CHAPTER TEN BEFORE THE WHOLE CLAN
M arion had thought there were no sounds left in the world that could make her blood remember fear so quickly.
Then Master Lucien Aldrich spoke from the trees.
“Well,” he called, his voice smooth as polished bone. “That was more moving than expected.”
Every wolf in the Grove went still.
Not the stillness of peace. Not even the stillness of listening.
This was the stillness of creatures who had learned the smell of silver before pain came.
Euan moved in front of Marion before she could draw another breath.
Of course he did.
His body was still marked by the ritual cuffs. His wrists were raw and burned, the skin angry where silver had kissed it. He had been kneeling for execution less than five minutes ago, and yet he stepped between her and the trees as if he had not spent the morning preparing to die.
Marion stared at his back and felt something between rage and affection twist unpleasantly in her chest.
“Euan,” she said.
“Stay behind me.”
That did it.
All of the grief, fear, relief and exhaustion that had held itself together by sheer stubbornness cracked just enough for her temper to slip through.
“I beg your pardon?”
He turned his head a fraction. “Not now.”
“Oh, absolutely now.”
A few wolves nearby glanced at one another. Tavish, who clearly had not learned self preservation from anyone sensible, looked as if he might smile.
Euan’s jaw flexed. “Aldrich is in the trees.”
“I heard him. My ears are apparently very enthusiastic now.”
“He wants you.”
“He has wanted me since Book Two, though he dressed it up as scientific curiosity. I am aware.”
Euan blinked once, thrown for half a second by her tone. Good. He deserved to be thrown. If he thought she had run across the Highlands in a new wolf body only to stand neatly behind him while men made decisions about her life again, then his near death had taught him nothing useful.
Morna came beside them, breathing hard from her ride but sharp eyed as ever. “Both of you stop. The Crown has not attacked because Aldrich is watching.”
Marion tore her eyes from Euan and looked toward the east trees.
She could smell them clearly now. Men. Horses.
Silver smoke sealed in canisters. Leather wet from snow.
Fear. Excitement. Metal. Aldrich himself carried that same disturbing scent from the fortress laboratory.
Lavender soap over chemicals, over old blood, over something cold and clean that had never belonged near living bodies.
He was there.
Waiting.
Watching.
Why?
Because he had seen her.
The thought moved over Marion’s skin like spiders.
Euan felt it through the bond, or what passed for the bond now. His hand came back and found hers. He did not seem to think about it. He only reached, as if some part of him could not stand not touching her another second.
The moment his fingers closed around hers, the Grove tilted.
Marion sucked in a breath.
Heat moved from his palm into hers, but not the fevered burning from before. This went deeper. His pulse beat against her skin and hers answered too hard. The light beneath her bite flared. His eyes changed, gold brightening through grief.
Around them, wolves shifted uneasily.
Morna’s gaze dropped to their joined hands. “There it is.”
“There what is?” Marion asked, though she already knew she would dislike the answer.
“The unfinished claim.”
Euan’s grip tightened before he forced it loose. “No.”
Morna swung her eyes to him. “Do not start that again.”
“It nearly killed her.”
“It saved her tonight.”
“She died.”
“She changed.”
“She stopped breathing in my arms.”
“And now she is standing here arguing with you, which should prove death had poor judgment.”
Tavish coughed.
Euan ignored everyone. His eyes stayed on Marion, and the look in them almost stole her anger. Almost. He looked haunted. Worse than haunted. He looked like a man afraid that if he wanted too much, the world would punish her for it.
Marion hated that look.
Not because she did not understand it.
Because she did.
“Euan,” she said more quietly.
He shook his head once. “No.”
“You do not even know what I am going to say.”
“I know what Morna is thinking.”
“Then you are ahead of me, because I only know that my neck is glowing, my body feels as if the moon stuffed itself under my skin, and Aldrich is standing in the trees looking entirely too pleased with himself.”
A faint movement passed through Euan’s mouth. It was not a smile. He had forgotten how, perhaps. But it was something.
Morna stepped closer. “Listen to me, both of you. The bond began in fever and poison. It woke the wolf, but it did not complete properly because Marion’s gift fought the change and Euan has fought himself since the moment he remembered the bite.”
“I had reason,” he said.
“Aye. And reason becomes poison if swallowed too long.”
Marion found herself staring at Morna.
“That was nearly poetic.”
“I am under stress.”
“Clearly.”
Morna gave her a look that would have frightened lesser women. Marion had died tonight, so it lost some of its effect.
The old healer continued. “The bond flared when she freed you. Every wolf here felt it. Aldrich felt it too, I would wager. He waits because he wants to see what it does.”
Euan’s attention sharpened toward the trees. “Then we give him nothing.”
“That may no longer be possible.”
Marion did not like the way Morna said that.
Euan did not either. “Explain.”
“The bond is pulling at both of you. It is unfinished and newly awakened. Marion’s wolf has accepted him. His wolf has been half mad with grief and now finds her alive. If you keep resisting, you will weaken each other.”
“That is not certain.”
“No,” Morna snapped. “It is only what nearly killed her for three books while you both mistook stubbornness for sacrifice.”
The Grove went very quiet again.
Marion looked at the older woman. “Morna.”
“What? I am tired, the Crown is in the trees, and he was nearly beheaded. I have no patience left for romance behaving like illness.”
Despite herself, Marion almost laughed. It came out as a breath instead.
Euan did not laugh. His hand left Marion’s and curled at his side.
“If completing the bond harms her,” he said, “I will not do it.”
Marion turned fully toward him.
There he was. Her impossible man. Noble until it became selfish. Protective until it looked suspiciously like fear. Still trying to put his body between her and every consequence, as if she had not already crossed the border between life and death without asking his permission.
She stepped closer.
He did not move away, but every muscle in him tightened.
Good.
Let him feel trapped for once.
“You will not do it?” she said.
His eyes flickered. “Marion.”
“No, I want to hear this. You will not do it.”
His face darkened with pain. “I will not risk you.”
“You do not get to make that sound virtuous anymore.”
The words struck him. She saw it, felt it in the bond, that raw place opening under his ribs. But she could not soften now. Not yet. If she softened too soon, he would fold her concern around his guilt and disappear inside it again.
She lifted her hand to his burned wrist. He flinched, not from pain. From her.
That nearly undid her.
“Oh, Euan,” she said, and her voice betrayed more tenderness than she intended.
His throat worked. “I saw you dead.”
“I know.”
“I carried you to the altar.”
“I know.”
“I kissed your mouth and it was cold.”
The Grove disappeared for a moment.
There was only him, saying the thing she had not wanted to imagine, and her, having no shield at all.
Her fingers tightened around his wrist. “I am sorry.”
He gave a harsh laugh with no humor in it. “You are sorry?”
“Yes. Because you suffered. Because Georgie suffered. Because I could not wake sooner and spare you the sight of it.” Her eyes burned but she refused the tears. “But I will not apologize for living, and I will not let you turn that suffering into another chain around both our throats.”
His gaze searched hers.
Behind them, Aldrich’s voice drifted from the trees again, amused and patient.
“Do take your time. This is most educational.”
Euan’s head whipped toward the sound, and the growl that left him made several warriors shift back.
Marion touched his jaw.
He went still.
It was such a small thing. Her fingers against the side of his face. A gesture she had wanted so many times and had been denied by fever, fear, distance, law, poison and his cursed self control. His skin was cold from the Grove air, rough with stubble, alive beneath her palm.
The bond surged.
Marion nearly stepped into him.
His hand came up and covered hers against his cheek. For one moment the terror in him slipped and there was only need. Such naked need that her knees nearly weakened.
Oh, this was dangerous.
Not because it was wrong.
Because it was right enough to frighten her.
Morna’s voice came quietly. “The old stories say a claim made in fever must be answered in will.”
Marion did not look away from Euan. “Answered how?”
Morna hesitated.
That was not encouraging.
“Morna,” Marion said.
“You must claim him.”
Euan closed his eyes.
Marion’s breath caught.
The words seemed to move through the circle before anyone repeated them. She heard the shift in breathing. The murmurs. The sudden interest from wolves who had been preparing to fight moments ago.
Claim him.
Her mouth went dry.
That should have sounded absurd. She was standing barefoot in snow, in a torn ritual shift, surrounded by wolves, Crown soldiers hidden nearby, and a villainous alchemist apparently enjoying himself from the trees.
This was hardly the setting a woman imagined for any intimate declaration, much less biting the neck of the man she loved in front of his entire clan.
And yet.
Something inside her answered the idea.
Not timidly either.
Her wolf liked it very much.
Marion’s cheeks warmed, which was deeply inconvenient considering she had just arrived as a silver wolf and scolded an elder before the Grove.