The Dual Claim

The door stuck. I put a shoulder into it, and it gave with a groan.

The courtyard beyond lay dark except for the moon's soft glow. Thankfully, the music didn't reach me here, only the sounds of frogs and crickets.

I stepped outside and breathed in a huge gulp of the night air.

The fountain in the center of the courtyard sprayed water as the droplets hit the pool at its base. Around me the pack lands spread for miles and miles.

Orielle!

His wolf. Reaching.

Orielle surged up inside me, ears pricked, tail high, ready to run back. Mine! Let me go to him.

My chest lurched with her.

"We can't," I whispered out loud, clutching the fountain's edge until my knuckles ached. "He doesn't want us Ori."

His wolf wants me. Ori's voice rang fierce with certainty. He called my name.

My tears blurred the fountain's shimmer. "But his human mouth rejected us,"

I choked. "There's nothing we can do."

Orielle whined, the sound so full of longing, before she curled small again. Tears cooled on my cheeks and left my skin tight.

When I could finally breathe, my hands were shaking. I flattened them against the stone.

The door to the ballroom opened, and music spilled into the night, voices raised in laughter. I turned my head toward the festivities that already forgot about me.

Footsteps followed. Hard, confident steps. Another set, light and quick, keeping pace. Murmurs drifted between them: joy, relief, the sound of two who had found each other.

I stayed very still. They didn't even glance my way as they passed into the night, too wrapped up in their own happiness.

When their voices faded, I pushed myself up on unsteady legs.

Orielle sulked silent in the corner of my chest, and I didn't try to rouse her.

Wane Hall, the only place that had ever taken me in. The benches out front were worn smooth by years of bodies seeking rest, and I sank onto one, pulling my arms tight around myself.

The door beside me opened softly.

I scrubbed the last of the tears from my cheeks with the heel of my hand and pressed my mouth flat.

"Sori? Are you-do you need water?"

It was only another Wane. A girl about ten, hair pinned in a practical knot, flour dusted on her sleeve. She held a cup as if to offer it, then hesitated and hugged it closer to her apron. The effort in her eyes said she wanted to help, even if all she had was a glass of water.

"I'm fine," I said. The words came out thin and wrong.

She nodded.

"Thank you," I managed, trying to acknowledge her kindness.

Her gaze flicked to my hair, my face, my bodice, then politely away. I must have looked as run over as I felt.

"The night air's colder than it feels," she said rubbing her arm with her free hand, and left before I had to find anything else to say.

I stood until my legs steadied.

I slipped through the door behind her and tiptoed into the hallway that led to the stairs. It smelled of soap, old pine, and the stew the matron made.

A lamp burned low on the table by the front door because she always left one lit when anyone was out late. A basket of mending sat beside it, the topmost shirt pinned neatly where a cuff had torn.

From the far room came the murmuring of voices. A chair creaked. I stepped carefully, avoiding the boards that creaked under my feet.

In the narrow mirror by the stairs, a girl in a silver dress looked back. Her eyes were swollen at the corners. Her lips pursed. The bodice was blotched where tears had dried. The hem was marked where dirt scraped it.

"You're back early," the matron said softly from the end of the hall, as if she had been there the whole time and I'd simply been too full of my own misery to see her.

"Yeah," I said.

She squinted. She didn't ask anything else. She just opened her arms, the way she had for every child who needed someone.

I went, because I could. Because I had to.

Her shoulder smelled of flour, wool, and the cinnamon she hid in the top cupboard for special baking. I didn't cry again. I had used that up. The emptiness after wasn't better, but it was quieter.

"Kitchen," she said after a minute, patting my back once, brisk again. "You'll eat. Then you'll sleep. In the morning you won't go to work; I'll tell Gamma Rellan you've a fever. In two days, you'll decide whether to be angry or sad. You may do both if you can manage the time."

I huffed something that might have been a laugh if anything in me could lift.

"I have time," I replied.

She kissed my hair, then turned me toward the kitchen as if I were a lost little pup. The little stove glowed low. A bowl and spoon waited on the table as if she'd set them before I left.

Food tasted like nothing, but it filled a void.

When I climbed the narrow stairs to the dormitories, my eyes got heavy. Maybe sleep would be kind to me and pull me under so I couldn't think anymore.

Something burned under my ribs. It felt like it would for a while, I had no idea how long it took for a bond to go away. My wolf lay there too, bruised and beaten down, silent. I didn't know what I would do with either tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that.

I lay on my side and stared at the slice of moon that fit between the sill and the eave and tried to picture the ballroom now, with the lights and smiles. I couldn't; only laughter and humiliation were etched in my brain.

My throat ached. My eyes burned for one more second and then calmed, and sleep finally pulled my lids closed.

But then memories haunted my dreams:

"I, Lucien Veyrac of the Silverpine Pack, heir to the Alpha's line, reject you, Soraya Wane, as my mate."

Laughter followed.

I ran and ran, then ran again.

Over and over.