Mated to My Hunter

w blowing past her hood and her blue eye

ome in and shut the

ar on your hands and a mouth too big for your face, and in all that time I have never seen a

ere nearly gone but the skin was still pale and puckered where th

rden's burn,"

Your Alpha is dead and your Councilman is telling your pack that Ewan did it. I have been on this shore for three weeks and I can tell you that

Then she came inside and shut the d

I never saw you in the tavern. Nobody sees

ack down on the cot. "I wanted to watch

at did

and does not open it himself until he hears a heartbeat. I saw a man

looke

her," I said. "You

ys he found them in your shed. He has Gunnar's brother Arlen standing beside him, and Arlen is saying the same thing, and Arlen is a liar and everyone knows it, but everyone is scared too. The Alpha i

s he want

or judgment. He says the Council has given him the authority to act as interim A

hroat. When I looked at her, her

. "Only a full vote of the Alphas can appoint an inter

says he has

letter is

d. "Forgery is a stro

the way the clerks in the capital write a letter. If Ostrander has a letter that grants

n said. "You can walk int

who I am. He knows why I was sent here. If I show my face before I know what he ha

t do you

n stays alive long enough to be judged by a pack

at dawn. If Ewan is not at the house by then, Ostrander will send warriors to find him, and warriors who find him in a shed

d. "Rhys kept it quie

will go in the stove and your brother will have died for nothing." She pulled her hood up. "Dawn

hut behind her and the c

ed to

to Tamsi

up to mine. "I did

omeone put you in a coffin. You didn't say what the bu

d not change. "

y n

the truth she will be asked about it by every wolf in the territory before th

me that on the ice. You told me the order was signed and sealed. And now you're standing in my shed drinking my c

a man who loaded a coffin and pulled a warden out of it and di

the sam

nd I thought about it for a long time. And then I heard your pole in the water and I felt you put your hand on the wood and I knew, before I ever saw your face, that I could not do it. Not beca

ot say

n it. But the order came from a Council that put me in a coffin,

her cheeks were flushed and her dimples sho

id. "The silver c

he bottom o

burn. That wasn't from the chain in the coffin. That wa

re faint but they were there, and they were in

st. It proves you can hold the metal that kills your kind and not flinch. The burn fades an

t do you

uiet for

There are wardens in the capital who have not shifted in a decade and who tell themselves they have chosen it. My father shifted once a year in

ke the c

ncil wil

already tried

ate, and she reached up and undid the clasp at her throat and the c

t is Council property. If I am caught

et me h

it was heavy for its size, and the moment my f

and I looked at my hand and there was a red mark across the fing

said. "For ten

at a ward

eeve and dropped it into the tin cup on the

n," I said. "Not tonight. No

her face gave way. She sat down on the cot, and her shoul

not only sent to execute you. I was sent to recover the ledger and bring it to Ostrande

was ver

to kill me and

urned and a warden's oath to seal it." She lowered her hand. "And then I lay in that box and I thought about it. I thought about a Councilman who

rea

crossing and I read Ostrander's name and I

e shed and put her hand on

nd we have is not something I asked for and not something I can afford. The Council will use it against us if they learn

ha

een eyes steady and her copp

t for the Council and not for my father. The bond is not a leash. It

o believe her. I wanted it more than

the scream was followed by the sound of a wolf hitting the d