The tapestry that hung across the entrance to his bedchamber was heavy with the lingering scent of woodsmoke from the fire that had nearly claimed it. Fenris stood before it, his shoulders aching with a weariness that had settled deep into his sore muscles. Across the cloth was the familiar running black wolf of his blood-line, stitched in thread now faded to the grey of storm-clouds, its muzzle parted in a silent snarl. One of the older wolves—Fenris still didn’t know who—had fished it from the smoking pyre after they’d seen it. It had been scorched at one edge but mostly whole, and the Black Rock wolf had kept it hidden within a chest full of many others until they could return them all to Jorik.

  Jorik had beaten the ash from its folds, and had hung it here again when Fenris moved back into the longhouse as Alpha of Skoltha the day after Hroth’s death. A small act of restoration that felt like the only one anyone could manage for now.

  “The other tapestries you’ve taken down. Give them to Magnes of Deep Water.” Fenris had told Jorik, “do not burn their history the way Hroth had tried to do to ours. Magnes will be grateful for them. He will know what to do with them better than I.”

  Fenris had just come from the mead hall, from yet another council that had stretched from midday into the deep blue of twilight. There had been one every day, sometimes twice a day, since Hroth’s body had been burned on the creek pyre; an occasion of which had been the focal point of an entire mead hall council of its own. Would he get the honor of the grave-mound? Or the humiliation of the pyre? It was an argument of emotion rather than logic. The logical thing to do, Fenris had said, was to throw Hroth’s body into the forest for the black birds who fed on carrion. The pyre was no humiliation, it had been a mercy that Fenris had not wanted to give.

  However cruel he’d been, and however united in their disdain for his action, the events of Hroth’s death left a hole that was bottomless and nature abhorred it. The air was thick with the scent of ambition, anxiety, and old blood. The Deep Water pack had split in half, then thirds, then quarters, then reconvened as one only to split in half again; it had taken the strength of the Great Mother herself to hold everyone together. It had taken Albi, if Fenris was being honest. They listened to her with a faith that rivaled sacredness.

  The business of Black Rock itself was endless. Rusk, who had lost so much of his boisterous youth over the last months, was now the grim, pragmatic leader of the Skoltha Hunters. He had pressed Fenris to take a small party south to treat directly with the King’s Guard.

  “We know nothing about these humans in the South or the enemies in the East. Albi’s got no eye for these things, she’s not able to tell us anything of value. We need to know how they fight, their weapons, the lay of their camp, their maneuvers, the temper of their commanders,” Rusk had argued, counting off each argument on his long fingers, “We cannot walk into their war blind.” Fenris had agreed with him, wearily. It was sound. It also meant sending some of his best fighters into the heart of a kingdom that had, until recently, hunted them for sport. It was yet another worry that ached at his temple.

  Elka had approached him on his way out the mead hall from this war council, showing the signs of another pregnancy in her soft waddle-walk beneath the flowing dress she wore.

  “He is going just to talk, Elka.” Fenris had put his hand on her soft shoulder, “he will be safe.”

  “Don’t send him to war,” She’d begged, “for the love of the Great Mother, his daughter is as wild as he and I fear this babe will be also, from how sick I am all the time. I cannot do this without him.”

  “Have faith in your husband, Elka, as much as you do the Great Mother, and it will all be fine.”

  “May you ask the Seer to speak to the Great Mother for me? To send Rusk with Her Blessing, Alpha Fenris?”

  The Seer. Fenris had nodded to her, which did more to soothe her worries than any of his words had. He’d stood in the village road and watched Elka waddle away, feeling a warmth in his chest that he knew was Albi, trying to quell his throbbing anxiety from wherever she’d been in the village.

  That was what the wolves of Skoltha had taken to calling his mate now, hearing of her visions and the way the Great Wolf spoke to her. The Elders announced, in front of all the village, their discoveries in the Old Stories of only wolf who had this gift; the direct daughter of the Great Wolf herself. It was true, then. Ambitious, Albi had smirked to him when she heard it, hidden at the back of the crowd beneath her cloak as they’d all gathered around the small square before the mead hall to listen to the Elders announcement, and not entirely true, Fenris.

  Albi had no way to control the arrival of the visions the way the true Daughter of the Great Mother had been able to, but he’d told her to let the Elders and the pack have their comfort in her. It was a hard time and she was making it easier by letting them believe the Great Mother walked amongst them.

  It was with the Elders that Albi shared many of her morning meals; a courtesy that Fenris knew brought Albi to the point of nearly pulling out her own white hairs one by one. But she did it, out of duty to the pack, and out of love for him. Better you than me. He’d told her. He’d prefer the sweet release of a silver dagger to his eye than Hilda’s permanent, frosted scowl over a bowl of mashed oats and berries.

  The woman has nothing but disdain for me, Albi had complained to him.

  Hilda has disdain for everyone, do not take it personally.

  I smell nothing but distrust on her.

  We could get her a new soap? Fenris had told her, stupidly, but it made Albi smile.

  Then there were the grain stores, and with them, the business of Folkstead.

  Fenris reached into the deep back pocket of his breeches and pulled out the palm-sized piece of birch bark in his hands, running his thumb along its curled edge. Jorik had given it to him that morning with a knowing, sad look but said nothing, which was the old warrior's way of saying everything.

  The bark was thin, pale, scraped smooth with a knife, and upon it Hattie had scratched out her list in neat lettering.

  Barley seed, 5 sacks. Turnip seed. Wheat fer as much mooch as you can spare it, Onions, 2 sacks if you've goot it, 3 if you've give a damn aboot us out here still. Carrots. Potatoes. Linen thread, Mara’s been given’ me a fook of a time. A whetstone, the good kind, noot the river-pebble rubbish I’ll come and beat your head if you try, I knows you’ve goot the good one, do noot fook with me. Tallow for candles. And sugar. We are low on sugar, Fenris. Do noot forget the fookin’ sugar if you’s forget anythin’ else.

  Fenris read the list twice, then a third, and found himself laughing despite the weight of the day, a small and private thing that escaped him before he could stop it. He had not seen her since he left Folkstead for good to come back to his home in the Alpha’s longhouse.

  The memory of that morning sat in his chest heavy, but worn with a gentleness that didn’t cut. He had given her the hut—Bodolf's hut, which had been his and Albi’s hut, and then, by some strange twist of the Fates, their hut. He told her it was hers now alone, to do with as she pleased. She could knock out the walls and make it bigger, or fill it with chickens, or burn it to the ground if the fancy struck her. She had rolled her eyes at that, and called him a melodramatic fool. He had strapped his few belongings to his back and turned to find her standing in the doorway. Behind her Fenris could see Ethel sleeping in the cot by the hearth, one small fist curled beneath her chin.

  Hattie's arms were crossed. Her jaw was set. Her eyes were dry and her spine was straight, and she looked, in that light, exactly as she had the first time he'd seen her—fierce and practical. But then something betrayed her with the searching he’d done. A single tear broke free from her left eye, tracing a slow, silent path down her cheek. She did not acknowledge it. She stood there watching him back as if it were not happening, as though sheer will alone could deny the evidence running down her face. Then another followed, from her right eye this time, falling into the curve of her one dimple pulled out by how tightly her lips pressed together to keep from quivering.

  Fenris set down his pack, rolling his eyes half-heartedly. He stepped right up to her—close enough to smell the woodsmoke in her hair, the lye soap on her skin, and raised his hand. With the pad of his thumb, he wiped the tear from her left cheek, then the one from her right. Her skin was cool beneath his touch, and damp, and she closed her eyes at the contact.

  "I haven’t died, Hattie," he said, trying to keep his voice lighter than he felt, "Jorik is still in his hut, right through that wall. Isangrim will come down every day to see Ethel. You'll be sick of the sight of us."

  "I'm already sick of the sight of you," She opened her eyes, grey and bright and fierce, “will you get a fookin’ move on then? Go and be what they need you to be, you fool.”

  Since then, he had not found the time to make the walk back down to Folkstead. The days consumed him. But Isangrim made the journey every morning, carried on the shoulders of Alfric or held by the hand of young Torin, the two boys descending the mountain to spend their days under Jorik's stern tutelage while Isangrim tumbled through the village with Ethel.

  Fenris gave the order that same hour back to Jorik. Hattie would have whatever she required from the deep cellars of Black Rock—every seed, every sack, every grain of sugar. And he had written on a piece of parchment the same size, a message for Jorik to deliver back.

  The door is open. Come and collect whatever you want whenever you want, if you feel so inclined. I will not baby your affairs. Are you the queen of folkstead or am i?

  It was, he knew, exactly what she would want to hear. She had earned more than provisions. She had held his son's life in her competent, calloused hands when he had been too hollowed out to hold it himself. She would have her seeds, her sugar, his trust, and whatever else she wanted. She needed only to state it—in that simple way of hers—and it would be done.

  Jorik was a quieter wound.

  Within the walls of Black Rock the old warrior moved as though the mountain air had thickened upon him. His steps were slower than they seemed to be in Folkstead, his wolf-head cane striking the stone floors with a heavier, more deliberate rhythm.

  Fenris understood when he saw the old warrior standing before the doorframe of what had once been Ygrid’s birthing room. The door was closed. But Jorik stared at it as though he could see through the wood and into the past on the other side—see the rushes on the floor dark with blood, and smell the copper tang of her life pouring out; a woman who deserved none of what was done to her. His eyes glistened, a man keeping vigil at a grave he’d learned now was partly his own digging.

  Black Rock was haunted for him now, and the ghost that walked its halls wore the face of his own kindness turned against him. Jorik had given Ugla sanctuary. He had given her his trust. He had given her a place by his fire. Ugla had eaten of his bread and drunk of his mead. She had sat across from him in the amber glow of the hearth and spoken of poultices and tinctures and the turning of seasons, and he had thought her a sheep. He had opened the door. He had welcomed the wolf inside with kindness. And the lamb that trusted him to protect it had been slaughtered in its own fence.

  Fenris had no salve for this. It was a wound no healer’s hands could reach. There were no ropes long enough to throw into that bottomless cavern of self-recrimination and pull the old man out. Some regrets were shafts with no bottom.

  Albi……This relentless flood of new duties had left her and him standing on opposite shores of their own lives, separated by a never-ending river flow of responsibility. They had not found a moment to be together within that fortnight of Albi’s return from the Southern Kingdom. At night, Albi had taken to sleeping beside Beeba, who they’d placed in the small, dark room off the kitchens so the healers might come and go with ease.

  Beeba lay on a cushioned pallet, her body still and pale. The silver had not touched her flesh, yet Fenris knew the severing of the bond had been a psychic wound, a cauterization, that had left her spirit bleeding out as if it had. She was lost in a tortured darkness, drifting in and out of consciousness, her eyes sometimes opening wide in the dim light of the candle-flame but unseeing, staring at nothing.

  Through the bond, Fenris felt the weight of Albi’s guilt and sorrow. It is my fault, Fenris. She had wept to him. I failed her.

  She had given him the memories like loose stones from the palm of her hand. On their walk back to Black Rock she had made Beeba a vow that Hroth’s blood-debt to Fenris would be forgiven, that he’d grant Hroth peace as long as he swore to live in it and as long as he was willing to submit to Fenris as Alpha.

  I did not know. I could not know that Ulga would do this. The Elders say I am the Seer but this I did not see, Fenris.

  He found the memory of the balcony there in her broken mind. The one of her and Beeba’s chamber that they’d shared in the High Tower, overlooking the city like a hawk’s eyrie, a wide expanse of white stone terraces that seemed to float above the sprawl of the Southern City. Below them, the streets were a tapestry of motion—a river of people in silks and tunics of every color, merchants shouting, carts rattling, the scent of roasting meats and strange spices rising to meet the warmer air of the southern plains. In the distance, the great cathedral of limestone pierced the sky, its twin spires catching the sun like white spears, a stark, imposing symbol of the faith that ruled over this land; familiar once and now foreign to them both.

  Albi sat on a carved bench of dark oak, her back to the railing, and watched the city. Beside her, Beeba sprawled on a cushioned couch, her legs tucked beneath her, the loose, flowing tunic of the South slipping off one shoulder. A servant had brought them refreshments—goblets of dark, spiced wine that tasted of cloves and earth, and small pastries dusted with powdered sugar and filled with pistachios and rose water, their sweetness cloying and rich. Isangrm would devour these, she’d thought with a smile.

  Albi took a small sip of the wine, letting the heat of it settle in her belly, and sighed heavily, redirecting her sad thoughts.

  "It is strange," she murmured, looking out at the white church. "To feel so small in a world so big, and yet to feel the weight of a mountain on your shoulders at the same time."

  Beeba nodded, tearing off a small piece of the sweet pastry. Albi turned her head, her grey eyes searching Beeba’s face, finding it pensive and sorrow-filled.

  "Tell me of him, then. Is your mate as terrible as he acts? Is his heart truly made of the same ice as his eyes, or is that just a mask?"

  Beeba chewed slowly, her expression darkening. She looked down at her hands, then out at the city, as if the answer might be written on a passing carriage. "He is," she said finally, her voice quiet. "And he isn't."

  Albi waited.

  "He is complicated," Beeba continued. "His mind is a sad, grey place. It is haunted by the images of his mother. She was a wicked thing to him. Her cruelty of human slaves was a sickness, though he never called it such. She would make him watch as she’d break their bones. She made him stand in the courtyard while she flayed a kitchen girl to death, her only crime that she’d been Hroth’s confidant and friend. She’d been not even eight summers old yet. Her name was Lisbeth, and Hroth never forgot her. Her memory haunts his dreams often. It is a hard dream for the mind." Beeba took a long drink of wine, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "When he was a boy... he was very soft. He had a kindness in him. He might have been a wolf of honor once, like Fenris, if not for her. She beat that of him. She beat the softness until it was gone, and because there had been a lot of it, he was left with nothing but emptiness."

  Albi set her goblet down on the stone floor. "And his father? Our father?"

  “He was nowhere. Hroth barely knew him, and has very little to remember. The stories are true that he favored the pleasures of humans more than those of wolves, that he was absent for long periods of time. But his mother fell into the same temptations while he was away. Except….she made Hroth watch it. Watch as the slave men fucked her. And he hated them for it, and he hated her just as much. Then he just….learned to hate everyone. He has no love for being a wolf. Not really. Not for the strength of his body. It is not a pride for him, the way it is for everyone else.”

  Albi’s lips tightened. "I have no sympathy for him, Beeba. I have had hard times. Many have. But they do not do the cruel things he does. They do not torture others for sport. He is not a victim of his mother's abuse anymore. He is a man who has chosen to be just as cruel."

  Beeba looked at her, her amber eyes turning in a complex storm of sadness and understanding. "That is why it is so hard to be Imprinted with him. I understand him, Albi. I understand the fear, the need to hurt because you are hurt. But I don't understand him, either. He is weak and he is selfish. He knows that I know, and he knows that I don't trust him not to hurt me, nor does he trust me not to hurt him. But he wants to. It's his heart that’s been turned to stone, and he doesn't know how to melt it again. But there may be life yet within that stone." She reached out and took Albi’s hand, her grip firm. "He is not an easy wolf-man to love. It will take us a long time to warm up to each other. But I think... maybe I can change him. Over the time. Maybe I can heal him.”

  Albi looked at their joined hands, then up at Beeba. "Why?"

  Beeba smiled, a sad, small thing. "Sometimes, he reminds me of you, Albi. You kept the softness that he lost, and yet you are also not soft, you are fierce and powerful. I feel this is why he has taken to an obsessive possession of you. He sees himself in you, and he wants to be like you." She squeezed Albi’s hand. "I do not want to see him slain. No matter what happens. He deserves a chance. Like anyone else. Like he gave you when you killed Obin, because he understood you. Could we might try to understand, him, too?"

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  Jorik had sat with Albi late in the night as she worried over Beeba’s slackened body. The old warrior knew the beast of such grief well. He had told her of the Old Stories, of the fate that awaited those wolves who lived on after their Imprinted mate was gone. It was a slow, grueling process, he’d said, one he had been forced to endure himself. Some wolves chose death in the end, their wills withering away until they simply ceased to breathe, their bodies following the spirit of their mate into a dark that was like a cave in a mind. There was nothing she could do but wait to see if Beeba walked out or went further into it. He’d begged Albi to find her own rest, begged many times, as Fenris had.

  He rubbed his eyes, the grit of exhaustion grinding beneath his lids. He missed Albi. He missed the weight of her beside him in their bed, the sound of her breathing, the simple, uncomplicated fact of her presence.

  He pushed the heavy tapestry aside and stepped into the chamber. The room was warm, bathed in the soft, amber glow of the flames in the hearth. The air smelled of clean rushes, of beeswax, and of the clean, sweet scent of his sleeping son who had had a scrubbing off of his day in Folkstead.

  Albi sat in the fur-lined rocking-chair–a home-coming gift from Bor, of all wolves–set at an angle beside the hearth. The firelight painted the planes of her face in soft, shifting gold. With each gentle rock, the chair’s runners made a low, rhythmic scrape against the stone flags, and her bare foot tapped lightly against the basin, marking time like a slow, steady clock of its own. Isangrim lay asleep in her arms, his body slack. His cheek was pressed into the hollow of her shoulder, his soft mouth slightly open, breathing tiny puffs against her skin. She had brushed his moistened dark curls smooth before he’d drifted off, had braided the wolf-bone bead to one thread-sized plait by his ear, and the rest of the defiant curls she’d quietly tucked behind his small ears as he’d slept. His bottom rested securely on the great, rounded swell of her belly, rising and falling with her breath—a child cradled upon the promise of another.

  Her white hair was unbound, spilling over one of her shoulders, and her head was tilted back against the chair, her eyes closed; dozing, Fenris could feel, but not fully asleep. She’d tried to wait for him, but the exhaustion of her own hard days had beat him to it.

  Fenris stood for a long moment watching them. The fierce, protective love that rose in his chest was a welcome ache out of all the other sorrowful ones he’d felt that day. Albi looked young, tired, and achingly beautiful. His sore eyes missed looking at her.

  He moved quietly, kneeling before her, and gently pried Isangrim from her arms. The boy stirred, his small face scrunching in protest. Then he sighed, a fragile, surrendering sound, and nestled his head against Fenris’s shoulder, his small body going limp with the absolute trust of the very young. Fenris carried him to his cot and laid him down upon the furs, covering him with the fox-pelt that Ethel had gifted him, the tips of the red-gold fur glowing like embers in the firelight. He stood there for a long moment, watching the even rise and fall of his son’s chest, the flutter of his dark eyelashes against his cheeks, committing this small, perfect peace to memory in a world that felt increasingly made of teeth and claws.

  When he turned back, Albi’s eyes were open. Heavy-lidded but alert. Her honey-smoke gaze fixed upon him with an intensity that made his chest tighten.

  “He was fussy tonight,” she said, her accent a low lilted rasp. She smiled, but it was small, and the corner of her mouth trembled,“I miss when I could soothe him with my milk. It is Ethel now who soothes him best.”

  Fenris walked to her, crouching beside the chair so that their faces were level. “Aye, but their bond is not a replacement for yours with him, Albi.”

  “I did not say it was, Alpha. He is getting older, that is what hurts me so. His needs are no longer so simple as milk and my arms. He needs companionship. Likeness.”

  “Do not make him so complex a wolf-man yet,” Fenris laughed, kissing the bared skin of her thigh, “it is only sweets, mud, and Ethel the boy dreams of.”

  “Aye.” Albi’s fingers tightened over her belly, the knuckles whitening. “Hattie’s little girl.”

  He tried to take her hand, but she pulled away, tucking it beneath her arm. “Why do you say her name like so?”

  “Like what, Fenris?”

  “As though you were turning a fig over in your mouth, looking for the squirm of maggots.”

  Albi looked away, toward the fire, her voice had dropped to a whisper, barely audible above the crackle of the flames. “I’ve looked into your memories, Fenris. While I sat with Beeba and could not sleep myself. Perhaps I hoped to find ones like before, your sweet ones. But I saw our son... after I left.” Her breath hitched, a sharp, wounded sound. “He screamed for me, and you carried him, and he beat his fists against your chest until he’d fallen asleep. He wanted his mother, and I was not there, and in your exhaustion for him you hated me, and I do not blame you for it.” The image rose in Fenris’s mind. He had buried those memories as deep as he could, wanting to spare her the pain of them.

  “He does not remember that now,” Fenris said carefully. “He is young. The memory fades.”

  “I will remember.” Albi’s eyes were shining now, the tears brimming, “And that is why I cannot take Ethel from him. I cannot separate them, even if I wished to, because of her mother. The little girl gave him what I could not give.” The first tear broke free, tracing a silver path down her cheek. “I tell him I am sorry. Every day, I tell him, though he does not know what for. I whisper it in his ear as he sleeps so he might hear it in his dreaming. He looks at me with those loving sweet eyes and he smiles and kisses my cheeks, but I see the shadow of that screaming boy in him, and I am torn apart by it.”

  Fenris rose, moving around the chair, and knelt before her. He took her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away the tears. “He loves you,” he said fiercely. “You are his mother, Albi.”

  “I know,” she whispered, her hands coming up to cover his, pressing them against her cheeks. Her breath shuddered. “And for as long as I live, Fenris, I will never leave him again. I will never leave either of you. If I ever do—if you wake and find me gone—you must know that something is terribly wrong. That I have been taken, or killed, or lost with no way to find the road back. You must swear to me you will know this and you will come looking for me.”

  “I swear,” he said, and kissed her gently, tasting the salt of her tears, feeling the tremor that ran through her body. He kissed her eyelids, her forehead, the corner of her mouth.

  She pushed him back then with a sudden stern firmness. Her eyes were dry now, the tears burned away.

  “Sit,” she commanded, her voice sharpening, “and let us talk of something else.”

  Fenris obeyed, tilting his head in question as he settled on the stone lip of the basin before her. Albi lifted her feet—swollen, the ankles thick and soft—and placed them in his lap. He took them without question, his thumbs finding the aching arches, the tender insteps, and began to work the tension from them with slow, rhythmic pressure.

  “What is wrong, Albi? You block your mind from me,” he said, raising a brow up at her. “When only seconds ago, it was open as a summer sky.”

  Her head fell back against the chair, her eyes closing. “The Great Mother knows, you are lucky that I am large as a boulder and too tired to move, or I would have bitten your ear by now.”

  “For what offense?” He pressed his thumb into the ball of her foot, feeling her sigh despite herself.

  “For Hattie,” she said, “it is high-time we talk of her.”

  Fenris stilled, then resumed his massage, his hands moving to her swollen ankles, the skin tight and hot beneath his fingers. “There is nothing there to speak about, Albi. You know this. You have looked.”

  “And I have seen,” she agreed, her eyes still closed, her voice deceptively lazy. “--where you once only dreamt of me, you dream now of her, too, Fenris. You dream of Folkstead and the dirt in your fingers, and the timber upon your shoulders, and of her hands in the same dirt, and the feel of her dimple on your lips.”

  Fenris felt a rush of shame burn down his spine.

  “I have seen that the love you have for her is not the love you have for me, but it is love. You do not dream in the night of what you have in the day. You dream of what you desire, Fenris. That is the way of your mind. And I know it better than you.”

  He lifted her foot with shaking hands to press a kiss to the instep, then the arch, then the toes. “It is the love of a wolf-boy who dreams of simpler, selfish things and nothing else.”

  “I know,” Albi said, opening her eyes. They were hard now, “I forgive you, Fenris. It is not you I cannot forgive. It is her. In her deepest heart, where even she does not look, there is a wish. I know this for true because I am a woman all the same as her. She wishes that I were dead, or gone, or had vanished into the snow. That she might take my place, in your head, in your heart, in your bed–”

  “Hattie needs no man, Albi.” Fenris whispered cautiously.

  “Aye, it is not a man she needs. But an Alpha. And she resents me for having one while she does not. It is a dangerous, silent ambition that will never go away. I will never trust her, and she will never be welcome at my hearth.”

  “That is your jealousy speaking,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.

  “It is the wolf of me speaking, Fenris.” Albi pulled her feet from his lap then, planting them firmly on the floor. She leaned forward, her belly pressing against her thighs. Her face falling close enough to his he could smell the thyme and sweetness of her pregnancy on the cool of her breath, his chest aching with the missing of it, “If she ever touches you again–even just the graze of her fingers on your skin, if even her eyes hold yours for a wee moment too long, I will kill her. I will tear her throat out and leave her for the crows. She knows this, Fenris. I heard her say it to you. She knows me better than you do, it seems.”

  The threat was savage, raw, and absolute. Fenris looked into her eyes, feeling his heart like a hammer behind his ribs. He reached out, his hand sliding up her calf, over her knee, to rest upon the swell of her hip. He shifted from the basin’s edge, sinking to his knees before her, and rested his head against her belly. The babe within kicked against his cheek, as though agreeing with the rage of its mother against him.

  “I do not wish for this,” he said, his voice cracking. The desperation in him so strong now that it tore at his throat. “I do not wish to fight. I miss you, Albi. Please... do not build walls where there might be none.”

  He felt her hesitate, felt the tension in her body like a bowstring at full draw. Then, slowly, the rigidity left her, and her hand came up, her fingers finding his hair. She scratched gently against his scalp in the way she knew soothed him, and he felt walls within her tumble down, stone by stone.

  “Fine,” she sighed. Her fingers tightened in his hair, holding him there, a silent forgiveness. “You do look so tired, my Alpha.”

  “Aye.” he admitted, closing his eyes. “Rusk leaves at first light and will be gone for the spring and summer seasons. Secil was caught drunk at the eastern gate trying to take advantage of Bor’s sister, which was a grave mistake that almost cost him his cock had Magnes not stepped in to take the drunk bastard home and pay Bor reparations. Erlend and Erland are having property disputes. How? When they live in the same hut, Albi. Erlend wants to banish him. They never fight like brothers. I don’t think I’ve eaten but a bowl of stew all day.”

  Her fingers ran soft, soothing circles at the throbbing in his temple, “Let me put you to sleep,” she murmurs, leaning low to whisper it huskily in his ear, “perhaps I’ll fare better with this Alpha than our little one?”

  He let out a breath, a shuddering thing that was almost a laugh. She tugged gently on his hair.

  “The world can wait until dawn, for now it is just you and I.”

  He rose, feeling strong again. In one smooth motion he bent, sliding one arm beneath her knees and the other around her shoulders, and lifted her from the chair. She was heavy with child and sleep against his chest and her arms came up to loop around his neck where her soft lips pressed themselves to the place beneath his jaw, inhaling.

  He carried her to the bed, piled high with fresh furs—bear, wolf, elk—that smelled of their bodies only and none of the lingering ghosts. He laid her down gently, the furs sighing as they accepted her weight, and for a moment he stood looking down at her in the firelight. Her white hair fanning across the dark pelts, her belly a proud, full curve beneath her woolen dress. The aching need was a shared hunger that had been buried beneath grief and duty. He didn’t know if it originated in his groin or hers. It mattered not.

  He knelt on the bed beside her, his movements slow and deliberate. His fingers found the laces at the side of her dress, the worn leather cords that held the wool closed. He worked them loose, one by one, the knots giving way with soft, whispering pops. The fabric parted and revealed the linen shift beneath, and then the shift itself, damp from the warmth of her skin and the heat of the fire. He peeled the layers away, baring her to him inch by inch.

  He bent and kissed the hollow of her shoulder, his lips lingering on the salt-taste of her skin. He kissed the curve of her breast, feeling the heavy, full weight of it in his palm as his tongue dragged over the skin of her nipple. He kissed the proud swell of her stomach, his mouth moving in slow, worshipful circles, feeling the hard, round firmness of her, the life within kicking gently against his lips.

  She sighed, her hands coming up to cradle his head, her fingers threading through his hair.

  He moved back up to her, his kisses a trail of fire, until his mouth found hers and the sigh with it. Her lips were chapped, she was in need of water, but they opened for him with a different thirst. He kissed her deeply, languidly, relearning the taste of her—millet bread, the faint tang of the iron tonic Jorik made her drink, and beneath it, her flavor; wild thyme. He felt her shiver beneath him.

  His hand slid down, over the magnificent curve of her hip, along the softness of her inner thigh. She opened for him, a silent, trusting submission to his desire. He touched her then, his fingers finding the warm, slick heat of her. She was already wet, her flesh yielding and swollen as he eased a finger deeply within, then brought it to his mouth, tasting her—a musky, sharp sweetness. He licked his finger clean, wanting more, and though she wouldn’t meet his gaze then for shyness, he watched the flush of red rose deepen up her chest and to her cheeks on the cream white of her skin.

  He moved down again, a slow journey until he settled in the warm cradle of her thighs. He pressed his lips to the skin there, the downy white hair fine as fresh snow, before his mouth found the heart of her.

  He tasted her directly now, and she gasped, a sharp, startled breath that hitched in her throat. He used his tongue slowly, gently, exploring this new territory, every ridge and fold. Through the bond he truly found her. He sent a questioning pulse along it—here?—and felt her answering shudder, a wave of warmth that was her silent yes.

  He focused, just inside her entrance, swirling his tongue in slow, deliberate circles. He drank in the soft, broken sounds she made in this vulnerable state—little hitching cries and half-formed moans. He learned her with his mouth, the rhythm that made her back arch, the pressure that made her toes curl, the pace that made her breath catch. He worked her until she was trembling, until her wetness coated his beard and the scent of her woman filled his senses like the elk on the wind in a hunt.

  When he rises, she is supple and open and pleading with her eyes, her body a yielding kingdom ready for its king.

  He pulled his tunic over his head and unlaced his breeches, the cold air of the chamber raised gooseflesh on his skin. He turned her on the furs, side-lying, and guided himself to her entrance. With a slow, inexorable push, he entered her.

  She was a silken heat that welcomed him with fierce familiarity. He slid into the hilt, burying himself inside her with a groan that was profound relief, relaxing into the perfect feeling of their bodies joined as one.

  Then he began a slow, rocking rhythm of his hips. With each gentle thrust, he felt the tensions of the past months seeping from his muscles, drawn out by the bond and washed away in the shared warmth. He felt her own aches, the deep weariness in her bones from her journey, the emotional toll of Beeba’s torment, melting under his ministrations. The Imprint thrummed between them with its circuit of healing energy, knitting all their ragged edges back together again.

  Albi broke first. Her climax built slowly, a wave gathering far out at sea, then crashed over her with a sudden, shuddering intensity. She cried out, a soft, choked sound against the furs, and her inner muscles clenched around him in a series of pulsating waves. He held still, letting her ride it, reveling in the exquisite, fluttering tightness of her.

  As her contractions began to subside, his own control shattered, and as he spilled inside her he felt it trigger a second, smaller peak in her, a sympathetic echo of his ecstasy that pulled her back from the shore and into another shuddering climax.

  The quiet after was as thick and soft as the furs that tangled around their legs. Fenris lay with his head pillowed on Albi’s breast, his ear turned to the steady drum of her heart, his palm a warm, large weight upon the taut curve of her belly where their child stirred in its own slow dreams. The fire had burned low, painting the chamber in shifting shades of amber and shadow. The ache of their bodies had faded to a pleasant, boneless heaviness.

  “Fenris.” Albi whispered on his temple, “Tell me what you wanted to say about Ygrid. It is bothering you that you have not gotten a moment. I don’t want you to forget.”

  He turned his head slightly, his lips brushing the soft skin between her breasts.

  “I needed to tell you thank you, for showing me what happened to her.” he whispered into the dark.

  Her hand came up to cradle the back of his head. For a long moment, she said nothing. He could feel the turmoil in her through the bond, the old fear of the serpent hidden within her, surfacing like a cold current in warm water.

  “I was afraid,” she admitted, her voice so low it was almost part of the darkness. “ I was afraid that when you knew you would blame yourself. Because that is how you are, Fenris.”

  Fenris was silent. He had walked that bleak road in his mind already, in the stunned hours after Ugla’s confession. He had paced its length and felt every sharp stone of guilt underfoot.

  “I did,” he said finally, the words scraped raw from a place deep inside. “For a time. But I’d spent so long living with the guilt of believing it had been my want for child that had ended her life. Which was worse? I’d asked myself. That I caused her death or that I could not protect her from the one who did, though she was old and human and only five paces away?” He swallowed, the memory a cold knot in his throat. “It is a hard thing, to love something so much that it can become a weapon in your enemy’s hand. If that is what ended her life, the depth to which I loved her, that is something I might be able to make peace with.” Albi’s arms tightened around him. He felt the warm dampness of a tear fall onto his temple. “In the mead hall,” he continued, his voice growing steadier, “when you showed me… when I saw it through your eyes… it was as if I was seeing the wound cleaned, simply because I knew our Great Mother had known of Ygrid’s pain. That she was not alone through her death. The Mother Wolf gave me such peace from that.”

  “It is because She loves you, Fenris.” Albi whispered at the skin of his temple.

  “Aye.” he said, the word a soft exhalation in the dark. “For so long, when I thought of Ygrid, I only saw her in that forsaken birth-room, how she was when I came in to her at the end, cold and pale in the dark. I imagined the loneliest of ends for her. But she is no longer in that room anymore. She isn’t in pain. I can see her with our Ancestors. In the quiet hills of endless Spring where the First Wolves run together. She is with your sons; with Finn and Hemming, and with your daughters, Edda, Yiva, and Katla. I imagine her hugging your children, as you hug Isangrim. How she smells no longer of blood and death, but how I remember her when she was alive, like meadowsweet, like wind and honey. She is Beautiful again. She stopped being a thread that was cut from my life too soon. Now I know she’s a thread added instead to a beautiful tapestry that is larger and more ancient than my insignificant life; and that I know has become more beautiful, simply because she is part of its picture now.”

  He lifted his head slightly to look at her face, shadowed in the dim light, her pale lashes glistening. “It was the way things were supposed to be,” he whispered. “A terrible way. A cruel way. But the right of it. That is life, Albi.” He brought a hand up to cradle her cheek, his thumb stroking away another tear he found there. “And I like to think… I believe she saw you, Albiana. From that quiet, beautiful place she is, and she asked the Great Mother to send you to me. And that is why we Imprinted.”

  Albi reached up and cupped his face, her thumb stroking the line of his cheekbone. Her eyes glistened as she pulled him down, guiding his head back to rest over her heart.