Kane Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Kane crossed the border at dawn. Brooks and Garther stayed behind to run the pack. Kane made them swear it. "No patrols north," he told them. "If I don't come back, the pack still stands." Garther argued. Brooks did not. In the end both stayed, and Kane went north alone with the white feather in his fist. The ground gave him nothing. She had flown, so no trail waited in the dirt. Kane hunted a different way. In every water town, he asked the same thing. Where do the winged folk sleep? Most people looked away. One old woman pointed north and said the elves feared their own leader. "They say her wings mean she wants too much," the woman said. Kane did not care what they feared. He cared that the trail led somewhere real. He walked three days. On the fourth, the trees thinned. A house rose from the ground ahead. It looked grown, not built. Green roofs curved like leaves. Vines climbed pale wood. Bright stones glowed in the windows. Kane stopped at the base and breathed in. Rain on cedar. Warm skin. His whole body locked. She was here. A guard moved to block him. Then a shape dropped from the sky and landed between them. White wings folded. Bright blue eyes fixed on Kane. She was small, half his size, and she did not step back. "You crossed our border," she said. Her voice was flat and plain. "Wolves don't come here." Kane held out the feather. "This is yours." She looked at it. Something crossed her face and left fast. "I dropped that on your land," she said. "On the blood moon. I was watching your borders. I did not mean to be seen." "The moon named you my mate," Kane said. "I've hunted you since." She did not soften. "I know what the blood moon does to your kind. I felt it too. I flew home because I could not afford it." She glanced back at the glowing house. "My own council thinks I want to rule them. Half the elves don't trust these wings. I am holding a treaty together by threads. If they learn a wolf claimed me, the threads break." Kane stepped closer. The guard tensed. She raised one hand and the guard stilled. That told Kane more than her words. She led here, and it cost her. "Then I don't claim you today," Kane said. The word tasted wrong. But he saw her burden, and he would not add to it. "I came to find you. I found you. That's enough for now." Seraphina studied him a long moment. "Come inside," she said. "Before someone sees a wolf at my door." She turned and walked into the grown house. Kane followed. He had found his mate. But she was not free to take, and now her enemies were his problem too.