All Chapters of Marked by the Lycan King: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

I had never in my life wanted to run somewhere as badly as I wanted to run back to the grove that night, and I had spent twelve years of my childhood learning exactly how much running could cost a body that wasn't ready for it. "We move at first light," Jasper said, already directing Cole and the enforcers with controlled urgency. "Fastest safe pace. I want to be back at Dessa's territory before whatever that man reports reaches anyone capable of acting on it." "Two days," Dessa said. "Even at pace, it's two days back." "Then we make the two days as safe as we can and pray it's fast enough," Jasper said, and I heard, underneath the composure, the same fear I was carrying, dressed in different clothes because a king couldn't afford to let fear look like fear in front of his own enforcers. I didn't sleep that first night on the road, though I made myself lie still, counting breaths, counting the rhythm of Jasper's own restless shifting beside me, because pretending stillness was

I had left my daughter before. I had not, until the morning we rode out for Verne's council, understood that leaving could get harder each time instead of easier, the way I'd assumed practice would eventually make it something closer to bearable.Seren was awake when I said goodbye, gold steady in her eyes the way it had been every day since we'd returned from the trading post, calm and present in a way that still made my chest tighten with wonder every time I looked at her directly. She reached up as I leaned over her, small glowing palm finding my cheek the same way it had the day we'd returned, and I held that touch for exactly as long as I could justify before Cole's signal told me the escort was ready."She'll send word every day," Yseult said, standing beside the cradle with the specific steady competence that had become, over these past weeks, its own kind of reassurance. "Morning and evening both, whether there's anything to report or not, so you're never wondering whether sil

The council closed on the fifth day with signatures instead of promises, which Verne noted, folding the ratified agreement into his own careful keeping, was a rarer thing between territories than any of them liked to admit.Five signatures, he said, looking around the garden table one final time. I don't think this continent has seen that many territories agree to bind themselves to anything since before my grandfather's time. I intend to make sure it isn't forgotten the moment we all ride home and go back to our separate concerns."It won't be forgotten," Dessa said. "Not by me. I have a scout still trying to bring his sister home. I don't have the luxury of letting this become a document that sits in a drawer."We rode out the following morning, Jasper and I breaking from the main party earlier than the others, both of us carrying the specific urgency of parents who had spent five days doing necessary work while every part of us wanted to already be somewhere else. Cole led the esc

Rennick found Cole at the map table before dawn, three hours before the rest of the party had agreed to meet, and Cole told me later he hadn't been surprised to find him there."I want to see the route," Rennick said. "Not to argue about my place in it. I understand what Dessa said, and I understand why. I want to see it because I know that coastline better than anyone else in this territory, and if your plan has a gap in it, I would rather find it now than have it found for us later, at a cost none of us can afford."Cole studied him for a moment, the specific assessing look I imagined he'd given every wolf who'd ever tried to talk their way into a mission he'd already decided the shape of, and then, apparently satisfied, stepped back from the table to let him look.I arrived partway through their conversation, drawn by voices at an hour the grove was usually quiet, and found the two of them bent over a hand-drawn map of the coastal district, Rennick's finger tracing a route with the

I went to say goodbye to Seren at first light, the specific ritual I'd repeated so many times now that my body had learned the shape of it before my mind fully caught up I kneel, kiss her forehead, let her small hand find my cheek, hold the touch for exactly as long as I could justify before duty called me away again.She was already awake when I reached the cradle, and her eyes, when they found mine, were neither gold nor silver.I stood very still, the way I had learned to stand still around anything that mattered, and watched the color Yseult's letter had described without quite managing to capture something that held both at once, gold threaded through silver the way dawn holds both night and day in the same brief window, neither one yielding to the other."Jasper," I said, quiet, urgent.He was beside me within seconds, and I felt him go still too, the specific stillness of a man witnessing something he had no framework for and refused to let his own fear distort before he'd actu