Chapter Five

The Border

Kaelen's expression hardened. "They've crossed the border. We need to move."

"How—" Lunar started, and then the world tilted.

Kaelen shifted her in his arms, adjusting his grip, and suddenly she was on his back—her legs wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck, her chest pressed against his broad, warm back.

"Hold on," he ordered.

And then he ran.

It was nothing like running. It was like flying. Kaelen moved through the forest like a shadow, too fast for her eyes to follow, leaping over fallen logs and ducking under branches with a fluid grace that made her dizzy. The wind whipped past them, cold and stinging, and Lunar buried her face in his shoulder and held on for dear life.

"Where are we going?" she shouted over the wind.

"Somewhere safe." His voice was calm, almost bored, as if being chased by an army of enraged witches and wolves was a perfectly normal Tuesday for him. "I know a place."

"How far?"

"Far enough."

Lunar wanted to argue. She wanted to demand answers. She wanted to understand what the hell was happening to her life.

But she was exhausted and bleeding and clinging to the back of a wolf who'd just set fire to everything she'd ever known, and all she could do was hold on and pray to a moon she was no longer sure she believed in.

She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew, they'd stopped moving.

Lunar lifted her head groggily. They were in a clearing, and in front of them was a small, weathered cabin—the kind of place that looked like it hadn't been used in decades. The roof sagged, the windows were dark, and moss grew thick over the stone foundation.

"Here," Kaelen said, setting her down gently. "Wait here."

He disappeared into the cabin, and Lunar heard him moving around inside. A moment later, light flickered to life in the window—a candle, maybe, or a fire.

Kaelen reappeared in the doorway. "Come inside. It's not much, but it'll keep the rain off."

Lunar looked at him. Then at the cabin. Then at the dark forest behind them, where the howls had faded to silence.

"Will they find us here?" she asked.

"No." Kaelen's voice was flat and certain. "This place is warded. Old magic, from before the treaty. They won't be able to see it."

"Old magic?" Lunar's eyebrows rose. "From before the treaty? I thought there was no old magic left."

Kaelen's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "The coven tells you a lot of things, little witch. Most of them are lies."

He turned and went inside, and Lunar, after a moment's hesitation, followed him.

The cabin was small and dusty and smelled like old wood and mice. But there was a fire crackling in the hearth, and Kaelen had already pulled a blanket off the bed—a lumpy, moth-eaten thing that had seen better decades—and was spreading it over the floor in front of the fire.

"Sit," he ordered. "Let me see your feet."

"My feet?" Lunar looked down. Her feet were a mess—cut and scraped and bleeding, the soles raw from running barefoot through a forest. She hadn't even noticed.

"Here." Kaelen knelt in front of her, and before she could react, he'd taken her foot in his hands.

Lunar sucked in a breath. His hands were huge and rough and calloused, and they were so warm they felt like they were burning her cold skin. He examined her foot with a concentration that seemed almost tender, his thumb tracing over the cuts, his brow furrowed.

"This needs cleaning," he said. "Stay here. I'll get water."

He was gone before she could argue.

Lunar sat on the blanket, staring at the fire, and tried to process what the hell was happening to her life.

Twelve hours ago, she'd been a sacrifice. She'd been a holy, beautiful, doomed creature, walking to her death with dignity and grace and a stomach full of butterflies.

Now she was in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, being tended to by the most dangerous creature in the supernatural world, who had apparently decided she was his fated mate and burned down her entire life to prove it.

It was absurd. It was insane. It was—

The most alive she'd ever felt in her entire life.

Kaelen came back with a bowl of water and a strip of cloth torn from his own shirt. He knelt in front of her again and began, very carefully, to clean the cuts on her feet.

Lunar watched him. The firelight played over his face, softening the sharp lines of his jaw, casting shadows under his cheekbones. He was beautiful, she realized, in a way that was almost painful to look at. Wild and dangerous and beautiful.

"Why do you care?" she asked quietly.

Kaelen's hands stilled. He looked up at her, and his golden eyes were very dark in the firelight.

"Because you're mine," he said simply. "And I take care of what's mine."