The Hidden

Night came fast. I tried to sit by the fire with Mari, but I couldn’t sit still. The bond tugged like someone on the other end of a line was testing the knot. I went to my room early and shut the door.

I sat on the edge of the bed, then stood again, then paced. The floorboards knew my steps too well. After a while I pressed my forehead to the window. The ridge was a black line under a thin moon. The chapel wasn’t visible from here, but my body leaned toward it as if it glowed like a beacon.

A soft tap came twice at my door, pulling from my thoguhts. I opened it to Mari and Kade.

Kade didn’t step in. He leaned on the frame and looked at me like he was memorizing my face. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you stay close to me.”

I nodded.

“We go to the bend. Then we turn back. No detours and no games.” His mouth thinned. “If you feel… anything… you say it. You don’t play brave and you don’t go see him.”

“Okay.”

He waited like he was hoping I’d argue, so he could yell and feel better. I didn’t give him the chance. He swore under his breath and pushed a hand through his hair. “Don’t make me carry you back.” he muttered, and left.

Mari slid inside. She shut the door with her foot and sat on my bed like it was hers. “So….What’s the plan?”

“I meet him in two nights,” I said. “Tomorrow we keep Father far from the river’s edge. We don’t let him scent me, he cant notice anything different.”

“And if he does?”

“Then I say it’s a fever and Sela gave me something weird.”

Mari blinked. “That’s your plan?”

I dropped onto the bed beside her. “It’s a start.”

She leaned her head on my shoulder. She smelled like tea and steel. “I’ll walk two steps behind you tomorrow,” she said. “If you wobble, I’ll cough. If you fall, I’ll grab you. If you run, I’ll run faster.”

I laughed then, the sound small and stupid and human. It helped me feel better.

We sat there until the halls went quiet. When she left, I lay on my side and stared at my palm until the mark blurred. I didn’t pray to the Moon Goddess. I was angry that I was tied to a hardened, cruel man.

I fell asleep close to dawn.

The next day moved like a flash.

I dressed with shaking hands and met Kade at the yard. He had a pack slung over one shoulder and his face set like stone. Mari joined us, tucking knives into her boots. We set out with three others, Tern, Lena, and a young wolf named Jett who was new and clearly nervous. The air bit our cheeks. The sky hung low and gray.

We hiked in silence for a while, our boots crunching old snow. The woods here were thin, the pines tall and straight. Birds made small, doubtful sounds and then fell quiet again. Tern led the way, he was light on his feet. Kade kept me close enough to touch.

When we were half a mile from the bend, the pull hit me like a tug on a rope around my ribs. I stumbled.

Mari coughed, once, casual. She didn’t look at me. Her hand brushed mine, quick.

“I’m fine,” I whispered.

Lena’s head tilted, but she didn’t speak.

We reached the bend and stopped. The river cut through the trees. The ice here didn’t hold, it broke and ran, narrow and fast. This was where I had stood, where Kael had stood, where the forest had learned our names.

Kade lifted a hand, signaling Tern to circle left. He sent Jett right with Lena. Mari stayed positioned right by my shoulder. I forced my breath to slow. The bond thrummed louder here, low and steady, like someone knocking from the other side of a door.

“Theres tracks,” Tern called softly. “ They’re fresh.”

Kade moved to him. I followed, each step careful.

On the far bank, marks cut the mud, there were boot prints, three pairs, in and out. On our side, old prints overlay new ones. My skin tightened.

“Blackthorn,” Lena said. “Two males and one female.”

“How long ago did they come through?” Kade asked.

“Before dawn.”

The pull in my chest pressed and then eased, as if something out there recognized me and chose not to announce it. I swallowed.

Mari bent, touched a print, and sniffed the air. She glanced up at me. “Smell that?”

I did. Cedar and rain. Faint now, but it had been there.

I didn’t realize I’d moved until Kade’s hand closed on my elbow. “Stay here.” he said.

“I wasn’t…”

“You were.”

I made myself still. I kept my face blank and my eyes on the water. I didn’t look at the rocks where Kael had stood. I didn’t think his name.

We stayed there until Kade was satisfied. He sent Tern up the bank to check the old birch stand and waved Lena and Jett back in. They moved quiet and quick. We took one last sweep, turned, and started home.

I almost let myself believe we would make it out clean. Then a voice came from the trees to our left.

“Well,” it drawled, dry as winter bark. “Isn’t this a picture.”

We pivoted. Bran stepped from the pines with two of his men. He was a Thornridge wolf with a knack for showing up when you least wanted him. He had narrow eyes, a thin smile, and the sort of loyalty that wrapped around the Alpha and squeezed too hard.

“Kade,” he said. “Didn’t know you were taking the princess for a stroll.”

I bristled. Mari took half a step forward and then stopped when Kade flicked his fingers.

“We’re on rotation,” Kade said. “Why are you here? If you have no reason, then leave.”

Bran’s gaze slid over me. It wasn’t crude. It was assessing, like he was measuring the distance between us. He sniffed once, subtle, the way wolves do when they want to learn something without being noticeable.

My heart kicked. I kept my face empty. The mark pressed hard like a knife digging into my hand.

“Smells busy out here,” Bran said. “Blackthorn must be bored.”

“Move along,” Kade said, voice rough. “Or you’ll be limping back to your land.”

Bran’s smile thinned. “Yes, Sir.” He touched two fingers to his brow in a mock salute. “You should keep tighter hold of your team. Some might go missing.” He winked.

He turned and cut into the trees with his men. The silence he left behind made the hair on the back of my neck rise.

“Watch him,” Mari muttered.

“I always do,” Kade said.

We made it back to the packhouse without another hitch. But the look Bran had given me stuck like a thorn under my skin. He smelled something on the air and it made me feel uneasy.

By late afternoon, the sky began to spit snow. I went through the motions…eat, clean, answer questions...but my body was already counting down the hours. At midnight tomorrow, I’ll be faced with the hard decision.

I stood at the back door just before sunset, watching the flakes drift, when Lena’s voice came low behind me. “You can’t outrun it.”

I turned. “What?”

“The bond of your mate. I caught a glimpse of your hand when we were training, and your scent is more potent than normal.”

I held her gaze. “I don’t know what to do or how to deal with it?”

She didn’t blink. “I cut my bond a long time ago, it hurt like hell and because of it I feel hollow and empty all of the time, but I survived it.”

She left me with that and the snow.

I went to bed early again. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling until the boards blurred. My palm warmed, then cooled, then warmed again like a heartbeat rolling over a hill. The old chapel waited on the ridge, roof full of holes, floor full of termites, air full of ghosts.

I set my alarm. I checked my boots. I slid a knife into my sleeve.

Outside, a wolf howled, long and low.

I closed my eyes and saw gold eyes looking back.

Don’t be late, Kael had said.

“I won’t,” I whispered to the dark.

The floor creaked outside my door. A shadow paused.

Kade? Mari?

The shadow moved on, quiet as breath.

I breathed with it until sleep finally took me.

And somewhere out in the trees, something answered the call I didn’t dare make out loud.

The two nights were up.

Tomorrow at midnight, I would stand in the chapel with my enemy.

And there were some  in Thornridge that already knew more than they should.