The wolfkin turned to leave and handed out the rest of the food, including to me.
“Thank you,” I told him.
I wasn’t really hungry, especially now knowing we were about to go rescue Elia.
One of the females held a piece of bread to her mouth, staring in confusion at Kaelric, who had not touched his food. Then it dawned on me.
He couldn’t eat until I did. Which I still didn’t understand, and thought was comical.
Kaelric’s eyes burned into mine, a silent plea. I popped a dried cherry in my mouth. Relief flashed across his face; he too began eating, and in turn so did the rest of the wolves.
‘What’s that all about?’I asked Valkaryn. According to Elia’s story, she used to live with the wolfkin. She’d commanded them! She must know their ways.
‘Pack dynamics are intricate. The most dominant wolf in a room must eat first, before the others.’
I had to keep from laughing.‘But I’m not a wolfkin, and if I were, I wouldn’t be more dominant than Kaelric.’
‘You are right, but there is one more instance where a dominant wolf, even an alpha, would refrain fromeating until someone else had, someone submissive to him…’
I waited, the intrigue gripping me.‘Well, what instance would that be?’
Maybe it was Valkaryn, that she was some extension of me, and he was showing her some form of respect through me?
‘In the case of a mate,’Val said, and I froze with a dried hunk of meat poised to my lips.‘The alpha always waits until his mate has eaten first, if she is in his presence. He physically cannot eat until she has. His wolf won’t let him.’
I gasped, my hand falling to my lap. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would jump out of my chest and land on the floor.
Mate. Val was suggesting I was Kaelric’s mate?
There was no way. She had to be mistaken, but the more I thought about being Kaelric’s mate, the more I prayed it might be true.
Chapter Nineteen
The sky was ink-black when Kaelric’s wolf peered at me in the darkness, eyes glowing gold through the brush.
I exhaled and stepped forward, my boots silent over pine needles and cold moss. Night had fallen, and we were ready to save Elia. The camp below was hushed, almost peaceful, with flickers of firelight dancing against tents and rock. The air buzzed, not with life but with magic.
Beyond the camp, the moon lit up the Aerlyn border, where Kaelric told me that if they escaped to, Elia was probably lost to us forever. I’d completely pushed the nonsense of Val suggesting I was Kaelric’s mate from my mind. She was clearly mistaken. There had to be another reason he didn’t eat first in my presence.
The ward shimmered faintly above the tree line, like glass over water, barely visible unless you knew what to look for.
I paused at the edge, and Valkaryn pulsed in my palm, her voice sharp in my mind.
‘Hold me steady.’
I gripped her hilt tighter and stepped closer. The ward flared the moment I came within arm’s reach, sensing intrusion, rippling like an awakened beast.
‘Now,’she whispered.
I raised the sword, letting her guide the motion. She hummed with a pitch I felt deep in my bones.
With a clean, sweeping arc, I sliced downward through the invisible barrier.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then, like the slow shatter of ice under pressure, the ward fractured.
Hairline cracks of light splintered across the air, before breaking apart entirely, dissolving into pieces that floated up like dying embers into the darkening sky.
