Chapter 4
*Hold the wall,* she ordered herself viciously, digging her fingernails into the leather of her satchel beneath the table. *Hold the damn wall.*
“You saved my flank, Audra,” Ozias murmured, his voice dropping into a register meant only for lovers in the dark. His thumb continued its slow, intoxicating circle over her racing pulse. “Whether by troop ledgers or lucky guesses, you bought my pack the time it needed. Nathan will have the gorge sealed by dusk.”
“I am an employee performing my duties,” she said, her voice shaking only slightly. “My fee includes strategic interpretation. Nothing more.”
“Is that all it is?”
Ozias leaned down further, until his lips were inches from her ear. She could feel the whisper of his breath against the delicate shell of her ear, sending shivers cascading down her spine.
“You’re an exile,” he whispered. “You carry no pack mark. You smell like mountain herbs and dried paper. You treat the most powerful Alphas of the north like squabbling children. And yet, every time I look at you, my wolf claws at my ribs, demanding that I rip up that neat little contract of yours and throw you over my horse.”
Audra swallowed hard. Her throat felt dry as ash.
*Say it,* his mind whispered, an agonized, furious plea that echoed against her psychic barriers. *Just give me an opening, Audra. Give me one sign that you feel this pull. Tell me you aren't made of ice. Tell me you feel the way the air turns to fire between us.*
It was right there.
All she had to do was turn her face. All she had to do was let her scent-mask drop, let the wild, true lavender of her soul wash over his flared nostrils. In one second, the bond would snap shut. He would know she was his fated mate. He would shield her with his life, throw the entire military might of the Calder Pack around her, and make her the most powerful Luna in the eastern territories.
And she would be a prisoner forever.
A bird in a gilded, silver-lined cage, living on borrowed time until someone discovered what was hidden inside her head.
No.
She had clawed her way out of the gutter with nothing but her wits and her unseen mind. She had amassed a fortune large enough to buy her freedom in the mortal lands where no shifter could ever command her. She was three steps ahead of him. She had saved his life today, and tomorrow night, when the treaty was signed and the final chest of gold was loaded onto her carriage, she would vanish into the southern mist before he even realized she was gone.
She would be no man’s pet. Not even his.
Audra slowly, deliberately pulled her wrist from his grasp.
Ozias didn't fight her. He let his fingers fall open, though his jaw tightened as the skin contact broke.
She stood up, smoothing the grey wool of her skirt with hands that she forced into absolute stillness. She picked up her satchel and bowed—a perfect, textbook, maddeningly formal incline of her head.
“The Calder Pack hired a translator, Alpha Ozias,” she said calmly, meeting his burning amber gaze with eyes as cold and flat as a winter lake. “Not a companion. Tomorrow night at midnight, when the treaty is sealed and the Frostbane Clan withdraws permanently behind the northern boundary, my contract will be complete. I expect my final draft of payment to be signed by dawn.”
Ozias stared at her from his seat.
The heat in his eyes didn't fade; it hardened into something far more dangerous. The smoldering Alpha inside him reared up, eyes flashing with the stubborn, predatory determination that had brought three rival packs to their knees.
*Run all you want, little bird,* his mind echoed in the quiet pavilion, dark and resonant and utterly terrifying in its absolute certainty. *Count your coins. Pack your carriage. Dream about your southern lands. But you aren't leaving this mountain. Tomorrow night, when this war is over, I’m locking the gates. And you will finally tell me what we are.*
A chill ran down Audra’s spine, accompanied by a sharp, forbidden thrill that she ruthlessly shoved down into the dark.
He thought he was the hunter. He thought he was laying a trap with his golden eyes, his deep voice, and his locked gates.
He had no idea that she had already read the blueprint of his soul.
“I will have the final treaty translated into three copies before the moon rises tomorrow, my lord,” Audra said, her voice pristine, untouchable, and smooth as polished glass.
She turned and walked toward the exit, her boots clicking rhythmically against the stone, feeling his burning, unblinking gaze drilling into the center of her back until the canvas flap dropped behind her, plunging her into the cold, crisp air of the snowy afternoon.
The mountain twilight bled across the sky like bruised plum and spilled ink.
Inside the iron-ribbed pavilion, the braziers had been stoked with green birch and fragrant pine resin, but the rising warmth did nothing to thaw the air. The temperature was dropping fast outside; snow was already beginning to crust along the heavy canvas eaves, whispering against the oiled cloth like dry bone.
Audra stood beside the black obsidian table, her fingers steady as she laid out the secondary maps.
She had not been granted the luxury of resting in the scribes' quarters. Less than two hours after the morning session had fractured, an emergency horn had sounded from the northern watchtowers. Torin had returned—not with the standard three-wolf escort, but flanked by six hulking Frostbane elders draped in heavy white pelts, their faces smeared with grey ash and hunting charcoal.
The harvest rights to the Whispering Gorge had not satisfied Gunnar’s court. They had come for the prize that had bled the border for forty winters: the Silverpine Moonstone Mine.
"The gorge is cattle feed," Torin barked, slamming his scarred fist down onto the center of the territorial map. The heavy obsidian didn't flinch, but the inkpots rattled in their bronze cradles. "Chieftain Gunnar did not send three hundred blood-sworn warriors to freeze their stones off in a pine ditch for migratory elk! We know what rests beneath the northern ridge. The veins of lunar quartz belong to the Frostbane by ancestral rite. Hand over the mining rights, Ozias, or we tear down your boundary stones tonight."
Audra kept her eyes lowered, dipping her pen into the fresh gall-ink.
She opened the velvet door in her mind.
Just a sliver. Just enough to catch the psychic spray of Torin’s inner turmoil.
What poured through made her pulse leap with cold exhilaration.
*Keep his eyes on the mine,* Torin’s frantic thoughts pounded behind his temple, loud as war drums. *Don't let him look at the lower aqueducts. If he realizes our strike team has already crossed through the drainage tunnels beneath the southern wall, we’re dead. Three archers with silver-tipped broadheads are already positioned in the rafters of the old granary. One whistle from me, and Ozias catches a bolt through the throat before he can call his beast.*
