Wyld Heart (Wyld Heart 1)

Chapter 2 - You

RED

The hinges on the gate groaned as the guards pushed it wider than they had in years, admitting a sled drawn by two wolves abreast. It had been made from branches and lashed together with vines, but I couldn't make out what was lying on it as the rest of the hunting party poured through the gates, peeling off in multiple directions. The urgency, the chaos — something was wrong. Somebody was hurt.

Only the timber wolf seemed unaffected by all the commotion, stretching like a cat as it called on the Change. It was an awe-inspiring gift from which the lycans derived their name, awarded to their people for centuries of loyal service to the Night Goddess. A gift that would kill me if I dared to indulge in it.

I felt a surge of jealousy as the wolf's coat rippled with magic, fangs and fur receding, bones and muscles shrinking, cramming themselves into a frame that was so tall and muscular it barely passed for human. I wanted the strength in his shoulders; the definition of his abdomen; the power in his legs. I wanted the confidence to wear nothing but a loincloth, and the money to have one made of shifting leather, no less! The cured hide of a lycan was as rare as it was expensive; not all families consented to have their relatives skinned post-mortem, and those that did tended to treasure the pieces as family heirlooms.

Of course, I could always challenge someone for their position in the pack, kill them and then carve the hide from their flesh. I doubted I could be physically capable of such a thing, though.

Hunter Callahan was more than capable. He was everything I was not — handsome, popular and blooded with the power of generations of alphas. I wondered who had died to afford him the privacy of that loincloth, and if he had killed them himself; he was renowned for two things, his temper among them. Why he bothered with it at all was beyond me, considering how little it left to the imagination!

"Like what you see?" Hunter asked, reminding me of the second thing as he shook out his shoulder-length hair. It was dark and silky, like the spaces between the stars, and he knew full well how much it suited his chiselled features.

I averted my gaze, embarrassed to have been caught staring. The man was a notorious flirt, but I'd known him since he was a boy, and it was hard to shake the mental image of him crying over a broken sandcastle.

"Oh," Hunter said abruptly, freezing in my peripheral vision. "It's... you."

My heart started pounding dangerously fast as I forced my eyes up, over the gleaming bronze planes of his chest, up the taut arch of his throat. Hunter's mouth was full and expressive, his nose proud and slightly hooked. It was the nose of the Callahan line.

The line of my children.

I blinked, startled by the intrusive thought. Hunter's brows swooped together and he looked at me — really looked at me, not through me or around me, like everybody did in public. It wasn't until I met his grey, iridescent eyes that I realised what he was talking about, though.

"You're right," I whispered, utterly floored.

It was like the first strike of lightning in a storm I'd been anticipating my whole life. It was like coming home to my tower after a long day; like those rare moments when my strength returned after a good night's sleep, and I felt capable of anything and everything. A silver thread snapped tight between us, invisible to the naked eye, but now that I was looking for it...

It was bright as the morning star, guiding me home. There was no doubting what it meant.

Nya had taken our souls in Her star-spangled hands and wound them together with glittering thread. I wasn't sure why the mate-bond had manifested now, of all times, but love was fickle; some could spend forty years of their life in the same village, building houses and families and futures, only to be swept into the arms of another. The Night Goddess was all-seeing and all-mighty; none dared to question her judgement, assuming they would always be led to the right person at the right time.

"It was always you," I whispered, giving myself over to the epiphany, to the rightness of the moment. How many times had I admired Hunter from afar, keeping a tight pinch on my resentment towards the girls that he courted over the years? I'd fallen in love with him the moment I first laid eyes on him as a child, when he'd beaten the other boys for trying to pick the wings off a butterfly they'd found in the grass. Alpha Rogan had done his best to beat that compassion out of him in turn, and Hunter had since played the part of a cold, womanising brute, but I'd always believed a shred of his former kindness remained. That he'd been graced with that strength not to violate, but to protect; that he just needed something else to fight for, somebody to help him nurture it.

I'd seen myself in that butterfly. I'd seen myself in him.

"I have to go," Hunter blurted out, shoving something warm and wet into my hands. I looked down to see a mangled rabbit, its glassy eye staring at nothing. "Take this to Mysandra, would you? Gordon promised her rabbit tonight."

I didn't know how long I stared after him, clutching that dead rabbit to my chest. It might as well have been my heart that Hunter butchered and was bleeding through my fingers. He'd finally seen me, glimpsed my very soul, and still found me wanting.

"Move," someone barked from behind.

It was hardly enough warning. A bony shoulder connected with my back, driving me to my knees. Gravel sliced into my palms and my breath hissed through my teeth.

It turned out that Gordon Harlan, the Blood Moon Beta, had better things to do than torment me; I was simply in the way. He was busy clearing a path for the sled, waving on the wolves who were pulling against their makeshift harnesses. My eyes widened as I took in the wolf sprawled on the sled, easily twice the size of the others. Bloody froth collected at the corners of its mouth, a stark contrast to the white fur that rippled along its back, pristine as a blanket of freshly fallen snow. For a moment I thought someone had laid a rose against the wolf's side; then I pressed a hand against my mouth.

Alpha Rogan was fighting for his life.

He was shot, I thought, marking the feathered butt of an arrow shaft sticking out his side. It must have struck between two ribs, piercing a lung. But by who? A neighbouring tribe? 

I felt a traitorous rush of relief as they passed, watching curious bystanders gather and scatter again as Gordon shouted for boiled water and fresh towels. Instead of fretting over the man who saved me all those years ago, my thoughts revolved around his son, connecting the sudden turn of events with Hunter's brusque reaction. He hadn't been running away from me, so much as running towards something else. This tragedy explained the look of horror in his eyes when our bond had fallen into place. Why his mouth had opened but no sound came out.

Slowly, heart pounding from all of the excitement, I climbed to my feet. Later, there would be time to confront Hunter about our bond. We could talk about our future once his father's condition stabilised. And if his father died... Well. I would be there to help him pick up the pieces.

Heart filling with grief on the behalf of the boy I was destined to love, I picked up the rabbit, going in the opposite direction of the kitchens.

To hell with Mysandra; she didn't deserve rabbit anyway.