A Dangerous Conversation

🌒 Chapter Four: A Dangerous Conversation

The market was clearing, the air thick with the scent of fear and spilled blood, but Raven barely noticed as she stood before Ragnar.

His eyes were wide, storm gray and searching, flickering from her blood slick blade to her golden eyes, to the rogues crawling away in the distance.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said quietly, but his voice shook.

Raven wiped her blade on her leather pants before sliding it back into its sheath. “They would have killed you,” she replied, turning to leave.

She needed to get away, to put distance between them before the bond pulled her closer, before her wolf did something reckless.

But Ragnar followed, his boots crunching on the wet stones. “Why?” he demanded, grabbing her wrist.

The touch was electric, the bond sparking between them so violently that it stole her breath. Her wolf lunged inside her, wanting to shift, to mark him, to claim him.

She ripped her wrist free, stepping back, glaring. “Don’t touch me.”

His jaw clenched, but he didn’t back down. “What are you?”

Raven exhaled slowly, controlling the shake in her hands, willing her claws to stay hidden. “Someone you should stay far away from.”

“I can’t,” he shot back, frustration and confusion in his voice. “I don’t even know why, but I can’t.”

She closed her eyes, hating the truth in his words. The mate bond wasn’t fair to either of them, but it didn’t care about fair. It didn’t care about war or rogues or councils waiting for her to slip.

She turned, walking toward the treeline beyond the market, hoping he would let her go.

But his voice followed her like a shadow. “I’m not afraid of you.”

She froze, shoulders stiffening. Slowly, she turned to look at him, her golden eyes cold. “You should be.”

His chest rose and fell, rain dripping from his dark hair, his hands fisting at his sides as he stepped closer. “I saw what you did back there, and maybe I should run, but I can’t. I don’t want to.”

The bond pulsed between them, a living thing that made her wolf pace beneath her skin.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she whispered.

“Then tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me what you are, what this is.”

For a moment, Raven let herself look at him, really look. The curve of his jaw, the stubborn set of his mouth, the storm in his eyes. He was human, fragile, breakable, yet there was something unyielding in the way he stood before her, refusing to look away.

She wanted to lie. She wanted to tell him it was nothing, that he was nothing. That she felt nothing.

But the truth was burning her alive.

“You’re my mate,” she said softly, the words tasting like ash on her tongue.

Ragnar blinked, confusion and realization crossing his face. “Your… what?”

Raven looked at him a sad, stoic look on her face before she said "mate, like soulmate in the human world."

Raven turned away, running a hand through her wet hair. “It doesn’t matter. You need to leave. You need to forget you ever saw me.”

“I can’t do that,” he said, taking another step closer.

She spun back, anger and fear crashing together inside her. “You will,” she snarled, her eyes glowing gold, her wolf pushing forward. “Because if you don’t, you’ll die.”

He flinched but didn’t back down. “You think I’m afraid to die?”

They stood in the rain, lightning crackling far in the distance, the scent of pine and wet earth wrapping around them as the world seemed to hold its breath.

Finally, Ragnar spoke, his voice low but firm. “What happens if I stay?”

Raven swallowed hard, the bond pulling at her, whispering promises she couldn’t afford to believe in.

“If you stay,” she whispered, “everything will change.”

The wind shifted, carrying the scent of rogues on the breeze, and Raven’s head snapped towards the treeline. Her wolf growled low, the hairs on her arms rising.

“We have to move,” she said sharply, grabbing his hand before she could stop herself.

He didn’t resist, letting her pull him toward the shadows of the forest. Their joined hands burned with the bond’s energy, her wolf howling with satisfaction even as fear coiled in her stomach.

This was wrong. It was dangerous. It was everything she wasn’t supposed to want.

Meanwhile Shadow was purring deep inside happy and content.

And yet, as Ragnar’s fingers tightened around hers, she realized it was already too late.

"You ok Raven", Luca mindlinked her so Ragnar wouldn't hear.

"Yes, I'm fine, I can smell rogues in the breeze I'm taking the human back to our pack".