CHAPTER EIGHTEEN BETRAYED BLOOD
M arion reached Euan on four paws and blood fury.
She did not remember crossing the Grove.
One moment Georgie was behind her, coughing but alive, Lorna dragging the child farther from the curling silver smoke. The next Marion was running through fire, smoke and shouting, her claws tearing through snow, the wolf body moving faster than her thoughts could follow.
Euan was still on his feet.
Barely.
That should not have frightened her as much as it did.
Euan standing had always seemed like a law of nature.
Mountains stood. Old trees stood. Euan McFarland stood.
Yet now he swayed beside the black execution stone where they had almost killed him, one hand pressed to the wound beneath his ribs, black veins crawling from under his fingers.
His eyes found hers.
Even in wolf form, even with smoke burning along her side and the world stinking of silver, Marion felt the ridiculous urge to scold him for looking relieved to see her.
She shifted before she reached him.
Badly.
There was no grace to it this time. No moonlit awe, no breathless circle of wolves watching an old legend unfold.
She hit the snow on human knees with one hand still half clawed and silver fur fading up her arms in shivers.
Pain flashed through her hips and spine.
She ignored it and caught Euan before he fell.
He was too heavy.
Of course he was.
“Do not,” she snapped, because that was easier than admitting panic. “Do not even think of dropping on me.”
His mouth twitched, though his face had gone gray. “I shall endeavor to remain upright.”
“You are doing a poor job.”
“I have been stabbed.”
“That is not an excuse. I was dead earlier.”
His breath caught in a way that was almost a laugh and then changed into a hiss of pain.
That small sound emptied Marion’s humor at once.
She shoved his hand aside and pressed both of hers to the wound.
The moment her palms touched blood, the poison struck back.
Marion cried out.
It knew him.
The thought made no sense, but it was the first one that came. This was not like the smoke that bit at wolf blood blindly. This thing recognized the path under his skin. It moved along him as if old doors opened for it. It curled toward his heart with the confidence of something invited.
Black threads rose beneath Marion’s hands.
Her healing light flared.
Silver and gold spilled over the wound, and for a blessed half second the poison recoiled.
Then it surged.
Euan’s body jerked.
Marion gasped as the poison snapped into the bond and dragged her with it.
She saw not only his pain, but his bloodline.
Not in pictures she understood, but in sensation.
Old wolves running beneath red moons. Alpha fathers.
Sons. Oaths spoken over stone. Blood spilled into roots.
Names she did not know pressing at her skull.
Then silver.
Silver cutting through all of it.
Marion tore one hand free and nearly fell backward.
Euan caught her wrist despite the pain. “Marion.”
“It knows you,” she whispered.
His eyes narrowed with effort. “What?”
“This poison. It knows where to go.”
Morna arrived with a sound somewhere between a curse and a growl. She dropped beside them, shoved Marion’s hand aside without asking and leaned over the wound.
“Do not shove me,” Marion said automatically.
“I will shove the queen herself if she blocks my patient.”
“I am not queen.”
“Argue later.”
Euan’s eyes closed briefly. “Please do.”
Morna ripped his shirt wider at the wound, then went still.
Marion saw it.
She wished she had not.
The black veins were not spreading evenly. They followed a pattern. Thin lines branching beneath skin, curling in shapes that looked almost like the carvings on the old stones. Not random poison. Not merely damage.
A map.
Morna’s face lost color. “No.”
Marion’s stomach tightened. “No what?”
The healer reached into the pouch at her belt and pulled out the black glass shard she had taken earlier. It still pulsed faintly red through the cloth. She held it near Euan’s wound, not touching.
The shard brightened.
Euan hissed through his teeth.
Marion slapped Morna’s wrist away. “What are you doing?”
“Proving something I hoped was not true.”
“Well, stop proving it. He is bleeding.”
“Hold him still.”
“I am holding him still.”
“He is not still.”
Euan opened one eye. “I am right here.”
“Then behave like it,” Morna snapped.
Under any other circumstance, Marion might have enjoyed someone else scolding him. At the moment she was too busy trying not to look at the black lines crawling under his skin.
Morna turned the shard in the cloth. “This is not only refined silver and wolf’s bane.”
“We know that,” Marion said. “You said blood.”
“Aye. But not just any blood.”
Euan went very still beneath Marion’s hands.
The battle seemed to pull back around them, though Marion knew it had not.
Wolves still fought at the eastern edge.
Aodh shouted somewhere to her left. Fergus dragged a wounded man out of a smoking hollow.
Tavish’s voice rose near Georgie, furious and young.
Duncan was shouting too, though someone seemed to have him pinned because the sound held strain.
But here, around Euan’s wound, a smaller horror opened.
Morna swallowed. “McFarland blood.”
Euan’s fingers dug into Marion’s arm.
Marion looked at the old healer. “Aldrich had Euan’s blood. He tortured him.”
“He had enough to poison him. Enough to study his body, aye.” Morna shook her head. “But this is older. Deeper. It carries clan memory. It knows oath marks. It knows where alpha blood binds to land.”
Euan’s voice was low. “How?”
Morna did not answer.
She did not need to.
Marion looked toward the circle of elders.
Niall stood beyond the smoke, closer than before, his cloak stirring in the cold. He was watching them. Not the soldiers. Not the wounded. Them.
When Marion’s eyes met his, he looked away too quickly.
A slow cold anger moved through her.
No. Not proof. Not yet.
But her wolf had already decided it did not like him, and Marion was beginning to respect the animal’s judgment.
Euan tried to rise.
Marion shoved him back down. “Absolutely not.”
His eyes flashed. “If one of my own gave this to Aldrich, I will know it.”
“Yes. You will know it while not bleeding to death in my lap.”
“I am not in your lap.”
“You are close enough.”
Morna pressed her hand over Marion’s, forcing it back to the wound. “Push light into the edges only. Not the center.”
Marion frowned. “Why?”
“Because the center is bait.”
That made Marion’s skin crawl. “For what?”
“For you.”
Euan’s head snapped toward Morna. “No.”
“Oh, hush,” Morna said. “You have said no enough for one day.”
Marion almost smiled, then the wound pulsed under her palm and Euan’s body went rigid.
She pushed light carefully this time, not into the center where the poison writhed black and oily, but around it. The silver gold glow spread in a ring. The poison hissed and snapped, trying to lure her deeper. It felt almost alive.
Or maybe Aldrich had made cruelty so carefully it no longer needed him to move.
Euan’s breathing steadied a little.
Not enough.
But enough for Marion to think again.
Niall’s voice rose behind them.
“This is what comes of bringing human born power into sacred law.”
Marion lifted her head slowly.
The elder stood before several shaken wolves, his walking stick planted in the snow, his expression stern and grieving. To someone not listening carefully, he might have sounded like a man trying to restore order.
Marion was listening very carefully.
Niall gestured toward Euan. “The chief was prepared to give his life cleanly to the Grove. Now silver poison runs through our roots, Crown men stand among our dead, and an unknown creature claims authority over McFarland blood.”
Rhona turned on him. “Unknown creature?”
Niall’s mouth tightened. “Would you prefer I lie? We do not know what she is.”
“She saved your warriors.”
“She drew Aldrich here.”
Euan growled low. Marion pressed harder against his wound and gave him a warning look. He ignored it as expected.
Morna rose halfway, fury in every line of her bent body. “Aldrich was here before she arrived.”
“Was he?” Niall asked. “Or did that bond flare call him?”
“He was in the trees while Euan knelt,” Marion said.
Every head turned to her.
She rose slowly, keeping one glowing hand pressed to Euan’s side. Her other hand still burned from the poison, but she let the light show. Let Niall see it. Let all of them see it.
“I smelled his men on the road,” she continued. “They crossed the lower stream before dawn. They carried silver and smoke canisters. They were coming here whether Euan died or not.”
Niall’s eyes hardened. “And we are to take the word of a woman who woke from death an hour ago?”
“You were eager enough to take the word of a law that expected me dead.”
A few wolves murmured.
Rhona stepped beside Marion. “Enough, Niall.”
“No. Not enough.” Niall lifted his stick and pointed it toward Marion. “Since she came among us, the Crown has breached our walls, our chief has weakened, the Blood Moon Trial has been perverted, and now the Grove itself is fouled.”
“Since she came among us,” Morna said sharply, “Euan was found, healed, restored and kept from giving his life to a law that had no corpse left to answer.”
“He was alpha before her.”
“He was poisoned before her.”
Niall’s face flushed. “Do not twist my words, old woman.”
Morna smiled. “I do not need to. They are crooked already.”
Despite everything, Tavish laughed from the northern side of the Grove. “Sorry,” he called, sounding not sorry at all.
Niall ignored him and looked to the wolves around him. “You all felt the poison. You all know it moved after she claimed him. Her power is unstable. Her presence gives Aldrich new weapons.”
A shiver went through some of the younger wolves.
Fear.
Marion smelled it and hated that it hurt.
Euan moved beneath her hand. “Niall.”
The elder froze.
The chief’s voice was not loud. It did not need to be.
“You forget yourself.”
Niall bowed his head, but his eyes remained bright with anger. “I remember us, Chief. Someone must.”
Morna bent closer to Euan’s wound again, then sniffed the air like a wolf though she stood human. “Odd.”
Marion looked at her. “What now?”
Morna did not answer Marion. She looked past her, directly at Niall. “You said the Blood Moon Trial was perverted.”
Niall’s brows drew together. “It plainly was.”
“No,” Morna said, very softly. “You said perverted. Not failed. Not corrupted. Perverted.”
“So?”
“So that word appears in one place I know.” Morna straightened fully. “A sealed elder record regarding human born mates and alpha transformation. A record no common elder should have read in fifty years, since half of it was burned.”
Niall’s face changed.
Only slightly.
Not enough for most.
Enough for Marion.
Rhona saw it too.
“Niall?” she said.
The elder’s mouth flattened. “This is absurd. We are in battle and you chase old words.”
Morna lifted the shard wrapped in cloth. “Old words are why this poison knows where to go.”
Aldrich laughed.
The sound came from behind the east smoke, soft, delighted and utterly poisonous.
Every wolf turned.
The alchemist stepped into view, flanked by two masked soldiers. His coat was dusted with ash, but his face remained calm. Too calm. His pale eyes moved from Morna to Niall, then to Marion with that hateful interest.
“Oh dear,” he said. “I had wondered how long it would take the healers to notice the literary component.”
Niall’s face went gray.
Euan tried to stand again.
Marion felt his strength shift and pressed light hard into the edge of the wound. “Stay down.”
“I am going to kill him.”
“You will have to be more specific. There is a line forming.”
Aldrich smiled at that, as if she had amused him.
Marion wanted to set his coat on fire.
Niall struck his walking stick into the snow. “Do not listen to him. He lies for sport.”
“Rarely for sport,” Aldrich corrected. “Lies should have purpose. Sport is wasteful.”
Rhona turned on Niall. “What have you done?”
“Nothing.”
Aldrich’s brows lifted faintly. “Nothing? Come now, Elder. Shall I thank you publicly, or would you prefer discretion?”