007 | FATED MATES

My gaze snagged on the blade a half-second before it moved. It glinted in the firelight as the man raised it to my neck. 

I lifted my leg and kneed him in the groin. He lunged forward, crying out in pain; the knife jabbed into my skin at the base of my throat. I gasped, pressing one palm to the wound and spinning out from beneath the cage of his muscular arms.

With a roar that echoed off the stone walls he twisted, catching my wrist and tearing the knife down the front of my dress. I lifted my elbow, knocking him off balance, and swung my fist at his face. My knuckles crunched on impact, but I did not hesitate before slamming it up at his jaw. 

“You bitch,” he hissed, spitting blood. He loomed over me, backing me up against the door as he worked his jaw. I spotted two rings on a cord around his neck, which his fingertips brushed over as if they afforded him some measure of strength.

My pulse thrummed against my neck, pushing hard against the cut. A tiny fragment of fear splintered in me; lights flared across my vision, reminding me of the red soaking into the ground at our last battle. The roaring in my right ear grew louder and louder, a tidal wave gathering overhead and preparing to strike the earth.

I ground my teeth together. I was here to stop that. I was here to prevent any more Blue Moon wolves from having to fight just to keep the resources we needed to live.

“I don’t want to fight you,” I said through gritted teeth, even though I did. I could see at least fifty different ways to get out of this situation, but getting into a brawl on my first night here didn’t seem like the best way to start the new, already fraught, relationship between Winterpaw Warrior and Blue Moon. 

“But I want to kill you.” He didn’t give me a chance to react before the knife touched the sensitive skin of my cheek. I flung my arm up, knocking the blade to the cold floor and scrambling out of his hold to grab it. 

The world spun around me. But my fingers latched onto the short wooden hilt and I leapt up, ignoring the blur of colours in my periphery, holding the blade to his throat. 

“You don’t scare me.” He laughed without humour, his blue eyes tightening as he glared down at me.

I lifted my chin. The small cut on my cheek stung. “And you don’t scare me. So it seems we’re at an impasse.”

He lunged for me again, his meaty fingers squeezing my throat. I choked around his grip, struggling to suck in air.

I could have stabbed him. I wanted to stab him. But the evidence of my punches would heal far quicker than a knife wound. I had to remain innocent, a defender rather than an attacker. I writhed in his hold, my eyes bulging and my lungs convulsing. Black dots pulsed across his mean face. He smiled grimly, a slow smirk spreading into an outright grimace as he bared his teeth at me.

That was my chance. He thought the battle was already won. 

I went limp in his hands, rolling my eyes back for effect. The second his grip loosened I jerked free of it, swinging into a neat roundhouse kick and knocking the air from his lungs. A bone crunched beneath my foot; I relished in the satisfaction of it for less than a second before I swung out the door and slammed it behind me, pressing my fingers over it and hoping to the stars above that it stayed locked. 

I didn’t wait around to find out. 

Taking a chance, I gripped the torn sides of my dress together and pelted for the stairs. If the kitchen was on the bottom floor then I had to hope the dining hall was too. Why hadn’t Luezza given me better instructions? I cursed under my breath, skidding down the stairs in the fur-lined boots that had been left beside the gown. 

I raced out onto the bottom floor, skidding to a halt so that I could listen for movement. My cloak slapped against my legs, the wind pulled out from under it as I stilled. The clink of cutlery against plates was quiet, and it was harder to hear now that my right ear was partially deaf, but when I held my breath I was sure that was what I could hear up ahead. I looked around for any sign of people, be they Omegas or Warrior Wolves or even a Beta, but the hallway was empty save for the torches casting flickering light across the dark, cavernous space.

I glanced behind me. There was no sign of the man that had accosted me – yet.

I pressed myself into a jog, holding a handful of my cloak up to the cut on my neck and hiding the knife within its heavy fabric. It wouldn’t take long to heal, but I ached for a chance to sit down and fill myself up with a hot meal. And, somewhere deeper, beneath my base needs, I felt an agony that threatened to tear me apart: the desire to press myself to my mate, to hold him and never let go. I shoved it down with renewed vigour, not allowing myself to bask in the perfect dream that would never come to fruition.

The clattering of plates and the roar of laughter filtered through the rocky walls to my left. I slowed, trailing my fingertips along the wall as I hunted for a seam. 

“Looking for the banquet hall?” called out a male voice up ahead.

I glanced up, trying to smooth out my pinched eyebrows. I didn’t trust anyone here, especially after I’d been attacked in my own bedroom. His expression was open, almost friendly, with wide doe-like eyes that glittered, too pale a blue to be the blue I was searching for, and a broad smile. Long, light brown hair was swept back from his face, enhancing bold, blunt features that suited the muscle packed onto his broad frame.

“I am,” I called back, taking a small step towards him and pulling myself up to my full height. I kept the cloak pressed to the bloodied cut on my neck, not wanting him to see it as a weakness. There wasn’t much I could do about the slim one on my cheek, but that was less obvious than the torn gown and blood beneath my pelt.

He stepped beneath a torch, his smile continuing to grow. It didn’t look conniving or evil, but appearances could be deceiving. His gaze roved over me as mine did him, taking in my brown skin and black hair. “You must be Blue Moon’s Young Luna, Haile.”

“I am,” I said again, a smile of my own tugging at my lips. “And you are?”

“Late for dinner.” He laughed, and it was so warm, so unlike the frigid cold of this place, that I laughed too. He shook his head and crossed the last of the distance between us, bowing his head in respect. “I am Gamma Cendres. Welcome to Winterpaw.”

“Thank you.” A spark of hope died out in my chest. Cendres was by far the nicest person I’d met so far – why wasn’t he my mate? I shook myself. I was not here for love; I was here out of duty. “You have a lovely–”

He interrupted me with a snort. “If you say we have a lovely home I’ll have to throw you out in the snow. It’s too damn cold and too damn dark to be lovely.”

Despite my reservations I found myself grinning up at him. I hovered back in the shadow, still wary enough to keep a sliver of distance between his brutish body and mine. Suddenly, he frowned. “You’re hurt.”

I shook off his concern. “It’s fine.” Before he could press the matter, I nodded back towards the way he’d come from. “I am hungry, though.”

His eyebrows knitted together on his strong brow, but he just nodded. “It’s this way.”

I followed him in silence, unease stirring in my gut. The longer I listened to our steady footfalls the less I trusted him. Luezza had been cold and clipped and another Winterpaw wolf had attacked me. It didn’t make sense that their Gamma would just accept me with such frank kindness. 

We rounded the corner at the far end of the hall and Cendres placed his hand just-so on the wall, pushing it open and turning to offer me an encouraging smile. My face felt stiff as I forced my lips up in return, but it fell as soon as I stepped inside and every head in the room turned to face me.

The banquet hall was carved right out into the side of the mountain, touching the outside world through long, thin windows filled with mismatched pieces of stained glass. Pale streaks of coloured light streamed inside, painting hazy reds and golds and blues and greens across the worn wooden tables. Four of them ran up the centre of the room, with one running across their tops at the far end of the room from where I stood. Less than half the seats were filled, and every noise sounded too loud as they echoed back against the walls.

“Is that her?” someone whispered.

“Her dress is ripped.” 

“Why are her knuckles swollen?”

“Is she holding a knife?”

I looked straight to the far table, assuming it was where the highest ranking wolves sat. To my horror, the man I’d left in my room was there. His bright blue eyes locked on mine and he smiled slowly, giving me a wink as I steeled myself and crossed the long room with my chin held high. A plan was forming in my head. I gripped the hilt of the knife and let the comments roll off my back as my cloak swung open and revealed my ruined gown.

“Is that blood?”

“Did she attack someone?”

“I thought she was here to make peace.”

I barely spared a glance for the man beside him. My lip curled as I marched up to the table and I slammed the knife down in front of him, making his chipped dinner plate rattle. “I thought you might want this back,” I said, each word deadly soft. My eyes scorched holes in his smug face, relishing in the bruise on his jaw.

Behind me, Cendres sighed. I hadn’t realised he’d followed me. “Nazte, you didn’t.” 

But I barely heard his words. The world rocked gently into slow motion, everything stilling as I turned, as if guided by the Moon Goddess herself, to face the man that sat beside Nazte.

He was staring back at me, his full lips parted. I swallowed hard as I traced the handsome lines of his face. Stubble grazed his chiselled jaw. My hands itched to reach out and touch it, to press adoring fingertips to every part of him. Tousled dark brown hair fell over his forehead, tumbling into waves behind his ears. 

His cloak was parted to show his strong chest and huge, muscular arms. He wore a dress shirt beneath which strained over his pecks. Swirls of ink shadowed his skin.

There was nobody in the world but us. My breath thinned in my lungs, making me light headed. Suddenly, he stood. At last I met his gaze, gasping as I looked up into blue eyes.

The blue eyes. Reality blurred with my dream. All the love I’d felt swelled in my chest, forcing aside my reservations with all the strength of fate herself.

And then he spoke, the sound caught low in his throat. His voice was gravel and honey. I’d never heard anything so beautiful, so powerful. My breathing hitched.

“Mate,” he growled.