Chapter 1 #3
“How did you get away so quickly?” I return to the couch as Selene closes the door behind her.
Her green healer’s robes have been traded for simple, brown, traveling clothes.
Her auburn hair now falls loose around her shoulders instead of being pinned back in the regulation style, and worry creases her young face.
“I slipped away as soon as I could. I’ve been worried sick since you left the healing center.” Her eyes immediately drop to my bandaged leg, and her nose wrinkles. “What is that smell?”
“Healing paste,” I say, settling back on the couch.
Selene’s eyes sharpen, and she kneels beside me, her expression transforming into a mixture of anger and disapproval.
“Astra, this smells like healing moss and moonbell. Don’t tell me you’re experimenting on yourself again!
I told you, it’s dangerous. You can’t keep coming up with different potions and—”
“I didn’t ingest anything.” I close my eyes and tilt my head back. “But that tonic Morrigan gave me was useless.”
“You knew I was going to come,” Selene argues with me, inspecting my leg. “Couldn’t you be patient for once?”
Before I can respond, her hands start to glow with a soft, silver light. She presses her palms against my leg, on top of the bandage, and warmth spreads through the injury. The pain recedes further, and I can feel the magic encouraging my body’s natural healing processes.
But after only one minute, Selene’s magic flickers and dies. She slumps forward, breathing hard.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I can only do so much. My healing magic is still weak.”
“You did plenty,” I assure her, testing my leg by straightening and bending it. It’s still tender, but the worst of the damage has been repaired. “Thank you.”
“You need to stop messing around with dangerous herbs,” she says, her voice stern but worried. “What if you’d measured wrong? What if—”
Another knock interrupts her lecture, this one more confident and rhythmic. Luna meows and runs to the door again.
“That’ll be Daciana,” Selene says, sighing. “I told her to bring food. You look like you haven’t eaten all day.”
When I grin, she narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t look too pleased. If you thought I was angry, she’s going to be even more pissed.”
I open the door to reveal Daciana standing there with a cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms. Where Selene is gentle and soft-spoken, Daciana is all sharp edges and fierce loyalty.
Her dark hair is braided back in the warrior style, and even in civilian clothes, she carries herself with the confidence of someone trained to fight.
“Finally,” she says, pushing past me into the cottage. “I was starting to think you’d both been eaten by shadow bears.” Her dark eyes take in my bandaged leg and Selene’s expression. “Though it looks like one of you nearly was.”
I waggle my fingers at her. “I was just getting lectured.”
Daciana sniffs the air and scowls. “Not again! What did she take?”
“She says she didn’t ingest anything”—Selene crosses her arms over her chest and glowers at me—“but I don’t know if I believe her yet. Last time she said that, she nearly keeled over from poisoning.”
“That was ten years ago,” I protest. “Can I eat now?”
Daciana is the Beta’s niece and one of the warriors in the pack. She sets the food down on the table in front of me. “What are you thinking, arguing with Healer Morrigan? You do know she’s going to complain to Alpha Gareth, don’t you?”
I unwrap the bundle, revealing fresh bread, cheese, roasted meat, and a bottle of wine.
My stomach growls loudly at the sight. “It was her nephew who destroyed the herbs. Why should I get paid half price? She’s a mean, nasty, little witch.
I thought healers were supposed to be kind and gentle. She’s a nightmare.”
“Only to you,” Selene corrects me. “And to the healers-in-training, like me. But that’s rare.”
I grimace in response.
I know it was Healer Morrigan who pushed my mother to kill me when I was born. She was already a respected healer at the time, and when my mother refused, the two parted ways on their friendship.
“I hope a shadow bear mauls all that shiny, gray hair of hers,” I mutter under my breath.
“Now, now.” Daciana sinks down to the floor and sits cross-legged. “Don’t feel too bad. She asked the mess to make a nice dinner for her because she’s having some company tonight. I stole most of it. Enjoy!”
Delighted laughter spills out of me as Selene sighs, shaking her head.
We dig in at my small coffee table, and for a few minutes, the cottage feels warm and normal. These two women—a healer who could be stripped of her position for associating with me and a warrior whose uncle would disown her if he knew she was here—are the only family I have left.
“By the way, I heard something interesting,” Daciana says as we eat. “News came from the palace in the capital today. I overheard my uncle talking about it.”
“The royal family contacted us?” I ask curiously. “What could they want with a pack that’s so isolated?”
“King Alaric has issued a decree,” Daciana says as she chews a turkey leg. “Each of the eight packs must send one female to serve as a mate to a warrior in another pack. I think the King is trying to encourage cross-mating ever since the Umbra Council’s divide.”
Selene and I exchange a look.
The Umbra Council is the highest authority after the royal family.
However, in recent years, there has been a divide in the Council based on their ideologies.
It is normal for shifters, or at least it used to be, to mate outside their own kind.
The offspring that result from such matings have special abilities.
Even cross-matings between packs have often produced gifts among the children.
However, one faction of the Council does not like the idea of different abilities or changes that might lead our kind to evolve.
This has resulted in packs taking sides and a sharp drop in cross-matings between packs. But for the King to announce a mandate like this is strange. “I didn’t know King Alaric had chosen a side.”
“He has always been pro-unity among the supernatural beings,” Daciana explains. “The other faction wants to get rid of all hybrids, which is insane. Do you know how many of them are around? It would be a massacre.”
I shudder.
“Our pack has been ordered to send someone to the Blue Crest Pack,” she adds. “And according to the decree, it must be our most powerful female.”
The cottage falls silent except for the purring of Luna in my lap.
“That means Harper,” Selene says quietly, referring to the Alpha’s daughter. “She’s the strongest healer we have, the most magically gifted female in the pack.”
The Silver Stone Pack is known for producing both powerful healers and warriors, and Harper is the most gifted out of everyone. But if my mother were still alive, who knows?
Harper. Beautiful, talented, perfect Harper, who can heal mortal wounds with a touch and commands respect from every pack member. The thought of her being sent away to mate with some stranger in a rival pack makes my stomach turn, even though she torments me to no end.
Harper used to be nice to me when we were younger. She didn’t go out of her way, but she never joined in if I was being harassed in public. For me, that was nice.
Sometimes I wonder about my own standards.
“It’s going to be her, but her father is not happy about it. Neither is she. The only way out of the decree is if you’ve found your fated mate.” Daciana’s voice lowers even though it is just the three of us. “I think Alpha Gareth is going to summon all the eligible males in our pack to check.”
I exchange a look with Selene. “If Harper had a fated mate within the pack, she would have found him already.”
Daciana shrugs. “They’re desperate. I mean, who would want to send their daughter to the Blue Crest Pack? They’ll probably imprison Harper or torture her. They hate Gareth, especially since he denied their pack a healer when they were attacked and all of theirs were killed.”
I wince, remembering the incident from two years ago.
The Blue Crest Pack had been in need of healers desperately and had reached out to us, the pack that produced the most powerful healers, only to be turned away.
Alpha Gareth’s reasoning was that the Blue Crest Pack hated hybrids and had sided with the faction of the Council that was determined to exterminate them.
The Blue Crest Pack’s grudge has been festering ever since.
Having Alpha Gareth’s precious daughter delivered straight to them will be their wettest dream.
I don’t even think they’ll care that she is a powerful healer. They’ll just want revenge.
My heart sinks as I gaze out the window.
This is not going to end well.