Chapter 7

~Oswald's POV~

The trees thinned as I made my way back toward the palace, but my mind hadn't left that clearing yet.

Nyla Moonke.

I turned the name over again, the way I might turn over a blade to check for a crack in the metal. An omega with no wolf and no family. Nothing about her should have held my attention longer than it took to tell her to move along.

And yet.

My wolf hadn't settled since I found her.

He'd gone quiet the way he only did around danger, or before a fight, some old instinct rising to the surface before I even understood why. Except there'd been no danger in that clearing. Just a girl on the ground, murmuring my name like it belonged to her.

Little wolf.

I hadn't said it. I was almost certain I hadn't said it. But the shape of the words had been sitting on my tongue the whole walk back, like I'd said it a hundred times before and simply forgotten.

I didn't like things I couldn't explain.

The council would say I was letting exhaustion get to me. 

Three days chasing border disputes with the Ashfell pack would do that to a man, making him imagine things in empty fields that weren't there. But exhaustion didn't explain the way my chest had tightened when she said she had no home. 

It didn't explain why I'd crouched down to her level instead of simply walking away. Any alpha in his right mind would have.

She reeked of fear the whole time, and still hadn't looked away from me once.

I didn't know what to do with that.

"Alpha."

Artemis's voice cut through the trees before I saw him, his long strides already closing the distance between us.

"You've been gone longer than expected." He fell into step beside me, assessing me, cataloguing everything from my boots to my face like he was searching for a reason to worry. "The council wanted a word before sundown. Something about the Ashfell terms."

"The terms can wait." I kept walking.

He gave me a look I knew well, the one that meant he'd noticed something and was deciding whether it was worth pushing.

"You're distracted."

"I'm fine."

"You've had that face since you walked out of the west clearing." He said it plainly, no accusation, just observation, the kind only a man who'd known me since we were pups could get away with. "What happened out there?"

I almost told him nothing.

"Found an omega." I said instead. "Collapsed in the grass and no wolf."

Artemis's brows rose slightly. "And you stopped for her?"

"She said my name in her sleep."

He barked out a short laugh, though it faded quickly when he saw I wasn't joining him. "That's not exactly rare, Oswald. Half the pack whispers your name like a prayer these days."

"Not like that." I didn't have the words for how it had sounded, not a whisper of admiration, but something closer to grief. Like she'd lost me once already and was terrified of losing me again. "It didn't feel like flattery."

Artemis studied me for a long moment, and I could feel him deciding whether to let it go.

"You're the alpha of Silvercrest, marked to lead five kingdoms one day if the old prophecies are worth anything." He said finally. "You don't have time to chase every stray omega who mutters your name in a fever."

"I'm not chasing her."

"Then why do you still look like you left something behind in that clearing?"

I didn't answer, because I didn't have one, not one I liked, at least.

"While we're on the matter of distraction," Artemis went on, clearly not finished, "the council raised the betrothal again this morning. Lady Elara of the Duskmoor pack arrives within the week. Her father's already sent word that he expects a formal introduction, not a courtesy visit."

"I'm aware." I hadn't given the arrangement more thought than I had to. Duskmoor's alliance mattered for the border, and Elara's name had been circling council meetings for months, always spoken of as something already decided.

"You don't sound aware. You sound like a man who's already forgotten she's coming."

"I haven't forgotten."

"Good." Artemis's tone eased, though his eyes stayed sharp. "Because the council won't wait forever, and neither will Duskmoor. A mate before the next moon dance, that's what they want from you. Not fevered omegas in a clearing."

I said nothing to that, because there was nothing worth saying. Elara was a name, a pack and a border agreement. 

Nyla was a girl who'd looked at me like she already knew what it felt like to lose me.

We walked the rest of the path in silence, the palace rising ahead of us through the trees, and I told myself the matter was settled. An omega with no wolf and no name worth remembering, a stray thought that would fade by nightfall the way most things did.

Except it didn't fade.

I could still see her face when I closed my eyes, the exact moment she realized I wasn't going to hurt her, and something in her had softened just slightly, like she hadn't expected kindness and didn't know where to put it now that she had it.

My wolf stirred again at the memory, low and restless, the way he only ever did when something important was standing right in front of me and I hadn't noticed yet.

"Oswald." Artemis's voice again, sharper this time. I realized I'd stopped walking. "The council."

"Right." I forced my feet forward. "The council."

But even as I climbed the palace steps, half-listening to Artemis list off border complaints and grain shipments, one thought kept circling back no matter how many times I tried to set it down.

I didn't know her.

So why did some part of me feel like I'd already lost her once, and didn't intend to do it again?