Kane Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The council had ruled the bond real, but a ruling was not a rope. Kane knew the truth. Each step Seraphina took from him thinned the scent again. Distance still ate the bond alive. A verdict could be undone. Enemies could send her away for a month, and the moon's tie would starve to nothing. He needed to anchor it past any distance. He had one way, and his wolf had known it from the start. He found her at the firepit in the stone cave. The flames threw light across the rough walls. Seraphina sat with her white wings folded, staring into the fire. "The bond still fades when you leave," Kane said. "A vote won't fix that. They can pull us apart and let it die." "I know," she said. She did not look away from the fire. "So say what you came to say." "A mating mark holds forever," Kane said. "No distance breaks it. I bite, you carry it, and the bond stops fading. But it's permanent. There's no undoing a mark." She finally turned. Her blue eyes caught the firelight. "If I take your mark, the council will call me a traitor. My treaty ends. My own second will say I proved him right." She named each cost plainly. "And I still want it. That's the part I can't lie about." Kane crossed to her. He knelt close, and the scent flared strong between them, whole again. "Then choose it with your eyes open." "I choose it," she said. She reached for him. He drew her in. The fire warmed the stone around them as she loosened her robe from one shoulder. Her skin was pale in the low light. Kane pressed his mouth to the curve where her neck met her shoulder. He felt her breath catch under his hands. He held her steady, tender, until she nodded against him. Then he bit down. Seraphina gripped his arms. She did not cry out. When Kane lifted his head, the mark had already risen on her skin. Bold red and violet lines curled across her shoulder, clean and sharp, like ink drawn by a steady hand. The scent locked in his chest, no longer thin, no longer fading. It was fixed now, and it would stay. "It's done," she said. She touched the mark with two fingers. "It doesn't fade." "No," Kane said. "Not anymore." She rested against him and let the fire burn. For one breath, there was peace. Then a horn sounded outside the cave, low and long. Seraphina went still. Her hand covered the mark on instinct. "That call is the council," she said. "They only sound it when they've made a judgment." She stood and pulled her robe tight over the fresh mark. "They'll see it the moment I walk in. And when they do, the treaty ends tonight."