Chapter 2 – The Tether Beneath the Skin (Aeryn)

The hall stank of false peace.  I stood at the edge of the council chamber, one hand resting on the hilt of the curved blade at my hip.  Not wanting to be in this place, every instinct told me to turn and walk away melt into the shadows of Veyra like I always had.  I scanned over the hall but stopped on her, not because I had a choice, but the pull was like a magnet.  The FrostFang Princess, the daughter of the Alpha that helped led the purge, Kaela Frostfang.  The man was responsible for my father’s death.  She sat there with eyes that looked right into your soul.  

She was not cold but composed. Grace in the shape of a woman. Her hair was silver, blonde, braided and coiled, her eyes the color of storm-washed ice. She looked at me like she’d already calculated ten ways to destroy me and none of them involved drawing a blade.

Then the pain started.  Not physically. Not even visible. A slow burn just beneath the skin, coiling in my chest like a thread tightening.  Like two halves coming together.  It bloomed across my wrist, glowing faint and silver. A perfect crescent surrounded by thorns the mark of fate.  My wolf surged and went on high alert.  Her scent was Vanilla and Berries, and the smell awakened Knox, my wolf howled in my mind.  A fated mate. A Frostfang.  Our Mate. Knox growled.

I clenched my jaw, fighting the instinct to snarl or run or fall to my knees. This wasn’t supposed to happen, not here. I had come only to claim my father’s ashes, not to leave in chains. Not to be marked.

She looked down at her wrist, then up at him.

And I knew in that moment that I would kill everyone in this room to protect her.  The need to protect and claim was overwhelming, and Knox was trying to push forward.

Not just recognition, resonance. Like two pieces of a shattered blade remembering they were once whole.  I walked in and sat in the empty Lunari seat without asking permission. The room went quiet. No one dared speak. Let them choke on their fear.  I wasn’t here to beg. I will not be here for long.  Get my father’s ashes and leave. 

The entire meeting was dull, I wasn’t here for politics, I was only here to collect my father’s ashes and disappear again. So, he didn’t pay attention.  Maybe I should have but my eyes and mind were on Her. So many questions.  How could his fated mate be the daughter of his worst enemy.  Why is this happening now? The hate he felt before he had stepped into this room was still there with everyone else but when he looked at her the hate dissipated almost instantly.  Why has the Moon Goddess decided this?  I had not felt anything in so long, these emotions were something from a distant memory. 

After the council dismissed, I didn’t leave through the main gates. I vanished into the high corridors of the hall, walking stone paths etched with runes older than the clans themselves. My heart was still racing.

She would follow. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name.

And she did.

“Lunari,” came her voice behind him soft but firm. “You have something to explain.”

I turned slowly. She stood a few paces away, arms crossed over her chest, her jaw tight.  She looked like the Goddess herself. The mark on her wrist shimmered beneath her sleeve.

“I didn't ask for this,” I said.

“Neither did I.”

They stared at each other, two wolves at the edge of the same precipice.

Her scent hit me again — snow, wind, vanilla, berries and something faintly floral. Not the cloying perfume of court-bred wolves, but something wild underneath. Unshaped. Honest. Knowing.

“You know what this means,” Kaela said. “They’ll think I conspired. That I was marked to betray.”

“You think I’ll be any safer?” I snapped back, heat rising in his voice. I immediately felt guilt for it. “You’re the golden daughter. I'm the exile. This bond it's a curse for both of us.”  Something flickered in her eyes. Not anger. Not fear. Sadness.

“Then what do we do?” she asked looking way.

I hesitated. For all my training, for all my hardened resolve, I realized I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t even know how to want one.  “…We survive,” I said finally. “We keep this quiet. No one knows what the bond will do, not anymore. We find out before they do.”

Kaela’s lips parted, then pressed into a thin line. She nodded once.

“Agreed,” she said.

But as she turned and walked away, I caught the barest whisper of her emotions, not words, not thoughts, but feelings.

Fear. Longing. And something warm, like sunlight on ice.  I stepped towards her.

His wolf growled low in his chest, pacing behind his ribs wanting to be even closer.

This wasn’t survival. This was the beginning of something older than war, older than hatred.

And it terrified me more than any blade ever could.

She looked at me really looked at me, “I want to know what this means.  I don’t think we should tell anybody right now if we can help it, but I think we should see what this all means. I must go back to the Hall, but I don’t want you to disappear and never see you again.” She said before she turned and left.