“I have already given you what you asked for, girl. If you wish for peace, then tell your father of my bargain. Or do you value your own pride more than his?”
“I would be giving up far more than just my pride,” Adel said in a thin voice.
“You would not be the first girl sent to mate with another clan.” Kotal stepped back, looking suddenly weary and irritable. “I have said my piece. Go, and consider it a blessing that I agreed to speak with you at all.”
“I will not be your son's mate.” Adel clenched her fists, drawing on her anger to smother the worry. But, just like Ulric, Kotal could not be intimidated by a young woman.
“I said leave, girl,” the alpha growled. He had said his piece, and now he was finished with her. Adel no longer held any more of his interest than if she had been a pup scampering about his feet.
Digging her fingernails into her palms, she turned on her heel and ripped the tent flap aside, stomping back toward the camp's exit without sparing the group gathered around the fire a second glance.
Alphas. They were all alike. Men who thought themselves better than the very people it was their duty to protect. All they cared for was power. Pride. The lives of others were just tools through which they could groom their own status.
“Adel,” Jarek called, hurrying after her. Kotal's son yelled something as well, but Adel was too distraught to listen.
“This idea was foolish,” she muttered, shrugging her friend's hand off when he tried to pull her to a stop. “Why would I ever listen to you? What do you know of alphas?”
“What did he say?”
Adel shook her head back and forth in anger, wishing that he would leave her alone. The sound of his voice was soothing. It dulled her fury. And when the fire in Adel died, it would leave her with no choice but to confront the choice Kotal had laid before her. It was wrong. Why did she have to consider it? Why should she sacrifice her own future, giving up on everything she and Uriel had ever dreamed of, just for the sake of her father and his rival? Worse than that, she would be giving up her only friend, and the thought of never seeing Jarek again hurt more than anything.
“Go away,” she said, trying to keep her voice from cracking. It seemed as though an invisible noose was constricting around her throat, squeezing so tight she could barely breathe. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes at any moment. She ground her nails into her palms harder, focusing on the pain to block out everything else. A trickle of blood ran through her fingers.
“Speak to me,” Jarek said, his tone thoroughly earnest for once. “Adel, let me help.”
She jerked her arm out of his grip again, making for the trees. She wanted to be back in the shadows, hidden by the dark, away from the watchful eyes of the gathering. She did not need their curiosity. Judgement. Sympathy. Whatever they had to offer, they could keep it to themselves. The squeezing sensation around her throat grew tighter, made all the worse by Jarek's continued presence. Why wouldn't he leave her alone? He was only making it worse. This was not the time for laughter or his jokes. What could he say or do to make the decision Kotal had imposed upon her any easier?
The answer came when Jarek pulled her to a stop beneath the shroud of the trees, taking her by both arms and pulling her around to face him. Caught somewhere between weeping and screaming, she lashed out at him, venting her tempestuous emotions the only way she felt able.
He let her palm crack against his cheek, then pulled her forward and kissed her.
—13—
Hope and Despair
Within Adel's heart, something she had been straining against for years finally broke. It was the shell she had grown to shield the raw hollow that Uriel's death had left behind; the barrier that had kept her strong, resilient, and unyielding against everything that sought to harm her. Facing such a loss again would tear her apart, and yet, as Jarek's lips pressed against hers, full of warmth and longing, she knew that she would rather be torn apart than resist what he was offering her.
Tears spilled down her cheeks, her quivering fingers curled into the braids of his hair, and she pressed her mouth against his until her lips ached and bruised themselves against her teeth. The things she had felt before, those elusive emotions stirring deep within her belly, tickling and questioning, stifled beneath the barrier she had made, rose up and filled her body from the core of her breast to the tips of her toes. It was like a warm muffling, soft and hot and insistent all at the same time, loosening her strains and overwhelming her fears.
She could have siphoned her feelings off into anger, or crushed them by force until they grew silent, but this time there was another way, and it gripped her far more fiercely than any other outlet ever had.
It was foolish. Just like Jarek. Just like him to make her feel this way. They could not be together. She could not be his mate. Indulging in this, embracing this surge of passion—it would only make things harder. Either her father would force them apart by making her find someone else, or she would agree to Kotal's offer and go north to be Khelt's woman. And she would do it, she realised, as the anger rolled off her and gave way to sadness. Her father was willing to let others die for his own sake, but she was not. She cared for her people, and she would sacrifice her own happiness for their safety if she had to.
The realisation made her cry even harder. Half a lifetime's worth of tears, it seemed, but even as she sobbed and shook in Jarek's arms, she never stopped kissing him. Her hands held him tight, keeping their mouths close together as she buried herself in his welcoming woodland taste, and he in hers. Adel had never been good at finding the right words for moments like these, so she did not try. Her body instead spoke for her, and it seemed to know better than her tongue what to say.
Jarek's strong arms encircled her back, one around her waist, the other pressing between her shoulders, drawing her tight against his bare chest and the pulsing throb of his heartbeat. There was so much life in him, so much warmth. She wanted to stay there in that moment, mingling her essence with his as if they were two souls lost in the spirit world, free from the boundaries of mortal life and all its pain.
Among all the magics she knew, Adel did not think she had ever felt anything quite like what passed between her and Jarek as they embraced beneath the trees, the soft sounds of their mouths overtaking the distant roar of the gathering. If only such a moment could have stretched into eternity.
When her mouth ached and her tears grew dry, Adel pulled away and slid her palms down to the sides of Jarek's neck, resting her forehead against his as the wonderful warmth of the moment passed. The worry had softened, the anger cooled, and sadness had come in to take their place.
“He said he will make peace with my father if I become his son's mate.”
Jarek was silent for a moment, but his embrace grew tighter around her, as though he was afraid of letting go. “You won't do it, will you?”
“If my father cannot make peace, then I must.”
“No, you don't. Who are they to say what you must do?” He reached up to caress her cheek, stroking her pale skin gently with the back of his finger. “Come with me and leave. We could go south, to the land of my grandfathers, far away from the packs and their fighting. Every day could be like our nights by the pool. I would make you smile and laugh, and give you all the happiness you deserve.”
Adel felt another painful lump rising in her throat. The thought of it seemed so wonderful. She could forget the life of a seer. No more duties, no more responsibility, no dreams of power and status. Instead she could learn to embrace the feelings Jarek had awoken in her that night, unrestrained by the expectations of a pack and an alpha that demanded more of her than was their right. It would be much like the future she and Uriel had dreamed of, would it not? Free and happy. She could chase white butterflies through the grass again.
“I cannot.” She shook her head. “All my life I have followed this path. A seer is sister and mother to her people.”
“A people who make you suffer.”
&
nbsp; “It is not them, only my father. He brings this suffering upon us all.”
“Then your clan should join you in standing against him. You said your mother thinks as you do. Perhaps there are others besides her? If more voices join yours, then your father will have to listen.”
Adel shook her head, a sad smile on her lips. “You do not know him. He is a strong leader, and his pack are loyal.”
“You could be a strong leader too. You could stir them to take your side.”
Adel hesitated, a tiny glimmer of hope peeking out like a star amid the darkness. Was there a chance? A foolish hope, maybe. Slim and reckless, but a hope nonetheless.
“Why must you make me question these things?” she whispered. “It would be wiser of me never to consider them.”
“Sometimes you must do what your heart feels is right, wisdom be cursed. It isn't right for you to be someone else's mate.”
“You would rather I be yours?”
He smiled. “For you? I would be whatever you want, my seer. Friend, love—just so long as I get to see those eyes like the sky gazing into mine.”
Adel's heart fluttered. She should not listen. She should not let his sweet words stir her into longing after something that could never be. Even if she persuaded her father to make peace, he would never let her mate a man from Neman's pack.
But no one had ever told her her eyes were like the sky.
“You don't think they look like ice?” she said.
Jarek shook his head. “You want others to think so, but it isn't true. When you laugh and smile I see who you really are, and there is no ice in your heart.”
She slid her palm down his chest, feeling the beat of his heart, more a gesture of intimacy than desire. “I am glad you were here to remind me of it.”
Despite not having been awake for long, Adel was exhausted by everything that had happened. Her conversation with Kotal, Jarek's kiss, and then the idea of turning her pack against Ulric had all come one after another, pulling her along in a current of emotion within which she had barely managed to stay afloat.
When she crept back into her father's camp just before sunrise a growl from Carim startled her, the twitchy wolf lunging and snapping at her legs before he realised who she was. She backed away, staring at him with concern. His eyes were bloodshot, his tail beating against the ground like a sapling shuddering in the wind. From the look of him, he had been awake all night keeping watch.
A wave of pity swept over Adel as her dead sister's mate lowered his muzzle and backed away, head hung in shame. He needed something. Someone. Just as she had found her peace with Jarek, he needed to move on too. She would have sat and talked with him, but so much had happened that she was unsure she could speak with anyone at all, let alone find the right words to comfort Carim. Instead she simply rested a palm on the back of his neck, stroking his fur gently as she walked past. Another growl sounded from between his teeth, and she withdrew as his muscles tensed up sharply.
She would find a way to reach him again. He did not deserve to go on like this, polluting his mind with the seers' draughts and throwing himself into battle just to block out his pain. There had to be a better way.
Sleeping in the crook of her secluded tree helped to calm Adel's racing thoughts, but as one day bled into the next she could not rid herself of the worry over what was to come. Something had changed in her. After her kiss with Jarek, it was difficult to distance herself from the fear that nagged at the base of her stomach like the teeth of a hungry wolf. That one moment of bliss had revealed to her something new, something wonderful, and now that she had tasted it she feared letting go.
She was not herself. Beset with anxieties, unable to close herself off behind the cold barrier that had always shielded her in the past. All the more reason to try and forget the kiss had ever happened. She could not be with Jarek, and longing after it would only weaken her resolve for what was to come. Either her father had to be shown the harm he was doing to his pack, or she would accept Kotal's offer and mate his son. She could not allow the pointless bloodshed to go on any longer. They needed their strength to stand against the Sun People.
The rest of the gathering passed in a haze as Adel struggled to sharpen her resolve. Some nights she met with Jarek beneath the trees, and more than once she found herself entwined in his arms again, kissing him as though every moment together might be their last. For all she knew, they might well be. If she could not dissuade her father from his destructive path, she and Jarek would never again share these tender moments.
Some days later the packs finally began to disperse from the hilltop clearing. Each gathering tended to last for as long as the food could sustain it, but so many people living in one place quickly left the land stripped of forage and the hunting poor. In more peaceful times several years might have passed between each gathering, allowing the land ample time to rejuvenate its bounty, but the annual meetings to which Adel had become accustomed resulted in bare bushes and empty stomachs before the moon had completed even half a cycle.
Ulric was among the first to gather his clan and announce their departure. Once travelling supplies were bundled and bound across the backs of their wolves, they set out down the hill and began the long journey northeast back toward the mountain crossing and the plains beyond. Alpha Neman offered to accompany them, for they would both be returning to the plains via the same path, and Ulric begrudgingly agreed. Though Neman was his ally, the strange ways of the dark-skinned pack seemed to unsettle him, only solidifying Adel's belief that he would never allow his daughter to mate one of their kind.
The journey allowed her a few more days with Jarek, however, and she savoured them. Despite the two clans walking apart from one another, they were always within eyesight, and just knowing that her friend was nearby was enough to make the journey back more bearable. The long range of mountains that stretched from east to west began to thin and crumble back into the land the closer to home they got, eventually opening up a gap between two of the monoliths that would lead them back to the plains without needing to brave the treacherous slopes and snow-capped peaks higher up. Once they were on the other side the two clans would part ways, and as the final day dawned Adel had trouble escaping the melancholy that entered her heart every time she looked over at Jarek. He seemed to share her pain, his sandy-furred wolf looking tense and forlorn whenever their eyes met. The next full moon seemed an eternity away after all the time they had spent together at the gathering, and after that, who knew when they might meet again? Perhaps never.
Adel tried to ignore those thoughts, focusing instead on the breathtaking view of the plains that crept into view as they emerged from the mountain pass, revealing so much of the world that Adel almost felt like a bird soaring above the landscape beyond. She had always enjoyed the view from half way up the mountains. In the distance the river was visible snaking across the plains, and if she followed it north she would eventually be able to make out the cluster of dots that marked her pack's den.
As the plains hove into view that year, however, it not awe that struck the members of Ulric's clan. A stir of commotion ran down the column, those at the front crying out in alarm and calling for their alpha. Adel hurried forward and lowered her wolf's body to the ground, squirming out from beneath her bundles and bounding up the rocks to join Ulric, who stood with a hand shielding his eyes as he surveyed the land beyond. The commotion had grown silent by the time she arrived, and Ulric's expression was grim. The alpha's knuckles whitened as his fingers dug into his temples, his face drawn with concern.
When Adel followed his gaze to the river, it was easier than usual to make out the familiar sight of home. Rising from the den was a long strand of grey and black. Barely a thread in the distance. Deceptively thin, but slowly drifting with movement. It was a plume of smoke, and for it to be visible from the mountains, it had to be large.
“Leave our bundles,” Ulric growled. “Every male old enough to fight runs with me.”
Fear rose
in Adel's chest as she stared at the smoke. Was it the Sun People? Had they ventured beyond the river and found the den while nearly half the pack was absent?
“Alpha!” Neman called up from a similar vantage point on a rock lower down the slope. “Let me bring my warriors with you! If the Sun People are here, we shall face them by your side.”
“This is my territory to protect!” Ulric yelled back. “My warriors need no strength but their own.”
“We both call these plains home, Alpha. Our enemies are one and the same.”
Ulric snorted, jumping down from the rock as his warriors hurried to shed their belongings. “Do as you will.”
Amongst the clamour, it was not difficult for Adel to slip in with the men close to the back of the group. Despite Ulric's command, many of the women and some of the youngsters had dropped their burdens too, and no one seemed willing to stop them. There was simply no time. The alpha took off at the head of his group, tearing down the mountain slope as swift as a bird on the wing. There was no doubt in Adel's mind that he would run flat out until he reached the den, and those who fell behind would not be given the chance to catch back up.
She may not have been a fighter, but she could not stay behind with the others. The wolves of Ulric and Neman's packs mingled together as they swept down the lower mountain slopes in a charge of fur and dust, reaching the plains in a fraction of the time it had taken them to cross through the pass. Though the Moon People moved as slowly as any other man or woman when they were weighed down with travelling supplies, free of their burdens they were as swift as the wind.
To Adel's relief, she kept pace with the men long after many of the other stragglers had fallen behind. Her years of running had readied her for the day when she would finally have to put her stamina to the test, and she held her own alongside even the strongest of the warriors. Night fell, and still they kept on running. The thread of smoke was barely visible on the horizon when morning came, growing gradually thinner as the fire spawning it died out. In Adel's mind she imagined the huts of her people burning. The seer's den engulfed in flame. What if they returned to find nothing left?
Daughter of the Night: A Book of The Moon People Page 12