Chapter 3_The Deal

I couldn't breathe.

Kael Thorne was holding my hand in a small, locked bathroom, his thumb resting on the tiny bandage on my finger, and his gray eyes would not let me go.

*Lie,* I told myself. *Lie like your life depends on it.*

Because maybe it did.

"I cut it on a kitchen knife," I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. "Cutting onions. This morning."

"Onions."

"Yes. Onions."

He didn't let go. He stepped closer, and my back touched the cold wall. He was so tall I had to tilt my head up to look at him. Up close, I could see a small scar through his left eyebrow, and the tired shadows under his eyes. He hadn't slept. Because of me, maybe.

"You're limping," he said.

"I tripped on the stairs."

"Your stairs or my stairs?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me." His voice dropped lower. "Because the girl last night hurt her ankle too. The right one."

I swallowed hard. It was my right one.

"Lots of girls have ankles," I said.

Something moved at the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a smile, but it was close.

"And I can't smell you," he went on quietly. "I couldn't smell her either. Do you know how strange that is? I can smell my father's cigar from the garden. I can smell the rain coming from two towns away. But you?" He leaned in, close to my neck, and I felt his breath on my skin. My whole body shivered. "Nothing. It's like you're not even here."

"I'm Hollow," I whispered. "No wolf, no scent. Ask anyone. It's the most famous thing about me."

He pulled back and looked at me for a long moment.

"Then why," he said, "did I feel it?"

My heart stopped.

"Feel what?"

He didn't answer. He lifted his free hand slowly, like he was going to touch my face.

And I wanted him to. God help me, I wanted him to.

Then someone knocked on the door.

"Kael?" It was Margot's voice, sweet as honey. "Baby, are you in there? Your father is asking for you."

Kael closed his eyes. His jaw went tight.

He let go of my hand.

"This isn't over," he said, low enough that only I could hear.

Then he opened the door and walked out. I heard Margot laugh softly, and their footsteps faded down the hall together.

I slid down the wall and sat on the cold floor, holding my hand against my chest. It still felt warm where he had touched it.

*Baby,* she'd called him.

Stupid, Sienna. So stupid.

---

When I came back to the table, dessert was being served. Chocolate cake. I didn't touch it.

Kael was in his chair again, sitting beside Margot, his face like stone. He didn't look at me once. Somehow that was worse.

Garrett was in a good mood. He had drunk three glasses of wine, and his cheeks were red. He was telling stories about the old days, when he was Alpha.

"You young ones don't know how good you have it," he said, pointing his fork at Rhys. "Twenty years ago, this valley was full of danger. Rogues everywhere. And worse."

"Worse?" Rhys said. "Like what? Taxes?"

Garrett laughed. "Like the Moonborn."

The word fell on the table like a stone dropped in water.

"The what?" I asked.

"Old stories," Margot said, rolling her eyes. "Silver wolves. My grandmother used to scare me with them."

"Not stories," Garrett said. His smile stayed, but his eyes went strangely cold. "They were real. Silver wolves with silver eyes. Born under a blood moon. They had gifts no normal wolf has. They could hide their scent completely. Some of them could even hear another wolf's thoughts."

A crash.

My mother had dropped her water glass. It broke on the floor, and water ran across the wood.

"I'm so sorry," she said quickly, standing up. Her face was white as paper. "So clumsy. I'll clean it up."

"Elena, sit," Garrett said gently. "The staff will do it."

She sat. But her hands were shaking in her lap. I had never seen my mother scared of anything. Not of the guards, not of the debt, not of the cold winters when we had no money for heat. But she was scared now.

"What happened to them?" I asked slowly. "The Moonborn?"

Garrett looked at me. For one second, just one, something hard and hungry moved behind his kind old eyes.

Then it was gone, and he smiled.

"They died out, sweetheart. Long time ago. Now," he clapped his hands, "enough of the past. Let's talk about the future. Sienna, Elena tells me you have big dreams."

I glanced at my mother. She gave me a tiny nod.

"I want to join the Border Guard," I said.

Margot laughed out loud. Rhys almost choked on his cake.

"The Border Guard?" Margot said. "Darling, you can't even shift. What will you do, bite the rogues with your little human teeth?"

"Margot," Garrett said.

"What? I'm being honest. Somebody should be."

My face burned. But I lifted my chin.

"I ran the Moonfall last night," I said.

The table went quiet.

*Oh no.* The words were out before I could stop them. I had been so angry at Margot that my mouth had moved without me.

Slowly, Kael turned his head and looked at me.

"Did you," he said.

"Part of it," I said quickly. "I didn't finish. I got lost by the creek and went home."

"By the creek," Kael repeated.

"Yes."

"Interesting."

I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

Garrett looked between us, and then he smiled wide. "Well! That takes courage. A Hollow girl running with wolves. I like that." He turned to his son. "Kael, you're training the new Guards this season. Train her too."

"Garrett, no," my mother said softly. "She'll get hurt."

"She'll get stronger," Garrett said. "Kael?"

Kael put down his fork. He leaned back in his chair and studied me the way a wolf studies a rabbit.

"Fine," he said. "On one condition."

"What condition?" I asked.

"I train you for seven days. If you last all seven, I'll put your name on the Guard list myself. You'll get the job, the pay, everything."

My heart jumped. The pay. Mom's freedom. Everything I'd ever wanted, right there on the table.

"And if I don't last?" I asked.

His gray eyes held mine.

"Then you tell me the truth."

"The truth about what?"

"You know what."

Nobody else at the table understood. Margot frowned. Rhys looked from me to Kael with his eyebrows high. Garrett just smiled, like it was all a game.

But I understood.

If I quit, I had to tell him I was the girl in the ranger station. I had to tell him I was his mate. His stepsister, his Hollow, wolfless mate, the one thing in this world an Alpha could never be seen with.

"Deal," I said.

"Deal," he said.

Margot put her hand on Kael's arm and squeezed it, hard. She was smiling, but her green eyes were looking at me like I was something she wanted to scrape off her shoe.

---

It was late when the car brought us home. My mother didn't say a word the whole drive. She just stared out the window at the dark trees.

When we got inside, I finally asked.

"Mom. What's wrong? You've been weird all night. Ever since he said the word Moonborn."

She stopped in the middle of the kitchen. Then she turned around and took my face in both her hands. Her fingers were cold.

"Listen to me, Sienna," she whispered. "Listen very carefully. When we move into that house, you stay away from Garrett's library. Do you understand?"

"Mom, what—"

"And never, ever let anyone take your blood. Not a healer. Not a doctor. Not anyone. Promise me."

"Why would anyone want my blood?"

"*Promise me.*"

I had never heard her voice like that. Scared and fierce at the same time.

"I promise," I whispered.

She let go and went into her bedroom and shut the door. I heard the lock click.

I stood alone in the dark kitchen, my heart pounding.

The blood moon. Silver eyes. Wolves who could hide their scent.

*No scent,* Kael had said in the bathroom. *It's like you're not even here.*

I pressed my hand over my mouth.

Then my phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was a text from a number I didn't know.

I opened it with shaking fingers.

**Training starts at 5 a.m. Don't be late.**

A second message came right after.

**And Lark? Next time you stitch a man up, don't leave your hair tie behind.**

My hand flew to my wrist.

My black hair tie, the one I always wore, was gone.