The Offering

They braided my hair too tight.

"Sit still, Elise," Mama hissed, yanking the brush through my brown hair like she wanted to rip it out. "You want to look pretty when he rips your throat?"

My sister, Mara, laughed from the doorway, wearing my good dress. The one I was supposed to wear to my mating ceremony with Thomas next week.

"She won't be pretty for long," Mara said. "Alpha Kael likes to play with food first. I heard he keeps their bones."

I was 18 today. In Blackwood Village, 18 means you are a woman. It also means your name goes in the black bowl for the Offering.

For 100 years, we gave one girl to the Blackthorn Pack every full moon. So they wouldn't come into the village and take all of us.

My name was never supposed to be in the bowl. I was already promised to Thomas, the baker's son. We had a house picked.

Until Mara paid the priest two silver coins to add my name. I saw her do it.

"Why?" I asked her last night, when Mama wasn't listening.

"Because Thomas looked at you," she said, simple. "And he is supposed to look at me."

So now I sat in torn white dress, hair braided, lips painted red like a corpse, hands tied with rope that cut my wrists.

At sunset, the whole village dragged me to the forest. No one cried. They sang the Offering song, the one they teach kids.

_Pretty girl, white dress, blood tree, dead..._

The Blood Tree was old, bigger than church, roots like fingers. They tied me to it, rope around waist, and left.

Moon rose. Full. Huge. White like my dress.

Forest went quiet. No birds. No wind.

Then I heard him.

Not footsteps. Breathing. Heavy, angry breathing, and claws on dirt.

He came out of fog — 7 feet tall, even as man. Long black hair, bare chest covered in scars that looked like claw marks, shoulders too wide, legs too muscular. And eyes — gold, glowing, locked on me.

Alpha Kael Blackthorn.

He was more monster than man tonight. Wolf ears, fangs out, nails like claws.

He was supposed to kill me fast. One bite.

He sniffed the air. Once. Twice. Then his whole body froze.

His gold eyes went wide, then black.

He was in front of me in one step, nose at my neck, inhaling like he was starving.

I expected teeth. I got a growl that shook the tree.

"MATE."

No. That word is impossible. Humans cannot be mates. Priest said so.

He pulled back, looked at my face, at my torn dress, at blood on my wrists from rope. And his face — that scarred, monster face — twisted with rage. Not at me. At the rope.

He ripped it with one claw. Rope fell.

I fell too, legs dead from fear. He caught me. Arms like iron, chest hot like fire, smelling of pine and blood.

"MINE," he growled into my hair, voice half wolf, half man. "FORBIDDEN. BUT MINE."

Behind him, in the fog, 10 more wolves appeared — his pack — all in man form, all staring at me, at us, shocked.

"Alpha, no! She is human!" one shouted. "Human cannot be Luna!"

Kael turned, holding me against his scarred chest, and roared. The whole forest shook. Birds flew even though there were no birds.

"WHO DARES SAY SHE IS NOT MINE?"

No one dared.

He picked me up like I weighed nothing — bridal style, like in stories Mama told — and started walking into dark forest, away from village, away from Blood Tree, into mountain where humans never go.

I should have screamed. Should have fought.

But his chest was warm, and for first time in 18 years, no one in village was yanking my hair.

I whispered, "Are you going to eat me?"

He looked down at me, gold eyes soft for one second, and said, "No. I am going to keep you."

The walk into the mountain was longer than any walk I had done in my life. My village was small — you could cross it in ten minutes. But Kael's forest was endless, trees taller than our church, fog thick enough to hide wolves. He didn't put me down once, even when branches hit his scars. His arms didn't shake. His breathing stayed heavy, but not from me — from anger.

I could feel his heart under my ear. It was beating too fast, too loud, like a drum before a hunt. But it wasn't hunting beat. It was something else. Something I had never heard.

"Put me down," I whispered after a while, because my pride came back a little. "I can walk."

"No," he growled, simple. "If you walk, you will run. And if you run, my wolf will chase. And if he chases while he smells you like this, I won't be able to stop him from marking you tonight. And you are not ready to be marked, little human."

Mark. I knew what marking meant. Priest told us — wolves bite their mate's neck and leave scar, so everyone knows who owns who.

I went quiet after that and let him carry me, because I was not ready to be marked either.

After maybe an hour, trees opened and I saw it — mountain den. Not cave, like stories said. A big stone house built into mountain, with fires inside, with wolves coming in and out in both man and wolf forms. It was a village, like mine, but bigger, stronger, and it smelled of meat and smoke and pine.

All wolves stopped when they saw Kael carrying me. Hundreds of eyes, all glowing faintly gold.

No one spoke. Until the silver-haired woman from before ran forward.

"Kael, you cannot bring Offering inside den! It is against law! Council will—"

He cut her off with one look. "She is not Offering anymore. She is my mate. Prepare Luna's old room. And bring healer for her wrists."

He carried me inside, past staring wolves, past fires, past children wolves who hid behind mothers, straight into a warm room with furs and a real bed.

He finally set me down on furs, and my white dress — already torn — spread around me.

He knelt, huge even kneeling, and looked at my bleeding wrists.

"Who tied this tight?" he asked, voice low, dangerous.

"Priest," I said.

He nodded once, like he memorized that name.

Then he touched my wrist with one claw, very gentle, and I hissed because even gentle hurt.

"Sorry," he muttered, more to himself than me. "I haven't touched something soft in ten years. I forgot how."