Cameron stokes's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

The trail opened into the king's camp at dawn. Fenrir walked ahead of Cameron. The silver feather hung at her throat, hers now, but his words still sat in her chest. Only the king could name her mate. And the king had never seen her face. She touched the pendant and climbed the last rise toward the long hall where the men said their king waited. Asher stood at the edge of the camp. He had turned back at the border. Now he was here. Cameron stopped. He had refused to speak for her before Fenrir. He had left her to the guards. She did not expect kindness from him. "You came back," she said. "I never left." Asher's green eyes held hers. For a second they seemed to shift, gold at the edges. Then they were green again. "You should know something before you go in there." "Say it." "The pull you feel. It runs both ways." His voice dropped. "He feels it too. He has felt it for weeks. He thought it was grief for his mother. It isn't." Cameron stared at him. "How do you know what the king feels?" Asher didn't answer that. "Walk in. Don't ask him to believe you. Let him feel it." Fenrir pushed open the hall doors. Cameron stepped inside. A tall man stood at the far wall, his back to her. Blonde hair past his shoulders. Hunting clothes. Then the pull hit her chest like a hand pressing inward, sharp, impossible to mistake. The pendant warmed against her skin. Her breath caught. The man turned. Ocean blue eyes, same as Fenrir's but older, heavier. He went still. His hand rose to his own chest, the exact spot where her pull burned. "You," the king said. It was not a question. Cameron could not speak. The cord between them had gone tight the moment he turned. She felt it in her teeth, her ribs, her hands. "I have felt this for weeks," he said. He crossed the room slowly. He stopped close. He looked at the feather at her throat, then her face. "I thought I was mourning. I was waiting." His voice shook. "It's you." "Say it plainly," Cameron said. "I need your word. No one else can give it." The king looked past her to Fenrir. Then back. He spoke so the whole hall heard. "She is my fated mate. The bond is true. I feel it as my own heartbeat." The men in the hall went to one knee. Fenrir bowed his head. Cameron's proof was no longer her word against theirs. It was the king's own. But the king's face tightened. "The others will not kneel so easily," he said. "The alphas of the far packs swore to the last queen's line. They will call you a stranger wearing a dead woman's feather." He took her hand. "I have named you. Now we must make them accept it. And some of them would rather see you dead."