The Forged Mark

f hot metal and wet wool. I woke with Aldric's arm across my waist, his breath s

d the mark on my

tched the long muscles move under his skin in the grey light from the window. He had a scar on his left shoulder from

aid. "You wanted to be at the

what I

never once softened for me in the way a mate's should. My mother used to say a Luna could read her Alpha's m

ered the way it had learned to answer in four years of marriage: willingly enough, while my mind stood off to one side and watched. He pulled me against him and I let him, and the friction of his skin on mine built in

o see the mani

d for his shirt. "Marit. The

w when

ow what it m

and the door banged, and I lay there a while lo

last time I s

five, broad across the chest, with blond stubble he never quite shaved clean and a jaw that made him look more stubborn than he was. He had w

late,"

t the l

two miles. He l

hing. Kellan watched me over the ri

g ni

found something in the trap reports you should see. I told her you had a p

lick, and the snow on the road was packed into ruts by the mill trucks. I walked because I liked the walk, and

line running along the ridge above it, four wires strung between leaning poles. The mill crew had not come yet. The trucks had not come. There

close. I knew it the wa

th frozen blood from his throat to his belt. The snow around him had been trampled, then smoothed

not touch him. I had never touched him easily whe

be white against the grey. Three letters and a fourth that had been scratched out. M. A. R. Then a long score where the second

ars being told I was a Luna of moderate gifts, that my calm was my gre

s were humming, faint and low, the way they did when the cold pressed down on them. Three wee

idge road and going back up. I followed them ten yards and stopped where the snow turned to frozen gravel and l

rriors and the truck, and he stood in the snow with his hands

he said.

touch

e took a step closer a

he landing. Send someone up the ridge road and have them bring b

at suppose

m are signed by men who were dead when they signed them." I walked past him

as a stone. "At noon you'll stand up in front of the pack house and tell them the Alpha's dead and the bond passed to you. And they'll

e was moving, some thought he had been carrying for a long time a

id, "I'll tell

of the cut block down the road, sap and diesel and old snow, an