Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Iawoke to a soft stroke on my cheek. My eyelids snapped open to see Kaelric peering down at me. For a fleeting second, I thought I was still dreaming. His face was so close, framed by moonlight leaking through the broken window.
I was confused for a moment. Where am I? I was in the hunting cabin, night had fallen, Godric was outside sitting on a chopping stump, and Kaelric was here!
I sat up, scooting away from him until my back hit the wall. My pulse leaped like a spooked rabbit.
‘Kaelric, I…’ My chest heaved. How could I tell him? He must not know. Godric didn’t tell him, and he came here thinking he would check on me, but…
‘It’s okay,’ he said quietly.
I frowned.
‘I left her there.’ I couldn’t help the sob that formed in my throat. ‘Five hundred feet down a well.’
Kaelric nodded. ‘And it’s okay.’
‘Stop it!’ I shouted, kicking out at him. ‘It’s not okay! She’s not okay, and I’m not okay. It’s not—’
He crawled on his knees before me and pulled me into his lap as I fell apart.
Grief racked my body like I was mourning a loved one. Like my own mother died. The sound coming from me didn’t feel human, low and ragged, pulled from a place I didn’t know existed.
‘Shhh.’ He rubbed my back in small circles.
‘You don’t understand,’ I told him. ‘Five hundred feet, no one can swim that length on one breath, and it’s dark, and small, and we’ll never get her out.’
He pulled my face back, cupping it in his hands and using his thumbs to wipe at my tears.
‘You and Godric are safe. That’s all that matters, and I know my mother would agree.’
‘I do,’ she piped in.
I frowned. ‘You don’t hate me?’
He looked offended. ‘I’m madly in love with you—obsessed, really. I could never hate you, Brynn.’
His voice vibrated with sincerity, softer than I’d ever heard it. I smiled a little at his reply.
‘But there has to be a way to get her back,’ I whimpered. ‘Not just because I want her back but to help your people.’
I then told him about the spell Mind Render had over the people of his beloved city and what Val had said about it.
Kaelric’s eyebrows drew together in a knot at the center of his forehead. “Even if we broke my mother free of the well, does she think she can break the spell Mind Render has over my people?”
He looked at me expectantly, and I waited for Valkaryn’s reply.
‘Not without killing you, Brynn,’ she said, and the numbness was back, followed by anger.
‘Because I’m human?’
‘Yes.’
“Maybe, if certain circumstances are met,” I told Kaelric, and I felt Valkaryn stir at my lie. Even miles away from me, she still felt bonded to my hip.
Kaelric frowned. “What circumstances?”
‘Yeah, Brynn, what circumstances?’ Val asked.
“Well, for starters, we need to get her out of that well.”
“Do you know any Elite with metal magic that could summon her out?” Kaelric asked.
“I don’t, but Cassian might.”
“Cassian,” Kaelric growled, and I grinned.
“Jealous?”
“He likes you. Of course I’m jealous,” he snarled, his eyes going yellow.
“He’s a good man, and I only have eyes for you,” I told him, planting a kiss on his nose.
Kaelric nodded, seemingly satisfied with that. “Which is why he’s still alive.”
I smacked his chest. “Because he’s a good man or because I only have eyes for you?”
Kaelric winked at me, not answering, and I shook my head.
“Cassian won’t be able to help us for a while. There’s political drama back in Aerlyn. He can’t go home.”
Kaelric nodded. His expression tightened slightly, a storm cloud of frustration passing behind his eyes.
“Then we will think of something else.”
I chewed on a fingernail, thinking deeply. Summoning metal magic was a good idea. The thought settled in my mind like a spark seeking tinder, refusing to be ignored.
‘Val?’
‘Yes, dear.’
‘Do you have magic capable of lifting yourself up and out of that well if you were able to draw from a stronger, non-human body?’
She was quiet, and I felt a quiver of fear rush through her.
The emotion threaded down my spine, subtle yet unmistakable, like distant thunder warning of an approaching storm.
Did she know what I was thinking? I hoped not.
I tried to conceal it, but it felt sometimes as if we shared the same mind, our thoughts brushing against one another like pages pressed together in a book.
‘Brynn, my life was a unique one, and my attack and subsequent wolfkin transformation were one in a million.’
Her voice trembled at the edges, as though remembering that distant night pained her still.
‘But if I were wolfkin, or Elite, could you get yourself out of that well and defeat Mind Render without killing me?’
She didn’t answer, and in that glaring silence her answer was known. The quiet felt thick, almost audible, pressing heavy against my ribs.
“Are you talking to her?” Kaelric asked, tracing the line of my jaw with his fingers, still holding me tightly in his lap as we sat on the floor of the drafty cabin in the middle of the woods.
His touch steadied me, grounding me against the whirlwind in my mind.
The only sound was Godric’s steady whittling outside the door, each quiet scrape a reminder of his protection and watchfulness.
I nodded. “She is a wise counselor. Stubborn, too.”
He smiled. “That’s how I remember her.” His voice warmed, carrying a flicker of boyish affection that softened the edges of his grief.
I wanted to right all of the wrongs that had been done to Kaelric and his people, and Elia, too.
I wanted to be the one to save Lunaria. That conviction settled in my bones, a quiet, steady burn beneath my skin.
I felt destined for it, like it was the reason I was born.
I knew that sounded so outlandish, I would never say it out loud, but I truly felt this was what I was meant to do.
The Creator had to have made me for something more than the Dregs.
“Let’s head back to camp. I feel well rested, and you’re probably getting tired,” I told him.
He nodded. “We will keep working on a plan to get my mother out of that well. The intel you got about Mind Render and how it works is priceless.”
I nodded, standing and helping pull him up. His fingers lingered around mine for a moment, reluctant to let go, as if afraid I might slip away again.
As we stepped outside, I peered up at the moon. It was almost full. Another night and it would be.
Perfect.
It was only about a two-hour walk from the cabin back to camp inside of Loroc.
Kaelric held my hand the entire time, stroking my palm and smiling sweetly at me.
His thumb traced small circles over the heel of my hand, a soothing repetition that almost distracted me from the ache sitting low in my ribs.
I wondered if we had met under different circumstances, if he would have courted me, asked me to go out on a date in Aerlyn at the finest tavern, and then a few weeks later, to be his girlfriend…
But no, from day one, I was just his mate.
Which was better. It felt like we had always been this way, fingers intertwined, batting eyelashes at each other, my stomach flipping over every time I thought of kissing him.
The forest seemed softer around us, leaves brushing overhead in gentle whispers as though the world approved of our closeness.
Not falling in love with Kaelric was never an option. I felt born to love him, and so I knew that the Creator had made us to fully be together. I knew in this moment I was born to be a wolfkin. Just like Valkaryn. The thought settled warm and heavy beneath my ribs, not frightening but inevitable.
‘Brynn, darling—’
‘You can’t talk me out of it.’
She was quiet. Her silence made the world feel strangely hollow.
‘I was attacked. You can’t plan something like this. I know you love him. I loved—’
‘He’s my mate. We’re meant to be together,’ I said firmly.
She didn’t respond. Her quiet lingered, tense as held breath.
When we got to Kaelric’s tent, he pulled me inside, and we made out until we were both red in the face and panting.
His mouth was warm and familiar, and every touch felt like a promise I wanted so badly to accept.
He sat at the edge of the bed, staring at the stars through the skylight at the top.
The night sky framed his silhouette like a portrait, starlight pooling against the lines of his jaw.
I stroked his back. “What are you thinking?” Stopping kissing had been hard, but I knew what was on the line.
Kaelric’s life. Because I was human, because of the curse.
He peered down at me, eyes blazing orange. “That the Creator must hate me to have given you to me and not have a way to fully enjoy you.”
My cheeks heated at his meaning, and it further cemented my plan. A plan I hadn’t fully worked out yet. The weight of it pressed against my chest, insistent.
Kaelric spun on the bedroll, suddenly facing me. Cupping my face in his hands, he pulled me to him, bringing my ear right to his lips.
“Marry me.”
I gasped, craning out of his grip to meet his eyes. His expression was open, raw, hopeful.
“Is that done in your culture?” I asked. I knew his parents were “husband and wife, king and queen,” but I was sure it was just verbiage he used to explain their lifestyle in Aerlyn terms to me.
He shook his head. “Not with mates. Mate is above wife, but… with you, I want that. I want whatever I can get, and I want no other man to take it from me.”
He growled the last part, and I grinned.
My mother raised me not to stand for a possessive male, and yet I loved it when Kaelric said things like that.
Like he loved me so much he’d die at the very thought of another man having me as his wife.
His jealousy was not cruel, only fierce devotion sharpened into instinct.
Did he fear I would marry another? Bed another? The thought almost made me laugh.
“I don’t need an Aerlyn wedding to be your wife, Kaelric. I am yours, heart, mind, and soul.”
But not body. Not yet. My pulse stuttered at the thought, hovering between longing and terror.
He reached into his pocket, nodding. “So you won’t want to wear this?”
He held a thin golden band between his fingers, and I smiled.
An Aerlyn wedding ring.
They didn’t wear them in Fenmyr, and I’d dreamed of having one since I was a little girl. Little Brynn in the Dregs, staring at the moon and imagining fairy tales, would have fainted at the sight.
I plucked it from his fingers, turning it over to see that there were small, delicate flowers engraved in the band. The petals were tiny, almost hidden against the metal, like a secret message only the wearer would know.
“It’s beautiful. I will wear it with pride,” I told him, slipping it onto my wedding finger as emotion clogged my throat.
“How much of this ring is because you want other men to know I’m taken?” I then asked him cheekily.
He shrugged. “Only like eighty-five percent.”
I burst into laughter, and he yanked me into his arms, brushing back my hair with a grin as I sat on his lap with my hands draped around his neck. The warmth of him soaked through my skin, chasing away the chill that had clung to me since Lunaria.
“I wanted to honor your customs. I know you do things differently in your culture, and I want you to know how serious I am about you. I want your mother to know, and everyone who sees you. You’re mine, and I am yours, no matter what,” he breathed against my throat.
“No matter what?” I questioned. I’d just left his mother’s soul trapped down a five-hundred-foot well. And I couldn’t forget the way he’d said he would never forgive me after I chose to keep her and not honor our agreement. The memory stung like a reopened wound.
“No matter what, Brynn.” He peered up at me, eyes blazing yellow.
Good. I’d remind him of that when I returned to this camp a wolfkin. The thought sparked in my chest like a struck match, bright and dangerous.
He yawned, and I stroked his back. “Get some rest.”
He tightened his grip around me and peered into my eyes.
“Stay with me?”
I mock-gasped. “What will people say?”
“I don’t care anymore,” he breathed.
We lay down together, his arms wrapped around me, and I wanted to freeze that moment forever.
His breath warmed the back of my neck, and the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear lulled me toward sleep.
In that moment, nothing else mattered. Not my frail human body, not Val stuck in Lunaria, not Elia’s mom, or Cassian.
Nothing mattered but this ring on my finger and the arms around me.
I just hoped he still loved me come morning.