The Soul Thief 2

And something heavy sat in it. Something that was not mine. Restless, pacing.

“Lean on me,” Myra said, arm tighter. “We are almost at the old trapper cabin past the second creek. You need to rest, love. You lost so much blood at the border. And you used too much black root, your lips are blue. I wonder why Marcus wasn’t at the post. He promised. Did something go wrong?”

“Someone paid him to be late,” I said. “Or scared him off the road. East does not want a witness at that creek.”

“I took it,” I whispered. Wind took my words and made them thin.

Myra looked at me, snow in her eyebrows, in her gray hair, melting. “You took what, love?”

“His soul,” I said, my voice cracked on the second word. “When I rejected him, I felt it snap and then it didn’t leave. It didn’t go back to him. It came into me. I felt him. His anger. His wolf crying. It’s too loud. I can’t make it quiet.”

Myra stopped walking. Right there in the snow, both of us breathing hard. Her hand went to my chest, palm flat over my sternum, over my heart, eyes closed, listening with her wolf.

“Lily, what do you feel right now? Right now, in your chest? Tell me exactly. And keep your voice down. Neutral ears sell words to High Hill.”

“I feel him destroying something,” I said. Tears froze on my cheeks before they could fall, cold tracks. “I feel him breaking his office. I feel wood cracking. I feel Jace trying to calm him and his voice too calm. I feel…”

I gasped because sharp pain shot through the bond, bright and hot, and I knew, I knew without seeing, he just punched the wall. Knuckles split, blood on stone.

“He is hurting,” I whispered, hand going to my own chest, pressing. “Like I hurt on his floor.”

The pull had a door in it. One tug and he would know the creek. One tug and Fen would not need scent. I lifted my hand toward it.

Then I put the hand on my belly.

“No,” I said. “I am not opening it. If I pull, he finds us. East is already buying that direction. The pup does not pay for his hole.”

Myra pulled me closer, shawl around both of us, sharing heat. Her jaw tight.

“That is not your burden anymore,” she said, hard, mother-hard. “You cut the bond to protect your pup. Remember your pup. Remember why we have scent bags tied to those trees behind us. Remember why we crossed that creek barefoot and froze our feet. Not for him. And that choice you just made, not pulling, that is yours. Not the crack’s.”

I placed my other hand on my flat stomach. Only a few weeks along. No one could see it under cloak. No bump. But I felt it. That tiny spark was the only warm thing left in me.

“He will hunt me,” I said, looking back at the dark line of trees where Bloodmoon lights were now small and yellow.

“Let him hunt,” Myra said, eyes hard, eyes wet. “He will not find a weak omega who cries into her blanket anymore. He will find a girl who stole an Alpha King’s soul, lived through the crack, and would not pull him to her. That is harder to write to a cousin than a thief.”

Kael

The door opened again. This time without a knock, without pause.

Sienna walked in. She was perfect. Hair curled tight, lips painted red, red dress from the ledger page that cost twenty thousand, the one she bought with pack funds. She looked at my destroyed office and her face tightened, nose wrinkling at the mess.

“Kael? What happened in here? I heard shouting all the way downstairs. Elders are downstairs fighting and you—”

“Get out,” I said. I didn’t even look at her. I stared at the broken window, at north wind blowing snow onto scattered papers.

She blinked, smile faltering. “What? Kael, I am worried about you. That omega made a scene and you destroyed your father’s desk and bled—”

“I said get out!” My aura slammed into her, Alpha command, not loud, low and heavy. She stumbled back against the doorframe, hand to her throat, eyes wide, gasping.

Jace caught her elbow before she fell, steadying her.

“Not now, Sienna,” Jace said quietly.

Sienna’s perfect mask cracked right down the middle. She stared at me, at wreckage, then at blood on my palm from claws digging.

“Is this about her? That wolfless thing?” she hissed, voice sharp now, jealous, no longer sweet. “She humiliated you in the hall in front of everyone and you destroyed your office like a pup who lost a toy? You are becoming the Alpha King. In two days, you won’t be ordinary Alpha again. Act like a King. Don’t let an omega who can’t even shift—”

If those pages stayed locked, the dress was theft, and a thief’s daughter did not sit the white chair. She needed me angry at Lily. Not at a receipt.

I moved before Jace could stop me. Two strides, I was in front of her, teeth bared inches from her face, gold eyes burning her reflection in them. My wolf so close to surface I could taste blood in my mouth, could feel fangs pushing gums.

“Say her name again and I will rip that tongue off your mouth,” I whispered, low, dangerous, so low she had to hold breath to hear.

She went pale. I smelled fear sharp, sour under her heavy perfume. Then she ran, heels loud on broken glass, door banging behind her so hard it shook remaining frame.

Silence fell again, heavier than before.

Jace let out a long breath, running hand through his hair. “Great. That definitely helps your political situation. You just almost marked the future Luna’s face with your claws. Her father holds east funds, remember? East funds pay our warriors. He will write the claw before he writes the dress.”

“She is not my Luna,” I growled, turning back to broken window, fists clenched, claws still out.

“Then who is?” Jace asked, voice tired now, leaning against wall. “Because the girl who just ripped your soul out of your chest and walked into the snowstorm in patched cloak and bleeding feet sure as hell thinks she is done with you. And she looked it, Kael. She looked done.”

I walked to the broken window. North wind blew in, snow falling on desk, on scattered ledgers, melting and smearing ink. Somewhere in that wind was her scent. Herbs and black root trying to hide it. And something else I couldn’t name, heavy and warm, like soul, like mine but not in me anymore. For a second the pull tightened, as if she had reached for the door. Then it went slack. She had refused it. That was worse than the theft.

“Order hunt,” I said. My voice was dead calm now. The kind of calm that comes before I kill something, before I go to war. “Not warriors. Trackers. The best we have. Old Fen and his son. No weapons drawn. No one touches her. If they see rogues near her, they kill rogues first. They take her to trapper cabin first. Not here. She will be scared if they bring her straight here to this.”

“And what do I tell the elders?” Jace asked, hand on the door handle, ready to leave this wrecked room. “They are downstairs right now debating if what happened was treason or miracle. Rorik is already writing to your cousin. If I say soul, that letter finishes you.”

“Tell them an Alpha property is stolen,” I said, eyes fixed on dark forest where she disappeared, where scent bags now hung to fool me, where her small bloody footprints led north. “And I am going to bring it back. Do not say soul outside this door. If Rorik writes that word, I will hold him responsible for the letter. Say that downstairs. Make them hear it.”

Jace was at the door when I spoke again. My voice so quiet he almost missed it over wind howling through broken window.

“Jace.”

“Yeah?”

“If she doesn’t want to come back… if she fights…”

He waited.

“Bring me something of hers. A scarf. That patched cloak. Anything with her scent on it. So my wolf stops howling. So I can sleep for one hour.”

Jace nodded. He didn’t say that no scarf would fix this, that no scarf would put a soul back in a chest, that I was asking for impossible. He just nodded and left, closing what was left of the door.

I stayed at the window. Snow fell on my bare feet. Blood from glass mixed with snow, pink. The bond pulsed from north. From her. Faint because of black root, but there, thudding like second heart.

She took my soul. She had the door and she would not open it.

And I was going to follow it until I found her, even if I had to crawl north barefoot in snow to do it. By morning the cousin would have the letter, and east would have the claw, and the girl who would not pull would still be ahead of both.