Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Daciana
I stare at the basket sitting on my threshold.
Roasted chicken, still warm, wrapped in cloth. Fresh vegetables. A small loaf of crusty bread. Yesterday, it was meat sandwiches with thick slices of beef. The day before, a lamb stew that filled my room with its rich scent for hours.
Kieran.
I sigh and pick up the offering, retreating back into my room before anyone can see me. Before he can see me, if he’s somewhere nearby, watching.
It has been a week since his confession. Seven days since he told me we’re fated mates and my entire world was upended.
Seven days of hiding in this room, trying to ride out the effects of the bond that is suddenly awake between us.
I set the basket on my table and sink onto the edge of my bed, pressing my hands to my chest. My heart feels different now.
It’s as if it has woken from a long slumber, beating with a rhythm that isn’t quite my own.
My wolf is different, too—excited, restless, happy in a way that makes my skin crawl because I know it’s not real.
These aren’t my actual feelings. This is the fated mate bond.
I have to keep reminding myself of that. Every time my pulse quickens at his scent in the hallway. Every time my wolf whines and paces, wanting to go to him. Every time I catch myself thinking about the way he looked at me, the vulnerability in his eyes when he said those words.
“The women you’ve been seeing in those dreams—they’re you…We’re fated mates, Daciana.”
Everything is different now. Even the dreams have changed. Ever since that night, it’s like his confession altered something fundamental in me. I started using Selene’s herb tea more regularly, desperate for answers, and now I see things I didn’t before.
I see Kieran in different stages of life. Sometimes he’s younger, a boy with fear bright in his eyes, trying to be brave. Sometimes he’s older, grief carved so deep into his face it looks like it will never fade. But the more I see, the more I notice the pattern.
The fear. The loss. The way he holds the woman in my dreams—sometimes gently, sometimes with a grip so tight and desperate it makes my chest ache.
Like he’s trying to keep her from slipping away.
Like he’s trying to keep me from slipping away.
I shake my head sharply, stand up, and walk over to the window. I can’t think about this. Can’t let myself fall into the trap of believing this bond is something real, something that matters.
But my wolf whines, and my heart beats faster, and I hate how much I want to open that door and find him there.
Fourteen days pass like this.
Baskets appear at my door every morning—venison one day, pork roast with apples the next, thick meat pies that crumble in my hands.
He always includes meat, like he knows what my wolf needs.
What I need. But he keeps his distance. I haven’t seen him once since that night.
Not in the corridors, not in the training grounds, not anywhere.
He’s not approaching me. Not trying to talk to me. And I appreciate that.
Although, while part of me is grateful for the space, another part of me, a part I don’t want to acknowledge, wants him to try. Wants him to seek me out, to push past my walls, to fight for…whatever this is.
It’s infuriating. It makes me feel as if I’m the only one making a fool of myself. As if I’m the only one affected by this bond, hiding in my room like a coward while he goes about his life perfectly fine.
The dreams continue. Pieces of a past I don’t understand, moments that feel like memories even though they can’t be mine.
By the fourteenth night, I can’t take it anymore.
I need to get out of here. I need air. I need something other than these four walls and the constant pull of the bond trying to drag me toward him.
I slip out of my room after dark, moving quietly through the corridors. I don’t go toward the forest; I know better than that. I could get attacked out there, especially alone. Instead, I head to the palace grounds, to the open spaces where the moonlight falls, soft and silver, on the grass.
The cool night air hits my face, and I breathe it in, letting it calm the restless energy thrumming under my skin. I’m wearing a faded shirt and loose pants, nothing fancy. I sit on the grass, tipping my head back to look at the stars.
That’s when I hear it: a soft howl, gentle and beckoning.
My wolf perks up immediately. I turn my head and catch movement at the edge of the grounds. It’s the female alpha of the wild pack, watching me with those intelligent eyes. The scar across her face is a pale line in the moonlight.
Something in my chest loosens, and I smile. This wolf has been my guardian since I arrived here, always nearby, always protecting.
I stand up and walk toward her. “Hey, girl.”
She doesn’t come to me like she usually does. Instead, she turns and begins heading toward the trees.
I hesitate. I know I shouldn’t follow. Not into the forest. Not at night. But she looks back at me, waiting, and my wolf pushes forward eagerly. We trust her. She has never led us wrong.
I take a deep breath and follow her.
The trees close around us quickly, swallowing the moonlight. My wolf’s vision sharpens everything to silver and shadow as I track her pale form through the darkness. The palace grounds fade behind me. We’re plunging deeper into the forest than I’ve ever been before.
“Where are we going?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer. Of course she doesn’t.
She just keeps walking, steadily and purposefully.
Twenty minutes pass. Maybe more. The woods grow denser, darker. Part of me knows I should turn back, but I can’t shake the feeling that she needs me to follow. That something is wrong.
Finally, she stops.
She turns to face me, and my blood goes cold.
Something is off. Her movements are too stiff, too mechanical. Her eyes—those eyes that always held such warmth, such intelligence—are dull now. Empty. It’s like looking into the eyes of a corpse.
My wolf recoils inside me. I take a step back, my heart suddenly pounding.
“Girl?” I ask uncertainly. “What’s wrong?”
Then, I see the other wolves.
They’re scattered around the clearing, maybe eight or nine of them.
Pack members I recognize. But they’re not standing proud and alert like wild wolves should be.
They’re lying down, subdued, pressed against the earth.
One whimpers as I look at it. Another’s ears are flat against its head, its whole body trembling.
Terror grips my throat.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no.”
The female alpha—not her anymore, just her body—advances toward me. Her lips peel back from her teeth in a snarl that’s all wrong. There’s no emotion behind it. No real aggression. Just empty, mechanical violence.
“Stop!” I command, putting all my authority into the word. “Stop right now!”
She doesn’t stop. She doesn’t even hesitate.
She leaps.
Instinct takes over. I shift mid-dodge, my wolf bursting free. I catch her in mid-air and throw her to the ground hard, using my weight to pin her down.
That’s when her front leg comes off.
It just…detaches. Cleanly. Like it was never really attached in the first place.
Horror floods through me, cold and absolute. My wolf yelps and scrambles backward, staring at the body part lying in the grass. At the thing still trying to attack us, unbothered by the missing limb, hobbling forward on three legs.
The other wolves are whimpering louder now, their sounds full of distress and grief.
I look at them, then back at her. At what used to be her. And understanding crashes over me like ice water.
Someone killed her. Someone killed the female alpha, and now they’re using her corpse like a puppet.
A necromancer.
An anguished howl tears from my throat before I can stop it. The sound echoes through the forest, raw and broken. My wolf is enraged and devastated. This wolf protected us. She stood between us and danger countless times. And now she’s…this.
Still hobbling toward us. Three-legged and dead and still trying to hurt us because someone is making her.
I back away, my wolf’s heart breaking. I can’t do it. I can’t kill her. She’s already dead, but I can’t bring myself to hurt her more. I can’t—
Another wolf explodes from the shadows.
This one is massive, pure silver, with eyes that glow with power. Kieran’s wolf. He moves like liquid death, grabbing the female alpha’s neck in his jaws and twisting.
The head comes off. The body crumples.
I collapse, shifting back to human form. I fall to my knees on the forest floor, unable to care about anything except the grief tearing through my chest.
If I could cry in wolf form, I would have.
But now the tears come freely, blurring my vision as Kieran shifts back.
His hands move in complex patterns, magic crackling through the air—dark magic, the kind that deals with death.
He’s releasing her, I realize. Setting her soul free from whatever spell was holding her.
I close my eyes, unable to watch. The grief is too much. It’s too heavy.
Then, I feel his arms around me, warm and solid.
“It’s over,” he says quietly.
I open my eyes and look at the body lying in the grass. The head severed clean. The leg lying a few feet away.
I weep harder.
I pull away from Kieran and crawl over to her on my hands and knees. I gather her still form in my arms, cradling what’s left of her against my chest. Blood stains my shirt, but I don’t care.
The other wolves surround us immediately. They press in close, howling their grief to the moon. Some nudge the dead alpha gently with their noses, like they’re trying to wake her. Others lean against me, sharing their warmth, their sorrow.
“We’ll give her a proper burial,” Kieran says softly.
I can’t respond. The words won’t come through the sobs wracking my body.
He kneels beside me and starts digging with his bare hands. Not using magic for this. Like it needs to be done right, with effort and intention and respect.