the mark

*CHAPTER 13: THE MARK*

I didn't feel tired at first.

After the witch ran, the pack cheered. Warriors came to thank me. Mothers brought their pups to see Leo. Luna Rhea hugged me so tight I couldn't breathe.

Leo was on Kade's shoulders, telling everyone "My Mama won! My Mama's light is stronger!"

I was smiling. I was okay.

Then the white light in my staff flickered.

My knees buckled.

"Ani?"

Kade caught me before I hit the ground. Leo slid off his shoulders into Elder Marga's arms.

"Ani, hey, look at me," Kade said, his big hands on my face. My face was too pale.

"I'm... just tired," I whispered. "Healing ten cursed wolves yesterday... and then the witch today... Lyra used too much..."

My eyes started to close. My white wolf, Lyra, was whimpering inside me, weak. White wolves burn bright, but we burn out fast if we don't have our mate's energy.

Elder Marga pushed through the crowd, touched my forehead, and gasped.

"Her light is fading! Her wolf is retreating! White wolf collapse — when they use too much light without a mate mark, they go back to sleep! Like before!"

Like when my mother locked my wolf. Wolfless again. Empty again.

"No," Kade whispered, holding me tighter. "No, no, Ani, stay with me."

Leo started crying. "Mama! Mama, wake up!"

I tried to open my eyes. I could hear Leo, but my body was too heavy.

"There is one way," Elder Marga said quickly, looking at Kade. "Moon Temple. Mate mark. A true mate mark will wake her white wolf and share your strength. Your black wolf's strength can hold her white light."

Kade didn't even think.

"Take us there. Now."

He picked me up like I weighed nothing. I could feel his heart pounding against my cheek. Fast, scared.

"Kade, wait," Luna Rhea said. "A mate mark without her conscious permission... the Moon Goddess may not accept it. She said to win her—"

"She will die if I don't!" Kade shouted, and for the first time I heard pure panic in an Alpha's voice. "I don't care if she hates me after! I don't care if she never forgives me! She told me to do better — doing better means keeping her alive!"

Luna Rhea nodded, tears in her eyes. "Go."

Kade ran.

He ran through the forest with me in his arms, Leo and Elder Marga and Luna Rhea following behind with warriors. He didn't stop, didn't slow, even though I could feel his own energy draining because our soul-binding meant he felt half my weakness.

The Moon Temple was old. Stone, covered in moss, in the middle of Blood Moon territory where no one goes unless they are being mated or rejected.

He laid me on the stone altar in the middle. The moon was already rising, full, silver.

I could barely open my eyes. I saw Kade above me, his beard messy, his golden eyes wet.

"Ani," he whispered, his forehead touching mine. "I know you said win you first. I know you didn't say yes. I know this is not how you wanted it. But please... please let me do this. Let me save you. You can be mad after. You can hit me. You can reject me. Just... don't leave. Don't leave me and Leo."

I tried to speak but no sound came out.

Lyra, my white wolf, was so quiet inside me. Like she was sleeping again.

Kade's black wolf was howling inside him, desperate.

He leaned down, his lips brushing my neck, right where a Luna mark goes. The spot that tingled every time he was near me for five years.

"I, Kade Black, mark you, Ani Grey, as mine," he whispered, his voice shaking. "Not because I claim you. Because I need you alive. Because my son needs his Mama. Because this pack needs its white light. Because I... because I love you. I have loved you since I was fifteen and you gave me mushroom soup when I was sick after training and said my wolf wasn't scary."

I didn't know he remembered that. I was twelve. He was fifteen.

Tears slipped from my closed eyes.

Then I felt it. His teeth. Gentle, but firm. A true mate bite.

Warmth exploded through me. Not heat like before. Light. Black and white light mixing.

I gasped, my back arching off the altar.

White light burst out of me, so bright the whole temple glowed. Lyra howled, awake, stronger than ever.

And I felt him. Kade. Inside me, not just his scent, but his soul. His worry, his guilt, his love, his fear of being a bad father. Everything he never said with words, I felt through the mark.

My eyes flew open. They were glowing white.

Kade was above me, his own mark glowing black on his neck where my teeth had instinctively bitten him back — I didn't even remember doing it. A mutual mark.

We had marked each other.

"Ani?" he whispered, his hand shaking as he touched my glowing cheek.

I reached up and touched his face, my hand weak but warm again.

"You remembered the mushroom soup," I whispered, my voice hoarse but alive.

He laughed, crying and laughing at the same time, and pressed his forehead to mine again.

"You bit me back," he whispered. "You marked me too."

"Did I?" I said, a little shy. "I thought I was dying. Instinct, I guess."

"Instinct," he repeated, smiling.

From the temple entrance, we heard a little voice.

"Mama! You have a glowy tattoo like Papa now!"

Leo ran in, broke free from Luna Rhea, and jumped onto the altar, hugging both of us.

"Mama, does that mean Papa won you?"

Kade and I looked at each other, both marked, both glowing, both breathing hard, lying on a Moon Temple altar with our son on top of us.

Kade whispered, "Did I win you, little healer?"

I looked at his terrible poem that was still folded in my mother's journal in my pocket, at his muddy boots from getting soup, at our son who called him Papa, at the mark on his neck that I gave him without thinking.

I leaned in and whispered back, so only he could hear,

"You are getting closer, Alpha. Much closer."