my skull. That root cost her, it made her dizzy, made her wolf sleepy, but it made me blind. She accepted that price just to get past me.

She looked at the creek one more time. That clean water, that clean air on the other side, ten feet of freedom. No Alpha, no Sienna, no council whispering about weak bloodline. I saw her throat move when she swallowed. I saw her fingers tighten on her backpack strap until knuckles went white. For a second I thought she would go. My chest locked, waiting for the snap of the last thread.

Then she looked back at me. The hatred didn’t move. It stayed. Steady.

“You’ll find out tomorrow,” she said. Voice flat. Bored. Same flat I used when I was done with someone, when I dismissed a warrior from my office for failing patrol, when I didn’t even look up from papers. She copied it perfectly. Used it on me like a weapon.

“You’ll find out tomorrow, Alpha Kael.”

She said Alpha Kael like it was an insult. Like it was a dirty word she had to spit out.

Then she turned around and walked back toward the pack house. Walking slow, straight-backed, bare feet bleeding on the stones on purpose so I would hear them. So I would know she chose to go back.

I heard Jace and two north guards in the pines, their breathing, their boots shifting. They would see their incoming King drag a wolfless girl who rejected him, bare-chested, bleeding palm. That picture, written to High Hill, was worth more to my cousin than a closed gate.

I stood at the border line with bare feet in cold mud and my hand still empty, bleeding palm dripping onto snow, mixing with her small bloody footprints.

My wolf howled. Loud. Rough. Lost. It ripped out of my chest and woke the whole north guard. I heard boots splashing, shouting, Jace calling my name from the tree line, “Kael! Kael, where are you! Get back!”

I didn’t move until her small shadow was gone between pines and I couldn’t smell her anymore.

Tomorrow.

What the hell was going to happen tomorrow that made my mate look at me like she wanted me dead and still walked back into a pack house that hated her, instead of taking ten feet of freedom I couldn’t stop her from taking?

LILY

Kael stayed till I disappeared. I felt it.

I felt his black eyes on my back the whole way between pines, heavy, burning. I made my steps slow, straight, bare feet bleeding on stones on purpose so he would hear them, so the north guards would hear them and tell the Hall their Prince had turned a girl around with law, not with a bite. Let them write that. It bought me the creek.

He turned and left. I heard mud suck when he pulled his bare feet out. Heard Jace’s low voice, close, “Kael, come inside, you’re freezing,” and Kael’s rough, low, “She went back to the pack house.” Then boots fading, two pairs. Then silence. No more scent of pine, cedar and blood from his palm. Wind took it.

I came out.

I wasn’t going to the pack house as he believed. I had ducked behind a big fallen pine the second his scent faded, crouched low, backpack tight to my chest, black root already making me dizzy, making little spark sleepy and slow inside. My heart hammered so loud I thought the north guards would hear it from the trees.

I couldn’t cross alone.

Myra promised she would meet me at the border before moon-high. She shouted fire to lure guards to the clinic so I could run, but I didn’t see her after I slipped out the back. What if Sienna’s guards grabbed her when they went to check the fire? What if they locked the clinic with her inside?

Sienna is not the type to give up when a thief runs. If she doesn’t see me, she will use Myra to lure me back. She knows Myra is a mother to me. Myra took me when the pack said wolfless should be left in woods at five because I didn’t shift. Myra taught me herbs, hid me when Sienna broke a mirror, took the beatings for me and said I should  leave when the beatings got worse. I can’t leave her. Sienna would not let the pages sit in Tomas’s chest till morning. A healer who can swear to the handwriting is worse for east than a girl on a road.

So I stayed there, waiting, crouched behind that tree, looking left and back, every small sound making me flinch. Creek cold ten feet ahead, clean air calling, but I couldn’t take it alone. I rubbed more black root on my neck, wrists, ankles, to kill scent, even though it made little spark sleepy and my own head spin.

Then a figure emerged from far, through the thin mist over the creek. Fast, panting, small, limping, shawl torn.

I ducked further behind the tree, hand over my mouth, rubbed root again hard, hiding scent completely because I didn’t know who it was. Sienna’s guard? Rorik’s man sent to close border?

It was Myra. Hair half burned at the ends, shawl torn, carrying a small bundle against her chest, panting and running toward the border, eyes wild, looking left and right, checking shadows.

Immediately I saw her, I jumped forward before she could make a sound and alert the north guard.

Myra startled, she almost fell backward into the mud, hand to her chest, gasp, “Moon—”

When she saw it was me, her face broke open.

“Lily!”

We embraced, hard, on our knees in mud. She smelled like smoke and sweat. Her hands shook hard on my back, holding tight.

“You waited,” she whispered, crying now, tears hot on my cold cheek. “You waited, you stupid brave girl. I told you to cross. I told you to leave without me—”

“I couldn’t,” I whispered back, tears finally coming after the Hall, after Kael, after everything. “You promised border. I didn’t know what happened after you shouted fire. I thought they took you. I thought—”

“They tried,” she panted, pulling me down to crouch again, eyes darting. “Sienna’s father sent two to lock the clinic after I shouted. I hit one with the herb mortar and ran through the back window. Same one you used. They will see smoke and think I am still inside choking. They don’t want me. They want the pages, and they want you where you can’t swear to them.”

She opened the bundle. Small cloth bags, each tied with twine, damp, smelling strong, like me but stronger, old shirts I left at the clinic last week, soaked in my sweat and yarrow oil and a little of my blood from a cut.

“What is that?” I asked, wiping my nose on my sleeve.

She hung one on a low branch of pine, quick, hands fast despite shaking. One on the rock near the creek. One on the fallen log. One on the bush right on the border line.

“It will deceive Kael and everyone,” she whispered, tying the last one tight to a root where water splashed. “Scent bags. Your scent, old but strong. He will smell this all night and think you are still wandering around this area, circling, can’t decide. Sienna’s guards will track in circles till dawn. It will let us cross without him knowing until we are safely in neutral and far from the creek. By the time he finds the bags, Tomas will have locked the real pages. East can burn copies. They cannot burn a chest.”

She pulled my hand, cold fingers lacing with mine. “Come. Now. Marcus is waiting with the fur cart just past the creek, past the big oak. But we must go barefoot through water so no footprints. Can you?”

I nodded, looking back once at the pack house lights far behind the pines, at the place where Kael howled lost, at the place that killed me once. He had chosen the windows over the back door. That choice had just bought us the creek.

Then I held Myra’s hand tight, like mother, like daughter, and stepped into the ten feet of cold water toward clean air, toward keeping that flutter alive even if I had to crawl the rest of the way to do it.