Page 24 of Alpha’s Divine Claim

Chapter 15

Valen

First light comes into the cabin gray and I’m dressed before it reaches the window. The bed is made. The one chair still sits exactly where it was the day they handed me the key. I’ve been in here long enough to know which board by the window creaks. The place still looks like a room waiting for somebody to move into it.

There isn’t much to carry - a knife, water, the clothes I travel in. I stand in the middle of the one room and run through the morning: out before the compound wakes, get the ground under me at the boundary of the range before anyone here has finished breakfast.

My cabin sits at the east end of the row, the last one before the treeline. I pull the door shut quietly behind me. The grass is soaked through. Cool air runs down off the ridge and goes straight through my shirt.

Over the ridge the sky breaks pink first, low against the rock. Orange comes up under it fast, then a band of gold along the last low clouds before the light clears white. I’ve watched that same run of color come up over every realm I’ve ever stood in. It has yet to get old.

I turn and walk toward the Lodge. Nothing between my door and the Lodge is awake except a horse shuffling in the dark of the barn. Dane is in the front room with a mug in his hand and the lights off. He’s dressed. His boots are on.

“North Range this morning,” I say. “I’ll go in alone.”

He take a sip of his drink. “Alone?”

“I move faster without having to account for anyone. There’s no reason to spend two people on a scouting pass.”

“What are you expecting up there?”

“A boundary they won’t open. A pack that gives the same answer to every question.” I stop there. “I want the ground under my feet before I ask anybody anything.”

He looks at me over the mug for a while. Then he looks past me, down the hall toward the front doors.

“You’re telling the wrong man.”

“I’m telling my Alpha.”

“You’re telling the one who’ll say yes.” He sets the mug down on the table. “I’m not what’s standing between you and that ridge.”

“I’m aware.”

“Then you know how this goes.” He picks the mug back up. “Bring her home in one piece. She’ll be trying to do the same with you.”

She’s on the steps when I come out. Dressed for travel. Dark clothes, boots laced high, hair pulled back off her face, catching pink and then gold at the edges where the light off the ridge finds it. Her arms are crossed. Even braced for a fight she stands loose, hip cocked, no hurry anywhere in her. I take that in first. Then the rest of it - she’s been standing out here waiting for me to come through that door.

“I heard what you told Dane,” she says. “It isn’t happening.”

“I’ll cover more ground in a day than the two of us will cover in two.”

“You’ll cover none of it.” Her chin comes up. “Faelan still holds every portal in reach. Step into one and it could open anywhere but where you mean to go. I’m the only way north that’s safe. If you’re going, you’re going with me.”

Standing this close to her while I argue takes more out of me than the argument itself does. I keep going anyway.

“I’ve walked into worse than a bad crossing.”

“Not one Faelan is holding open.” She waits. I keep my mouth shut. “Tell me the real objection, Valen. This one is beneath you.”

“Then I’ll take my chances with the portal.”

She goes still. Not the polite kind of still. Everything in her stops at once. Her eyes hold mine, violet with silver caught through them. I want the words back in my mouth. Her eyes give nothing back. She lets it sit there between us. One more question would pull the rest of it out of me. She doesn’t ask it.

“That pack will be hostile before we’re inside the boundary,” I say. “There’s no reason for you to walk into that.”

She’s close enough now that I catch her weight come forward onto the balls of her feet, the same step she takes right before she moves fast.

“I’ve walked into worse than a cold welcome.” She comes down one step. “I’m not asking you to clear the room for me first.”