18. Frayed Loyalties

The first thing Hannah wanted when Cora arrived that morning was to keep the reply short and measured - to not hand her annoyance like a blade. The healer stood in the doorway, arms full of linen and a bundle of roots, the smell of thyme and copper clinging to her like a second skin. Outside, the yard held the thin silver frost of early morning and the longhouse hummed with the reluctant wakefulness of a pack just stirring. Hannah folded the moment into a careful smile.

“Coffee?” she offered, because small rituals steadied her.

Cora declined with the tilt of someone deciding whose weather would shape the day. “I didn’t come for tea,” she said. Her voice was brisk and surgical. “I came because Keir brought me word last night. You were seen visiting the eastern supply outpost without escort.”

Hannah’s hands paused over the counter. The lavender sachet in her pocket was a warm pebble against her thigh. “Keir told you?” she asked. The question was soft but it carried an edge - she hadn’t expected pack gossip to travel before Marcus’s letters.

“He did. And he did well.” Cora set her bundle down and met Hannah’s eyes with a kindness that never quite reached empathy. “You shouldn’t go alone, Hannah. Not now. The attack - ”

“It’s been months,” Hannah said, keeping her voice level. “I’ve been to the outpost twice before Marcus left. I can manage a run to check stocks.”

Cora’s mouth tightened. “You think that proves something? Running to the outpost alone is reckless. If someone wanted to test you - if someone wanted to get to Marcus - would you know?”

Hannah felt the old coil of anger beneath her ribs: Cora’s habit of speaking as if Hannah’s choices were missteps waiting to be catalogued. But the claim this time landed differently, threaded with implication and fear she couldn’t push away. Marcus’s absence made every casual threat feel sharp.

“You’re the healer,” Hannah said. “If you’re worried, suggest precautions. Tell me what you want different.” She would not allow the conversation to dissolve into accusation.

Cora stepped closer, so the scent of poultices and lemon balm filled Hannah’s nose, clinical and purposeful. “Precautions aren’t always obvious. Let me shadow you. Let the patrol know you’re accompanied. Or - ” Her voice lowered - “let someone else run checks. Marcus isn’t here to vouch for you.”

The subtext was clear and it stung: without Marcus, Hannah was less credible, less safe. The pack had always been practical, but here practicality wore the shape of ownership.

“You mean to control me,” Hannah said before she could smooth the edges. The truth tasted like iron.

Cora’s expression softened into something that nearly passed for concern. “Control isn’t always malicious. It’s… survival. I’m trying to keep you from harm.” Her fingers touched a strip of linen as if that were proof.

Hannah let herself name the vulnerable fear that sat under the anger. “What I don’t want is to be protected out of pity,” she said. “I need to be trusted to do my part.” The words were quieter than the thought. “Marcus trusts me.”

“That’s because he’s blinded by whatever charm made him choose you.” Cora’s tone slipped; the barb was deliberate. “He’s a good leader, but not infallible.”

Heat flared in Hannah’s face. To hear Marcus’s name like that - suggested to be naïve or easily swayed - felt like a small violation. She thought of his hands on the ledger, the way he’d leaned his forehead to hers and promised to return. She thought of the lavender folded in her pocket, a ridiculous talisman and a lifeline all at once.

“You don’t get to belittle him,” Hannah said, the anger sharpening into defense. “He made a choice. He knows what he’s doing.”

Cora’s jaw clamped. “And you think loving him makes you immune to danger? That makes you vulnerable in a different way. Love isn’t a shield.”

There was truth in that; Hannah felt it settle like dust. Love wasn’t a shield. It could be leverage, a soft spot against which someone could press a question. But Cora’s next words cut differently: “You’re not his first duty. The pack comes first.”

The old argument - pack vs. pair - had always felt like a dull ache Hannah managed by leaning into what Marcus had promised. Now, with him gone, the ache radiated into a bruise.

“You speak as if my being here weakens the pack,” Hannah said. She said it carefully, because she needed Cora to hear the boundary without the conversation breaking into bitterness. “I keep the stores in order because Marcus showed me how. I learn because I care. That’s not weakness.”

Cora inhaled, the breath a small gale that lifted the loose hair at her temples. “Careful, Hannah. You’re young and devotion clouds judgment.” She paused, then added, almost as an aside: “And there are those who would use devotion as a cloak. Remember the attack - remember how the silver slipped in.”

Hannah’s stomach tightened. Silver had been a memory that had jagged edges; Cora’s reminder made it one more thing to navigate. Still, the healer’s implication that Hannah’s attachment would blind her to danger felt like a slight instrument - not just about her judgment but about Marcus’s discernment.

“You think I don’t remember?” Hannah asked. “Do you think I want that to be the measure of me?”

Cora’s face shifted then, something unreadable flickering - regret? pity? - and for a moment Hannah allowed herself to hope the conversation might turn. “I don’t want you hurt,” Cora said simply. Not protection, not ownership - just a phrase with the barest hope of truce.

Hannah softened enough to answer. “Neither do I,” she said. “But I need you to stop speaking like I’m a child who can’t distinguish danger from duty. Marcus trusts me because I act like part of the pack, not because I make romantic decisions. If you want to help, help by making my place here stronger, not by undermining it.”

Cora’s eyes flicked away. The healer folded the linen back into her arms with a rustle. “Perhaps I overstep,” she murmured. The admission felt thin, but it landed.

Still, the barrier remained: Cora’s possessiveness was born of fear, but fear didn’t make it kinder. Hannah understood the stakes better than ever - the threat of silver, the ache of absence, the way whispers could become weapons. She also knew the vulnerability she’d admitted last chapter: she needed Marcus to be an anchor, not because she couldn’t stand, but because naming the danger made it manageable.

“Come with me to the outpost,” Hannah said suddenly. The sentence was a test and an offering. “If you want to watch, come properly. Not to own. To guard.”

Cora’s brow arched. The healer read the offer like a map: an opportunity to assert authority or to accept partnership. After a moment, she nodded, slow. “Fine. I’ll come. But we’ll do it my way - quiet, measured. No heroics.”

Hannah felt a small, fierce relief. She’d invited Cora into the work rather than the role of judge. It shifted the terms: Cora could not simply speak over her if she was alongside her.

When the two of them stepped from the longhouse later, the air had sharpened to a brittle clarity. Cora’s cloak brushed Hannah’s sleeve. Between them, the bond thrummed - an invisible line Hannah laid one careful foot across. She smelled rosemary at Cora’s shoulder and cold pine on the wind, and somewhere beyond sight, Marcus’s letters felt like a promise being kept.

“You’ve got this,” she said aloud, not as a talisman but as a statement - of intent, of defiance, of fragile hope.

Cora’s answer was a small exhale. “We’ll make sure you do,” she said, and for the first time the words felt like an alliance rather than a verdict.

The question that hung in Hannah’s chest, unspoken, was whether partnership could become protection without erasing the person it safeguarded. She didn’t have the answer yet. But when the path took them toward the outpost, side by side, she felt the shape of choice in her hands: not to be sheltered from danger, but to stand in it with eyes open - as a mate, as a pack member, as herself.