Curtain of Stone

She leaned into him, soft and little against him. It knotted something in his chest as he looked at her. Something fierce and protective. How many times had he told her that she mattered? That she meant more than the wolves of her last home had treated her? But he had been all words. He hadn't PROVEN it to her. Her words proved that he had failed to honour the meaning behind his own. He pulled back, giving her a little space. He looked at her with eyes both longing and afraid. “I release you.” The words tasted like ash on his tongue. Bitter, and burnt. The end of something. The start of something. “I release you.” He said it again with a little more strength. “You can choose to go back to the life you were living before I found you. Or to take a true rank within this pack.”


His eyes were steady on her, burning the image of her onto his soul, because he was afraid. “It would be my preference that you take the rank of consort. To be my mate, and to be a power within this pack. To be an authoritative figure, as I had intended you to be with your quick and reliable mind. Before I had…” in for a penny, in for a pound. “Before I had fallen in love with you.” Regardless of her choice, her children would never be slaves. Chattel to be traded.