Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Noah
Oh fuck.
The scent of Aster’s tears drains all sexual aggression from me. My wolf was glorying over making her come, but now he whines, needing me to fix whatever went wrong. At least I have the privilege of holding her through it.
I’m sorry. She speaks telepathically. The apology only worries me more.
“Sorry for what?” I ask out loud, except I can’t see her lips with her face pressed into my neck like this.
She lifts her head and looks at me. “I don’t know why I’m crying.” I think that’s what she says. It’s hard to tell when her lips twist with emotion.
Lip reading is imperfect at best. Most say it’s only 30 percent accurate, but I usually get the general idea. I have the benefit of a keen sense of smell to read people’s emotions which helps me decode a little more.
She wipes her tears. “Thank you.” She attempts to sign thank you, but instead signs fuck you, flicking her fingers under her chin which is adorable.
Her smile is sheepish. “That was incredible.”
Pride kicks through me. “Yeah?” I smile.
“Yeah.”
I carry her into the bedroom and set her on her feet while I fish out one of my henleys for her to wear. I tug it over her head, and she threads her arms through the sleeves and lifts her wet hair out of the neckline to cascade down her back.
I cradle her face and steal another kiss. We’ve blown past my broken promise not to do it again.
We’ve blown past any doubt that she’s mine.
The question is–now what am I going to do?
She can’t mate me. Not without giving up her magic.
Besides, the Adalwulfs would never let me take her. She’s their prized possession. The asset that gives them a leg up over the Blackthroats. And I’m not joining the Adalwulfs.
So I can’t mate her. Not without giving up my life’s mission of bringing down the Moonborn and freeing my mother from her mental slavery.
Fuck.
I don’t see a way out of this mess, and it seems I’m getting in deeper with every minute I spend with Aster.
I break the kiss, troubled.
Aster searches my face, and whatever she sees there makes her turn away.
She pulls on the sweatpants I lent her last night without underwear, since those got dirty in our roll in the mud.
Is it weird that all I can think about is the fact that her bare skin is coating my clothes with her scent? Yeah. Probably weird.
“Come. I’ll re-heat breakfast.” I take her hand and lead her to the kitchen. She’s probably starving. She still seems weak.
A few minutes later, we both sit down to the plated omelets and mugs of hot chocolate. She digs in right away–hungry, as I expected.
We devour our food in silence until Aster sighs and pushes her plate away.
“Full?” I ask, showing her the ASL sign for full stomach, lifting my flat palm from my stomach to my chin while puffing out my cheeks. Aster laughs and copies it. I teach her the signs for Hungry, Stop, Ready, and Sleepy.
“Why did you fly a drone to the tower?” She mimes a drone swooping around.
I frown. I don’t know how much to tell her. Just because she’s my mate doesn’t mean she can be trusted.
“Were you looking for me?” She points at her chest.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Why were you in the tunnels?”
I hesitate. I should be the one interrogating her, but I’m too drunk on satisfying her sexually to want to push her right now. This information is about her, so it seems fair to share. “I knew you were having a seizure because the drone fell. I ran for the tower, and you showed me the way in.”
Aster looks at me with wide eyes. “But then you took me prisoner.”
I shrug. “I didn’t know you were my mate.” There, it’s out in the open. We need to acknowledge this thing. “At the time, it seemed like fate delivered you to me for a different purpose.”
Her gaze sharpens. “What purpose?” she asks, ignoring the part about being my mate.
I turn the questions around on her. “Where do you keep the Moonborn?”
She chokes on her hot cocoa.
I sip mine, studying her.
“What do you know about the Moonborn?” she asks.
I lean forward. “I know they brainwash females into serving as sex slaves.”
Aster recoils. “Not true.” But I see doubt creep over her expression.
“I know they snap the necks of pups born without hearing.”
She goes still, her entire body coming alert. “You know you were Moonborn.”
I nod.
A frown mars her forehead. “The prophecy–” Her hand flies to her temple, and her face crumples with pain. She starts to jerk and shake.
I lunge from my chair, not able to catch her in time, but throwing my hand between her head at the floor as it hit.
Fuck.
I scoop her jerking body up and carry her to the couch, where I sit, cradling her in my arms.
It’s all right, Seeress. I’ve got you. I project the words to her. You’re safe.
Her eyes roll back in her head. Her feet tangle and thrash around mine.
Come back to me, starlight. I pour energy into her. It’s not something I’ve done before, but it must be what an alpha wolf does with his pack members when he lends his strength for their healing or to help them when they first learn to shift.
Somehow, I’m sure she’s absorbing it. In fact, it feels like she pulls it from me until her fit gradually eases, and she slips into a quiet slumber.
Damn.
Her visions take so much out of her. My wolf wants to rip someone apart. To give her something–some kind of tonic or medicine or talisman–to take this burden away from her.
I push away the lewd thought that I have exactly the thing that would take this from her–my dick.
I kiss the top of her head, unwilling to lay her down or remove her from my arms. As she naps off the after-effects, I mull over what she said. There was a prophecy about you.
What was the prophecy? And was the seizure a reaction to the prophecy or just that she was thrown back into her vision world?
As I stroke her silky hair, grim thoughts march through my head.
The prophecy is probably that I am the wolf who will destroy the Moonborn. But what if, in doing so, I destroy my mate? What if I take from her something she loves?
Fuck.
She’s not even my mate. As long as she, too, remains brainwashed by the Warden and the Adalwulfs, she won’t give herself to me.
What’s more, any harm I do to them could harm her.
And that, my wolf may not allow.
Aster
Visions of hundreds of years of the Grandmother’s wisdom and millions of their memories spear my mind, moving in fast forward, too jumbled to read.
Then, they crystalize into a single moment. A memory.
“Are you spying on me?” Oma glares at a younger Warden as she leaves the yurt of one of Odin’s females. His face paint is even more dramatic than how he wears it now.
He falls into step beside her. “Is she pregnant?”
“No.”
“Odin needs an heir,” the Warden warns. “If he doesn’t produce one soon, Catherine’s Blackthroat pup will have a claim to the throne.”
Oma stops walking and turns to face the Warden. “The problem is not with the Moonborn females. Odin’s seed is sparse. He’s incapable of siring a child.”
The Warden’s eyes flare. He runs a hand over his bald head, his scent full of dismay. “Who have you told about this?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Oma hisses. “No one.”
“Not even Odin?”
“He knows. But no, we do not speak of it.”
The Warden stares off into the trees for a moment, then he snaps his attention back to Oma.
“Use the Alpha Rites to choose a Blood Heir. We’ll use all the Moonborn females of a suitable age and genetic makeup.
They'll all be bred by Odin and the males you hand select. Ask the Grandmothers to select the next alpha from those conceived. The first-born pup will be the chosen Blood Heir.”
“That kind of magic requires a great sacrifice to the Grandmothers.”
“Then give them what they need! If you can’t make this happen, the Blackthroats will take over our pack, and we will lose everything.”
Oma looks like she ate something sour, but she inclines her head. “Very well.”
The Warden turns and walks away, his robes flapping about his legs, his hands clasped behind his back.
The vision fades.
I’m engulfed in the deepest sense of warmth and safety. Amber and pine and delicious male fill my nostrils. I draw a deep breath and try to force my eyes to open.
I remember sitting at the kitchen table across from Noah, and then there was blinding pain as a vision filled my head. It was the same one Oma described so many years ago.
Noah, wearing the Adalwulf mantle, standing on the broken stone dais, destroying everything. Fate, this is bad.
I start to tremble again with the significance of it.
Strong arms tighten around me.
Noah.
My eyes finally remember how to open, and I twist to look up at him.
I’m in his arms again, nested on top of his body on the couch. He quiets the visions. Soothes my frayed nerves. I stifle a groan. My stomach is queasy, but I draw in a deep breath to calm it.
Noah kisses my forehead, and something warm and syrupy pools in my chest.
I blink up at him. He’s the enemy. The male who could destroy my pack. And I’m snuggled in his arms, melting over forehead kisses.
I scramble back out of his arms and onto my wobbly legs. How long was I asleep? He must’ve held me the entire time!
It’s crazy how much I want to crawl right back onto him, to drape my body over his and soak up that feeling of safety he gives me.
But he’s not safe. I’d be a fool to believe he was.
He climbs off the couch, his brows down with concern as he watches me square off to him.
“You’re here to take the Moonborn down, aren’t you?” I demand.
He looks at me for a long moment then nods.
“Because they wanted you dead?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “For my mother.”
His mother. Of course, he has a mother. I don’t know why I’m so slow to put this all together. What had Oma and the Warden said about him all those years ago?
He was born of the Blood Heir Alpha Rites. The true first-born.
The pup Odin Adalwulf should have claimed as his own. Instead, Oma swapped the pup with Aiden because Noah was born deaf.
Noah is the true alpha of the Adalwulf pack. Chosen by the Grandmothers to lead.
A sensation like lightning shoots through me, and my knees buckle. Noah arrives at my side in a blur, catching my elbow to steady me. Should I tell him? If he knew, would he stop his assault on the pack and the Moonborn?
But no. There will be war regardless. He’d have to kill Aiden and win over the pack to lead. I don’t want him harmed.
He’s still holding me. Once again, he’s my support, a solid frame I can lean on. We fit together perfectly.
I can’t lose him.
I lick my lips and force myself to speak. “Wh-who is your mother?”
Noah hands me a laminated photo from his back pocket. It’s worn, like he carries it with him at all times. It’s a photo of a teenage girl with brown hair and kind eyes.
She looks familiar.
Then I realize she looks like Oriana, Liora’s daughter. Same gap between the teeth and dark blue eyes.
But this photograph is old. It’s not Oriana.
It’s Liora.
I gasp. “Liora is your mother.”
Noah nods. “You know her.”
“Yes. I-I love her. She was one of my mothers until I was sent to serve as acolyte to the Seeress.”
“Not your biological mother,” Noah clarifies, and I can read the alarm in his eyes.
“No,” I assure him with a relieved laugh. “We’re not related.” I point between the two of us.
His shoulders relax. “Good. I need to see her.”
I nod. “Of course you do,” I whisper, blinking back tears. The Liora in the photograph has a sweet, peaceful smile. The Liora I know is capable of smiling, but all I can remember is the pain in her voice and the shadows in her eyes as she pleaded with me to save Oriana.
I don’t need the Sight to see that Fate brought Noah on this mission right now because Liora needs him.
She came to me for help. She saved her son from Oma and the Warden’s machinations, and now she’s trying to save her daughter.
I’m not strong enough to wield any influence over the Warden and Aiden.
But Noah is. He’s the true Adalwulf heir. An alpha wolf. More powerful, even, than Aiden.
Ignoring the realization that I’m betraying my pack, my family, and everything I’ve worked to become, I square my shoulders. “I’ll take you to Moon Hollow.”