Chapter 35: The Mate Mark

The man at the door was old and thin and he had a green coat and a green truck and a face like a walnut that had been left out in the sun.

“I am Arthur Renn,” he said. “I am the archivist. I have come a long way and my hip is not what it was, and I would like to sit down.”

We sat him down at Maeve’s table and gave him tea and he drank it in three swallows and put the cup down and looked around at all of us.

“You are the Halloran girl,” he said to me. “Your sister came to see me. She has your mother’s chin.” He looked at Elias. “And you are the cursed one. I have read about you in a record that is eighty-five years old and I have been waiting a long time to meet you.”

“You drove here,” Silas said. “From Boise. In this weather.”

“I drove here from Boise in this weather because I received a telephone call from a Council investigator three days ago telling me the claim of blood had been refused and the territory was in trouble, and I decided that I was not going to wait for October.” Arthur Renn put his hands on the table. “I have the founders’ record in the truck. The original. I took it out of the archive on Monday night and I put it in a box and I put the box in the truck and I have been driving since Tuesday.” He looked at Silas. “I have also brought every trial claim my grandfather signed between 1902 and 1948. There are sixty-one of them. Forty of them are forgeries.”

The kitchen went quiet.

“Forty,” Silas said.

“Forty. My grandfather was a careful man but he was not a good forger and he used the same pen for thirty years.” Arthur Renn took a folded paper out of his coat and put it on the table. “I have made a list. Every claim, every name, every territory. If we put this in front of the Council of Alphas they will have to answer for it, and once they answer for it they will have to answer for the boundary map and the boundary map leads to the Luna and the Luna leads to this pack.”

I sat down.

“Then we have a chance,” I said.

“We have a chance,” Arthur Renn said. “But we do not have time. The Council of Alphas meets on the tenth of October and the filing for a claim of blood must be made by the wronged bloodline in person, and the Council has already refused one filing. If we walk in there with a box of forgeries and an archivist and an old woman who has been keeping a secret for sixty years, they will listen. But if the Beta of this pack gets to them first, they will not listen to anything. They will sign whatever he puts in front of them and they will do it before we get through the door.”

I looked at the window. The snow had stopped and the sky was going dark.

“Then we need to keep Dale busy,” I said. “For three weeks. Until October.”

“We cannot keep him busy for three weeks,” June said. “He is already looking for us. He has the hunters and the cull order and the whole pack behind him.”

“He does not have the whole pack,” I said. “He has the pack that is afraid of him. There is a difference.”

Maeve came and stood at the end of the table.

“There is a thing I have not told you,” she said. “About the mark.”

Everyone looked at her.

“The mate mark,” Maeve said. “The bond between you and Elias is a mate bond, but it is not a full bond. It is a bond of the heart and the scent and the touch. It is not a bond of the mark.” She looked at me. “A full mark is what makes a mate bond hold in front of the Council. Without it, a Council investigator can argue that the bond is incomplete and that a trial mate-claim can proceed. With it, the claim is void before it is filed, because a marked wolf is a mated wolf and no Council in the territory will break a marked bond.”

I looked at Elias. He was sitting very still.

“And how is a full mark made?” I said.

“By a bite,” Maeve said. “On the shoulder or the neck or the wrist, in the place where the bond sits. It has to be given freely and it has to be taken freely, and it has to be done before the claim hearing.” She looked at me. “It will hurt. It will burn silver and gold and it will take three days to heal and you will feel it for the rest of your life. And once it is done, you cannot undo it. A marked wolf who loses their mate does not take another. The bond goes with them to the grave.”

The kitchen was quiet. Outside the wind came up and moved the snow on the roof.

“Then we do it,” I said.

“Wren,” Elias said.

“Do not be noble at me.”

“I am not being noble.” He turned in his chair. “I am telling you that this is a thing that cannot be undone and I do not want you to do it because you are afraid of Dale. I want you to do it because you want it. And if you do not want it, I will go to Boise with you and I will stand in front of the Alphas and I will tell them the truth and I will let them decide, and if they decide against us then I will go back to the trees and you will be free.”

I stood up and went to the door and put my coat on.

“Where are you going?” June said.

“To the mill,” I said. “We need somewhere that is not the kitchen of a healer with four people listening.”

Elias got up and got his coat and we went out into the snow.

The mill was dark and cold and the wind came through the broken door, and I went in and stood in the middle of the floor with the lantern in my hand and waited for him.

He came in and shut the door and stood in front of me.

“Wren,” he said. “Look at me.”

I looked at him. His amber eyes were steady and his face was cold and tired and very close.

“I want it,” I said. “I have wanted it since the field. I have wanted it since the co-op and the loading dock and the cellar and the clearing. I have been telling myself that I am doing this for my brother and for the pack and for the land, and that is true, and it is not the whole truth. The whole truth is that I want to be marked by you, and I want it because I am tired of being alone, and because you are the only person in this county who has never once lied to me.” I put my hand on his chest. “So mark me. Now. Before I lose my nerve.”

He put his hand over mine and held it there.

“It will hurt,” he said.

“Everything hurts. I am used to it.”

He laughed, low and short, and then he kissed me.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was a kiss that had been building since the loading dock and the cellar and the trees, and I put my arms around his neck and he lifted me off the floor and carried me to the corner where the blanket was, and he put me down on it and pulled his coat off and put it over me.

“Are you sure?” he said.

“If you ask me that one more time I am going to bite you.”

He laughed again and then he was not laughing, and his hands were on my face and in my hair and at the buttons of my shirt, and I pulled his shirt up over his head and put my hands on his back and felt the scars under my fingers.

We made love in the mill in the dark with the wind coming through the door and the lantern low on the floor. It was slow and it was warm and it was nothing like the loading dock. The loading dock had been a thing that had to happen before we lost our nerve. This was a thing we chose. He kissed the inside of my wrist and the hollow of my throat and the place under my jaw where he had marked me the first time, and I put my hands in his hair and said his name and the rope between us pulled so tight that I could feel his heart in my chest.

And then he put his mouth on my shoulder and bit down.

It burned silver and gold. That is the only way I can say it. It was a pain that had a color, and the color went up through my shoulder and into my neck and down my arm, and I cried out and he held me and did not let go, and the bond snapped into place like a door that had been swinging open and finally shut.

I could feel him.

I could feel him the way I felt my own hands. His breath and his heartbeat and the place in his chest where the curse sat and the place behind his ribs where I was. He lifted his head and looked at me and his mouth was red and his eyes were wide and I put my hand on his face.

“It is done,” I said.

“It is done.”

I put my mouth on his shoulder and bit down too, and he made a sound that was not pain, and the bond went both ways and pulled tight and held.

We lay on the blanket in the mill with his coat over us and the snow coming down outside and the mark on my shoulder burning and cooling and burning again.

“Three days,” he said. “Maeve said three days.”

“Three days.”

“And then the claim is void.”

“And then the claim is void.”

He was quiet for a long time.

“Wren,” he said. “There is a thing I have not told you. About the night your brother died.”

I turned my head. His face was close to mine in the dark.

“Tell me tomorrow,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I have been putting this off for a week and I am not going to put it off again. I knew your brother before the night he died. I met him in June. He came to the mill and he found me in the loft and he did not run and he did not call the hunters. He sat down on the floor and he talked to me for an hour and he told me about the east field and the stone and the wire, and he said he was going to go to Harlan.” He took a breath. “And three days later he was dead in the field behind the mill road.”

I did not move.

“You knew my brother,” I said.

“I knew him for three days.”

“And you did not tell me.”

“I did not tell you because I was afraid you would think I had something to do with his death.” He looked at me. “And because I did not know if I could trust you with it yet.”

The mark on my shoulder had gone hot.

“That is the thing,” I said. “That is the thing about the mark. When you lie to me it burns.”

He looked at me and did not say anything.

“It is burning now,” I said.