Chapter Ten Marek’s Failed Truth #2
Frostmere held the archive. Marek held the key. His father’s mark sat under moss beside Redjaw’s. Arlen had bled. Davra had come to the gate. Every instinct in him wanted motion, pressure, teeth.
He was choosing not to give Frostmere the picture it wanted.
Willa breathed through the warmth in her throat.
Pride again.
Hers.
“Add it,” she said.
Orla wrote.
Hessa’s expression was unreadable.
Then she nodded.
“Good.”
Torren’s eyes stayed on Willa.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
His mouth almost moved.
Later, the bond said.
Or perhaps she did.
Or both.
The message was copied three times, signed by Orla of Red Creek, Hessa Pike, Miri Saff, Willa Renn, and Selka Marr.
Torren did not sign.
That was deliberate.
If Marek came, he came because the invitation named his own knowledge, not because Torren had challenged him.
If Marek refused, Red Creek would record the refusal.
If Davra stopped the message, Red Creek would record that too.
By the time Perrit was found, paid, threatened, fed, and sent with two Red Creek outriders, the rain had lightened to mist.
“I miss simple lies,” Perrit said, tucking the message under his coat.
Hessa looked at him.
“No, you do not.”
“No,” he admitted. “But I miss being paid simple rates.”
“Survive and overcharge later.”
“That is my creed.”
Perrit rode out toward Northroad.
The witness hall felt emptier after.
Or perhaps everyone was simply too tired to fill it.
Riksa checked Arlen, then Miri, then Selka, then Willa’s mark because she apparently believed privacy was an illness that happened to other people.
“Warm,” Riksa said, peering at the mark.
“It is a mate mark.”
“Do not become medically defensive.”
“I am personally defensive.”
“Also unhelpful. Pain?”
“Some.”
“Bad?”
“No.”
“Heat confused?”
Willa glanced toward Torren, who stood by the door speaking quietly with Noll.
His eyes flicked to her immediately.
Of course.
The mark warmed.
Riksa sighed.
“That answers that.”
“You asked in front of him.”
“He would have known if I asked in a cellar.”
“Unfortunately true.”
Riksa lowered her voice. “You handled Marek’s name well.”
Willa stilled.
Praise from Riksa was always suspicious because it usually wore boots and carried a warning behind it.
“Thank you.”
“Do not thank me yet. You will handle seeing him less well.”
There it was.
Willa touched the edge of the table.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
Riksa’s mouth twitched.
“Better.”
Willa looked toward Selka, who sat alone now near the hearth, staring at the invitation’s third copy as if it might bite.
“She will handle it worse.”
“Likely.”
“Can a sour bond pull harder when the person gets close?”
“Yes.”
“Can it make her go back?”
Riksa’s face sharpened.
“A bond can pull. It cannot choose. People confuse those when convenient.”
Willa nodded.
“Good.”
“It can hurt enough that choosing becomes difficult.”
“Less good.”
“Truth often is.”
Willa’s mark pulsed.
Torren’s attention again.
She looked over.
His face changed when their eyes met.
Not much.
Enough to say he had heard the shape of her concern if not the words.
She sent back, not fear.
He inclined his head.
Learning badly.
Better.
The day bent toward evening.
Red Creek prepared sleeping space because Orla refused to send exhausted wolves onto roads where false trails had already learned their names.
Hessa argued only briefly, which proved she was more tired than she wished known.
Noll took first watch outside the hall. Brann checked the horses.
Miri fell asleep with her head on the edge of Arlen’s blankets, and no one moved her.
Willa stepped outside under the awning just before full dark.
The rain had stopped.
Wet earth gleamed. Red Creek ran high beyond the yard. Somewhere in the distance, frogs had begun testing spring with ugly voices.
Torren came out behind her.
She felt him before he spoke.
“Old?”
Willa leaned against the post.
“Yes.”
He stood beside her.
“Marek.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want him not to come?”
She considered lying.
Not because he would know.
Because the truth embarrassed her.
“Part of me does.”
“The rest?”
“The rest wants the archive.”
“And?”
She looked at him.
He waited.
Damn him.
“And part of me wants him to come so I can see him fail and not feel surprised.”
Torren’s face went still.
Not judgment.
Recognition of an ugly truth trusted to him.
“Cruel marked woman.”
Her mouth trembled.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She blinked.
“Good?”
“He hurt you. Wanting him to show the shape of himself is not sin.”
The ache that moved through her then had nothing to do with the mark and everything.
“What if he does not fail?”
Torren looked toward the wet yard.
“Then we use the truth he brings.”
“That is very practical.”
“I am suffering.”
Willa laughed softly.
He looked at her mouth.
The mark warmed.
She should have expected that.
She did, actually.
She still stepped closer.
“Riksa will know.”
“Riksa sleeps with one eye open and her hatred of joy awake.”
“That is vivid.”
“Accurate.”
His fingers brushed her waist.
Not enough.
Enough to make wanting move through the mark like a struck match.
Willa put her hand over his.
“Not here.”
His jaw flexed.
“I know.”
“Not because I do not want.”
“I know.”
“Because if Hessa opens that door and says something, I will throw myself into the creek.”
His mouth almost moved.
“I would retrieve you.”
“Romantic.”
“Practical.”
“You learned from Hessa.”
He bent his head and kissed the mark through her scarf.
The fabric should have dulled it.
It did not.
Willa’s hand tightened on his.
“Torren.”
“I know.”
He did it once more anyway.
Then stepped back like a man choosing survival.
The hall door opened.
Hessa looked out.
“If you two are finished steaming in the rain air, Orla has sleeping places.”
Willa closed her eyes.
Torren’s mouth curved.
Not almost.
Barely, but real.
“We are finished,” he said.
Hessa looked unconvinced.
“For now.”
Willa muttered, “Everyone is awful.”
“Yes,” Hessa said. “Come inside.”
They slept in Red Creek’s side room, not alone enough for anything interesting and not crowded enough to be easy.
Torren lay on a pallet beside Willa’s. Hessa slept near the door with a knife under her hand. Selka and Anis had taken the far corner. Riksa slept in the sickroom because she did not trust Arlen to breathe correctly without supervision.
In the dark, Willa lay awake and felt Marek’s name move through the room without sound.
Not bond.
Memory.
Selka shifted in the corner.
Willa wondered if her sour bond pulled across the wet roads toward Frostmere, toward a man who knew something, feared much, and obeyed late.
Torren’s hand appeared in the narrow space between their pallets.
Palm up.
Willa turned onto her side and placed her hand in his.
The mark quieted.
Not fully.
Enough.
Across the room, Hessa muttered, “No poetry.”
Willa bit back a laugh.
Torren squeezed her hand once.
Morning came gray.
Perrit returned before noon with mud on his boots, a cut on his cheek, and no horse.
“I would like,” he announced at Red Creek’s gate, “to be paid extra for the horse.”
Orla let him in.
Hessa grabbed him by the collar before he reached the hall.
“Marek?”
Perrit held up one hand.
“Alive, unpleasant, and dramatic.”
Willa stood.
Selka did too, too quickly.
Torren stepped beside Willa.
Perrit pulled a folded paper from inside his shirt.
The seal was broken.
Frostmere green wax cracked down the middle.
“Davra intercepted it,” Perrit said.
Hessa’s mouth went flat.
“And?”
Perrit smiled with blood on his cheek.
“Marek took it from her hand in front of six witnesses.”
Selka made a sound.
Willa could not read it.
Hope, perhaps.
Fear, certainly.
Perrit handed the paper to Orla.
“He read it. Went white. Said he would answer at Northroad before sunset.”
Torren’s face hardened.
“Northroad.”
“Yes,” Perrit said. “Davra objected. Oren objected louder. Marek said—”
Perrit looked briefly at Selka.
“He said, ‘Record that I heard my mate was not to be used as excuse, and I will try not to become one.’”
Selka sat down.
Not gracefully.
Anis caught her shoulder.
Willa’s chest tightened.
Marek had not come to Red Creek.
Of course not.
He had chosen a public place.
Worse.
Better.
Northroad before sunset.
A witness circle made of mud, traders, hostile riders, and every story waiting to be sold by nightfall.
Torren’s anger moved through the mark.
Willa’s answered.
Hessa looked at Orla.
Orla looked at Willa.
Riksa appeared from the sickroom doorway with blood on one sleeve and murder in her expression.
“If anyone says road, I am poisoning them mildly.”
“Northroad,” Hessa said.
Riksa closed her eyes.
“I hate all of you.”
Willa touched the mark at her throat.
Marek would speak.
Or fail.
In public.
Before sunset.
And every wolf who wanted the feral alpha to prove himself a monster would know exactly where to stand and watch.