Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Aneira

His mate?

An incredulous laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

I looked up toward the moon overhead. It looked bigger now somehow. Brighter. Almost smug.

Nythera truly had a cruel sense of humor.

The road stretched endlessly ahead of me beneath silver moonlight, winding through dark forest paths and broken stone trails. I had no idea where I was going.

I only knew I needed to get farther away from Ashfang.

That part had never changed.

The mate bond changed nothing.

Or at least that was what I kept telling myself.

The Alpha certainly hadn’t looked pleased about it. If anything, he had looked borderline horrified.

The memory made something twist uncomfortably in my chest.

I shoved the feeling away immediately.

Was I even supposed to have a mate?

I had stopped thinking about things like that years ago. Real wolves had mates. Real wolves shifted beneath full moons and answered instinct the way they were supposed to.

Mine barely answered at all.

A sharp pain shot through my leg as I slammed directly into a rock hidden beneath the dirt path.

“Damn you,” I hissed at the rock before glaring upward. “And damn you too,” I shouted toward the moon. “Straight to the fiery pits.”

The moon remained offensively beautiful.

Then another thought hit me.

My wolf had answered him. She didn’t answer fully.

But she had reacted to his wolf.

I narrowed my eyes slightly.

“I spend years trying to drag you out of whatever miserable hole you buried yourself in,” I muttered under my breath, “and the first time some terrifying wolf growls in your direction, suddenly you’re awake?”

Traitor.

I was so distracted arguing internally with my own useless wolf that I failed to notice the forest had gone silent.

The snapping twig behind me came too late.

I froze.

Low growls emerged from the darkness almost immediately afterward.

Rogues.

Several massive wolves stepped soundlessly from the trees surrounding the road, black eyes glowing beneath moonlight.

Wonderful.

My hand slipped carefully beneath my cloak until my fingers closed around the handle of the stolen kitchen machete strapped against my side.

One of the wolves shifted.

The transformation was quick and brutal; bone cracking sharply into human form before a tall man straightened from the shadows completely naked.

Unfortunately.

Heat rushed briefly into my face before survival instincts strangled the embarrassment to death.

“Oh,” he drawled lazily, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Do what?” I asked carefully.

His gaze dropped toward my hidden hand before lifting back to my face.

“Omega,” he said with something dangerously close to amusement, “do you honestly think you can take on all of us?”

Honestly?

No.

Emotionally?

Also no.

But I was committed now.

I tightened my grip on the machete anyway.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Naturally, anything from Ashfang should be killed on sight,” he replied casually.

He stepped farther into the moonlight then, and irritation hit me instantly.

Because he was beautiful.

Actually beautiful.

Not in the terrifying, intimidating way Alpha Kale was beautiful. No, this one looked like trouble deliberately sculpted into male form. Long blond hair fell over broad shoulders while silver eyes watched me with open amusement.

Very unfair.

“I’m not from Ashfang,” I said carefully. “Not anymore.”

“What was that, kitten?”

Absolutely not.

I refused to acknowledge how annoyingly attractive rogue wolves apparently were.

“Look,” I said instead, “I’m simply passing through. I have absolutely nothing to do with any of you terrifying forest people, so if you could kindly let me continue not dying somewhere else, I would appreciate it immensely.”

Another wolf shifted beside him.

Great.

Even more nakedness.

“She smells like Ashfang,” the second rogue snarled immediately.

“Yes,” Blondie replied dryly, “thank you, Kieran. I also possess a nose.”

“I say we kill her.”

“I personally vote against that plan,” I said quickly.

To my surprise, Blondie laughed.

Loudly.

“I like this one,” he announced before pointing toward the ground. “Drop whatever money you have on you and I’ll let you leave.”

My stomach dropped instantly.

No.

No no no.

Not the money.

Beside him, Kieran looked horrified. “Darius, we can’t rob a homeless omega.”

“I’m choosing to focus on the word omega less and the word homeless more,” I muttered.

Darius ignored me completely.

“I’d say that’s a fair trade,” he said lightly before tilting his head. “Assuming you enjoy remaining alive. What’s your name?”

“Sage,” I lied immediately.

His mouth curved slowly.

“You are an incredibly bad liar, Sage.”

Rude.

Still, I reached carefully into the pouch beneath my cloak before pulling out roughly half the coins I carried and dropping them reluctantly onto the dirt road.

Kieran stared at the small pile before looking visibly offended.

“I think she needs the money more than we do,” he muttered.

“A trade is a trade,” Darius replied easily, though his attention remained fixed on me in a way I didn’t entirely trust.

Then his expression shifted slightly.

“You won’t be this lucky the next time we meet.”

Something about the words sounded less like a threat and more like a promise.

Which was deeply concerning.

Before I could respond, bone cracked sharply through the air as Darius shifted back into his wolf form. Massive blond fur replaced skin in seconds before he disappeared soundlessly into the forest alongside the others.

Silence settled over the road again.

I stood there for several long seconds before finally exhaling shakily.

Then I looked down at the remaining coins in my pouch.

“…I hate everyone,” I muttered to the moon, but it remained unhelpfully silent.

A cold wind swept through the mountains hard enough to make me shiver beneath my cloak. The deeper I moved into the northern passes, the worse the terrain became. Ashfang’s roads had long disappeared behind me, replaced by uneven stone paths carved through cliffs and dense forests that blocked most of the moonlight overhead.

My body already hurt.

The mate bond hurt.

That last part irritated me the most.

Every now and then something strange pulsed faintly beneath my ribs, subtle but impossible to ignore. Not pain exactly. It was more like my body suddenly knew another body existed somewhere far behind me.

Disgusting.

I hated it immediately.

Hours passed.

The mountain air grew colder the farther north I climbed. Trees thickened around the narrow trail until the forest swallowed nearly everything beyond a few feet ahead of me. Somewhere nearby, water rushed violently beneath stone.

I should have stopped walking hours ago.

But stopping meant thinking.

Thinking meant remembering silver eyes and shattered lanterns and the way the mate bond had reacted when the Alpha looked at me like he wanted to drag me closer and shake me apart simultaneously.

I walked faster.

The path narrowed sharply near the cliffs.

My boot slipped against loose gravel.

Pain shot through my ankle hard enough to force a sharp curse from my throat as I caught myself against the stone wall beside me.

I limped forward another several feet before finally giving up and collapsing against a large rock near the edge of the trail.

The exhaustion hit immediately afterward.

Bone-deep exhaustion.

My body felt too heavy suddenly. My thoughts slower. Even breathing required more effort than it should have.

I frowned slightly.

I knew almost nothing about mate bonds, but instinctively rejecting one probably wasn’t supposed to happen without consequences.

“…Fantastic,” I muttered weakly.

Slowly, I looked up.

Something about the mountains had changed.

The darkness ahead no longer looked natural. Silver fog curled low between the trees despite the clear night sky above, glowing faintly beneath moonlight like something alive.

I stared at it for several seconds.

“No,” I said immediately.

The fog continued moving.

“No.”

The fog moved closer.

Absolutely not.

Every survival instinct I possessed told me to turn around immediately.

Unfortunately, exhaustion had destroyed my ability to make intelligent decisions several hours ago.

The fog curled around the edges of the trail slowly, almost curiously, before drifting deeper into the trees ahead.

Then a light appeared somewhere beyond it.